---

"Damn it." Came a disappointed voice, followed by the sound of somber music and plastic hitting hardwood floor. With a groan the man picked his controller back up and inspected it momentarily, trying to determine if the accidental fall had damaged it. Satisfied that the controller was relatively unscathed, he pressed a rounded button with an X painted on it with the thumb of his right-hand, and resumed playing. Moments later, the sound of an ephemeral melody began playing gently behind the noise of foot steps and ragged breathing, as the man's character began to once again trudge up an icy landscape.

Hat had not always been an avid fan of video-games but he had grown to love them, particularly vintage ones from the early '10s, as he believed that to be one of the greatest periods of video-game history. With combined boredom in life and his own individual disability, the fantastical escape in to a world of Dragons and Magic was his ultimate vice. However, unbeknownst to him in his concentration, someone or something had entered his humble abode carrying a gift.

"Hello Hat, I have a gift for you, something that you have been found without." Came a deep, rasping voice behind him, accompanied by the sound of a heavy object falling to the floor.

Hat turned his head and torso in unison to see the voice behind him, he would have been startled if he hadn't seen nightmares greater than the one before him. The tall creature's "face" spread into what could only be assumed as a smile, before he stepped back into the shadows, allowing Hat to look with a grim expression at the Gift laying on the floor. The leg was clearly left-footed, and must have been old given the state of rot it was in, but was curiously without a drop of blood. Before Hat could say anything however, the creature stepped from the shadows and lifted him by the throat with a grip so powerful he could feel the bones in his neck shatter, and he soon found his vision fade to nothingness.

"You'll thank me soon." Came the creature's grating voice, and not a moment later, Hat was dead, dropped to the hardwood floors of his living room like a doll.

"you know, I never liked that place but what can you do..."

"bullshit, you're always speaking bullshit. You should be in the manure business"

"This was great...you know...trip, with us"

"look, it isn't you...but I can't be around you...or them, anymore."

"I just wanted to see new things"

"hey, nice to meet you. What's your story?"



A choir of context cut sentences called froth from a paradoxical distance, getting closer and further away sporadically with little consistency. They each spilled out from the wounds of a crippled memory along with a burning sore emitting from the back of his head. Everything was cold; his mind was empty and chilled by ghosts parading as memories; his nerves felt like ice; as if they had refused to send signal out of protest - but most importantly: he was cold.

A wave folded over his back like a blanket, breaking apart against his still screaming skull, prompting him to slowly look up. Blood had painted his entire shirt and the smell of some sort of festering meat mixed with ripe spongey absorbtion of water invaded his nostrils. He would puke but he seemed to have already done so all over the shredded rock that once used to be a body below him.

"Help..."

He looked around a little after his pitiful cry. A bus peeked out, half sunken into the laked, it's body destroyed by a damp decay that already had started to take place while the window view gave a peek aat a bloody decoration of red splatters. The water was comtaminated by various parts that would require an expert on anatomy to identify "Please, help" he shouted out again as he shakily lifted himself up to look straight ahead at the forest before him. It was night and the only thing giving light was the small fire that had erupted from the back of the bus, contained due to its sunken state.

"hello!?"

He thought he saw something, a strange distortion of shapes and seizures slithering in the darkness like dancing snakes before it disappeared deeper into the shadowy care of the clustered trees.

He stood up and begun to walk forward.

It was just another regular workday when Jacqueline woke up that day. The sun wasn’t up yet, but she manually opened the window to let in some fresh air. She breathed in the freshness, the luxury provided by the past years of stringent anti-emissions campaign and some useful but expensive new technology that would supposedly “fix it” all. It would be a shame to lose something so pleasant, so they better keep working on it, she thought as she closed the window and walked from her bedroom to her office/study/workout room. There, she did her usual light morning workout, not longer than 15 minutes, and showered after. Her breakfast for now consisted of a toast and coffee. She knew she would pick up something more filling on the way to work. What to take today?

She finished her drink just in time for her phone alarm to remind her to prepare for work. Not like I need reminding, she sighed, but turned on the computer in her office to review today’s assignments. Even though digitization was ever more popular nowadays, she still had to have physical copies of many of the documents. Digital data could be too easily compromised and if that happened, the physical copies took precedence and so were a must. In her area of work, only elite layers could afford the kind of digital security that most not even dared to dream about. I will get there, Jacqueline knew.

And that wasn’t a simple desire – it was a realistic and planned for goal. Even her current job, as hard to get in and prestigious as it was, was only a stepping stone on her path. Next year…I can move on. My chances of getting hired by a good firm should be high. I will have to maneuver extremely carefully in order not to get caught in my parents’ web, however. They would just love it if I were part of a business they had great influence over. She sneered at that last thought, displeased even at the thought of further association with them.

Even now, she wasn’t completely free yet…She likely wouldn’t be until after their death. But her current arrangement with them had plenty of benefits. She was very well aware of those and not ready to lose them. So she would still act the good girl while slowly gaining power and with it, control over those pretentious bastards. You are not the only one playing this game. A soft beep informed her that it was time to leave. She pressed a button on a robot that served as a simple maid to turn it on – it was in the shape of a small metallic ball when dormant – then entered the security code in a pad on the wall to engage the “Away” safety-mode. She was also paranoid enough to have mechanical locks both on her doors and windows – even though her flat was near the top of the building.

After that, she left the apartment complex – she had to take the elevator first, and as was usual, met some neighbours and chatted a bit. Nothing worth mentioning. Really, it was just people following social conventions. It was similar in the metro she took to her job – this was now the most common mode of transportation for within the city and it offered yet another opportunity for people to reduce their loneliness. At least, that was what Jacqueline assumed was the most common reason for trivial conversation between strangers. After all, this wasn’t a party the likes her parents invited her to, where socialization was a function of gaining social status. If she had to choose between the two, Jacqueline would pick tram-goers any day. Less snobbishness here. Being able to eat as much as one liked in the diner car without being looked upon helped as well. With that in mind, she picked up some delicious looking plum pastries.

In this manner, her completely regular workday went on. Well…It should have. Jacqueline knew something out of the ordinary was going on when she received a message from her mother via her phone. “There seem to be some new security concerns for NSC. Take care.” Jacqueline appreciated the warning, she really did, but it also pissed her off. What has this to do with me? And now she’ll be expecting some silly favour in return, no doubt.

But as it turned out, this was a matter that would come to concern her rather personally. Indeed, the very same day, after work…There would be an incident. An unknown creature would come to stalk her…and it would come bearing gifts. Human eyes.

Isaac Camphor

The room was white.

Light rebounded and scattered off every hard surface, of which there were many. Far away, extractor fans and AC units groaned and whirred to keep the lab air cool and clean. Microscopes, pyrex containers, twelve-channel pipettors, blood agar, tiles, linoleum, and strained underlings all glistened in the iridescence of the halogen lamp. Pure. White. Perfect.

This world was locked away from Dr Camphor. Behind glass screens, tunnels, decontamination and protocol. He was shackled by will and stubbornness, to the LCD computer screen in his office. He could only watch them through the full height, one-way window that served as a wall. A pristine lab coat hung on the door behind him, waiting.

His eyes glinted like lancets. Number twelve surgical scalpel blades; unyielding crescents.

Answers lay wrapped and tangled in data, raw and processed alike. Dr Camphor seemed intent upon breaking it with his glare, bending it to give up its secrets, understanding and dominating it. He scrawled a mess of ink upon a pad of paper, and underlined a previously scratched ideogram.

A thudding at the door, and its immediate opening.

Dr Camphor whirled round. However, his flaying glower was blunted by the sight. Standing there, a man, or maybe a woman, in full S.C.A.R.E. armour.

“Are you doctor Isaac Camphor?” came the modulated projection of voice.

He chewed the inside of his lip. “I am.”

“Come with me.”

And then the armoured figure turned and began striding off. Dr Camphor put on his glasses, locked his computer, and lastly, squeezed his bursting notebook into his back pocket.

He muttered only a single word before following.

“Joy.”

No one wants to know
If their straight and narrow swayed;
If they have ever been unmade;
That we are not of stone,
That what we carve is sure to fade...

Bathroom stall poetry. No author. I asked my phone about it, just out of curiosity, but she didn't know. Cute, I guess, but maybe not the best inspiration for an entertainer. Forever is kind of my patron saint, you know? Fame is definitely an orthodox religion, we pray for intercession, we try not to look God in the eye. Except in mirrors, where we're hypnotized, but you can't help that. God needs his stage makeup like everybody else. Cameras aren't big on reverence.

It was opening night at the Corpus Coliseum.

The screams rolled through the open space, slamming and slicing into each other, a frenzy of sound and passion ready to exalt or to annihilate. Martin waited in the wings, looking out over the crowd. All those faces, so hungry to be happy. His expression would have been strange to anyone looking, it wasn't excitement, it wasn't anxiety, or boredom, or contempt, or pride. Martin's face was a mask of pain, and beneath the mask was just more of the same. But no one was looking; that was the point. In moments like that one, buried in the blue breath of a fog machine and gazing out into a sea of expectant eyes, Martin was invisible, intangible, an absence stretched between the past and the future. Between backstage and center, there was nothing, as far as anyone knew; Martin himself was not self-aware.

He couldn't have said what it was that ached so fiercely during that time. Self-awareness was a tenet of his faith, one among many narcissistic oblations, and as a purveyor of mystery - magic being the popular misnomer - he had few mysteries himself, but those moments were exceptional, unknowable. Maybe the shape of that pain eluded him because it was too fast, transfixing him in a single soul-shivering motion that didn't slow as it passed through his conscious experience. The prestidigitation of a superior magician.

"You're overcomplicating things, kid."

Flash

The light shattered his trance, brought him into being, and then he was dashing through the blue fog, mounting the central altar he'd had set up upon the stage, and the roar of the crowd and his heartbeat became one great paean as he leapt up into clear view, arms spread and white teeth gleaming. The announcer was introducing him - his better half, anyway. The Magnificent Me. The Me that I could be, if only I didn't have to be me. Lowercase, unremarkable, recursively self-absorbed... An unproductive line of thinking, but his opening routine was too well-rehearsed, too familiar to distract him from thinking about it. The he he had to be.

"You're just thinking, thinking, thinking...like all the world's red and raw could fit inside your bursting brain."

Flash

Colors burst across the stage, a line of performance fireworks designed to mislead and dazzle as he moved from point to point. He drew three rabbits from three hats simultaneously - each a different color - and set them loose on the stage. Actually he drew only one of the rabbits, the white, and a pair of mirrored arrays replicated and shaded her to match her cousins' brown and grey coats. The timing was delicate, like a phone call to someone you were leaving behind.

"But pain doesn't fit. Couldn't. Pain isn't a thought, it's a feeling. You can't order it the same way."

Flash

She was in the audience, Anna's friend. Not having the best night herself, judging by the distance between her and her paramour, her crossed arms. She smiled up at him, unknowing that his eyes had found her through his fantastic mask, but there was sadness caught in the curve of her lips. Not just her date. Had something happened? Martin missed his catch, improvised a recovery. The audience murmured. Oh, fuck this.

"You're addicted to it. To order."

Flash

Back in the apartment, years ago. Anna called him a child playing dress-up. She'd been passed over at work, come home to find him working on his latest trick. She'd broken part of it and stormed out. Martin stayed up all night, but she never came home.

"So you try anyway. Adding pressure to pressure."

Flash

Half a hundred phones on camera, you better believe not everyone turned their flash off. It drove him crazy, threw off his timing - that was his favorite excuse. The truth was the timing didn't much matter, not as he moved into the second act. His tricks were too mechanical, too complicated, you couldn't follow it all, couldn't appreciate it, and in this half of the show the Magnificent Marovio evanesced into little more than light and shadow. The suggestion of a magician, like the suggestion of a family, like the suggestion of a morning mist - never materializing. Beneath consideration. Unimportant.

"You have to let the bad blood out, kid. You have to make a mess."

Flash

Jake and Ally, thick as thieves, like when they were kids - the same guilty eyes unwilling to meet. Everything seemed the same, except that time had stolen away their innocence and their childhood invulnerability, and so mischief had become trouble, and so mistakes became damage. It was Christmas, and they didn't want to talk about the personal things. So nobody talked at all, and love lay crucified by the silence, unavoidable and inexpressible, a ruined gift beneath the tree.

"Stop trying to think of everything, kid. Give your brain a rest."

Flash

It loomed over the stage, the incarnation of nightmare. It was all smile, all Smile, and when it moved Martin saw how it broke the rules around it, how it stretched in ways a body couldn't, shouldn't, must not. Blue fog rose over the stage, threaded by something darker, and driven by primal instinct Martin kicked off the end-stretch lightshow early. He disappeared into silhouette, small beside the monster, and now the crowd's murmur was interested. Anna's friend had spilled her drink across her date's lap, who was cursing, which she would neither hear nor remember. She was on her feet as Martin lost his, and Smile leaned down to offer him something. Something dripping. Something beating.

"Why don't you just...have a heart?"

Flash

"Fuck!" Martin snapped awake, gasping, eyes wild. Images crashed into him, a waterfall from nowhere, as he tried to place himself in space and time. Am I...

The room was white.

Halogen light beat down on him, beat him down. There wasn't much to see, just an empty cell, panels set into the walls and ceilings behind which all the interesting terrible glittering instruments of science coiled like sleeping serpents, a drain in the floor, a cot, a bathroom. The room was divided in half by a polycarbonate shield, beyond which were one-way windows for observation, one end of the airlock into the cell. There was no one there now, nor had there been since Martin's arrival. Nothing to break up the monotony - except the hazard strobe, which was flashing now. What...happened?

Scenes from the nightmare offered him answers, a few, those that he could bear. Smile. The heart. An exploding web of viscera and burrowing claws. The unit of...paramilitary, special forces? Armored people with guns. Martin remembered feeling electricity arc through his body, choking on gas, trying to say...something, anything. Stop. Wait. Help me.

I'm not sick.

Was he? Martin looked down at shaking hands, and something seemed to - there. Shit. What the fuck? Shit! His hand was melting, running together, the flesh sliding back from a newborn spike of alien bone...

The airlock door hissed. Martin's head snapped up and he half-crawled, half-lunged across the laboratory cell to impact the shield, pressing his face and hands - human hands - up against the transparent polymer. "Hey. Hey! I'm in here! What the fuck is happening to me?!"

“There seem to be some new security concerns for NSC. Take care.” Jacqueline frowned as she re-read the message, her work finally finishing up. So is it something major or what? If mother had to send information she could have at least made it more revealing. Too tired to truly care, she shrugged lightly. There was a flurry of activity all around as multiple people were leaving the office complex – one of the few in the city connected to a court, which Jacqueline had to visit and be present in daily. Resigned to leaving with the crowd, she mustered her patience and exited her office, locking it after. She navigated her way to the nearest elevator with the utmost grace. As much as she sometimes wished to elbow through the crowd roughly, this wasn’t that kind of a place.

She breathed an inaudible sigh of relief when she was finally outside the building, the mass dispersing into the city. Jacqueline watched the swarm with mild distaste. I cannot wait until I have more flexible hours. Mildly hungry, she decided to take a walk. She leisurely strolled through the busy walkways, indifferent to the hurrying, her posture confident, her gaze conveying a sense of purpose despite her comparatively slow walk. About 40 minutes later, she arrived to a small but cozy and fairly unfrequented locale; she knew it would be busier during the night. Jacqueline liked the ambiance and food well enough to visit it once a while.

Once finished, she took a tram back to the stop closest to her home. She could see the increase in security personnel at various keypoints throughout this district and assumed it was the same for the rest of the city. People were already whispering about the occurrence, speculating. The hell is this about, really? Jacqueline felt nervous, not so much about whatever danger was suspected, but rather as to how this would affect her specifically. Also, not that she would admit it, the heightened surveillance that she knew would be engaged – it was usually limited to and, more importantly, under the supervision of private companies – caused her to feel confined and concerned in general. She did not like the feeling. She was thankful that it was nowhere near pathological – truly paranoid people were the ones who believed that they were constantly under the government’s or some other powerful organization’s supervision – but considered her wariness to be unnecessary.

Arriving at the tram stop, she glanced around casually. She couldn’t help but feel observed. What does my therapist like to say? Why do I feel others might want to monitor me, isn’t it? Well…There is no reason. I just enjoy my privacy. Try to rest easy in the knowledge that I’m a law-abiding citizen…That’s right. I always know what to do. So what does it matter how many people see what I do? I’m good at it all. No, wait…she’d say that even if I make a mistake it’s not so terrible or something, right? It’s acceptable. Okay. That’s good. It happens to the best. I can be the best even with mistakes. Lessen the ones I can control, don’t worry about the ones I can’t…I’m sure she’ll be proud that I have this internalized now, she thought the last bit with sarcasm. It was true that visits at a therapist were good for anyone’s continued well-being and thankfully any stigma that might have existed about doing so in the past was long since eradicated. In fact, having a good counsellor was pretty much a status symbol. Just like having any other expensive thing is.

Just as Jacqueline finally reached a state of tranquillity, she saw a flash of unnatural darkness peripherally. She stopped abruptly, her spine stiffening, shoulders tensing, a chill running down her whole body, raising the various fine hairs in automatic response. She swallowed uncomfortably. I should note this down to mention at the next meeting. She resumed walking, picking up her pace, her heart still racing. She swore she could almost feel something following her, trying to reach her. She hurried into her apartment complex and entered an empty elevator, relaxing when it finally closed without anyone else entering.

“Why, hello there,” a smug voice said from behind.

Jacqueline gasped, her eyes widening, but thankfully did not scream. She felt the elevator ascending and attributed the sinking feeling in her stomach to that.

“You really weren’t that hard to pin down, you know,” it leered and Jacqueline felt a hot breath whooshing past her neck. It smelled like rot; sickly sweet and bitter, with a hint of rust and dampness. She could taste the decay on her tongue and grimaced.

“Please leave,” Jacqueline said, her voice somewhat hoarse and definitely shaky, quieter than usual.

The thing, the looming darkness that she could sense a step behind her, could see its shadow even, and some sort of tendrils from the corners of her eyes, laughed. It was a sound of amusement, certainly malicious to Jacqueline’s ears. “Tsk, tsk. How could I do that when you are just the thing I was looking for? Such promise,” it seemed to sigh wistfully at that last.

The elevator reached the floor Jacqueline lived on and she dashed out of it, full out running to her apartment, her keys already in hand. She unlocked the door after some nervous fumbling then closed it back as soon as she was inside, without regard to wherever that thing following her was.

“Oh, you definitely need some adjustments. That was a simply pathetic attempt,” it said casually, and facing towards the inside of her flat, where the thing had manifested out of nowhere, Jacqueline could finally see it. It was taller than any man, brushing the ceiling with its back, which was bent so its head could have a place to occupy. Its most prominent future besides the general horror-like darkness which served as its body was the wide, seemingly endless smile, mocking for all to see.

“Here,” it said as it threw a small object it had apparently been carrying towards her. “This should help clear things up,” the round thing flew towards her, capturing Jacqueline’s attention long enough that she identified the thing as an eye. It was obviously no regular eye – tendrils were flowing out of it and even though she made no move to catch it, it latched onto her. A tendril wrapped around her neck first, another burrowed its way up her nostril, multiple ones slithered their way towards her own eyes and the others explored the rest of her face.

Caught in her own horror, fighting whimpers, tears, snot and saliva that threatened to escape or choke her, Jacqueline wasn’t truly aware of when the thing left, its final words unregistered by her. The abrupt and intense pain due to the invasion caused her to lose consciousness what felt like a hellish eternity later.

"What - " Martin's head reeled, and he stepped back from the shield, as much from the horror of what he was hearing as obedience. "I'm, I'm not..."

You've been directly exposed to a Miasma carrying organ... Martin trembled, and without being aware of it a ripple passed through his flesh, a line of transformation that flowed up from the fingertips of his left hand like a wave, finishing with his right, an inch-wide shift that faded away again as the line moved. There was a moment when first one and then the other eye disappeared, others opening up along his body, that registered as a sudden visual distortion. Like dizziness. He blinked and forgot, the reaction of his observers going unobserved. Miasma... Hadn't there been something in the news? Some new disease, it drove people crazy, put their faces into rictus, caused tumors and bone growths, but...major outlets wouldn't verify, and the message board details were always so fantastic, more conspiracy stuff than anything. Miasma in the streets, alien abductions in the cornfields. Except

Wet red ropes, a spider's Eden, breathing in cobwebs of viscera...
The thunder of another's pulse, veins tearing into his veins, pumping - something...
The stink of blood, it was flooding his lungs, his eyes, his mouth, something else under the taste...
Bitter and sweet, like poisoned candy, it almost made him want to smile.

maybe it wasn't just conspiracy stuff. A disease, like rabies, except it also made people turn into monsters... My hand changed. I saw that happen. I felt it happen. It could be a hallucination, only... Only he was here in some clean white containment cell, warded off by a polycarbonate shield, and the guy talking to him had brought guns to do it. Big guns. Which...

Martin paused. He'd opened his mouth to say something about his rights, needing his phone back, but something was wrong. Luca D. Beake. Not a DOCTOR Luca D. Beake, and...no department, no...oh, fuck. Oh no. He was looking at the scientist, replaying what he'd heard. No. That wasn't official parlance of any kind he recognized, and the flanking bodyguards...was that military armor? Maybe. Maybe not. Martin was thinking not. Where the fuck am I?

The image of his hand flashed through his mind again, and something else. An instinct, an impression of - what? He looked up at the shield. His jaw rippled, teeth stretching out and melting away. I could get out. Weight, that was the impression. Force. Somehow he knew he could build up enough of it to punch whatever his hand had become, that killing spike of bone, through the polymer. One hole could become many, with a few minutes to work he could...

The hissing in the room brought Martin back to reality with a start. I could maybe get past this one obvious barrier. Assuming the room doesn't fill with poison gas or electrical current. And then...they fill me up with holes, or, fuck, I don't know, blow the whole chamber. And even if that doesn't happen, I have no idea where I am or what's on the other side of that door. A cold sweat broke out and started to trickle, and he stared at Luca, to the guards, looking for something, anything in their eyes except for...what Luca had said. About pain.

He thought maybe this was the worst trouble he'd ever been in.

Time. I need to think.

What to do? Play the game.

"I don't feel great, Luca. Like I'm Wile E. Coyote at the end of the skit, after he's been run over a few times, you know? I, uh, I don't suppose I could trouble you guys for some water. Or a phone."

The day began like any other. Cecilly finished teaching in the early afternoon, and she tidied up the room after the last of her pupils departed. A stop by the office to grab her things and to chat for a bit with Amelia and Quinn, and then she headed out. She'd plans for dinner with a friend, and she wanted to get some chores out of the way before she had to get ready. The meal was a treat, a combined celebration for her recently passed birthday and her friend's imminent one. They'd chosen a fusion stir-fry place, and sizzle of cooking food made her mouth water.

Afterwards, pleasantly full and knowing her cat would be waiting on his own dinner, Lee bid her friend good night at her bus stop and got off to walk the rest of the way. It was only a couple blocks, and she could hear chirping crickets and the buzz of cicadas, with the distant whistle of a train across town carrying on the warm wind now that the sun had set. The day had been hot, but now it was merely comfortable. The breeze tugged at her skirt and the sleeves of her blouse, smelling of open blossoms and cooling asphalt and salt from the ocean.

Cecilly had just turned thirty-one, but years of dance and aikido had her in superb shape. She was tall and solidly built, with short, dirty blonde hair that framed a rounded face. She walked with a confident stride, and from a distance it was impossible to tell she was blind. These were familiar streets, and with her ability to "see" the world in spaces and the distance between things she moved without fear of collision. She heard the car coming, but it had a red light and she was already halfway across the street. Even if she'd known that it wasn't going to stop, there might not have been time to get out of the way. It was going far too fast, and she had just enough time to realize she was in trouble before her world imploded.

The sound of the car's engine moving away was muffled. There was something warm and hard and uneven digging into her cheek, and under her fingers. It took a long moment for her to realize that it was the asphalt of the street, that the rhythmic noises were the footsteps of someone approaching. She was far too disoriented to make them out in great detail, and they didn't sound quite right, but she prayed they would help. Please God, I'm not ready to die. I don't want this to be the end. It was more the idea than actual words, but that was the thought that ran through her head. Please.

"Oh now this is no good." The voice was playful but chilling, even in the warmth of a summer evening. "No, no, not at all. You were always a strange one, weren't you? Not quite like them, but still trapped in that pretty head of yours. Too much sadness. You look better when you smile."

She didn't know who the person was, and she couldn't manage to get enough air to tell them to call an ambulance instead of talking to her. Her senses were scattered by confusion and pain -- was this some sort of hallucination? The voice kept fading in and out, and it was hard to understand what it said.

"Perhaps you just need a little help, kid. It would be such a shame if you never unlocked the gifts inside you, the ones pumping through your veins." She thought she felt it smiling at her, as it lifted a hand. Something warm and wet poured over her. "Maybe a little life-saving transfusion can help you find what you're missing~" The muscles that still responded to her control tensed, as warm suddenly became scalding. A sound closer to a croaking wheeze than a scream of agony forced itself from her throat and the distant flutter of her heart changed, becoming steadier, louder, feeling like it might tear itself right out of her chest. Her skin crawled under the searing pain, and she felt like whatever had been poured on it was seeping into her, filling the gaping cavern left after her insides had somehow been scooped out.

Lee didn't hear the pattering approach of hurried steps, nor the shout of someone telling the thing looming over her to get away. She couldn't feel the ground anymore, nor taste the copper of blood in her mouth. There was only a wide grin, the roadkill-scented voice by her ear, the rank breath brushing her cheek. "If you look, you can always find a reason to smile."

Then nothing.

Jacqueline's first impressions were hazy, sluggish thoughts crawling their way to sharpness, a coolness to her cheek, a tepid wetness under her legs and palms, a predominately irony scent mixed with hints of ammonia and an itching, whole body ache that seemed to be dissipating as the long minutes of her return to consciousness passed. The first sound she uttered was a groan turned whimper as her abused throat made its protests known.

She tried to open her eyes, her eyelashes fluttering in a struggle, apparently stuck together by something sticky. She brought a hand to her face to rub at her eyes but was stopped by a sharp spike in the irony scent, her heart rate speeding up as she recognized it for what it was – blood. The shock was enough for her eyes to open and she could see thin red strings tearing in half over her lashes, some inevitably getting into her eyes, making her tear up to dispel the aggravators.

The blood and…other bodily fluids where everywhere. Fuck, I must have pissed myself. But that was not all; there were much more unwholesome things there – skin, various meaty and soft tissues, ichor, some other unrecognizable blobs and–

Were those shards of bones?

A quiet keening whimper escaped her as she felt nausea overwhelm her and she threw up. First there was nothing but contractions, then went her earlier meal, the occasional food chunks, partly processed, mixed and expelled with digestive fluids. Jacqueline was sweating and trembling, her heart beating faster again, barely having been given any reprieve beforehand. All in all, she felt terrible, and tried valiantly, although not entirely successfully, not to get any vomit on herself. And if the smell was bad before…

When she was finally done, she felt vaguely better. Ignoring the part of the apartment that looked as if from a bad but violent horror movie, she stood up and stumbled her way to the bathroom, going straight into the shower. She undressed while under the stream, trying to clean both her body and her clothes.

Long, long minutes of intense scrubbing, applying and reapplying of soap, shower gel, shampoo and regenerator, and gallons of warm water later, Jacqueline felt clean. Well, cleaner. She stepped out, avoiding the bloody footprints on her otherwise soft rug, leaving behind her most likely ruined clothes in a soggy but less gory heap, still dripping, the small rivulets of pale red slowly gathering to make their swirling exit via the drain. Still in a daze, she took a towel and, hugging it close to her body, padded barefoot to her bedroom. Careless of the wet patch she would leave behind, she sat on the bed and stared blindly ahead, blinking now and then.

Then memories tried to kick in. She suppressed them with great effort. Clearing her throat after another small, pathetic whimper, she calmed down her ragged breathing, counting on each inhale. Then, a phrase came to her mind and she felt as if she were clubbed over the head and struck by lightning in quick succession. New security concerns for NSC.

“Security concerns…you FUCKING BITCH!” she screeched. Rationally, she knew her mother couldn’t have known that what she experienced was probably what the upped security measures were about. Rationally, she knew no one, least of all her practical parents, would believe something this horrifying could be true unless they experienced it themselves. Rationally, she knew this might not, in fact, just have happened. Jacqueline was not at all rational just then. And she believed. She believed what happened was very much real. She seethed long moments at the injustice, the rage, the humiliation and even, yes indeed, even fear. Terror. Something that could easily turn into panic and paranoia.

Like HELL. Like hell am I letting that thing control me. God, if I haven’t given in this long to all the bullshit in my life, why would I give in to some monster? No way. NO WAY.

A determined breath. A straightening of her posture. A turn of her thoughts.

Fuck, this is not normal. I can feel it. It. What is it? Shit, maybe I’m not even human anymore.

She looked at her hands. As she flexed them, claws easily manifested, as if sliding out of a hidden sheath beneath her skin. She had felt that change, more than an hour ago now, so this was no surprise. The transformation was just as easy to revert – a thought and there were her hands, her fingers just as they usually were, pinkish flesh over soft tissue, no hard, glistening reddish black chitin anywhere in sight. Even though she wanted nothing more than to forget, flashes of her other form were ingrained deep into her memory. She wasn’t sure what, exactly, she was. Was that other one something she could always access as easily, now? No matter. What happened, the security, if these two things aren’t connected then my birth name isn’t Jacqueline Aelia Galloway.

She stood up. Threw her towel to the floor. Opened her wardrobe. Picked out the most unassuming clothes she owned – jeans and jogging wear, she thought – and packed some extras in a small, fashionable if old, black leather backpack. I wish I had more actual money, she thought as she stuffed all the banknotes she kept at home in her wallet. She had a credit card, of course, but her purchases and therefore her location could be tracked if she used it. I just hope the rumours about them – and I wish I knew who they are in this case – being able to track anything and everything aren’t true. Still…taking my phone with me is out of the question. Just as well that I’m not sure where it is right now. Possibly in that– by the door. Fuck, how am I even going to get past that?

Her glance passed a walled mirror and she frowned mildly. If they’re going to be searching for me, doing it based on appearance isn’t as likely as some other means. Even so… She packed a stylish sports cap, chik sunglasses and a small case of makeup for later. This better not be wasted effort. Whoever deals with cases like this, they might just be waiting outside for me to show up or something. God, just let me get out of this city, and I swear I’ll believe in you. Honest. I need this that badly. So, please. Any deity will do.

Hell. She felt a minor trembling start but shook out of it. Careful not to step on or otherwise touch any of the gore still left near the entrance – thankfully visible only once inside her actual flat – and after making sure no-one was nearby, closing the door carefully, she made her way confidently to the elevator. Appearances still matter, right? I’m just going for a jog. Nothing unusual. All’s well. If I believe it they will too. Shit, this better work.

Lee woke from formless nightmares of eerily cheerful faces with a start so violent she pulled her arm free from the rubbery tubes attached to it. The fabric next to her skin was coarse and unfamiliar, not the clothing she'd been in. She was laying in a bed, but it was tiny compared to her own. Overhead the lights emitted a faint buzz and a high-pitched whine at the edge of hearing. There were soft voices nearby, and footsteps on laminate tile, an air conditioner's whispery roar and the chirp of some sort of electronics. At first she had no idea where she was. Her spatial perception was gently fuzzed, and her limbs felt heavy. But the smell of sheets washed in an industrial machine combined with the sharp scent of disinfectant filled her with dread.

A hospital. It had to be. They scared her, ever since one of her good friends had killed himself after being taken to a psych ward in middle school. The heartrate monitor was still on the finger, and she pulled it off with trembling hands, then gently detangled herself from the now-useless IV, wincing as the tape pulled at the fine hairs on her skin. She started to search for a call button -- what had they given her, that her head felt like it was wrapped in a cloud? She didn't like it. If it was to keep her calm, it wasn't having the desired effect. Had this been what it was like, for David? Her responses were dulled, but they were no less sharp on the inside. Why was she here, anyhow? The last thing she remembered....

Lee froze, her heart in her throat. A lovely dinner. On her way home, crossing the street. The beep of the crosswalk light, saying it was okay to cross. The sound of a car coming, far too fast. And then....

She shuddered, but the memory couldn't be right. Ignoring the fever dream of the creature afterwards, she didn't hurt enough to have been hit. There was a dull ache throughout her body, one without discernable cause, but nothing felt broken, or even properly painful. All her limbs responded easily to her desires, and nothing seemed swollen. What the hell was going on?!

She'd just started shaking for real when two sets of footsteps stopped just inside the gap of the doorway. Her head jerked up, but she presented them not with her direct gaze but rather with her face turned at a slight angle, so her left ear was a bit more towards them. She looked like she'd been in a bad crash, however she felt. The splotchy bruising was impressive, but it looked like it had happened more than just a couple hours before, with some places turning the sickly green that occasionally crept into severe blunt trauma injuries.

Her visitors did not wear the scrubs of most hospital staff, nor proper street clothes. There was something off about them, and the way they moved made her uneasy. "Who are you?" she asked, coughing as the first words died in a hoarse squeak before trying again. "What happened -- why am I here?" She wanted to leave. She needed to get away from the laminate tile and the whining of the lights that grated on her nerves. She wanted to go home and curl up with Freddie and some nice music and a hot cup of tea. "What's going on...?"

Kiara held up the eye of the needle to the light, trying to rethread clear string. The metal was bent in a crescent shape, perfect for stitching together thin, delicate flesh. She finally slipped the transparent line through the hole after several failed attempts. The mortician tied a small knot in the end which prevented the thread from escaping again from the needle. Fluellen huffed quietly.

The corpse belonged to a man who had committed suicide. A vibrant red and purple collar of bruising encircled his neck; the skin was broken and the noose had left behind an angry lace of rope burn. Smothering had caused the blood vessels in his face to rupture, leaving a watercolor of purple and grey pools of blood beneath his skin. His eyes bulged slightly from their sockets--wide with fear and death. Kiara frowned and poked out her lower lip gently in a pout. “This is the third suicide this week…” She spoke aloud to no one in particular.

The mortician carefully held down the lid of his eye. She hooked the curve of the needle through the delicate skin, using an inverted stitch to hide the clear thread beneath the flesh of his eyelid. She continued working, sewing shut the other eye. “There,” Kiara said, a hint of relief in her voice. Even after nearly a year of work as an undertaker, she still found the milky, vacuous gaze of the dead deeply unnerving.

She was paid well for her work, and even more to keep quiet about it. The cadavers that came from Blackthorne Medical and Munitions were often atypical. They had evidence of strange and sadistic experimentation--bruises from restraints, cranial staples left behind from lobotomies, ports embedded in the chest for injections straight to the heart. Other experienced quarantine specialists would handle the cremation of more confidential specimens, but the hot smell filled the furnace yard, and the towers from the crematorium belched black smoke into the cloudy sky.

She frowned. Had that corpse drawer been open before? Probably. Nobody worked at a morgue who spooked too easy at things like that. The atmosphere and the work did strange things to the mind on long shifts, and you learned a simple truth - despite every horror movie and skin-crawling instinct, the bodies were just bodies. They didn’t get up again. She reached out to push the drawer shut, but it was stuck on something, and after a moment she gave up with a sigh. I’ll just finish up here and leave a note upstairs.

This corpse was different than Kiara Fluellen had witnessed before. Her co-workers were currently predisposed, and she had been left alone in the mortuary to handle the few bodies deemed appropriate for embalming. His time of death had been recorded as less than twenty-four hours ago, but already the body showed immense signs of decay: blackened, necrotic flesh had gnawed away across most of his torso; lesions on his back were rotten down to the bone, leaving yellow vertebrae peeking through the rancid meat of his back; sepsis had taken over most of his body, making his blood thick and black with rot.

“This is… Horrible. What could have happened to him?” She traced her gloved finger over the Y-shaped autopsy incision. After glancing around to make sure the mortuary was empty, she reached for a scalpel and began to re-open the corpse. “I-I’m not doing anything wrong,” Kiara reassured herself, “It’s important t-to preserve the organs.” Cutting into his cadaver released a horrifying smell--it was sickly and sweet, like bananas that had been fermented in a septic tank. “Oh, God!” She exclaimed, recoiling from the stench.

After recomposing herself, she began to remove and empty the large intestine into a bucket. The long, overlapping undulations of the colon and blackened blood had hidden strange, fleshy, anatomical abnormalities. “Wh-what… What is this? These can’t be human!” She pulled one out to examine it, carefully bisecting the unfamiliar organ. Inside was a substance that looked similar to a sticky, toxic molasses. The material bubbled and steamed upon exposure to the air. Fluellen gasped in shock, dropping the fleshy bag back into the abdominal cavity. The brown liquid slowly spilled into the body, dissolving the endoderm of his organs away like muriatic acid. “Oh God…”

”You want to be careful there. Some of these kids can be a little feisty afterhours.”

Kiara actually leaped at the voice, crashing hard against the wall of drawers behind her, as the corpse bubbled and steamed on the table. There was no one there.

But she’d heard the voice, clear and cruel, a little amused - not human - and her heart was already triphammering so loud she could barely hear what was happening to the corpse on the table, the way it was boiling and melting, an unthinkable sludge flowing over the sides of the trolley. Even in silence she wouldn’t have noticed. All her attention was on where the voice had seemed to come from. The stuck drawer.

A minute passed.

Her back ached where she’d hit the drawers. There would be bruising.

You’re losing it, Heart still pounding, her breath an undignified series of gasps, she pulled herself to her feet - the drawer she was using for balance jumped open with a clatter - she screamed, propelling herself into the middle of the room, every muscle and nerve screaming with her.

An empty drawer, which is why it had been unlocked to slip in the first place. She shook her head violently, almost reaching up to rearrange her hair before remembering at the last second the state of her hands. She spent another minute doing deep breaths, watching the empty drawer, letting herself calm. There were jokes about this, the late night crack. She hadn’t ever thought she’d be one of those, but...the weird bodies, the awful secrets she carried around...well, maybe it was no surprise.
Kiara turned back just in time to see eight impossibly long things slip out of the stuck drawer to grip their surroundings. Fingers. Spider legs. The scream was back, strangled in her throat

the image of her fear like a noose around her neck, like the dead man, she would be dead soon

and this time her twitching muscles gave up rather than catapult her into a worse situation. Kiara slid slowly to the floor as the finger-things flexed and pushed and the drawer slid slowly open. What crawled out was...her eyes wouldn’t see. Everything swam and she had only impressions of impossible size and dexterity, something that could never have fit in the same space as a human body. Something that bent in ways and with noises it scraped away at her sanity to hear, until it had pulled itself all the way free and loomed over her, hunched over despite the high ceiling. Smiling.

That smile was like a crack into Hell. Something seemed to move in it - or was that her blurring vision, growing dark around the edges? The monster was holding something as it moved towards her. Stepped, shuffled, skittered. There was a high-pitched gibbering noise in her ears that she realized suddenly was coming from her throat.

”Oh, don’t you worry, kid. I don’t rile. Not here. Not for you. But, you know, I am here. And I am here for you.”

Something was wrong with the corpses in the background, the one that was half a flow of sludge and the mangled red thing - don’t look can’t look - that had been sharing its space with Smile. There was motion. Kiara would have thrown up, but she could barely keep her throat open enough to breathe. Smile was bending down further, its expression ruining her thoughts like a boisterous child running through spiderwebs. The fingers of one hand splayed hideously across the floor, then began to creep towards her. The other hand and its dripping burden levitated slowly towards her.

”It’s okay, kid. You’re not gonna die. Or, well...mm, you’re the professional. I’ll let you be the judge.” It giggled and the strength went out of her, muscles trying to gather themselves to flee, to do anything, simply collapsing at the sound. ”Normally I’d tell you a little about how special you are and leave you alone, but - things are changing, kid. Exciting times. So you’re even more special, because you’re going to help me with something. Or save yourself, if you prefer.”

Its fingers kept creeping. Its hand floated forward. The dark at the edges of her vision was spreading, swarming. The corpses were…

”New Steel Memorial Hospital. There’s a patient there, but not for long. They’re gonna find her, kid, and then they’re gonna find you and when that happens...well, you might not want to let it. I think you know how that ends.”

The red thing in the drawer. The bodies from Blackthorne. Smile grinned.

“You’ll have just enough time, after the adjustment. I’m making sure of that, kid. Don’t say I never did nothing for ya. You’ll still have to do a little legwork, of course, but you’re up to it, or you will be.”

Her eyes shifted slowly, unwilling, across the mind-murdering expanse of the thing’s body, towards the hand that was too, too close. Towards what it carried.

She couldn’t tell if the face had been male or female. It was coated in blood and worse, denying her even ethnicity. It was dripping and hanging loose from Smile’s fingers.

”You knew it’d come to this sooner or later, didn’t you? It’s time, kid. It’s time to face your fears."

The hanging tatters twisted in Smile’s grip, and stretched for her, and its hand rushed forward and slammed the gruesome mask over her own face - it was digging - she was screaming and she heard a door upstairs, her colleagues finally come to investigate. Smile rose to its full height. The corpses behind it - what was left of the one - were flopping onto the floor, towards the exit.

”We’ll clear the way for you, kid. You just make sure to clean up down here, okay? It’s what you’re good at.”

Its voice was impossibly far away. Everything was far away, she was hanging to the world by a thread - and then she slipped free, and the darkness took her at last. Recognizing her now, perhaps, as one of its own.

In collaboration with @Viatos

The visitors filed quietly into Cecilly's room. Uneasy, heads turning. One twitchier than the other. She started to speak, but only got as far as "It's an honor-" before the other cut her off, a sharp gesture. His lips twitched, frown-smile-frown, hands in the pockets of nice slacks, belted around his nice shirt, tucked and unwrinkled. "We're not doctors. But you can...see that, can't you? I'm sorry, yes, your questions, your d-" This time the man cut himself off, gesturing again to his companion. She shifted a purse slung around her shoulder, retrieved something: a syringe. She approached the bed cautiously, almost reverently, laying it carefully on the sidetable where Cecilly could reach it without quite coming into reach herself.

Beneath the woman's clothing Lee can sense an unusually heavy necklace - a pendant or medallion of some kind, perhaps. And scars. The woman's skin bears notable scarring, straight and ordered lines at her stomach, other uglier marks elsewhere. C-section? But the rest seem more like injuries, the kind made by breaking glass, or knives, or other sharp things. There was a gun in her purse, heavier than a woman might choose to carry around for self-defense.

"You're under sedation," murmured the woman. "The needle will help counteract the effects, but you'll crash later, end up with a bad hangover."

"In reverse order: due to recent events beyond your control, you are being unjustly and unlawfully targeted by an organization we believe intends you harm. You're in the hospital because you're injured, and because it limits your movements. You...had an encounter, one that may seem impossible or unbelievable at present. If the details strain your memory, focus on this: whatever happened, there are people coming - now - who have questions about that encounter, who are not concerned with your safety, health, or rights as a citizen. And lastly, we're..."

He hesitated. "...private security. Hired by an employer who regrets your injury very much. We're not taking you to meet them; our orders are to get you home for now and remain in attendance. We can't do anything without your consent, but I'm sorry to say there isn't much time to decide. The people who want to take you away are in the building, and we have reason to believe they're armed. They'll be delayed-"

-

The lights flickered in the elevator, which slowed and then stopped, half a floor below Cecilly's.

Maya cursed. "You have to be fucking kidding me. Alright, Val. I don't want to be here any longer than we have to be and I am not loaded in armament or temperament for any more surprises tonight." She was already stretching up towards the service hatch, motioning Val forward to help her up. "Assume the situation just went pear-shaped. If this is just the mother of all coincidences and we scare some civilians they can dress me down in the next performance review." Technically, Blackthorne personnel were civilians. But technicalities like that had stopped making sense a long time ago. The world they walked in was an underworld, and the surface maps held little meaning down in the dark. She hadn't freed her weapon yet, but only because it would have made the climb awkward.

A quick summary and even faster orders saw the vehicle outside begin to boil with activity, S.C.A.R.E. collecting weapons and armor and mobilizing in efficient quiet, sped by the sudden current of fear that had passed through the squad. The routine was disrupted. None of the men and women were uncertain as to what that could mean.

Maya, too, focused on efficiency, heedless of the contrast she was presenting Val - the way she handled the younger woman like a sister,
the way she prepared herself to face whatever was waiting in room 509. 'Like you,' she'd said. But once she was on the roof of the elevator, she checked and rechecked her gun.

-

"-but not for long." As he stepped closer, Lee could see - feel - trace him. No necklace or pendant, but scarring, similar. The suit jacket he carried folded under one arm concealed a handgun much like the woman's. He was touching it nervously, his voice changing in apparent strength because he kept turning his head towards the hallway. Tense. They were both so tense.

"You'll have more questions. We can answer them later, but if we're to move, we have to move now."

It was hard to make out details, but when the strange woman took out what seemed to be a needle, Lee backed away and ended up falling right out of the bed. She could feel a trickle of blood making its way across her hand as she lay dazed for a moment, and quickly returned pressure to the insertion site of the IV she'd removed. She leaned against the bed as she got to her feet, trying to process what the man was telling her.

"So...after whatever happened, now people are after me. And I'm just supposed to trust the two of you?" Had she been sure of her balance she would have backed away -- as it was she*shrank back. Private security...no company name offered, not even their names, some unknown employer. And she was supposed to bring them home to her apartment? But what if she was being targetted because of...whatever that thing had been. They were being polite enough, but they were armed, and -- how could she sense the heavy scarring of unexposed skin?!

There was too much she didn't understand, and far too few answers to go around. She didn't think they were actually private security, but they were armed, and she was not in any shape to be resisting. She could call someone, let them know....

Her belongings. She was going to need them, and something other than the hospital gown she was in, not to mention shoes. And...even if it did incapacitate her later, it was her best option for the moment. "Fine. Does one of you know how to give shots?" Lee wouldn't be able to administer it herself, and her breath hissed out impatiently as the strangers exchanged glances. She tried to relax as the woman inched her way closer, but she felt as nervous as the other two appeared. She needed to get out of this place. The injection began to take effect at once, and soon she could stand on her own. The moment she was able, Lee made her way over to the cupboard where she sensed her things -- it was uncanny, being able to tell her shoes were beyond the closed door, but sure enough, there they were.

What the hell is going on?!

The faded smell of dried blood reached her, and her clothing felt stiff. "...Do either of you have something I can wear? Even just a large overcoat?" she asked, just fishing her things out of the pockets. Her shoes and purse she grabbed. They would just have to do. "The hospital gown is a bit obvious, and my things...." She grimaced, and tried not to shudder. As she spoke, she was already jamming her feet into her sneakers. "Oh, and yes -- I am very much going to want answers." I just hope someone has them. Dear God.