The Numbers

[Hyzenthlay]

A man opened his eye's to a flickering jungle. As he sat the image flew from sight almost as if somebody had changed the channel. Then, as he sat up straight and still it appeared again. This time more hazy and it rippled like water on the edge of a beach. As he began to marvel at the sight a headache struck him. The pain was almost crippling. He turned his body slowly to let his legs dangle over an edge. He was apparently sat atop a capsule he had so strangely woke inside. Shaking his head he peered around the room in which he sat. The vast jungle had completely vanished and had left the scene of a, not as aesthetically pleasing, medical lab type room.

He noticed, from the corner of his eye, a body lay still on the floor. Whoever she was she seemed to have a numerical symbol on her. He didn't fully understand how he knew the symbol, he just knew he did. He also knew that he could draw most of the symbols that followed it. He winced as another pain shot through his brain. When he opened his eyes the body had gone. He stood up and, stumbling, looked around frantically. However, when he turned back to the spot in which the woman had been lay, it was still there.

"Erghhhh" he spoke, holding his head. "I'm going insane. Jungles... Disappearing women..."

Looking around he also noticed several other capsules similar to the one he had woken in. He payed no attention to these at that moment in time. Instead he decided to try to rouse the girl from the ground. He walked slowly over to her feeling as if he were walking on clouds. KNeeling beside her he placed a hand on her arm and gently rocked her.

"H... Hello? Are you okay miss?"

He felt his headache creep back again and the subside. It was bearable now. Though he still felt his head with his free hand. The woman didn't wake up. With a sigh the man stood. Not knowing what to do with himself his attention was finally focused on getting the other beds opened up. The first one he came to, however, had a chunk of ceiling through the glass and the sides were covered in blood spatter. The man instinctively looked up, cracks had formed above them. He stepped away from the ruined capsule and turned to the one opposite. On a control panel was a large button, mentally crossing his fingers he pressed it. The pod did indeed open letting out a strange wisp of delicate vapor. He wafted it away and looked at the man lay before him. He was a middle aged man with long hair and a scarred face. He was clad in a white robe and was stirring slowly. Suddenly an arm shot from within to grab the neck of his rescuer. The rescuer stumbled back pulling the arm from grip and fell against another capsule. He gasped for air as he watched the scarred man sit up slowly and look at him.

"What's goin on!?" the scarred man demanded a response, this was not a question.

"I have no idea... I don't even know who I am," replied the rescuer.

He saw the scarred man hold his head, as he had done. Then he looked back at the rescuer sitting before him. He looked around, saw the girl and stood up. He carefully stepped over to her, as if he were walking on jelly. Meanwhile the man who was sitting stood and faced the capsule he had struck and opened it. This time he was unsure what he would find and so stood back. To his surprise, though, inside this pod was a young boy. Glasses crooked on a gaunt, pale face. The most shocking thing was his eyes. They were the purest of ebony. The boy shook slightly and then sat bolt upright. He looked directly into the rescuers eyes and he looked back.

"Am I safe?" asked the boy.

This was a disturbing question, to say the least. The rescuer didn't have a clue how to answer. As he tried to find the words to re-assure the boy the scarred man spoke.

"Who did this? Did you do this, Mr Hero!?" the man spoke with a fearsome malice, he had extended his index finger to point at the unconscious girl's severed arm.

"What!? No!" spoke the rescuer in defense. "She was like that when I woke up. I think she got me out."

"Well. What do these symbols mean?" the index finger of the scarred man moved to the roman numeral on her chest.

"How the hell should I know?" the rescuer began to sound angry, "I guess, maybe, they are so we can tell each other apart. Have you even thought yet what your name is? I bet you don't have the answer!"

The rescuer watched as the scarred mans face went blank. He had almost turned ivory white and his face stayed expressionless. In reply to the rescuers statement he simply shook his head. The boy then spoke in a high pitched voice making the rescuer jump.

"Maybe we are supposed to give ourselves numbers? I don't see any written on the pods we slept in. My suggestion is that we count the capsules within this room. From that we can guess how many there were in the room the girl came from. With any luck we may find our own numbers."

This solution was so obvious that the rescuer felt stupid not having thought of it before. All three men started to count the capsules. As they all ended on fifteen they looked at each other, the scarred man looked at the rescuer.

"Sixteen." He spoke, he then pointed to himself "seventeen," then his gaze was on the boy "eighteen."

"Dude! That is so cool!" Spoke XVIII.

Both XVI and XVII looked at him in surprise. The boy had a look of purest content on his face as he looked from one man to the other.

"We're like the androids from Dragonball Z!" Said the boy looking at the men in turn. A wide grin on his young face. When he saw that they weren't as impressed the smile dropped and he fell silent.

"So, er. What do we do now? Like, write it on ourselves or what?" Asked XVII apparently taking XVI as this groups leader.

"Again, I don't know. I don't have any answers and... This damn headache." XVI grabbed his head. The room flashed red and changed shape, the surface of the walls crackled. Then, it all returned to normal once more.

"Whoa! What in the hell was that?" XVII sounded worried and he stood up quickly showing his immense height. He peered around the room looking terrified.

"It keeps happening. I think its something to do with the equipment in this room." Answered XVI unsurely.

"In that case, I'm outta here." XVII set off towards the door.

"What about her? And, the rest..." XVI pointed at the woman on the floor whilst still looking at the scarred face of XVII.

XVII looked at XVI and then XVIII and shook his head. XVI looked into the boys face and saw that he, too, wanted to go.

"You would both just... Leave? Cant we at least wait for the girl to wake up? She could tell us what is going on. The cracks in the ceiling... The ruined capsules. Why we don't even know our names... She could explain it all." XVI suggested frantically trying to get them to stay.

"Curiosity killed the cat, man. I ain't no cat." Said XVIII smirking as he hopped down from his capsule. As he began to walk towards the scarred man XVI grabbed his arm.

"Think about it. Stay, 5 minutes... That's all I ask for."

XVIII looked at the scarred man who nodded in reply.

"Fine, we'll stay for a bit. After that I'm getting out of these rediculous white robes... With or without you." Spat XVII apparently re-aquiring his fiery persona.

[Acheron]

As the beam ripped through the building, IX felt his feet slip from under him and soon enough he was laying on his backside. He had not been too far from the beam itself, not being caught in it was something of a minor miracle. Though he had fallen, his magnetic-made barricade was still holding place at the end of the hallway. The creatures were pounding on it with great intensity, but IX wasn't too worried. It wasn't ideal but the beam had severed the hallway into two sides, he wasn't able to see anything more than rubble on the other side. For whatever reason, what awaited him beyond that barrier he made did not worry him, not in the least. The emergence of his powers made him more intrigued, exactly how far could he push all of this?

He didn't know what the others were up to, he was curious but apparently they were not. IX gathered himself together and finally got back on his feet, his feet which he careful had to place after the beam caused debris everywhere. His bare feet were freezing on the metal floor, but there was no solution that he could see in the area. One thing was clear though, the stability of the building was in serious doubt. He was not an architect, at least he couldn't remember being one, but he was fairly certain of this. The first thing that came to mind was using one of the metal panels; by doing that, he could make a bridge over to the other side.

Yet while that might have been a good choice, IX wasn't sold on it. "They didn't follow me out, though I sealed a side off for them....I think I'll allow them to find their own way out then...", he wasn't bitter about it, it was more of a pragmatic view. He had showed them what he could do and proved he could hold his own, he was looking for a similar return from the rest of them. If, there still was a rest of them. That left him with one choice, he would have to unseal the door he just closed off. He scanned the rest of the hallway that was in front of him, trying to figure out what he could use. More of the ceiling and floor panels, wiring and casing from inside of the walls, maybe it wouldn't be so hard for him.

IX tried to clear his thoughts; his powers had awoken not too long ago and he didn't know if they would be fading in or out. He didn't know exactly how many zombies would be behind the door he blocked. From his short term memory and the glance he got of the elevator area, it did not look like it could hold too many of them. He didn't have the blessing of ignorance though; he was well aware there were others with powers, possibly ones who had been using theirs longer than he. Options were limited though, he would have to push through whatever was waiting for him, whether he liked it or not.

Raising both of his hands from his sides, IX opened up his palms and focused on what was in front of him. The metal panels that covered both the floor and ceiling once again started to shake, then freed themselves from being in place. Six panels in total hovered in the air in front of IX, he then lowered his hands as the six of them started to hover around him. As he started to walk toward the door he had blocked off, the panels started spinning around him, faster and faster. Once he was a few feet from the doors, he raised a hand and the blockade moved. He was ready for a fight, stepping into the elevator lobby and expecting hell.

....He received nothing of the sort.

The flood of zombies that had been a major threat not too long ago, were gone, every single one of them. IX scanned the area vigorously, making sure there was not a single place they could be hiding. The panels that had been spinning around him fell to the floor, rattling as they did. Nobody was around him, all alone in front of what looked to be an easy escape route. IX walked over to the elevators and started pressing the "UP" button, but there was no sign of life from the elevator.

"Of course not, that would just be way too convenient, wouldn't it?", he shook his head in a sign of disgust. "So now what..?"

"You've always been so clever....You can figure this all out...and if you can't....then I can help you..."

IX turned back around when he heard the voice, but there was nobody there. The voice was familiar, that of a woman's, a woman that he swore he knew. An Irish tone to her voice, he couldn't bring an image to his mind just yet but he knew she was important to him. He knew very well that she was someone special, but he also knew something more important, that she was right.

He back up from the buttons and stood in front of the steel doors leading to the elevator shaft. He raised his right hand and made a sweeping motion with it, opening the doors. Once they were open, he walked over to the edge of the shaft to see where the elevator car was. It was only one floor down, which ended up working perfectly for his situation. Using his right hand again, he made a rising motion with it, that allowed the elevator car to come up to his floor. Instead of hopping inside of it though, he waited till the top of it got to the edge, then he stood on top of the elevator car.

"Hopefully the surface is a little more pleasant than this place...", he spoke once more to himself as the elevator does started to close and he slowly rose to the surface level, on top of his elevator car. IX did not know what to expect when he reached the surface, but he was hoping at the very least, that he would be able to get some decent clothes.