Chapter 11: The Monster (11)
Her hair was disheveled, sticky strands plastered to her cheeks, her nose flushed red, chest heaving violently as she sat on the floor slick with viscous fluid. The palms bracing her were scraped raw; sweat and blood mingled with the ooze, a pungent scent thickening in the air.
Her unshielded eyes were scarlet and terrifying, fixed with a gloomy intensity on the figure before her.
Terror was writ large in her gaze. When their eyes met, her whole body shuddered involuntarily.
His face was grim, the slender tail of the communicator coiling tightly around his hand.
A searing, stabbing pain radiated from where she had kicked him.
…
Hunger.
An unendurable hunger.
When driven to feed by an indescribable starvation, he was nothing more than an automaton, a body without will. In his palms he cradled what would ease the hunger—a pungent, bloody stench assaulting his nostrils, his mouth stuffed with the scraps of a slaughtered victim…
He lay prone on the ground, licking the blood that dripped to the floor.
When he raised his head, he met the eyes of familiar faces—eyes filled with horror, disgust, shock, regret, or pity.
Expressionless, he lifted a hand and ran his tongue over the last traces of blood on his palm.
Their black eyes reflected the image of a man—a man imprisoned behind bars.
He sat in a strange, angular sprawl, limbs entangled as though he’d forgotten how to control them. Blood-soaked slime pooled beneath him, white tatters of cloth draped from his shoulders and waist. He tore them away, exposing his chest and abdomen, where a gaping black hole marred his pale skin.
It was his chest.
He tried to speak, his vocal cords vibrating, but all that emerged were hoarse, guttural roars.
In his mind, the image of a man flickered—handsome and upright, dressed in a white coat that fell to his knees, thin-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, gentle eyes behind the lenses, a well-timed smile always at his lips…
The corner of his own mouth twitched. His gaze fell upon the white scraps of cloth and shattered lenses beside him. Pain stabbed through his head. He curled up on the floor, among the blood and gore, feeling a void in his chest where the cold air pierced straight through him.
That hunger threatened to devour what little reason he had left. Beyond the iron bars that bound him, people occasionally appeared—the emotions in their eyes increasingly unreadable, only making him more agitated. He pressed his hands tightly to the floor, restraining them, lest they reach through the bars toward those fragile, delectable…
Food?
The overpowering scent of blood sometimes made his mouth water, sometimes sickened him. Conflicting impulses tore at him. His throat vibrated with a hoarse, unrecognizable howl. He spent his days facing the wall, staring at a scrap of white cloth in the corner. He’d forgotten what it was, only that he had to keep staring at it.
When hunger gnawed at him to the brink of madness, those fragile, tempting morsels—like fish and shrimp washed ashore by the tide—were brought to him. The iron bars opened, and they delivered grotesque specimens into his cell. Their sharp teeth bit into his limbs, their saliva dripping onto the floor, mingling with his own secretions.
Hunger.
Unbearable hunger.
Then, in a fleeting instant, the image of the man burned into his memory vanished. He was lost, beset on all sides by the howls of test subjects in a frenzy. Beyond the bars, familiar faces watched him impassively, their hands recording every reaction in the lab…
…The laboratory?
He looked down, seeing the familiar chains shackling his wrists. The wound in his chest had closed, now covered in a hard layer of scales—dense and intricate as a serpent’s. Something wet and slippery was curled around his neck—like a snake’s tail. A tingling at the base of his spine made him realize: it was his own tail.
Those same familiar faces continued to send frenzied test subjects into Chamber 01. Driven by insatiable hunger, he hunted them down. But every time, in the midst of devouring his prey, a faint, indistinct voice would whisper from deep within the fog of his mind—Stop...
Those outside the lab observed him, and he, in turn, watched himself through the reflection in their eyes. Once mild and luminous, his dark pupils were now webbed with cracks and bloodshot veins, growing redder and redder, as if soaked in blood.
When he moved his arm, the chains rattled. Mucus oozed from the gaps between his scales, filling the room with a damp, cloying odor. He fixed his gaze on an empty corner of the wall, as if something had once been there, but his sluggish mind could not recall what.
The lab doors opened. The familiar faces drew near, recording every change in his body. Liquid was injected into his veins, sending waves of agony through him. He struggled to suppress the surging urge to tear the researchers apart.
They wore white coats to the knee, reeking of disinfectant. Masked and gloved, they discarded their dirty instruments without a glance, so different from him, curled up in filthy corners, steeped in blood.
He felt filthy.
Utterly filthy.
…
The shadow cast by the wall was a grotesque, inhuman form—skin covered in fine scales, a long tail coiled around his neck. Pain gnawed at him relentlessly; the secretions etched into his skin, eroding it bit by bit. One day, he would become like the slaughtered ones, wouldn’t he?
His vocal cords trembled, over and over.
Kill me.
Kill me.
Kill me.
Long lashes shadowed eyes brimming with supplication, agony, and ferocity.
A young woman he’d never seen before looked on in confusion, startled by the hoarse sound he made. She hesitated, then leaned close, ear near his mouth. In that moment, a heady, sweet scent flooded over him. The hunger surged anew.
Then a syringe of sedative was plunged into his vein.
His whole body shuddered as the young woman rummaged through her cart, wetting a towel and beginning to wipe him down.
“Is this what you want?” she murmured. “The researchers say some test subjects retain a bit of awareness—I don’t know if you do, but I’ve watched you for a long time. When they collect data, you’re so quiet—unlike the others, always thrashing and wailing. You must still be conscious. I’ll help clean you up, but please don’t hurt me…”
She wrinkled her nose, tossed the dirty towel, pulled out a fresh one, and continued wiping, muttering, “At first I thought they sent us newbies in here as cannon fodder. I heard no assistant’s ever worked in this lab before, but you seem safe enough. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Not that I’m really helping you—I’ll be assigned to this lab in the future. You’re filthy, and you smell terrible. It’s no good for me to have to be here. Please don’t get mad—if you’re clean, you’ll be comfortable, and so will I. Right?”
He thought his expression must be dreadful; why else would she be so afraid? Sweat beaded thickly on her brow. She tried to wipe it away, but her arms were already smeared with his mucus and blood, so she gave up. Sweat trickled into her mouth; she pressed her lips together, then fixed him with a searching gaze.
He closed his eyes, wondering if his appearance was still so frightening.
And then, suddenly, he was drawn into a warm embrace.
Hunger surged once again, but he forced it down. The towel was cool and damp against his back, and then a strange sensation brushed his face.
He opened his eyes—bloodshot, wild—and a drop of salty sweat landed in them.
His lashes trembled.
He saw her often. Sometimes, she came with others to collect his data; then she would stand quietly by, avoiding his eyes and everyone else’s, staring at the wall or into space.
More often, she was outside the lab, separated from him by iron bars and a dozen meters of distance. Occasionally, their eyes would meet, and she would quickly look away, her face draining of color. His own expression must have been terrible. Before each cleaning, she always gave him an extra shot of sedative.
She always waited outside. When the mucus burned his body raw, as if his skin were aflame, when his mind faded in and out, he remembered that day—when the floor was strewn with the remains of slaughtered ones, and he’d scooped them up, a starving beast with bared fangs, gnawing with savage satisfaction.
His scales opened and closed.
Through the shadow on the wall, he saw his muscles swell, blue veins bulging and pulsing, his eyes growing more terrifying, blood vessels rising as though about to burst.
He looked forward. The familiar woman was crouched in a corner.
She hugged her knees, head nodding, her breathing a soft lull in the silent hallway, sometimes broken by exhausted snores.
He watched her, enduring a torment he couldn’t name. It was as if molten rock coursed beneath his skin, as if something was devouring his mind, trying to turn him into something else.
In the vast, dark sea, she was a pale reflection of moonlight hugging the shore—a single, tenuous glow. He fixed his gaze on that light, feeling a rare peace, pressing his back hard against the wall.
After a long time, the bulging veins receded, the shudders faded. He gasped for breath, her deepening breaths sounding in his ears. Weariness swept over him, and he closed his eyes.
When he woke again, his body was clean, the mucus gone. She was not outside the lab. He knew she didn’t come every day—but if he waited, he would see her again.
…
He grew used to the mucus; it no longer pained him. He even understood the changes in his body—only in dry environments did he secrete it in excess to keep his skin moist.
She hadn’t cleaned his skin in a long time. Each day he sat quietly in the corner, separated from her by bars and distance, denied the chance for close contact. The hunger that once tormented him, that he could barely control, was gradually replaced by an emotion he couldn’t name—a restlessness, a gnawing agitation.
Fine scales fell away, exposing raw flesh beneath.
Expressionless, he tossed the scales into the corner, his body sticky with mucus and blood—uncomfortable, but when the woman, wide-eyed, called the researchers and they examined him, only to leave her behind to clean his wounds, he lay there watching her, suffused with a deep, inexpressible satisfaction.
“How could you be shedding scales?” she wondered aloud.
His lashes fluttered.
“Could something have happened while I was asleep?” she mused. “Lucky nothing went wrong. If they check the monitors and see I was sleeping, I’ll be in trouble.”
She pressed a towel to his bare wound. “Does it hurt?” she asked, curiosity brimming in her eyes. Her fingers hovered near the scales, but then she drew back. Disappointment flickered through him. She finished cleaning him and turned away.
Suddenly, he felt unsatisfied.
…
The familiar pang of pain surged. He curled up in the corner, the chains clanking with every movement. He tilted his head toward the empty wall—no one there—muscles swelling as if about to burst.
She was gone.
He endured the stabbing agony, counting the hours in silence. Two days had passed and she still had not come. Some remnant of memory told him: researchers were allowed to take leave. He waited patiently, but she did not appear.
He felt his awareness being devoured from within. That suppressed hunger roared back, but as the clear outline of that figure appeared in his mind, an even deeper, more violent longing crashed over him like a tempest…
He wanted to see her.
He wanted to see her.
He wanted to see her.
A breeze drifted by, and he sniffed madly—caught a hint of that faint scent. Her scent. She had spent so long by his side that it was etched into his very sense of smell.
She must be near—so why couldn’t he see her?
He opened his eyes, the storm gathering in his blood-red gaze, scanning every shadowed corner.
Nothing.
She was nowhere to be found.
…So where was the scent coming from?
He reverted to his earliest state, a body moving without will. He undid his chains and left his cell. His footsteps echoed in the dim corridor, mucus dripping to the floor, leaving a glistening trail behind him.
He found her, at last, in a strange laboratory. She had not vanished—she was real and present. He gulped down a ragged breath, exhaling the heaviness in his chest.
His gaze clung to her, every gesture and movement so achingly familiar, so deeply cherished.
She…
What was she doing?
A strange man—no, a male test subject—lay obediently on the floor, letting her hands move over him, his eyes utterly blank, devoid of feeling.
An inexpressible emotion welled up inside his chest.
Like saltwater flooding his lungs, it filled him to suffocation, to pain, to the brink of panic…
Just as a threatening growl rose in his throat, he shrank back into the shadows, crimson eyes fixed intently on her—on the test subject before her.
His features grew dark and unreadable in the corridor’s dim light.