Teen Ink

Preface

All around them things were exploding. Test tubes filled with days worth of decoding, boxes stacked full of test results, incubators that used to be home to thousands of children, but now lay empty. This was their lives work, now being destroyed in minutes.
The two scientists looked down at the two year old who would now hold the restoration of mankind on her shoulders. This tiny child, Rapunzel they had called her, was the key to solving this whole mess; one experiment that had gone accidentally, wonderfully right. She would be alone in a matter of seconds; alone to figure out how she must use her gift to save all that she would come to know.
The scientist kissed his wife on her cheek as a silent tear escaped her eye, but just one. They still had a job to do.
The last thing that entered their minds: their son, Alexander, at home with the baby-sitter.
They had failed him.
And their world went black.