Chapter 1: Hydrogen Pt. 2

She could not contain the strongly mixed feelings anymore..

...and closed her eyes shut hoping time would freeze..

The Five could hardly believe their eyes. "Does he have a deathwish?", some of them murmured. The rest of the team including Captain Frederick were rendered immobile and speechless but Daphne was exhibiting a different reaction altogether. Tears started to build up in her oceanic blue eyes, crystallizing the reflection of stars and moonlight of the night sky. The rising hydro pressure formed a stream down her rosy cheeks, as she witnessed Dexter leaving the scene in a slow-motion disbelief and heartbreak. 

"Hh..Hhh..hhh..How could he..." stuttered both her upper and lower glossy lips. 

She was unsure whether the stutter and shivers was caused by the night's frigid atmosphere, or due to the emotional turbulence currently blasting her heart inside out...or both.

 Seconds later, they could hear the sound of shattering glasses followed by a loud scream of agony from a quarter mile away. It was so loud, it almost matches the audible magnitude of The Horn of Apocalypse, The Doomsday Trumpet with a soul-crushing effect to anyone who is unfortunate enough to hear it.

        

At first, cracks started to form on the glass window, centering at the initial contact point...

...next thing he know, he broke his way through the glass at supersonic speed.

At a distant vision range, gazillion tiny pieces of sands and silicon mixed with synthetic polymer to strengthen the structure, were flying around his body...which begs the question, how on earth did the military-standard bulletproof glass managed to be shattered in the first place? An impregnable shield able to withstand gunshots was penetrated single-handedly by a mere mortal? Sounds implausible from a rational mind's perspective, but not to Dexter who by a lucky strike, has a convenient trick up his sleeve, literally. The answer, surprisingly, lies with the particular hand of Dexter's that was holding the fountain blue liquid. The strange liquid aside, his left hand is no ordinary hand...far from it. It's a prosthetic limb he developed and designed himself after losing his arm in a tragic bike accident in 2006.

Dexter's prosthetic left arm

Still airborne, he was rolling uncontrollably until he landed on top of an office desk, then to the floor, but not before he wreaked havoc the initial positions of all items on the table from neatly-arranged documents, files, stationery, a company's executive laptop with the company's logo behind it, a coffee mug, a coffee maker and a few other personal belongings. The series of kinetic movements however, came to a ceasefire when he was finally stationary. Technically speaking, a successful landing of a commercial flight on the airfield of an airport is an acceptable comparison to his spontaneous man-made meteor impact.

Though the impact of the semi-elastic collision was both excruciating and unbearable to Dexter, a small part of his primal human spirit was glad that he's still alive and breathing. For a split second, he thought he would not make it, and yet he did. Several exchanges of rapid inhalation and exhalation which sounded almost like a sigh of relief took place in that room. His body is initiating homeostasis - the regulating of internal factors to stabilize his internal body environment - heat level, pH or specifically in this case, blood oxygen level, one that he lacked severely. Exhausted by all the attempts that he had made to survive, he was gasping for air as if he was suffocated. Normally after a while, at this rate, a normal person would have regained the default consciousness level...But the more he breathe, the more he realized that his vision and surrounding were starting to dim and get blurry. "Ughhh...what the hell is going on?"

His head felt spinning like a drunken sailor. As if the light betrayed him that night, he slowly blacked out and fainted on the floor...enveloped by the horrific pool of his own blood. He of all people knew that blood loss from gunshot wounds are not to be taken lightly. Dexter could feel his heartbeat was getting weaker by the moment. Is this it? Has he reached his inevitable end? Has The Reaper's lethal scythe finally touched his soul? At this point his consciousness started to wander...away from his mortal mass. He could easily relate it to The Dementor sucking away Harry's life essence in one of the famous Harry Potter movies he loved so much. Only this time, The Dementor is Death himself. Now that he thinks about it, this whole night has been a realization of the famous Android game, Running Fred. It's funny how much one's mind could have drifted off in an NDE (Near-Death Experience).

It wasn't just sheer luck and coincidence. Fate was what brought him there that night. Written in the heavens, it sure has its own mysterious way of revealing its twisted web of destiny to mankind. When Dex sent himself flying into the building, little did he know that the building he was in, was in fact, a secret lab for illegal human experimentation owned by Van Usrah Pharmaceuticals-the second largest international legal drugs and medical supplier whose CEO (Chief Executive Officer), is none other than his lab partner in Harvard, Dr. Shamil Van Usrah who also happens to be the secretary of WHO (World Health Organization) under UN (United Nations). He had always knew that at some unknown junction in his life, they will cross path again. Lady Fate has written on the pages of her dusty ancient book, and as she would put it, their destiny would sooner or later, be intertwined. Whether or not that day is today, is still unknown.

At this point of chronos, memories started to resurface and his entire life was flashing before his eyes...

ELEMENTAL: Formula

Book Cover

Chapter 1: Hydrogen

In 1981, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, a British Biochemist, in his book A New Science of Life proposed the theory of morphic units and morphic resonance which later on gave birth to an interesting yet untested hypothesis called morphogenetic field. After millions of dollars were spent and decades of R&D (Research and Development), the International Scientific Community finally declared his research a dead end mostly due to not meeting the standard protocols and to quote the ISC Chairman, showing no financial potential in the long run. His research, together with his lab in Harvard was abandoned. He later on accepted the university's offer to undertake an empty position as a professor in genetic engineering for his unmatched expertise in the matter. As genius as he is, once dubbed the next Einstein in the field of Biochemistry, he had no clue that his research was being continued and carried out by none other than his two brightest and most talented students. One of which holds the key to global peace while the other, well, the harbinger of catastrophe.
    .............................................................................................

     As he ran away from them at a pace approaching light-speed, the synapses intersections inside his neural system of his agile and brilliant mind began to understand everything...every single event, every incident both coincidental and planned that got mixed up with the forces of nature in the past. The still-active grey matter that resides within his cognitive cerebral cortex have finally managed to connect the dots and lines of the eternal enigma he was trying to unveil and uncover since childbirth. Now that all the puzzle pieces have fallen to their designated places, he knows what his next move will be, and how he should carry it. No amount of doubts, nor painful obstacles can stop him now. He feels invincible. The fact that he has got everything he needed inside his hands, is the ultimate reason he's able to repel fear this time around. He momentarily looked at the tiny and specially designed side-mirror, extended just milimeters away at the right side of his Spy-tacle scanner eyepiece, a gadget he invented for the sole purpose of saving his life and assist him in eluding the grim reaper known as Death.

                                                          
He could see vividly the silhouettes of five of the most valuable agents (MVPs / MVAs) in the espionage division of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in his night-vision mode- those of which he used to work with and call colleagues- still chasing him down towards the end of the rooftop, or the end of the world if it's the last thing to do. He's still perspiring, more and more as time passes, up till a point where extreme lethargicity kicks in. His right hand is holding some documents of utmost importance tightly, one could say he's squeezing them, while a small sized cylindrical vial which contains a peculiar blue liquid is on his left. No doubt, those two items are what got him stuck in this ginormous mess.

Through the lenses of his night vision mode, he frantically looked for an escape route hoping he would get lucky, only to find that the adjacent building was 10 meters away from the edge of this one. Not to mention, the rooftop he's currently speeding on is on the 100th floor!

"Dammit...I'm totally screwed" he thought.
"Please Dex, stop!!!" shouted his former partner, and lover, Daphne Daffodills.

He recognized that smooth and soothing voice anywhere, anytime, even without looking..As the vibration of the familiar sound echoed via the compression and expansion of the air molecules, captured by both his eardrums in the form of transverse wave, it sends chills down his spine..Oh how he missed that voice. But the thought of betrayal and breach of trust wiped out all the feelings he once had for her at that exact moment. As he approached the edge of the building, as if nearing the edge of a cliff, his senses were suddenly amplified. Perhaps it was due to the fact that in the chilly air felt dancing on his skin, there was an abrupt silence, like dead and deadly silence. Just like the absence of sound, there was also a sudden inexplicable pain that he felt on his lower body. His left leg felt numb, while his right leg bled so much that his pants were soaked wet in red, in less than a blink of an eye. Apparently he was shot by the captain of his team, Capt. Frederick Anderson.

"Halt, or I swear to God I'll shoot again Dex. You've got nowhere left to run!"

His captain wasn't joking. There was not enough ground or surface for him to run in the current vector and direction he's moving. If he is wise, he'll reduce his momentum till the friction force bring him to a natural stopping point. Dexter was left with no option. His right leg was disabled due to a metallic bullet tearing his internal muscles at 85 degree Celcius, 300kmph, while his right leg was rendered useless due to the high amount of lactic acid build up from muscle exhaustion (which occur once a person enters anaerobic respiration cycle). Just like everything else, human's muscular system does have limitations. Logic dictates that he shouldn't be moving forward anymore at this point, but hey, screw logic. To paraphrase Einstein, miracles happen to those who believe. He suddenly felt an Adrenaline rush throughout his body- a prehistoric trigger since the ancient times that allows mankind to overcome physical limitations for survival...it's what makes a mother able to stop a moving car with her bare hands to save her child from being hit, or a fireman running in flames out of a fiery building to save an old lady...superhuman in seconds.

Thought of as a rogue agent, Dexter fled away...

At last, he reached the end of all possible foothold of the rooftop. Driven by fear, and with the knowledge that he has altophobia, he just wished that he could defy the very law of gravity at that moment, so that his skull wouldn't be crushed by his own body mass when he hits the ground with gravitational acceleration-the same impact of being hit by an F1 racecar driven at 900kmph!

"Oh gravity, thou art a bitch..." he whispered silently.

His eyes and frontal lobe however, did not give up easily and tried to run and calculate every possible action, reaction, possibilities and options he has left...in a real life or death situation. And apparently, the result of those two vital organs of his, joining forces in a tag team was not disappointing. His eyes quickly caught the glimpse and sight of the building located at a distance of five medium vehicles in front of him, while his grey cells have already been assigned the task of calculating the trajectory and parameters of his jump which would follow the laws of projectile motion in Physics 101-the exact point where he will end up landing (or hitting) the skyscraper covered with thick layer of industrial-strength glass, and the amount of force generated by his momentum that is required to break it. Using all the strength and courage left, or the remaining amount that he could summon, he kicked the ground as hard and fast as he could- he made and took a giant leap of faith in the middle of the night air like a black raven soaring in the sky. Nothing could stop him, not the air friction nor fear of dying there and then.

for a second, he truly believed he could fly

Title Found! :D

Hey Guys! After weeks of soul-searching for my script-writing project, i have finally found the most suitable title of my new book...Ladies, and Gentlemen, I'm proud to present to you, ELEMENTAL! :D This is the official start of my writing career! May this be the turning point and a stepping stone for my glorious love towards English language and literature in general. The Genre? Why don't you guess...fine, it's a lil mix of science fiction, historical events, fantasy, action, and mystery...or whatever wild imagination and ideas that comes across my mind..I guess I grow up being overly exposed to SciFi movies and TV Series which I love so much, which explains my tendency to use scientific terms and approach..not to mention being a science-stream student once..the reason behind the name is simply because, life is made of infinite elements...soon enough, you'll understand why..trust me. Hope you enjoy reading it. XOXO :D
-Shamil-

New Series...coming soon...

I'm thinking of starting to write a story, more like a fiction...the piece of writing (screenplay, fake autobiography...call it whatever you want) will be updated occasionally by chapters and volumes. Not to say that I aspire to be the next J.K Rowling or anything, just to fill my pastime. Kinda like my personal project for the whole year, since I won't be using a lot of English this year. This is to prevent my linguistic prowess from deteriorating, but primarily because I have a wild imagination and nowhere to channel it into :) Once I find a suitable title, I'll start right away and will let you know...toodles! ;)

99 questions, 1 answer, and infinite random ramblings...

Hi...it’s been a while. My apology for not writing for so long...to my friend Aliah (also known as ‘Dalia’ nowadays...hahaha :D), sorry that this piece of writing took almost 2 weeks to be published.  Well, my laptop is still broken, so i don’t really have any other electronic devices to type my entry. What a mess. But now that Naim’s in da house (yeah, you heard me right...he’s home), it’s a Full House back again in the Zulkipli-Zainiah residence! Woohoo! So under his courtesy, i get to use his laptop till 20^th February which the last day of his holiday. Thanks a lot bro.

doubts???

possibilities???

Also, not writing for so long, it has something to do with being generally hated right now. But i figured since quite a few moons has passed already, now that the hatred has somewhat subsided (i assume), i can continue writing back! J To rationalize the topic at hand, have you ever noticed that sometimes (in my case, most of the time), questions are more powerful than answers? Contrary to what answers do which is providing us comfort and self-pleasure in knowing, a simple question on the other hand possesses the ability to cause doubts, breed possibilities and not to mention, amplifies curiosity. We seek answers all our entire life-what were we born for, how are we going to survive, how to solve this, how to get that. The ones I keep asking myself are like, “Why me?”, “What have I done?”, or “How could I be so studid?”..Once we find the answer to our questions, we indirectly find happiness. Thus we make decisions and choices in life, and the choices that we make define who we are. We observe, and we perceive. Our perception which are mostly based on our observation up to the present time, defines the truth, a.k.a facts...and we label them reality. But consider this for a moment...what if the reality that we believed in so much is actually wrong? What if the truth is actually different from what we believe in? Let me give you one simple example. A decade ago, Pluto is still considered as a planet (I still remember a page from my childhood primary school science textbook which support this argument)...however, in the late years of last decade, the International Astronomical Unit has voted to exclude Pluto from planetary body status, and now we only have planets from Mercury to Neptune in our solar system...haha..still can’t get rid of the habit of talking bout science and stuffs.my bad...my bad...

My point is, get the whole truth and double confirm it before you judge. I guess “Cest la vie” - it means “that’s life” in Spanish. It is so full of questions that the journey to seek for an answer seems like it’s taking forever, as if we’re making no progress at all. I have came across numerous life metaphors...the most cliché among them is like “life’s like a wheel-sometimes you’re up,sometimes you’re down”...they always say this in Malay drama...pfft...can you believe it? But to me personally, i think life is both an experiment and a game. It’s an experiment because it has a goal and purpose-an objective. There are just way too many variables involved, actions and reactions to be expected, forces to deal with and be dealt by, and at the end of our lives, we draw a concrete conclusion to sum it all up. And being a person who loves video games so much, I of all people can see the symbolic representation of life in game. Of course, you can cheat your way out in a game, you know  like infinite health or all weapons unlock in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The only difference is, in life, we play to win no matter what the cost, but don’t expect to get away with everything every now and then. Though it’s a serious game, i took it lightly...which led me to a catastrophic disaster. This is my story, and that is how this chapter begins...

A tragedy befell me quite some time ago...due to my own stupidity, immaturity and being selfish for a second.  What I did was definitely wrong, no argument from anyone can change the fact otherwise. I wasn’t thinking straight and took matters into my own hands. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that I have a certain disregard for the law...okay, maybe not to the level of a supervillain or a convict, but i do wear jeans to class (black to be precise, but most people didn’t notice :P)  For the first time ever, I experienced a gianormous amount of agony, pain, regret and anger towards myself, all at the same moment in a split second. It all happened too fast, and it was unbearable.

But that was then, now’s a whole new chapter is about to begin. Though i had to learn it the hard way, I can safely say here that i’ve learnt my lesson well. The unbelievably long holiday created a window of opportunity for me to actually consider what have happened so far. I really gave them a very deep thought as if my thoughts are like a bottomless abyss. There was once, in a single moment that i thought “maybe i am a bad person after all, maybe  there’s really nothing good left inside me, and that is particularly why i’m being punished with all these”. 1 year suspension-that is the price that i’m paying for my crime in cash. But then, a thought came to mind...i suddenly recalled a line from a Harry Potter movie, HP and The Order of Phoenix...Harry said that maybe he is a bad person, maybe he is becoming Lord Voldemort but Sirius Black convinced him with something like this "You are not a bad person, you're a good person who bad things have happened to". That particular line gave me a wake up call. Frankly, I can continue to feel sorry for myself, and let the anger, hatred, disappointment consume me and drag me down into the darkness again. But the cognitive side of my head told me otherwise-that i should not let something bad that happened to me be a barrier or obstacle for me from achieving greatness in life. '11 might not be all "bed of roses", surely there be hiccups along the way...but that's no reason to stop 2012 from being awesome...i feel like rocking the Year of Dragon! :D

Dragon Rocks!

Perhaps there are silver linings around the clouds that i have encountered so far after all. People say that there’s always two sides of a coin, same goes with a story. It’s all boil down to a single thing- a change of perspective. Well, one way to look at it is as a form of punishment..but another way look at it is as a window of opportunity. 1^st, i’ve been given a chance to work my ass off for an actual job! I can temporarily enter the workforce and get some nice handsomely-paid salary instead of allowance to be spent...ain’t that just cool or what! 2^nd-ly, I get to spend more time with my family-especially my little brother Naim which i can hardly see nowadays and my parents whom i love so much. 3^rd, this occurrence have created an opportunity for me to do the things i’ve always wanted to do, which due to the restrictions as a student, made me unable to do them previously...like travel the world (not really planning to go overseas cause you know, i don’t have a passport yet and all...pfft), go sightseeing...basically adventure and fun and stuffs. This country (Malaysia, not America) has lots to offer and wide selection of places of interest...this might just be the break that i’ve always needed from all the studies that i have done or the academic pressure that i have felt so far as a student (which sometimes makes me wanna kill myself literally)

..kind of a sweet escape from all the assignments, datelines, exams, studying, files and folders don’t you think? Boy you have no idea how terrifying those things are to people like me J

But of course there’s a downside to it. To be frank, I miss my classmates and my close friends a lot. When i say a lot, i mean it in a way that is incomparable to the normal condition when you miss someone. Like it has been a lifetime since i last met them. Not because of loneliness or solitude, but because i have grown some sort of liking and deep personal attachment to these people in the 1.5 years duration that i’ve known them-which i can not literally describe in words. I like them a lot...why? Because they rock! I don’t think I will be able to find the same set of friends with the same level of craziness, kindheartedness and creativity. That’s what makes them so special and irreplaceable to me. By ‘they’, i mean all my favourite and beloved lecturers as well. God bless them all. Amen J

*sound effect-party rock anthem by LMFAO*

All of them was very kind to me, they’ve helped me countless times during my PPISMP years (for those of you who are not familiar with this term, replace it with foundation programme/years). I’m not exaggerating when i say i would not have passed my foundation with the result that i got if not because of them. Those who are close to me might know some of my famous traits as a student-handing in assignment late (or probably last minute work), plagiarism...groupwork is my favourite, it’s a pleasure working with my them. Thus, i would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize to all my classmates...being the eldest in the class, i should have set a good example and be a role model to all...but i did not. Instead, I brought shame, been a disappointment and inflicted pain and damages to the people that i care so much about. To my family especially my parents, I know I’ve been the black sheep for quite some time now. Looking at my little brother Naim, I can’t help but thinking that he should be the ideal big brother instead of me. I mean, why the hell not? He’s super-smart (more like brainiac genius), kind, athletic, and most of all, he has the ‘Damon Salvatore’ charm no chicks and gals can resist. Haha. But i promise this-from this point onwards, I will be your source of pride instead of disappointment, I’ll replace those weeps  of sadness with tears of joy. I’ll make you proud once more.

So, what have I been doing up until now? (Another question) To summarize it in the least number of words possible: Job Hunting! As exciting as it sounds, it took lots of my time and energy- checking out job opportunities geographically and the ones advertised in the printed and electronic media,writing and sending resumes, attending interviews..i’m also helping my mother run her extra classes by lending her an extra hand and teaching assistance. Leisure time? I guess now you can say that I’m a part-time maid at my own house. Fetching/sending Hana to and from school, giving free tuition to Balqis and Ilma ( those are my younger sisters who are standard 5, form 3, and form 5 respectively-2 of them will be facing PMR & SPM this year), do the laundry, do the dishes, cleaning-all sorts of daily household chores in short J

That’s the end of this chapter i guess. It’s now safely imprinted in my memory book of experience, all jammed into a single page. Time to flip a new page, turn over a new chapter of my life, to find the single answer. The journey towards the ending of my book still has a long way...and the rest is still unwritten! I pray everyday that I’ll be a better man in every way, so that i can turn over a new leaf and start over, just like when I first stepped into King Melewar Educator Training Institute. Till next time! ;)

p/s: thanks a bunch for stopping by...stay tuned for more upcoming entries and updates!