MONTANA ,mountains
Sounds of barking dogs and shouting carried through the trees as a white-haired teenage boy, smeared with mud and wearing torn clothes, ran down a forest trail. He weaved between trunks and leapt over obstacles. On one jump he landed on a shard of wood that stabbed through his foot. He cried out but kept running, limping as the hunters and their dogs closed in.
Ahead the river tore through the canyon—dark, fast, and unforgiving. He searched for a safe crossing, turned, and saw the dogs coming. No choice. He dove into the water. The current seized him and dragged him downstream.
The men on the bank finally caught up. Dressed in military gear and carrying rifles and tranquilizer darts, they scanned the river. One raised his gun and aimed at the boy being swept away, finger on the trigger—then a voice cut through the air.
"Stand down."
A man flanked by two heavily armored soldiers stepped forward. He lifted binoculars and watched the boy struggle. The name and rank on his uniform read: Colonel William Jr. Stryker. Trask had ordered him to apprehend the escaped mutant. The orders were clear: capture if possible; if not, kill.
Stryker lowered the binoculars, revealing a stitched, empty socket where an eye had been. He believed death would be mercy for the escapee. "If the currents don't kill him, he won't get too far. Get me a map of the area and scramble a helicopter," he said.
"Yes, sir," someone answered. Stryker pulled out a tracker; a red dot pulsed and raced downstream.
---
A few minutes later, the white-haired boy crawled from the river. His breathing was ragged; exhaustion weighed on him. He lay on his back and pressed his hand to his abdomen where blood oozed from a gunshot wound. He looked down at his left foot—the jagged piece of wood still protruded.
Pain curled through him. For a moment he considered letting the river take him again. His muscles cramped from exertion.
After a long breath he forced himself up. He grabbed the wood and, tears stinging his eyes, ripped it free. He punched the ground in pain, tore the remainder of his clothes, and wrapped them tight around his foot to keep dirt out. The wound would seal in hours; he knew that much.
He tore off his shirt and stared at the two bleeding holes where bullets had entered. He dug at one with shaking fingers, but the pain made him scream. His body vibrated, but he knew the bullets had to come out for his healing to work properly. He suspected they were more than bullets—tracking devices, maybe—which was why they always found him no matter where he hid.
With grim resolve he bit a splinter of wood and clawed into the wound. He fumbled and, to his surprise, pulled out a strange bullet—transparent at the tip and blinking faintly. He yanked the other one free the same way. The splinter fell from his mouth. He closed his eyes against the pain, fought to stay conscious, and staggered to his feet.
He waded back into the river, washed the blood free, and felt the wounds knitting shut beneath his skin. In the distance a mountain rose, dark against the sky. He started toward it, limping but moving—because stopping meant death.
His name was Nathan Smith, and he'd died once—surfing into a storm back on Earth. Ever since he woke up in this world, he'd been asking himself the same stupid question: what had he been thinking, going out alone in a storm? If he hadn't made that choice he'd still be living a comfortable life somewhere else, not tearing running for his life on who knows where.
He knew he was in the world of Marvel from the first day—names like William Stryker and Trask Industries weren't easy to miss. That bastard Trask, Nathan thought through gritted teeth as he limped. Trask had been the one personally experimenting on him for four days straight—flaying him alive for tissue, drawing blood, prepping the table to open his chest. If he'd lacked a healing factor, he would have died there.
The last clear memory he had was of the lab Trask's scientists crowding around him and ready to fully discect him then blackness. The next thing he remembered was all of them dead and a piece of concrete cradled in his palm, still warm with blood. Colonel Stryker lay unconscious on the floor, one eye bleeding. He hadn't stopped to think. He'd ran
His stomach growled as he kept moving. Problems kept stacking like rocks in his path,hunger, Stryker and his men and the implications of being in the marvel universe.at this point he wouldn't blame fate if it just finishes him for good. He kept telling himself that he was close to civilization; that if he could just make it to a road or a lone ranger station he could lose Stryker's men, patch himself up properly, and disappear for a while.
Trask Industries – Bolivar Trask's Office
Inside his office, Bolivar Trask sat behind his desk, eyes fixed on the monitor as he replayed the surveillance footage for the fifth time. The recording showed Nathan strapped to the operating table, pale from days of vivisection. Incision lines were already drawn across his torso, scalpels and bone saws prepared. One surgeon stepped forward, blade poised to open his chest—
Then it happened.
Nathan's eyes ignited with a blinding white glow. The metal clamps securing his wrists and ankles snapped open as if ripped apart by invisible force. A jagged piece of concrete tore free from the reinforced wall, hovering in midair for only a heartbeat before it shot like a bullet into a scientist's skull. Another followed. And another. The shard floated from body to body with surgical precision until it finally drifted into Nathan's waiting hand, slick with blood.
The alarms blared. The door burst open. Colonel Stryker stormed in, weapon raised. Nathan turned, and the concrete dart struck—Stryker reeled back, his eye torn open, and collapsed against the wall unconscious.
Then, just as suddenly, the light drained from Nathan's eyes. Confusion clouded his face, his body trembling as if even he didn't understand what he'd done. He bolted from the room.
The footage froze on the image of his glowing eyes.
Trask leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled, his voice low and deliberate.
"Spontaneous psionic manifestation, perhaps…" he murmured, eyes narrowing. Stress-induced, certainly. But the numbers concerned him far more than the display itself.
His gaze shifted to the side monitor where streams of data scrolled. Energy readouts pulsed in angry red lines, spiking beyond their limits.
"At peak output…" Trask whispered, "…the equivalent of one hundred nuclear warheads."
He exhaled slowly, as though the very thought thrilled him.
"That boy is either the future of evolution—or its extinction event. Which is why he must be captured.Or killed "
He had been developing the Sentinels—machines built to eliminate mutants before they became too uncontrollable, and ultimately to replace humankind itself. After all, with mutants appearing at such an alarming rate, humanity was slowly becoming the new Neanderthals—outpaced by evolution and left only to await extinction. Trask couldn't allow that to happen. Perhaps the boy's DNA would provide the breakthrough he needed, the key to creating stronger, more advanced Sentinels.
End of chapter