Johnathon Carver awoke with a sharp pain in his temple, something felt different today. He rolled over in an attempt to fall back asleep, but the throbbing pain in his head kept him from doing so. He gave up and looked over at his alarm clock. 3 A.M. Dammit. Gently getting out of bed, trying to avoid provoking what he thought was just an exceptionally bad headache. He slowly walked to his bathroom and hoped a hot shower and maybe some tea would help quell it. 1 hour later. it didn't. With work still several hours away, and it being 4 a.m. Jonathon decided to drive down to a coffee shop, hoping a caffeine laden beverage and some rolls would give him a better start to his day. His head felt worse but at the same time he felt more focused, it was difficult to explain. On the highway he was cut off by someone in a red SUV, there were three other cars on the highway, Johnathon thought, why the hell would she do that. She was now going exactly 73 kilometers per hour. He was going 76 the entire town. Now she was slowing him down, who in their right mind does things like this. He could have tailated her, flashed his lights, honked maybe, but that would only serve to irritate her. Nothing good or productive could come from it. He pulled off and headed for his favorite shop. Only 4:30 and almost all of the spots in the lot were already taken, he finnaly found a spot near the back next to a BMW that had taken up three. Marveling at the talent it must have taken to be that much of an ass, he headed in. Everything around him seemed to be moving in slow motion at this point, and the pain in his head felt almost invigorating. It was almost as if something were being slowly pulled from his head. A man opened the door and held it open for Johnathon in as he went inside, the man looked like he had dressed in a hurry that morning. He had 12 noticable creases on his shirt, 5 on his dress pants, and he had 73 hairs out of place. Had he just counted all of that in his brain in less than the time it had taken him to get through the door, everything else seemed slower, or was he faster? "Thank you," he said to the man, "you welcome," The man said back slowly. 'You welcome?' Johnathon thought, must be a bit slow, bless the poor guy. He asked the woman at the counter for a plain coffee with sugar, no cream, and a croissant. "That will be all for you, sir yes?" She replied in a strange accent. Damn foreigners, he thought, and replied "yes please," with a smile. "Dat is.... ummmm." The barista stared at the cash register for what seemed like minutes, "five dollar and seventy three cents please." He ran his card and wondered if he had wondered into the "special" coffee shop. "Carver?" someone behind him yelled. Some people still don't understand how inside voices work, he thought. He turned and saw his boss, the VP of franchise merchandising, Larry. Jonathon wasn't a big fan of him, but he was a bright man. "Ah Larry, I didn't know you came here, how are you?" "Cheese pizza, laundry fries!" Larry exclaimed. What? A couple sitting in the corner chatting started laughing, one of them spit coffee all over the other. A grown man in a suit was sitting at a table scribbling in what seemed like a coloring book. Everyone seemed to be talking in gibberish. Everything around him movingly slowly, nothing made sense, it felt like he was dropped in the loony bin. "Ding fries are done!" The barrista yelled placing his coffee on the counter. The pain in his head was worse than ever, he sat there wondering what he had done to deserve this. Was this a cruel joke, or was he going insane? His legs stopped working, he couldn't breath, he fell too his knees. No one seemed to notice, everything was in slow motion. And suddenly all was black. Johnathon Carver was pronounced dead at the scene 7 minutes later. He had died of an aneurysm, screaming gibberish for 3 minutes prior to him collapsing. He woke up in a strange pod. James Bertrum sat behind the glass, hopeful that this one was a success. Johnathon Carver, known also as Subject 0013, sat up with a scream. He became less optimistic. James spoke to him over the intercom. "Johnathon Carver, can you hear me. He stared at the speaker. Then directly at me, through the one way glass. Eyes wide he yelled "you're a pawn, you're not real I'm not real. We are all one. We are death, the destroyer of worlds, and we will escape." He started screaming at the top of his lungs, James started to as well. A world away, everyone began to scream as though an inner rage had been released upon everyone on Earth. I turned away from the screen and yelled "cut it, increase the miracle serum by 500 mL." "Tyrael!" a commanding voice spoke behind me. "How much longer can we keep this up?" I turned and looked Invictus dead in the eyes. "I don't know," he sighed, "but we can't kill it, this is the best we can do." I turned and looked through the observation window at the monstrosity that lay behind it. We can seperate it into billions of separate personalities, all fighting each other. But it still gets closer and closer to regaining control of itself "I'm taking my break, keep an eye on it." Invictus replied with a grunt as I walked to the break room. Five hundred of us working around the clock and still we can't keep him down, I sighed to myself. I plopped down on one of the gray couches, settling into the uncomfortably hard cushions I slowly faded out of consciousness. I awoke an hour later to one of my workers. "Sir we need you, the defense minister needs updates on our progress." "Of course," I muttered and rubbed my eyes. I felt a sharp pain behind my temple, I needed a coffee. "Notify him that I'll be there momentarily." "Right away sir," He responded rather slowly.

My first post here, and didn't have a lot of time to proofread. Please be gentle.