[hider=ill prolly delete this at some point][center][img]https://www.alltimelines.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/dc-blue-beetle-banner.jpg[/img][/center][right][color=7ea7d8][h2]Anatomy Of A Hero #1[/h2][/color][/right][hr][hr][b]Unknown[/b]

Jaime Reyes awoke with a start, his vision filled with a burning white light. He could see little beyond the sheer, bright sheet that burned into his retinas, and he found himself unable to lift a hand to hide his eyes away from its piercing glow. Coupled with the memories of being beaten near to death by the alien and left to drown in the bay, it was all too much for the boy, who found himself on the edge of pure, unmitigated panic; panic that compounded into a blood-curdling scream.

Not but a few seconds passed before this strange limbo came to a close. An electronic click sounded and the white light started to fade, allowing Jaime to get his first glimpse at his surroundings. An unremarkable dropped ceiling hung above his head, matching the equally mundane white drywall and tiled floor. He was strapped onto what looked to be a medical bed, his arms, and legs both zip-tied haphazardly to the frame. [color=7ea7d8]"This again. [i]Fantástico.[/i]"[/color] Reyes was surprised by how little the revelation bothered him. After nearly dying at the hands of an alien monster that kidnapped his friends and tried to drown him in the bay, waking up as a prisoner in what looked to be a hospital was a welcome change of pace. He let his head fall back down onto his pillow, taking a moment to simply...breathe. Breathe and take in everything he'd endured so far.

By the look of things, this was just the beginning, too.

[color=7ea7d8]"You can't ever take it easy on me, can you?"[/color] He sighed, his eyes cast to the ceiling. [color=7ea7d8]"Can't let me go a day without some new thing fucking my shit up."[/color] It wasn't like he was expecting an answer. In fact, he knew all he'd get back was silence. But after everything that had happened...After all the craziness he'd seen, and all the times the impossible had been rendered possible...Maybe, just maybe, there was a chance.

Jaime let out a long, slow breath. [color=7ea7d8]"That's what I thought."[/color] He muttered, deciding to shift gears before he even had the chance to sulk. [color=7ea7d8]"Alright, on to disappointment [i]número dos[/i]: you still broke, Khaji?"[/color] Reyes asked, casting his eyes up toward his forehead. No voice played within his skull, ready to offer the help that Jaime so desperately wanted. An unsettling shiver inched its way up his spine. He wasn't used to this feeling. His thoughts hadn't been his own for months. He'd gotten so used to feeling that tingling presence in the back of his mind that its absence was just unsettling.

It was hard to place what this feeling of his was at first, but after a few seconds of listening to the quiet ringing in his ears, it came to him.

He hadn't ever felt this alone.

[color=7ea7d8]"Guess we're doing this the old-fashioned way."[/color] Reyes grumbled, contorting his body to face his right hand. Restrained as it was, he needed to find a way to break free if he wanted to get out of...[i]wherever[/i] he was; either by sheer dumb luck or divine intervention, Jaime had watched enough YouTube to know how a zip-tie worked. He took the plastic restraint in his teeth, inching it far enough up his hand that he could bend an index finger down and touch the locking mechanism. Then it was just a matter of bending back the loose part of the tie with his mouth to force his fingernail underneath it. Almost immediately he felt the tie sag, and he was able to loosen it enough to slip his hand right out.

It became a much simpler task to remove the rest once he had a hand free, though Reyes stumbled through it regardless, worried that someone would burst through the only visible door before he was up and ready. He felt a rush of satisfaction as he loosened the final hold and was able to slide off of the medical bed. [color=7ea7d8]"Thank God for Summer break."[/color]

Clad in little more than a hospital gown and wielding nothing but his wits, Jaime started for the door, slow and quiet as he went.

The hallways were as sterile and white as the room he'd woken up in. He slipped through the threshold, scanning the area for any sign of life. It appeared to be deserted, though the distant sound of whirring machinery told Reyes it wasn't completely abandoned. Carefully he shut the door behind him before starting down the hall in a half-crouch, hoping to remain unheard. He couldn't be sure if he was heading deeper into the facility or toward an exit, and the blank signs that hung from the ceiling did little to help guide him through this place.

He rounded a corner and started down yet another undistinct hallway; the only thing differentiating it from the one he'd just left being a handful of exposed pipes in the wall where a panel must've been removed. The whole place had an eerie atmosphere about it. None of the quiet background noise could be described as human- there were no voices, no coughs, no shuffling feet. Just the rumblings of a building with working plumbing and electricity.

Jaime was busy wondering where the hospital's patients and staff had gone when a door a foot in front of him swung open. He panicked, stumbling backward and falling onto his rear just as a figure stepped through and revealed itself. Its face was a featureless white, save for a single, red lens that sat just off-center. Four, spider-like legs protruded from a small, rotating torso, each ending in a sharp, metallic point. They matched the other six limbs that hung from the thing's back, each covered in strange tools of torture. 

Reyes froze, unsure if the automaton had seen him.

It turned its red eye toward him not but a second later, the glow sharpening as it focused in on his face. "PATIENT 0-0-1. PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR ROOM AT ONCE." The robot screeched in an unpleasantly high voice. "YOUR DOC-BOT WILL-"

Before it had the chance to finish Jaime had already leaped up from the floor and buried his knuckles into its eye. The glass shattered, several ruby-colored shards embedding themselves into the boy's fist while the rest simply scattered to the floor. [color=7ea7d8]"Fat chance, asshole!"[/color] He called out, spinning on his heel to get around the machine and start down the hallway at a sprint. [color=7ea7d8]"Jaime's outta here!"[/color]

The lights flipped from an obnoxious white to a deep, blood red, bathing the sterile walls in a crimson hue. A droning alarm sounded somewhere else in the facility, and Reyes knew he had to double-time it if he wanted to get out of there. He continued his mad dash, slipping across the tiled floor as he rounded yet another corner and shot down yet another branching hallway. He needed to find a stairwell, or an elevator, or even a [i]window[/i] would work at this point-

[color=8493ca]"Wait! Jaime, Wait! You aren't in any trouble, I can explain-"[/color]

Reyes spun his head about at the sound of his name and slammed straight into a wall because of it, smacking his forehead through the drywall and leaving a spray of dust and paint stuck to his face. [color=7ea7d8]"Damn-"[/color] He started, only to inhale some of the debris, his curses turned into a coughing fit. [color=7ea7d8]"..it..."[/color]

A man came reeling from around the same corner Jaime had just passed by, his suit rumpled and a tablet of some sort clutched in his sweat-slicked palms. That freaky robot Reyes had run into earlier was right behind the man, the two of them racing to catch up with Jaime. [color=8493ca]"Just wait a second, Jaime, seriously-"[/color]

[color=7ea7d8]"Screw off!"[/color] Reyes shouted over him, immediately shoving off the wall and taking off again. He made for the first door that looked even a little different from all the rest, banking on it leading to [i]something[/i] other than more hallways full of rooms for 'patients' for this freak show of a hospital. He stumbled up to the door, ripping it open. The set of stairs leading down into a dark and unlit part of the building filled him with the confidence to jut his head back out the doorway and yell at his puersuers.[color=7ea7d8]"Tell SHIELD it can suck my dick!"[/color] He taunted before immediately retreating inside, slamming the door shut behind him as he did.

Jaime was practically blind moving down the stairs, with nothing to guide him but the hand rail and a prayer that he wouldn't trip and break his neck on his way out. He could hear the door above him open up, and that agent's voice echo down the stairwell, but Reyes ignored him and pressed on all the faster. He couldn't be sure he was headed anywhere good. For all he knew, this was the way to the basement and he had just cornered himself. But it was better than mindlessly roaming around upstairs until SHIELD cornered him and-

A light at the bottom of the shaft, bathing the shadows in a soft, glowing blue. Reyes started skipping steps on his way down, nearly tripping several times over as he rushed like a madman for the end of the line. [color=7ea7d8]"Please be a way out, please be a way-"[/color]

this post is shit lol

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