The Chosen: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The Letter That Changed My Life

This is the story of my life, of how my whole world changed with a single decision because of a single letter.  Now you may be thinking that a 23 year old girl can’t have all that interesting of a life and maybe to you my life is boring as bricks but read a little more before you give up on me.  You might actually find it worth your time.

The day I got the letter, I found myself at a crossroads.  Like I said, I was 23 years old, a college student going for a theatre degree.  Now if I had been like most young adults my age, I probably would have been about to graduate from college, I probably would have a steady full time or part time job, I probably would have my own apartment or be living with a couple of roommates, I probably would have some money set aside for the future, I probably would have a steady boyfriend or even a fiancé, and my life would be looking pretty good.  But for me, that wasn't the case.  I was about to fail college for the third time, never having made it past my sophomore year, I hadn't had a job for almost a year and I still lived with my parents and I’d only ever dated one guy, five years earlier.  I was never any good at saving, so I didn't have a penny to my name except for what my parents occasionally gave me.  In my mind, I was a complete and utter failure.

You see, I had been struggling with severe depression for years and it had devoured my life.  I’m not talking I’m-feeling-a-little-down-today depression, I’m talking full on my-life-is-worthless-I’m-suicidal depression.  Five years previously, I had gone from a fairly happy, optimistic, reasonably successful person to a pessimistic, hopeless failure in less than a year.  I won’t bore you with all the details that led me to that point, but suffice it to say that I was a wreck of a human being.

The crossroads I found myself at that day were quite simple:  I was either going to finally give in to the darkness that had been plaguing me for years and commit suicide or I was going to somehow muster the strength to go on living.  From the outside I’m sure it looks very black and white.  Well of course you should live! I hear you cry.  Ah, if only it were that easy.  See to me, the black looked far more inviting; no more struggling, no more trying to just get through a day without falling apart, no more feeling alone and empty.  But it meant leaving my parents behind to cope with losing their only daughter.  I was such a failure as a daughter though, I reasoned, eating up their money as I tried and failed again and again to get my life in order that surely it wouldn't be much of a loss, surely in the end it would be a relief.  And my friends?  Well, I wasn't such a great friend anyway, I would be forgotten and replaced in no time.  I was worthless, a burden to anyone who came in contact with me.  The white, on the other hand, looked so much harder:  struggling to keep up a facade of normalcy, that everything was okay, searching for happiness that always seemed to elude my grasp, feeling like a constant burden on those I loved most because no matter how hard I tried, I could never quite overcome the darkness.  It simply wasn't worth it.

So I chose the easier path for myself, the path that seemed inevitable in the long run, I chose the black.  But before I could begin to figure out how I was going to end it all, I received the letter, the letter telling me that I had been chosen as a test subject for Doctor Elizabeth Wingerd’s greatest invention, The Transformer.  Everyone had heard about it, I’m sure you have as well, if nothing else you’re familiar with the name.  And what a ridiculous name it was!  Jokes were constantly flying around that it would turn people into autobots or decepticons, but in truth there was nothing funny about what it did.  As you likely know, it was called The Transformer because it literally transformed people, or rather the serum Doctor Wingerd had developed transformed people, though for it to work a person had to be in the specialized pod that had been dubbed The Transformer.  The serum itself was simply called the NB-000, NB for New Beginnings and the zeroes because, well, it’s the beginning number.

When people had initially heard about Doctor Wingerd’s work, everyone laughed.  She had the idea to somehow find a way to completely change a human being, not just on the surface, you could get plastic surgery for that, but right down to a person’s DNA, to basically completely rewrite them.  The idea was ridiculous, or at least that’s what people thought and said until she actually succeeded.  Fifteen years after sharing her idea with the general public and enduring fifteen years of ridicule and countless setbacks, she got her invention cleared for human testing.

And that’s where I come in.  After getting her approval for testing, Doctor Wingerd sent out a world-wide message encouraging people to apply for one of the three hundred test subject positions.  Not one to pass up the opportunity to change myself, I sent in my application with all my information:  name, address, height, weight, etc.  I never believed I would actually get in though.  Millions of people had sent in their own applications and I had never been what I would consider a lucky person.  But somehow, out of all those people, I was one of the chosen.

The letter was very straightforward.  I was to report to the New Beginnings Research Center in New York City in three short weeks.  I didn't need to bring anything with me, all of my needs would be taken care of there.  I would stay at the facility for 6 months undergoing various tests and checks to ensure that everything was working properly and that the transformation was permanent and there was no instability in my DNA.  I would continue to be monitored from home for the next year during which time I would go about my life as normal save for weekly e-mails I would have to send them about my overall health and bi-monthly trips back to the center for more tests.  Provided nothing terrible happened, after that year I would go back to my life a completely new person and a second round of testing would commence.

I was sitting at the kitchen table staring blankly out the window when my parents got home from work.  I hadn't told them that I had applied as a subject.  Honestly, I hadn't told them about any of the things going on in my life.  I had a bad habit of doing that, of keeping things to myself until there was no choice but to spill my guts.  I hated myself for that.  But soon, I reminded myself, I wouldn't have to worry about that anymore, I could change that.  First though, I had to break the news to my parents.

The conversation that followed during dinner was not exactly pleasant.  My parents weren't totally thrilled at the idea of me being a test subject nor were they pleased at the news that I had basically already failed the semester at school.  They told me that I didn't need to change my DNA or my personality or anything, I just needed to motivate myself.  I didn't know how to tell them that no matter how hard I worked to motivate myself, I just couldn't do it.  I couldn't describe to them how I felt, but I was able to convince them that it was something I needed to do for me.  They agreed to pay for my plane ticket, but still encouraged me to reconsider.

As I lay in bed that night, still wide awake at three in the morning as usual, I let myself dare to dream, just a little, about what the future might hold, about how this experience might alter my whole future.  I read my letter for the umpteenth time, smiling slightly.  For the first time in what felt like ages, my life was beginning to look up.  Everything was about to change.

(Disclaimer:  I am not a science or medical geek or know-it-all, so I am well aware that parts of my book here are going to be outside the realm of possibility.  I have done what research I can to make it as authentic as possible, but due to the nature of my story, many of the science and medical aspects are going to be impossible.  I hope you'll be able to ignore those shortcomings and just enjoy the story for what it is.)