Tonight was the night. It would be the night they all paid for what they had done to her. The experimentation; the tests; the drugs; and the empty promises that they wouldn’t hurt her. But they had hurt her. They took away everything that ever mattered to her, hurting her far more than any experiments could.

Now she was going to hurt them.

She was going to enjoy hearing their screams as they died; begging for mercy as she turned the “gifts” they had given her against them.

‘Ha! These aren’t gifts, they’re curses!’ she thought to herself with a sarcastic laugh as she held up her dark, scarred hands. They were scars from burns that she got whenever the experimentation failed.

She would spend hours in the medical bay getting her burns and other various injuries treated; then it was back to the lab for more drugs and surgery. The dark haired woman looked down at her body in disgust; there was so much scarring from the many different surgeries and fights she had been forced to endure. All she ever had to look forward to were the nights when she could sleep, dreaming of a woman with beautiful golden hair and sparkling green eyes.

In the dreams, they traveled together and she was strong. Strong enough to protect her friend and many others. It was so different from how she had really been; too weak to protect the only person she had started to get close to. Apparently she wasn’t strong enough to face that person she could never be every night because after they killed Doctor Marian, the dreams stopped coming. Even the blonde “friend” in her dreams had left her, just like everyone else.

As much as she wanted to cry for all she had lost, the tears would not come. They had dried out the night she had been taken to them.

In that place it didn’t pay to be seen as weak, and they had told her as much before she arrived. So she used up all of her tears that first night ten years ago and hadn’t cried since. It didn’t matter now, though. Tonight was the night that everyone paid. Everyone in the building and everyone that knew what had been going on but never did a thing about it. They were all going to pay.

She had thought about it enough; it was time to put her plan into motion. She gracefully rose to her feet, stepping out of the dark corner of the room she had resided in for the past ten years. It all ended tonight, starting with this building and the people inside. No one would escape her wrath. She would destroy it until nothing was left but ash. After that, she would start on the city to dispose of those that had done nothing to stop the experiments; and she wouldn’t stop…

Her maniacal laughter filled the halls of the facility as flames consumed the walls. People all around her fell to the ground as the fire ate away their flesh. The smell of burning corpses, the grey smoke, and the screams of the dying; it all filled her senses and she reveled in it. This was what she had been preparing for ever since they had killed her Doctor and took away her dreams.

She lifted her hand again and the flames escaped it once more, catching another person on fire. Perhaps it was a scientist, or even another experiment; she didn’t care. They had all hurt her; lied to her. All she knew was that she was getting out of here no matter who got in her way. Besides, if she burned them all, they wouldn’t be able to lie anymore.

She released another burst of fire, destroying the door that blocked her way to the city. No one was safe now. Not the scientists; not their families; and definitely not the people that let this go on. Everyone was to blame and she was going to make sure they all paid just as much as she had.

She stood outside the building now, watching as the flames destroyed it. For some reason, it didn’t bring her as much pleasure as she thought it would.

‘It’s because the others still live.’ she convinced herself as she turned away from the burning facility.

The fire had drawn people in to watch the spectacle. With people came the cop cars and the fire trucks. She felt a surge of hatred rush through her. Where were these people when she needed them? Why hadn’t they stopped the bastards that had tortured her and hundreds of others?

No longer able to keep a hold on her temper, she released a blast of fire from her hand, hitting the fire truck that was working frantically to put out the facility. The flames mixed with the gasoline that fueled the truck and a loud explosion resounded throughout the city. There was a long silence, reminding her of the calm before the storm.

Then all that could be heard was the gunfire. The air was filled with the sound of bullets being shot off into the night. She was ready for them though, and before the bullets could reach her, she brought a protective wall of fire up. The heat was so intense that the metal bullets melted on impact. While keeping the wall of fire up, she made a geyser of flames shoot up from underneath a cop car, causing another explosion. Soon the flames from the experimentation facility were spreading, as well as those from the destroyed vehicles. People screamed into the night air as they were caught by her burning fire or hit by the stray bullets from the police.

She closed her eyes and listened to the chaotic sounds as her anger reigned over them. She controlled whether they lived or died; she controlled their lives; and her anger controlled her. Opening her icy blue eyes once more, she walked forward. With each step she took, flames shot up from the ground on either side of her. She could hear the sounds of helicopters circling above her; that wouldn’t do.

She looked into the night sky and spotted the helicopters. There was no need for them to use their search lights since that part of the city was ablaze with her anger.

‘I should welcome them to the party.’ she thought with a chuckle before moving her hand in a circle as she aimed her index finger at one of the helicopters. A whirlwind of fire left her fingertip and wrapped itself around the metal bird. If the pilots inside didn’t die from the fire, they’d die from suffocation as her flames sucked the air out of the atmosphere. If that didn’t bring attention to herself, nothing would. Of course, it was too late now. When she needed that attention, nobody had cared.

She had been seventeen when the first visitors had started coming to the facility. They would stop at each cell, looking at the experiments. That’s all they would see, too: the experiments; never the people. They were all rich, government officials. She could tell by the way they carried themselves, their noses in the air. None of them cared that these were people being experimented on. All they wanted was their weapons.

She refused to be used as a weapon for them. So, she acted like her powers didn’t work. If her powers didn’t work, they couldn’t use her. She could only fool them for so long though…

It had been the end of a routine day of torture for her when she showed up. She looked like the blonde haired woman from her lost dreams. She was shorter than she had imagined. Angrier too. She could still remember the yells coming from the woman, telling the scientists that what they were doing wasn’t right and that they had to stop.

This person was the only one that she had seen stand up to the scientists, despite the danger to her status; to her life, even. She would never forget the scene the little green eyed beauty had created. Security had been called and they had begun striking the woman. They were going to kill her. She couldn’t allow that. That was the day she revealed that her powers truly did work. The last thing she remembered was setting loose a firestorm on the guards. When she awoke, the blonde was gone and she was on a medical table.

After that, more people visited the facility, once again only seeing the experiments and not the people that they truly were. The one person that had truly cared enough to stand up to them never showed up again…

She opened her eyes again, the memories of her adolescent years fading once again. They were replaced by the sight of burning buildings and bodies. It seemed that while she was lost in her memories, she had lost control over her powers. It didn’t matter to her though. The screams were music to her ears and the knowledge that their lies were going down with them was like a balm to her soul. It was only temporary though.

Deep inside her she felt as if something was still missing. Even her revenge couldn’t fill the hole in her heart. Before she could stop it, a tear escaped her icy blue eye and made a path down her cheek. Without thinking, she wiped it away and stared at the fiery destruction around her. She simply watched as the lives of those around her faded, taking the screams and lies with them. With each dying scream, though, something inside Alexia faded away as well.