Chapter 1

Kelcie woke with a shock. While still somewhat groggy, she frantically inspected the Hazmat suit she was wearing for any rips or tears. Thankfully, everything was still intact. She would have breathed of sigh of relief were it not for the fact that the room she was in was filled with a thick dark smoke.

She was not sure how long she was out. The last thing she remembered was that she was in the lab working with Yoshi, her incompetent scientific counterpart from Japan. Kelcie dreaded working with Yoshi in the laboratory. She thought he had more in common with the video game character of the same name than an actual scientist.

"Yoshi, what happened?" asked Kelcie. "Yoshi?"

Her question was met with dead silence.

Unable to see clearly through the smoke, Kelcie reached around until she found a wall. Tracing the wall with her hand, she made it to the window where she began pounding the glass. THUD! THUD! THUD! Unfortunately, the rapping of her fists was barely audible on the other side of the glass.

Discouraged, Kelcie examined the window frame. Her eyes quickly lit up with excitement. This was the perfect opportunity, she thought. She couldn't pass it up. After all, how many chances could she get?

It was always Kelcie's dream to kick something in, to kick anything in. Although her preference was for kicking in a door, kicking out a window would also suffice. Her dream may have stemmed from the fact that, like a typical scientist, she wanted to justify her relatively large feet, or as she liked to refer to them as her "elegant toes".

Kelcie peered through the thick smoke to see if anyone were watching. A part of her was excited for someone to witness her triumphant accomplishment of attaining one of her lifelong dreams. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of what she thought was Yoshi, but the figure was quickly engulfed by the smoke.

"Yoshi? Is that you? Are you all right?" asked Kelcie again. Like before, there was nothing but silence.

After a brief pause, Kelcie shrugged her shoulders. With a swift thrusting kick, Kelcie’s "elegant toes" made contact with the glass. THUD! Nothing. The window did not budge. Well, Kelcie thought, at least she tried. How many opportunities during the normal course of a day does a scientist get to kick something in?

Before she could even think of an answer to her own question, a pair of arms grabbed her from behind. Kelcie gasped in terror when she turned to see who it was that held a vice-like grip around her. It was Yoshi!

Yoshi's protective mask was sheared, revealing a face that had been burnt and lacerated. In fact, it looked as though something had blown off the entire side of his face as there was a large gaping hole where Yoshi's right cheek used to be. Through the sinews of the flesh that remained, his tongue seemed still intact.

With a dead sunken look, Yoshi uttered a guttural moan before pulling Kelcie deeper into the dark thick smoke.