Epilogue

“No!” Faust violently jolted out of his dream. The scream had been in his head, part of the nightmare. He looked around frantically before realizing where he was. He was safe. He was free. He was alone in the darkness. But the dream, he knew, the dream had been no dream at all.
 
“No,” the shock of the lingering memories from his sleep quieted the word he meant to yell instead of whisper, “No,” he said again, this time louder but still diminished by shock.
 
The NexHuman lab they had destroyed earlier that day triggered a flood of repressed memories. Slowly at first, the frequency of the memories steadily grew until culminating into the horrible truth revealed in his nightmare.
 
He ran from the room without bothering to dress. He ran to the lab where the DNA samples from NexHuman were stored. He took them out from the storage freezer and read the labels again and again he verified the truth of Sandcrab’s earlier observation; Faust’s DNA was not there.
 
“No!” He yelled. His scream was feral, filled with pain, anguish and guilt. Faust’s eyes lit up and unleashed its plasma energy, blasting the DNA beakers with all the intensity he could muster. The glass containers exploded, some disintegrating with the heat of the energy bolt.
 
The loud explosion woke the others who shortly entered the lab expecting an attack, but instead found Faust kneeling on the floor. Tears running down his cheeks, his face shrouded in horror and disbelief.
 
“Faust! What have you done?” Sandcrab yelled, “those samples could have been the answer! They could have reverted the process! Have you gone mad?!”
 
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed, his expression shifted from horror to shame, “I’m sorry,” he repeated, “it was me.”
 
“What was you? Why would you do this?” Sandcrab reiterated his question while the others looked on in shock and apparent disapproval.
 
“That’s why they wanted me; that’s why they hunted me. That’s why my DNA was not with the samples. That’s why they kidnapped Adam to get to me!” His voice growing stronger and more feral when he named Adam. The memory of the boy disintegrating in front of him still raw.
 
“Don’t you see? It was me! It was my DNA! It was my DNA that they used as the bonding agent to unite the DNA strains together. My mimicking ability allowed them to make it all possible! This is all my fault!”