Chapter 1 - Runaway

Superhumanity was once just a thought. A fiction, that nobody expected to see in reality.

That is why on October 11, 3018, the entirety of Earth's population was shocked to see five people take their first flight, as superhumans, around the globe, with twice the speed of light, slicing through the air just like comets passing by.

It was a magnificent sight, indeed.

But more importantly, it was hope.

It brought hope to humanity as they stood on the edge of extinction by a virus that had been devouring the Earth's population for the last two years. Due to its severe destructive properties that cause human bodies to involuntarily fail when infected."

The teacher took a short breath and looked around her class, checking if her students were still listening.

"But how did we become superhumans, Ma'am?" one of the curious 11-year-old students raised her hands and asked..

The teacher smiled upon seeing her students being attentive and participating in class, "Well, the great Scientist Lectric Jay Co, the lead researcher of Area 21's Lab- who specialized in alien science, took it upon himself and his team of 4 other researchers to look for a solution that could help stop the threat of humanity's extinction posed by the virus.

Mundane ingredients were proved unsuccessful, and so, Dr. Lecric and his team decided to use both alien and normal ingredients in the hopes of saving the world from the said virus.

This virus was called 'The CRWN' and after several years of multiple trials and errors and a lot of people dying already from the said virus, Dr. Lectric's team finally came up with a formula that did not only solve the threat to humanity's extinction- but also allowed us to evolve into a much greater type of species to walk on this planet. This was the start of another era in the world's history to which it was called--?"

"The Super Age!" the kids shouted in unison just right after the teacher finished reading that very long passage of history to the class.

But just as before the teacher was going to continue the lecture, her eyes darted towards the ceiling-to-floor glass window at her right, into the entrance of the forest outside, as her super senses felt that there was something strange there.

She heard a crunch of dry leaves, a very subtle sound from almost a mile away that might be caused by a squirrel or a cat's little footsteps. However, she felt uncomfortable, as if someone was spying on her.

Looking back at her chattering students, a bizarre thought crossed her mind. 'What if it was a child?' A super child can make that sound and give her the creeps at the same time- that feeling where you feel like you're being watched over.

So, to check if her intuition was correct, the teacher momentarily excused herself from the class and called two of the guards that were on duty to check if someone was indeed in the forest located near the fiery borders of Clandamascarene, their country.

The fiery border of Clandamascarene was a 50-meter tall wall of artificial flames that kept the intruders such as genetically evolved beasts, monsters, and outsiders from their country for almost five centuries now since the year 3500.

The two guards ran in full speed towards the East, where the forest and the wall beyond it were located.

"You go on ahead. I'll go check here." the skinnier guard said as he stopped at the entrance of the forest. Meanwhile, his chubby partner ran deeper inside the forest at full speed.

The first guard faced the classroom, looking for traces of where the kid might have been if there was any kid lost in this forest as what the teacher was expecting.

And indeed, there was a little girl there, trying to hide from the superman in her plain sight from up above the trees.

Although she escaped from the guards for a while, she risked going up the tree to hide because crossing that fiery border without any equipment resulted in burns and injuries in her feet and arms.

The girl's name was Gemma, Gem for short. She was unaware of her real name since she was just an orphan. But her only memory of her parents was a broken gemstone necklace that was given to her before her parents abandoned her in the wastelands. Due to this broken gemstone, she got the nickname "Gem." And eventually, people found it naturally fitting to complete her name as "Gemma."

Gem crossed the fiery borders just yesterday and had been staying in the dark forest all night, just herself, her skimpy dress, and a gray gemstone necklace that was now hanging from her neck as she tried to keep her balance in a forward diagonal position, silently observing the guy below her who was still far from noticing her.

Gem started formulating different scenarios in her head of how she will escape this man if he stayed longer in this area and if she cannot maintain this kind of position anymore due to her fingertips slipping from the slippery branches of the tree.

And just as when she saw the man preparing to leave the area, a slightly rocking reflection of light on the floor caught his attention, being it was the only ray of light on the floor that was moving but was only slightly noticeable.

Gem realized that the reflection was coming from her necklace!

So with no time to waste, Gem jumped from her position and landed on all fours, glancing at the man who was shocked to see someone completely covered in burns. Gem took this opportunity to run while the man was still in shock.

Soon enough, the man came back to his senses and started running after her, unsure of what kind of creature he was running to capture.

But Gem was far ahead of him already, the size of her body gave her an advantage upon navigating through the forest, unlike the man who had to exert more effort in avoiding the low branches of the trees that might hit him in the face if he does not pay full attention when running at full speed.

Not long after, Gem saw that there were no more trees in front of her. She had reached the end of the forest. This was the place where she came from, besides the border that was made of flames.

"Hey! You! Come back here! Stop running!" the man's words lacked hostility but for Gem, it felt insincere.

She was a mile away from him but the both of them knew where each other was. For superhumans, the most common distance where one's senses would end was one kilometer. And unless the buildings were made of sense defying steel, like here in the open, Gem will need to get out of the man's 1-kilometer radius to say that she had finally escaped him.

"Go away! I won't let you capture me!" Gem shouted, having some courage after remembering the fact that she was the only one who survived the flames. 'I need to value this life… or else their deaths will be in vain,' she thought.

'But how? How will I be able to escape from him?'

On the other hand, the man's speed was decreasing. He had seen the end of the forest but was lost in the wonders of how the strange creature was able to understand him and even respond to his voice!

'It sounded like a girl… In fact, it looked like a girl! Those blue eyes that were covered by her long black messy hair, it might be a girl! But what happened to her?' he thought, scanning the plains of where the girl might be.

Finally, he saw her, staring at the tall flames of the border, was a girl in a dirty white dress, the lights from the sun revealed her skin that was covered in bruises and burns. She was also very skinny and short.

'A kid!' he exclaimed in his mind, unaware of how he should react in this situation.

"You are not from here, are you?"

Slowly, he tried getting close to her but the girl looked at him and walked back to the flames of the border whenever he tried to step forward.

"No! No! Don't go there!" he halted, trying to convince the girl to not take any more steps.

A message in the form of a holograph appeared in front of the man, which he could only see.

It was a message from his other companions from the school, asking where he was and where the trespasser might be.

Gem was confused as to why the guy's eyes were fidgeting all while his body was frozen in that position.

But little did Gem know, the man was actually typing a reply to his comrades, torn between telling the truth or dealing with the girl himself, he chose to stick to his duties and carefully typed his location using his eyes for his comrades.

Gem was cautious upon moving away from near the borders and realized that the man was distracted, very distracted in fact that he did not notice that Gem had already escaped from his field of vision in that plains.

Running along the border, Gem was glad that the man was too dumb to give her a chance to escape. But what worried her now was the fact that she had nowhere to go.

The man finally took his eyes off the screen after sending his response, but little did he realize that Gem was nowhere to be found already!

'Ah! I lost her!' he typed in the words again using his thoughts, this time faster than before because he was not contemplating whether to send the message or not anymore.

Not long after, a swoosh was heard overhead.

It was his supervisor, flying to catch the little girl who was not yet aware of his presence.

"Why couldn't you catch her!? You're the fastest guard here right? Now look, the supervisor even came here to catch the girl himself!" the chubbier guard arrived not long after, aggravated about the fact that their supervisor even stepped up to do the job that they were assigned to.

Gem was running with a smirk on her face upon thinking that she had outrun the man earlier.

But when she was about to make a jump across a little canal, a hand suddenly caught her nape in the air.

"Help!" she squeaked, unable to release her voice due to the force that was straining her neck.

But unfortunately for Gem, there was no one to help her now.

She was all alone in this scary and dangerous place, after all.