ALTERED

Chapter 1 – The Reveal

It had been nearly three years since the existence of the Altered—humans born or changed with inhuman abilities—was exposed. News outlets ran footage of people lifting cars, walking through fire, and vanishing into thin air. The world panicked, gripped by fear of the unknown.

The government acted swiftly. They named them, categorized them, and declared them a threat to society. Not just to others—but to themselves.

The official line was simple: containment for rehabilitation. A network of facilities was built, supposedly designed to help Altered individuals “return to normal.” The largest of them was the Central Rehabilitation Unit—CRU. The government called it their flagship site. The Altered called it something else: the place you never came back from.

Behind closed doors, these facilities weren’t centers of healing. They were cages. Laboratories. Prisons.

Thomas Reynolds was one of the Altered.

He hadn’t asked to be. He hadn’t even known he was one—until the day everything changed. Barely a month after the reveal.

Thomas had been adopted at twelve years old. Not out of love, but for the check. His adoptive parents were the kind who smiled for social workers and sneered when the door closed. They fed him, clothed him, and kept him alive—but never cared. Not really. Still, Thomas stayed. As broken as that home was, it was better than the group homes. Better than the rotating foster placements. Better than being nobody.

That night, his adopted father came home drunk. Again. Angry about something—maybe nothing. It didn’t matter. He tore through the house like a storm, breaking furniture, screaming at his wife, and finally turning on Thomas, who was fifteen at the time.

Thomas had learned not to run. Not to scream. It only made things worse. So he stayed where he was—curled on the floor, eyes shut tight, trying to disappear into himself. If he was quiet enough, still enough, maybe his adoptive father would get bored. Maybe he’d tire out. Maybe he’d stop.

But silence only made him angrier.

Thomas’s lack of reaction was like fuel. The man grabbed him by the arms and flung him like a rag doll, slamming him into the wall. Fists followed. A knee to the gut. A bottle to the ribs. He struck the places he knew wouldn’t bruise in daylight. The places social workers wouldn’t see.

Thomas didn’t cry, nor did he scream. On the outside, he was numb. But numb didn’t mean painless.

The beating kept going. Past cruelty. Past punishment. It became something else—something Thomas couldn’t endure. Not again. Not this time.

Something inside him snapped. Not just emotionally—physically. His vision blurred. His breath caught. And then—

His adoptive father flew straight through the living room wall, bones cracking like dry twigs. His limbs twisted unnaturally. His neck bent at an impossible angle.

Thomas didn’t move. But something had—something invisible and violent. He didn’t understand what had happened. But he had wanted it. And somehow it happened.

His battered adoptive mother screamed. She had seen everything. She didn’t check if her husband was alive; she immediately called Special Services.

They came within the hour.

Black vans and armed agents.

They tackled Thomas like he was some kind of animal—even though he didn’t resist. Slammed him to the floor. They clamped two metallic bangles onto his wrists—smooth, seamless, and pulsing with a dull blue light. He didn’t know what they were, only that the moment they touched his skin, something inside him went silent. They were called Nullifiers, designed to suppress Altered abilities.

He was dragged into the van and taken to CRU. And that was the last time he saw the outside world.

It had been two and a half years since then.

Thomas now lived in a cell made of bulletproof glass. A specimen under surveillance. He had a thin mattress to sleep on and a toilet in the corner. Cameras watched him constantly. Guards patrolled the halls, armed with weapons designed to neutralize Altered at the first sign of trouble.

He wasn’t alone. There were others. Thousands. All locked away in similar cells. All wore nullifiers in their cells—restraints that stayed on outside of testing. All stripped of identity.

Sometimes, they were drugged—to see how their bodies reacted to unfamiliar substances. Blood was drawn regularly, though the reasons were never explained. Tests were constant. Some were simple: reaction time, strength, and endurance. Others were brutal. Elemental exposure. Psychological stress tests.

They were probing the limits of the Altered—how far they could be pushed. What they were truly capable of.

Sometimes, they went too far.

And people died.

Still, Thomas kept a low profile. He didn’t complain about being treated inhumanely like others did. And he wasn’t foolish enough to attempt escape without a tangible plan, as so many had. Even without the nullifiers, the digital ID in his neck could be triggered remotely—delivering a neural shock strong enough to disrupt an Altered ability and inflict pain so severe it could kill an average human. Escape wasn’t punished. It was preempted.

And say he managed to get out by some miracle, where would he go?

He had no family. No friends. No one is waiting for him.

After the morning meal, Thomas was escorted to the medical wing. Today was blood day. When he first arrived, it had been once a week. Now it was three. He didn’t know why. Didn’t care why. He just wanted it to be over with.

A nurse entered. She was young and pretty. But her eyes were tired and detached. She scanned the digital ID at the back of his, checked his vitals, and prepared the needle.

Thomas offered his arm. Like always. Like it didn’t matter.

The needle pierced his skin. The nurse worked quickly, her hands practiced. Thomas felt the familiar dizziness creep in. His vision blurred. His limbs grew heavy.

The nurse glanced at the vial when she was done. The blood was darker than normal human blood. Thicker too. As it always was with Altered blood.

She set the vial aside and called out, “Next.”

Two guards came into the room and escorted Thomas back to his cell.

He lay on the mattress, staring at the ceiling as he always did—waiting for the next daily activity. Ability testing. The overseers called it necessary. The doctors called it data. Thomas called it what it was—another performance. Another chance to bleed for their curiosity.