year: 2130
My name is Kelsey Alvarez and I used to work for the U.S. National Medical Laboratory. I helped develop research for studies and experiments on Artificial Brain Enhancement. Right now, all neuroscientists across the world are trying to be the first to successfully create a device that allows humans to use more of their brain at a faster pace. They don’t know that the U.S. has already achieved it, and they definitely don’t know what it ended up doing to me.
Me and my colleague Steven Cortez have spent the last few years coming up with different theories on how to achieve brain enhancement and we finally created one that got approval for experimentation. At the time it felt like a really good step to take in our careers; researchers seldom get approval for experimentation, and even though it wasn’t allowed to be released to the public yet, we still celebrated our accomplishment. Until a week later.
We were told that in order to obtain the most accurate results, we would need to perform our experiments on people. Test Subject 1 was set to be an inmate who was serving time in prison. Me and Steven should have been more surprised at this information, but for a while there had been rumors that this was happening, always backed up with the comment that “it’s for the greater good”. That’s what we reminded ourselves when we learned that the inmate’s chances of death were much greater than their chances of living. For a while I believed it, but I could tell Steven remained uneasy about the whole thing.
It was the night before experiment day and I left work earlier to get some rest before the experiment, but I wanted to look everything over to make sure we didn’t make any mistakes. When I got to the lab room I saw Steven, seconds away from implanting the device in himself; it was the only one we made, so if he got the implant the test subject wouldn’t have to. When he saw me, he hesitated, and then began to explain himself even though he didn’t have to. I nodded, as no words could come out, and then began to turn away. He set the timer, but I got in his way and all I remember was hearing a scream.
I woke up. I wasn’t dead.
Rhetorical Situation
The text is my character’s story where she recounts how she got her powers. The origin story is written in first person and I wanted it to feel like she was telling someone she knew what had happened to her to make it more personal.
I am the author of the story and I chose to make the character female and latina because that is a part of my own identity. I am also very aware that people are complex and that’s why I wanted to make my story more real, rather than a classic superhero story where someone wants to and chooses to save the world.
I believe that the audience for my story would be young adults. The main character is 25 years old and I would imagine that she goes through what a normal 25 year old goes through, and more now that she has to incorporate her powers with her everyday life. I think that Kelsey Alvarez would be a relatable character, similar to Spider-Man.
The purpose of me writing the origin story that way is because I wanted to show the audience that Kelsey isn’t the typical hero or “good guy”. She didn’t try to save the innocent person she didn’t know, Steven did. If Steven hadn’t done anything that night then the experiment would have went on the next day, but because she had the direct opportunity to save someone she knew, she took it because she is ultimately good.
The setting of my story is about 100 years in the future. I made it that way because it seems more realistic that something like brain enhancement is possible. The location is not specified but I would imagine that it takes place in a big city, like Chicago or New York. I live in New York, more specifically the Bronx and I wrote the origin story in my bedroom; I was sitting on my bed and it was late at night so there wasn’t much noise surrounding me; I was alone in my own thought so it helped me come up with different ideas. The relaxed environment I was in allowed me to have a space to think creatively. In my free time I also write for myself and I do so on my bed so it was an even more comfortable setting for creative writing.
