"How much time!?" Barry couldn't believe the words he had just heard from his father.
"As I said, Barry... After you got struck by the lightning during the assault on Queen Consolidate, you hit a shelf head-on, honestly, I wasn't even sure if you would wake up after that... 1 year is actually much less time than most would usually take I believe." Henry smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "If anything we should thank the star labs, without them, it could have taken even more time."
"Why? What do they have to do with this?"
"Barry, there was something wrong with you, every time your heart stopped, the whole hospital had a blackout, we had to isolate the energy of your room to prevent issues in other rooms, and you had so many of them in months, it was only after she came that we had some progress."
"She?"
Henry sighed and stood up. "I think she would prefer to introduce herself, anyway, the nurses will bring your clothes, I called you a taxi, it will arrive shortly, if you do wanna know her, she said that she works on S.T.A.R. Labs and that you only had to give your name to the receptionist, good luck out there, slugger."
Barry shook his head and lay down on the bed, he couldn't even think how he would put his life back on the tracks, he was now a whole year behind James, Iris, and his former classmates, and now, he felt a complete stranger in this world, why didn't he had all of his memories?
How come he didn't notice that extremely giant gap on them? Could this be similar to amnesia? Forget something to the point you didn't even know it existed? The problem is... how will this affect his life now, he can't just pretend he was the same weak boy with a hero complex of before, he did save many in his previous life and that did earn him a nickname related to that, but he wasn't a hero, there was blood on his hand, he saw people dying more than once, and all he did before now felt so stupid.
He did like Iris, but now he had another point of view, one that went further and beyond from the previous him, in fact, he had yet to overcome Irine's death, and with everything that happened previously, he feels lost, because not even revenge is possible, and that means, Eugene got away too easily, way too easily.
"Damn it!" He shouted in a spike of rage, and something incredible suddenly happened, from the corner of his eyes he noticed how a nurse suddenly slipped and was about to let fall a plate with pills, but then she and everything she carried stopped mid-air.
"W-what?"
One, two, three... three seconds and then everything went back to normal, she fell on the ground and her things fell with her.
He blinked and his mind went black for a moment, just what the hell happened?
"Wait! This is like..."
The lightning, the robber, it happened as well that day... it is... super-speed?
[/\]
Barry left the taxi and looked towards the entrance of the building, above the doors, the words 'S.T.A.R. Labs' was written. Before he could even step inside, people started to run out of the building.
"RUN! RUN!"
"CALL THE POLICE!"
"What!?" Barry stood there without understanding as the people desperately fled from the building, suddenly the ground started to shake and the doors were completely crushed as a four meters tall gorilla came from within.
"AAGGGH!" The gorilla roared and plucked a light pole from the ground as if it was nothing. He waved the pole and threw it at the person nearest him, a woman with reddish-blonde hair.
Barry moved mostly by instinct when he saw what was about to happen, he just put one foot in front of the other, and when he noticed what had happened, he was already carrying the woman and had stopped behind the gorilla.
"Wow!" The woman panted as she held on to Barry's arm, she adjusted her glasses and gulped as she looked at him. "Wait! It's you! Barry Allen!"
"Do I know-" Before Barry could finish his words someone punched him so hard he flew almost 15 meters and only stopped because he hit a table.
"BARRY!" The woman cried!
"GRODD!" The gorilla puffed up his chest and started hitting it with both hands as he gave the boy an enraged gaze.
"Grodd, you have to stop this madness!"
"GRODD. WANT. REVENGE!" The gorilla shouted and ran away.
Seeing she had no way to stop him, the woman turned away and ran towards Barry, after checking his pulse and making sure he was still alive, she called out a number on her cellphone and in just a minute, a few people appeared to put him in a hospital stretcher and took him inside.
When he finally woke up, he was inside a room without much details to it, the walls were a mix of grey on top and blue below, with a bed, table, chairs, and a television.
Just as he sat up, someone opened the door, it was a woman with very white skin, so much so that she looked like a cosplay of snow-white, her sleek hair was light-gray and shaved on the left with most of it pulled to the right and her eyes blue like ice, it could have been his imagination, but he was pretty sure he saw white mist coming out of her mouth.
"You're the guy Morgan helped huh... You're pretty lucky, I had to fix my problems on my own. Get up, she is waiting for you in the lab."
"Where... am I? What happened?" Barry touched his arm as he felt a throbbing pain coming from it.
"Look, I really have better things to do, can we please go? You can ask her whatever you want."
Barry's eyebrows twitched for a second, but he stood up and followed her through the corridors.
They walked past many people, most of them were wearing lab coats just like her, and they all had an id card hanging on their chest, meaning they all worked for S.T.A.R. Labs, along the way he noticed how everyone avoided the woman leading him.
"Not very popular, are you?"
"Being popular means being just another sheep, I don't have to be liked by them, it wouldn't matter and I don't care about that."
Barry gulped. "I see why they avoid you, the temperature is the problem."
She stopped and looked at him with a frown before slowly opening her mouth and sarcastically say. "Ha, ha, ha, so funny, as if no one had said this one before."
After walking a little bit more, they stopped in front of a door where she had to touch a panel on the left that scanned her hand.
"Well, it's just as they say, isn't it? A colden key can open any door."
"Pfft..." The woman was about to start laughing, but she controlled herself and gave him a very enrage look. "Are you done with the jokes?"
"I may have a few other ones up my sleeves."
"Then keep it for yourself." She smiled and watched as Barry entered the lab that closed behind him after she went inside as well.
The place was huge, tools, computers, holograms, there was so much advanced stuff in here, he felt he had just arrived in the future.
"Ah, welcome Barry Allen, or should I call you Bartholomew?" The same woman from before approached him while the cold one that led him here sat down on a workstation and started typing on a keyboard.
"You are?"
"Oh, I forgot to introduce myself, you probably heard of me already, Tess Morgan, head of Central city's branch of S.T.A.R. Labs, and the head behind the revolutionary particle accelerator."
Barry nodded after hearing her name, it was true, he did know her, the newspapers would eventually bring up her name whenever a new advancement towards her work of creating the new particle accelerator happened, she was a very talented scientist who became part of the 'Star family' 11 years ago, when her husband disappeared during an expedition at the Arctic.
"My father said you're the reason I have... woke up, and..."
"You wanted to know more, isn't it?" She smiled. "Barry, you're an extraordinary person, and what I saw today makes that even clear."
"I don't... I'm not sure what you're talking about..." Barry gulped and avoided her eyes.
"Really? You were so comfortable making jokes and now you're afraid of admitting what happened earlier? Morgan can say whatever she wants, but you aren't that special." The cold woman took the hot coffee in a plastic cup on her table and after a second, the mist coming out of it stopped and she dropped the thing on the floor, cracking it into dozen of pieces.
"You... how did you...?" Barry blinked his eyes and gasped, did she just froze the thing? And it was pretty much instantly!
"Dr. Snow, please he's just a kid, you don't have to be so hard on him." Morgan looked at her and shook her head.
"He was the one messing around... I was just showing him a trick." Dr. Snow smiled and went back to her work.
"So Barry, I'm sure you have many questions," Morgan spoke as she led him to a table where there were some cookies.
"Now? Haha, just... tell me what's going on."
"Well, Barry, you may not believe me, but I hope you can understand given the recent situations, that you aren't a common human." She started, her words making Barry nod but there was still doubt in his mind. "Some years ago many super-powered individuals started to shake the world publicly, these kind of people aren't something new, we have stories about others that goes back thousands of years, but ones like the Superman or Wonderwoman are pretty recent.
"Take Dr. Caitlyn Snow as an example, she was once like you, a normal person, until an accident with ice, ever since she is like that..."
Caitlyn shook her head and groaned. "Don't refer to me as if I was a thing, if anything you should call me Killer Frost!" She complained before going back to her work.
"Well, as you have already seen, her ability allows her to freeze anything, as for yours..."
"Super-speed..."
Barry sighed and leaned his back on the chair, he could comprehend that he was now different, but how come lightning made him super-fast when he was pretty sure most people hit by lightning end up becoming charcoal.
"I don't understand, Dr. Morgan, how can lightning make me fast?"
"We're not sure, there are some theories, but nothing concrete yet, especially because we only had the opportunity to test two individuals. Killer Frost, and Firestorm."
"Who's the latter?" Barry asked confused, only to hear the annoying reply of Caitlyn Snow.
"He was a guy I hunt down for a year I think, or should I say, two guys?" Caitlyn thought for a moment but dismissed the question, leaving Barry with an interrogation mark above his head.
Morgan smiled and lowered her head. "We believe there's something in the human DNA that when stressed out by an external source enough, it will retain some characteristics of the agent and will change our bodies molecular structure. And if it happens naturally there's no way to tell what exactly will change. You, Caitlyn, and Firestorm are an example of the first, an external source caused this change to you."
"Okay..." Barry nodded. "I understand this, but why did you ask me to come?"
"You see, no matter if it was Caitlyn or Firestorm, both had many problems in the beginning because those change affected their bodies in ways no one could've predicted, I called you here because although you have super speed, we can't be sure if this doesn't affect you negatively as well, you could be aging faster, your metabolism could be out of balance, we know for sure that there isn't a single machine capable of registering your heart rate."
"So you want me to be your lab rat?" Barry raised an eyebrow as he asked suspiciously.
"Calm down kid, she ain't gonna bite you, she is too kind to use your problems against you, trust me, before her, I was pretty much digging up graves every time someone tried to use me."
"I have to think about this..." Barry stood up and went to the door.
Morgan sighed and went after him, after she opened and led him out of the lab she stopped him for a moment and said.
"Barry, if anything, do know that you can always ask for help, we humans weren't made to take on the world alone, if anything happens, just give me a call." She patted him on the shoulder and gave him her card.
"Thanks." Barry was about to leave but she grabbed his arm and quickly said.
"Oh, and Barry, I think Grodd may remember you for trying to protect me, he's still out there, so make sure to be careful, if you see him, call the police. Got it?"
"Got it."
Barry sighed and looked towards the street for a moment, it all felt like he was dreaming.