Chapter Text
Location: Ohio State University, Ohio, United States
The sun continued to give light and warmth over the mostly prestigious university, with the occasional cloud lurking about. Down at the uni and outside in the campus, countless various people gathered about amongst the grassy areas as if in anticipation, most walked and stood about, some sat and relaxed, many have even set up tables and gazebos, as were many metal crowd control barriers. But nearly all were gossiping with each other into indecipherable chatter, some people talked about studies, others chatted about what they want to do, but the rest were discussing about something else...
Walking alone and silently along the path between the crowds of other students was a dark-skinned girl, eighteen years of age, with bushy black hair, brown eyes, and crimson lips. She wore a loose lavender top with short sleeves barely hanging off her shoulders along with matching black skin-tight leggings and plimsolls. Loosely hanging around each of her wrists were two gold bracelets while around her neck was a simple necklace with a golden pearl hanging close to her chest.
Up ahead, among the countless other people scattered all about, she could see three familiar faces; A blond-haired boy wearing a dark-grey hoodie, light-denim shorts, and a dog hat; Another dark-skinned girl, slightly older, wearing a matching orange headband and top within a white shirt and dark-blue skin-tight jeans; And lastly, a weary-looking with a slouchy beige knit cap covering most of his short dark-brown hair as well as a light-brown long-sleeved T-shirt, baggy grey trousers, and worn-down trainers.
Upon seeing that boy especially, the girl briefly halted and drew a good long breath and exhaled. "Worst thing he can do is say no", she spoke quietly to herself. "If he says no, he says no". She then carried on forth and approached the closest people she could consider 'friends'.
"Is that it?" The blond boy asked.
"That's not it", the other girl next to him disproved.
"Of course it is!" The blond boy refuted. "I mean, I think that's it".
"Uh, Ulysses?" The young girl walked up and greeted the brown-haired boy.
"Oh, hey, Michelle", the boy, Ulyssess Cain, recognised. "Class royally sucked today, innit?"
"Well I mean, yeah, that social justice professor? Definitely the worst we've had on campus", Michelle said as she sat upon a metal crowd control barrier next to Ulysses. "So anyway uh, listen. This may- might seem out of the blue, but I was wondering..." However, just then, before she could even finish her sentence properly, her once-drifting attention had been fully taken over by something else entirely. She turned her head to see something emerging from the horizon. "Can you believe it's happening?"
"What?" Ulysses questioned.
"'what?' Have you been unplugged all day or something? Look!" Michelle pointed forth.
She, Ulysses, their two friends, and very much everyone else all collectively turned heads to focus on the same general direction. Slowly yet gradually, rising from behind an array of large lightly-blown trees was an even larger cloud of dark-bluish-green, much more closer and lower than any cloud would be normally and realistically. This strange foggy anomaly was so low and so dense that it even began to cover the whole sky and block out the sun itself, causing the whole area to darken like an eclipse.
One of the people in the crowd simply spoke out, "The Terrigen is here..."
"The Cloud..." Michelle recognised.
"That's it?" Ulyssess questioned sceptically. "That's really it?"
"Dude, wouldn't it be crazy if at least one of us students or even one of the teachers is an Inhuman?" Michelle pondered, nearly forgetting about the boy she was going to ask out to begin with before she ended up finding herself utterly mesmerised by this inevitable sight, almost entranced even.
"I thought that was just a rumour or-" Ulysses tried to speak up before he got cut off by Michelle.
"Dude, it is so so so real", Michelle stressed and emphasised. "And now it's here".
As the green fog slowly approached towards the campus, casting a growing shadow over the land, the enticed Michelle couldn't even dare avert even a fraction of her focus and attention away. She just stepped off the control barrier and slowly stepped forth, as if she were hypnotised and called forth by an invisible presence, while Ulysses followed closely beside her.
She could see some of the other people standing in the grass raising their arms in the air and hear them hollering with excitement, "It's happening! It's happening! Wahoo!"
Before long, the shadow was soon cast over Michelle and Ulysses as well, the other two, and anyone else close and nearby to them. Ready and willing to be embraced by the cloud, the transfixed Michelle closed her eyes, titled back her head a bit, and kept her lips parted open. Then as if being pushed forth and carried over by a strong force of wind, the strange mist blew through row after row of closely spectating people, eventually including Ulysses and Michelle. His knit cap flew off his head while her hair billowed in the gust. As everyone else did, Michelle and Ulysses each took a good long breath of the mist, their nostrils even picking up an almost rather addictive scent. But soon, certain suspicions would come into full fruition.
"Um, something's-" Ulysses barely spoke before he ended up coughing and bending over.
But while Ulysses felt something off and uneasy in his stomach, Michelle still remained enraptured by the dense surrounding fog, at first. "Whoa, do you feel it? I feel-" Suddenly, that brief moment of transfixed and beguiling sensation would soon die away as Michelle felt her eyes rapidly open and her body jerk inward. "-oh". She could barely say as an unnerving tingle creeped up her legs and into her gut, causing her to groan and clutch onto her legging-clad thighs.
Her lungs felt like they were being filled with pins and needles, in fact, Michelle was feeling as though all her internal organs were rearranging by themselves. Then, feeling something tearing at the skin of her torso, she looked down at herself, only to see sickly-green tendrils emerging from beneath her skin and ripping through her lavender top, much to her wide-eyed horror. Hastily, with sudden abnormal strength, Michelle tore off her top and carelessly chucked it aside to the ground, now in complete tatters and leaving her bare-chested.
These tendrils then spread out on Michelle's weak trembling body, wrapping around her thorax and abdomen, coiling down her tensed-up legs, coiling up her arms to her hands, and eventually crawling up her neck. She couldn't cry, she couldn't scream, she couldn't speak, even if she badly and desperately wanted to. Only a few tears could leak from her disoriented eyes. Soon, the fusing tendrils grew into a thick cocoon, wrapping all around her completely until she was utterly concealed from sight. Her sight, her hearing, any senses she had, had been deprived for the moment. Her body, submerged in liquid with her hair floating, rolled back and curved up like a foetus trapped in its mother's womb.
Meanwhile, outside, the dense mist was already beginning to clear away and carry on, some of the people were still coughing at the alien fumes, and the sun and skies could eventually be seen again. The blond-haired boy in grey and the dark-skinned girl in white glanced at each other, themselves, and all around, only to see that no one had been affected in any immediate and physical way, almost no one.
"Did it work?" The blond boy questioned, wondering if anyone else had possessed the inhuman gene, especially without even knowing or being aware of it. "Did anybody-?"
The girl in white noticed that her two other friends were nowhere to be seen. "Ulysses? Michelle? Where are-" She called out as she wandered and looked around frantically, before her question would get cut off by the sight of something bizarre being revealed by the clearing dense fog. "Oh my god", she could only say at the sight before her, two large dark-bluish-green chrysalides that were taller than her, standing up straight and stuck to the ground.
"What? What is it?" The blond boy ran up and followed close behind before he too stopped in astonishment.
Since these two cocoons had just turned up when her two friends have just disappeared, the girl in white soon put two and two together straight away and knew just what or who was residing inside the chrysalides. "Ulysses? Ulysses!" The girl in white cried out once more.
"He's in there?" The blond boy realised as well.
"Must be", the girl in white said to him.
"Then the other one must be-" The blond boy managed to say before he got cut off.
"Michelle!" The girl in white kept on calling. "Michelle, can you hear me in there?"
"I can't even see inside", the blond boy tried to narrow his gaze at one of the cocoons. "So what happens now?"
"Should we call someone?" The girl in white asked, trembled and panicked.
"Who can we call for something like this?" The blond boy asked back, just as shaken and anxious.
Many hours have passed and already the nighttime had come, bringing with it a clear sky full of stars and the moon at its fullest. Helicopters loomed far above the area where the chrysalides still stood, the searchlights reflecting off their seemingly glossy surface. Not only were many of the students still around with their phones out to take photos and videos of the whole situation, but now it seemed that professional camera crew and reporters with microphones have turned up to the scene, as one had already begun interviewing one of Michelle's and Ulysses' close friends.
"Michelle and Ulysses were so excited to see the mists, none of us expected this, really", the girl in white and orange explained, anxiously playing with her fingers. "I just hope they're okay. I hope they can breathe in there".
"And do you happen to know if either of the two have any living biological parents, siblings, or other relatives?" The female reporter questioned.
The girl tried to think back, and yet she realised how such a thing may not have even been brought between any of them before now. "Well I dunno personally but-" She tried to answer, only to be cut off.
"Oh hey, look", one person in the crowed called out.
"Something's happening", another person observed.
And indeed, something would happen, as one of the chrysalides, once perfectly still and dark, began to quiver and glow, vaguely illuminating what or who could be inside. As more and more people gathered around this sight, some of the ones more close to it could make out what resembles a figure floating within in a foetal position. A deep rumbling sound could be heard from within, gradually increasing in both volume and intensity. The chrysalis itself shook even more visibly as cracks started to show in its hardened shell-like surface.
As most of the people stepped back in caution and anticipation, the cracks spread out until the entire chrysalis had been fully covered in it, oozing some sort of liquid. Eventually, the cocoon bursted and crumbled as the figure inside stretched out and stood up straight and free, seemingly naked and completely drenched in slow thick runny goop. As the crowd watched in silent awe, the figure looked around before stepping forth and staggering for a bit.
"Ulysses!" Both the girl in white and the blond girl in grey instantly recognised the emerging person. "That's Ulysses Cain!"
As soon as that name was revealed, some of the reporters and camera crew didn't hesitate in approaching the disoriented man and throwing forth question after question, all of which he proved too weak to answer, or to even speak at all for the moment.
"Are you Inhuman?"
"How do you feel?"
"Are you different?"
"Do you feel different?"
"Could you talk to Michelle in there?"
Just as Ulysses was close to regaining his full senses enough to even talk and respond, the other remaining chrysalis too began vibrating as well, the one containing Michelle. As before, the crowds still stood back while still filming the sight with phones and cameras.
"Oh, my god!" One of the spectators gasped and observed the very obvious. "It's happening again!"
And indeed, it would be happening again, as Michelle's cocoon soon started crackling and glowing, almost showing her silhouette inside. And yet, unlike Ulysses, this didn't look exactly the same as before. Then the chrysalis finally shattered, releasing not a teenage girl, but rather something or someone inhuman. A fully-red devil-esque creature complete with sharpened claws, bat-like wings stretched out, and a long tail. It still had Michelle's bushy black hair, wore her black leggings, albeit ripped and torn in many places, and even her necklace and bracelets as well.
"Holy-" The girl in white couldn't believe what or who she was just seeing. "Michelle?!"
"Oh, my god!" Neither could the blond boy, or anyone else for that matter.
The Inhuman looked around at all the people staring back it with clear fear on their faces while still filming and taking pictures, some of them resulted in sudden flashes that nearly blinded the creature's eyes, causing it to cover such with its clawed hands. Breathing, shaking, and snarling, the creature then let out a roar of agitation and retaliation at all the people around before flapping its wings and taking off to the skies.
"Wait, Michelle, Michelle!" The girl in white called out. "Where you going? Come back!"