Bloodwork

BLOODWORK

They found him on their doorstep beneath a light that shouldn't have been there.

A husband and wife are awakened in the middle of the night by a brilliant glow outside their home—and the unmistakable sound of a baby crying. There is no car disappearing down the road. No footprints. No frightened mother hiding in the darkness.

Only an infant.

They raise him as their own, and for years he is the healthiest child imaginable. No colds. No flu. Not even a fever.

Then puberty hits.

His body begins changing in ways no doctor can explain. When physicians finally draw blood, the hospital laboratory sends the sample back with a question:

Is this some kind of joke?

It isn't.

The sample eventually reaches the CDC, and the boy is placed in isolation while scientists struggle to identify something that looks like blood but matches nothing human. Two weeks later, his symptoms mysteriously disappear.

The government's curiosity does not.

One doctor offers a theory nobody wants to say aloud: perhaps the boy isn't suffering from a biological abnormality.

Perhaps he isn't from Earth.

His parents refuse to surrender their son for experimentation, but words like national security have a way of ending arguments. The family is relocated to a government compound where scientists can watch him grow.

Every three years, the symptoms return.

Each time, they are stronger.

Each time, he becomes a little less human.

At eighteen, he makes a simple request.

He wants to leave.

He wants a normal life.

Uncle Sam says no.

That was their first mistake.

Their second was believing the steel doors could hold him.

Somewhere inside that government compound, a frightened young man is about to discover what he really is.

And everyone standing between him and freedom is about to discover it with him.

BLOODWORK

They wanted to know what was in his blood.

They should have left it alone.