I awoke to water splashing my face. Strapped to a medical chair in the testing room, I saw Leon standing before me. Rellik was already conscious in another chair beside me.

  "Where are we?" Rellik shouted. Leon remained silent as Ron limped in, leaning on a cane.

  "What do you want?" I demanded.

  "I finally get the pleasure of killing you both," Ron sneered.

  "Not if we kill you first."

  "In only 2 hours, I'll send off a nuke. You'll be dead, and so will all your rebel friends."

  "Why are you doing this?" I asked.

  Ron's face darkened. "I guess I have time to explain myself. When I was about your age, my father would beat me and my mother when he was drunk. She finally killed him and went to prison. I was sent to an orphanage, and later that year, another inmate murdered her in her sleep.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "I grew up in that orphanage until Dr. Noir took me in as his son. He was secretly head of Noir's Corp and made me his second in command at 26. After he died in his sleep, Dr. Matthew, head of the labs, took over the corporation. I married his daughter, Sophia Matthews, and she became pregnant with you. But here's the kicker—she was cheating on me the whole time. When we went to court for custody, she rigged it, paid off the judge, even though our DNA matched. So I killed her and put you in the simulation. That's it."

  "But why would you cause all this suffering?" I shouted.

  A gunshot rang out. Ron collapsed to his knees as Leon aimed a smoking gun at him.

  "Why, Leon?" Ron gasped.

  "He's not your biological father..." Leon revealed before firing again. As Ron fell, Leon freed us and handed me a keycard. "Take it and get out of here!"

  Suddenly, massive claws burst through Leon's chest. "Run!" he screamed as he was lifted off the ground. Ron's arm had grotesquely enlarged, sprouting deadly claws.

  "What happened to him?" I asked in horror.

  "He's been injecting himself with all the viruses he could get his hands on!" Rellik shouted.

  Ron crushed Leon with his mutated hand. His other arm grew to match, and another pair of arms erupted from his back. Standing on all fours, he roared and charged at us.

  We sprinted through a door, but Ron's claws tore through it like paper. "Oh boys!" he called in a distorted voice as he squeezed his massive body through the frame.

  "Follow me!" Rellik shouted as we ran down the hallway. I caught sight of a clock—one hour until sunrise...