Warning: body horror (not really? better safe than sorry tho)

I was in a school of sorts, an academy, looked kinda similar to both a college campus and a movie/filming workshop. Black soft walls and grey carpet on the floor.

I was a latino dude, very athletic with a dry musculature (kinda hot, kinda cute tho) and I had a guy bff who was a black dude, his body as athletic as mine but a bit broader. We didn't really have dress codes (i was literally wearing a white shirt and jeans, while my bff wore a tank top and black pants), but we all had to wear our 'squad's' hoodie/jacket (which was black or white with opposite-colored, simple geometric designs and a big number somewhere on it)

The school was really big and was divided into Squads, the equivalent to Hogwarts houses but way tamer. Kinda a mix between those and military teams. Every squad was given a number to identify it, I and my bff were new (i think) so we didn't have a squad yet. The principal gave us special permissions to join squad 46, and gave us black hoodies (even tho 46's hoodies were pure white. I think it was a way to further make us stand out and keep track of us more easily)

Me and my bff were a bit of a troublemaker pair, but in a strict school like this it was super toned down, like arriving a minute late was considered risky. We did it anyway just for the adrenaline rush.

So this academy was more like a lab/testing facility, some time ago a kind of airborne virus spread around the world and killed millions. But the ones killed weren't always also the ones infected. This virus made the host incredibly strong and wild, like a superpowered killing machine. It changed the body too, it made rocky spikes sprout along the spine and rigid mineral scale-like formations on the arms, shoulders, ribs, back, and the 'upper' side of the legs, leaving the 'underbelly' zone covered in thinner and smaller gravel-like lizard scales made from the same material. The senses were highly enhanced, meaning one didn't need sight to spot prey, just some kind of sixth sense.

But not all those who were infected actually showed signs of the virus, many young adults were healthy carriers, but found they could tap into the powers of the virus in stressful or dangerous situations. This did leave the host in the same state of the other infected though, but people quickly noticed the quirk of these carriers.

The teachers and principal of this academy were scientists, with some teachers actually there to teach us school stuff. The school was built both inside and out to contain us and the damage we could cause if the virus took hold, which it did at one point in the past. It had a name, but I can't remember what we called it, it was a name on the same trend as 'Waterloo battle' or 'the 23's incident', and no one ever went into more detail than that bc everyone knew what happened: a thousand students and professors were brutally torn apart by a loose carrier that the virus got a hold of, the kid hadn't taken his/her drugs to keep it contained and it caused a disaster.

So drugs: the scientists made a cocktail of drugs that we had to take every morning to 'pause' the virus and avoid possible incidents and breakouts. Then, if we had to do some testing or physical training/evaluations, we were allowed to take a weak counter-drug that let us temporarily use the virus without actually losing ourselves to it.

Everyone had a different resistance and the virus responded in a slightly different way in each individual, giving one super strength while another had enhanced speed, or the spikes had a different color or size, or other similar effects.

The kid that went on that rampage had a slightly different strain of the virus, as did a rare other bunch of people in the world (little mutations of the main strain) and it was both stronger and required heavier drugs to control. All of the other 'mutants' were kept in a medical coma until a better cocktail was found, letting them examine the virus without risks.

I, however, was a special case: I had the same mutant strain but was as easy to control as the main strain, giving me a chance to join my fellow students in the classes. Mt bff also had a mutant strain, but it was so close to the main that it was honestly unimportant. Still made him a better fighter tho.

So I was a bit of a 'teacher's pet, I was put into the class that the principal taught and was given permission to join a new squad together with my bff, so we could be more easily monitored.

One time I was going to be tested, so I was given a task ('go to the lowest floor of the academy and bring back proof you were there, then come back and report to me') and injected with the counter-drugs. I immediately felt my skin change and my hair grow longer, I had to look as wild as I felt. The only thing on my mind was the task I was given, so the moment I was let go I sped away to the lowest floor. It was still a bit hard to keep control, but I was loyal to the principal and I would not let myself completely go and risk causing another incident. When I got to the lowest floor (the architectural and geometric studies workshop) I felt the anti-drug wear off and the control cocktail kick in, making me incredibly tired. I had only time to write a note with the materials I found in the class before I had no more energy to keep going. I think the teacher there brought me back to class.

This wasn't a new thing, I've been tested this way before with varying degrees of success, but this time I felt more powerful than the other times: I could feel the 'prey' walking around me as my hair was covering my vision, I had the vague temptation to give chase, but the task I was given was stronger (maybe the drugs worked like pheromones do for ants? Idk, interesting concept).

Apparently I often injured myself one way or another during these tests, but never other people, making me somewhat of a valuable asset to both possible military use and science discovery. I did not seem to feel the pain I caused to myself most of the time, tho I did have my limits. It wasn't fun for the academy to repair what I potentially broke and the blood I left behind, but the pros greatly outweighed the cons so they put up with it.

No one really knows how the kid in the incident managed to kill so many students so quickly, but I think I came close to understanding during that test: I had a feeling I could move in 4 dimensions, and that way easily 'step around' the secure way the academy was built and rapidly and invisibly 'blip' around to the next nearest prey.