A Tale of Epidemic Proportions
 

I've had this idea for a fic for a while. C:
This is a short fic i'm writing. I don't think it'll be any more than 30-35 chapters, but I don't know. :D
I'll continue it if people like it.
Enjoy~








The craft was mighty, regal, an unbearably sterile. It glided effortlessly over the forest below, casting a dynamic shadow that followed its every move. It was twice the size of the Vykker's Labs and shaped like an imposing, perfectly curved wedding cake. It had twelve floors plus a basement, a lookout tower, and a winding sewer system.
A vykker was working in a dark, round room lined with various knives and equiptment. Dangling from the ceiling high above his head was a flamboyant cherry-red lazer that could cut through flesh as though it were butter. It was his favorite tool. Sighing, he flipped open his notebook to a random page and read over it quickly;

....day six, test three. The fuzzle subjects treated with the Cylonite have shown signs of revolt. Well, they're definately pissed off. They even attacked an intern bringing their food and gnawed the skin off his bones, it was pretty funny to watch, actually. No, its wonderful! Its amazing! Its exactly what I needed. It just proves my theory; Cylonite is a steroid, a disease. Its like the new-age version of rabies. We placed the fuzzles in a special quarrantine pen, where the disease won't spread.
...day eleven, test three. Half the fuzzles have died, the other half had been eaten by their cagemates. Where did we go wrong? What is their modivation to kill and attack?

"Bah." He threw it across the room with a flick of his wrist. An intern standing by bent down and picked it up obediantly, trying not to upset his boss; he had a habit of going crazy at times.

"Nedd, go get me more fuzzles." The vykker ordered as he mixed a jar containing a black chemical together. Nedd muttered something under his breath and left. He returned a minute later with a cart piled high with fuzzle cages. The fuzzles inside snarled and shrank away as the vykker grabbed a cage at random, threw it at the desk, and pulled a pair of goggles over his head. He turned on a tape recorder and said:

"Day one, text four. For odd's sake, Nedd, put your damn goggles on!"
The intern known as Nedd bobbed his head as he listened to the heavy metal blasting from his headphones, completely obvilious. The vykker snatched the headphones, tore a handful of wires out of its battery holder, and shoved them back in Nedd's hands. Nedd stared down at them in sheer horror.

"Put your goggles on!" The vykker snarled.

"Mmmmm mmm?" Nedd hummed weakly, trying to sound helpful. He pointed towards a medicine cabnet across the room.

"No I don't want to take my happy pills!" The vykker snarled, slapping a pair of goggles over the intern's head. "What is wrong with you?"

Nedd didn't answer. He rummaged around in a drawer and gently removed a hypodermic needle. The vykker took it, tilted it back, and carefully began filling it with the thin, coal-black liquid in the jar. It was vital that they take their time; if they made a single mistake, they could both be infected.
The syringe was eventually filled. Satisfied, the vykker said;

"Get the fuzzle."

Nedd hated this part the most.
He put on a pair of thick gardening gloves, his eyes dull, and thrust his hand in the open cage. It was like sticking his hand into a paper shredder. He cried out as the fuzzle cut easily through the gloves and latched onto his fingers, gnawing with merciless precision. Nedd grabbed it with a hand and slammed it against the desk, knocking over a beaker filled with a bubbling liquid in the process. It crashed against the floor. The fuzzle's eyes rolled wildly, and it wimpered loudly- it was temporarily stunned. The vykker plunged the needle into the fuzzle's chest and injected the liquid. Nedd roughly shoved the creature into a safety-glass box from a thick rubber hose. Fuzzles could go in, but they couldn't get out. It rammed its head against the glass with a feral snarl, but quickly gave up. Escape was impossible.
Nedd was still panting heavily from the struggle, holding his hand by the wrist, which was shredded to a pulp. The vykker grinned.
"One down. Now lets get the rest!"
Nedd groaned loudly.


Night had come. A lone fuzzle sat in a quarrantine cage surrounded by tufts of bloodied fur. Its eyes were dark red, and its pupils were like pinpricks. Its breathing became labored and entire patches of fur fell from its sides. Its flesh, revealed from the mangy spots missing, was a sickly, blotched cream color. It was the winner; it had eaten through its cagemates, which had once been loyal allies, just to survive. It was no longer a fuzzle. It was a monster.
It spat out a mouthful of blood and hopped over to the cage's lock, hissing to itself. It closed its mouth over the contraption, sank in his teeth, and got to work. It would only be a matter of hours before it would be free to infect whoever it pleased...

Oh my... Good opening, eager to see where this goes.

Very, very good. The opening clearly expressed the entire setting, the possible characters involved and just what this epidemic is. I want to know what this Fuzzle/monster will do.

Cool chapter! I can see how well you thought it all out. But I chuckled when the Intern said "Mmmm, mmmmmm?" and went to get these so-called "Happy pills".

Chapter 2: Things just got a whole lot worse
 

Thanks. :D

You'll find out soon enough...

Glad you liked it. :D




Shouts and wild cries erupted from a nearby door that had been left open. Dan flinched; he hated loud noises almost as much as he hated sorting fuzzle cages. Thats why he never wore his headphones. Sighing, the intern turned the corner and peeked boredly in the room. A group of interns inside were struggling to contain a pack of fuzzles that had broken loose. They were running around, stepping on fuzzles and flailing their arms. It was mass hysteria. Their vykker bosses, of course, were standing safely out of harm's way in the viewing stands on the outside of the broad, circular room. His own boss, Helix, was cackling like a maniac at the sight of a particular intern running around screaming with a fuzzle latched on to his face.

"Mmmmmm?" What happened now? Dan asked, crossing his arms. Nedd, who had managed to avoid being caught up in the chaos, rolled his eyes and replied,

"Mmmm mmmmmmm mmm." They want to see who would win in a fight- their fuzzle test subjects or a normal fuzzle.

"Mmmm?" Why?

"Mmm." Because they can.

The interns finally contained the fuzzles, who were smothered in blood and snapping their teeth. Dan watched as one of the interns picked himself up, weakly gave a thumbs-up to the vykkers behind the safety glass, and fainted from blood loss. Helix laughed even harder.

"Okay, so," A vykker said, blaring for his voice to be heard over the uncontrollable laughter, "lets start the tests. Nedd!" He shrieked unexpectantly. Nedd jumped in suprise. "Get your lazy butt moving and DO SOMETHING USEFUL!"

Nedd ran off to get the test subjects in the other room, still looking startled; more startled than he usually looked, anyway. Dan slinked off to the corner of the room, trying to appear invisible, but to no avail.

"DAN!" Helix barked, his voice shrill. "Where do you think you're going?!"

Dan flinched and stopped trying to hide. He shrugged in reply.

"Go get some new fuzzles or something, ones that haven't been reduced to tatters beyond repair! And get rid of these ones, they're starting to stink up the place."

Dan nodded submissively. He gathered up the cages of fuzzles, loaded them onto a cart, and wheeled them out of the room. The fuzzles inside were dripping blood and shrinking away from him, baring their teeth in an aggressive manner. Dan was unjaded. He pushed the cart into a foul-smelling room that was painted a chocolate brown color and lit to a minimum. It was lined with rusty, broken cages caked with dried blood. Even more cages hung from racks on the cieling to conserve space. Dan had to duck his head and press his elbows against his sides to avoid knocking anything over. He eventually came to a huge, perfectly round hole in a platform surrounded by thick chicken wire. At the bottom, too far for the eye to see in such gloomy conditions, was a massive pit carved into a huge metal jug. They dumped fuzzles, slogs and other test animals who had outgrown their use into the giant hole. The rotted meat was eventually shovelled out and used as food for the guard slogs on the basement level- it was much cheaper this way.
Without a second thought, Dan opened a fuzzle cage, shook it over the pit, and dropped the fuzzle inside. It shrieked as it fell, and Dan flinched. Why did they have to die so loudly? Couldn't they consider whoever might be listening?
When he was finished with his grizzly task, Dan went to the storeroom, which was pretty much a bleached-white hallway full of fuzzle cages, gathered up as many fuzzles as he could fit on the cart, and brought them back to the testing room. Nedd was already there, tormenting a fuzzle in a cage with a stick. Dan could tell by its lack of fur and foaming mouth that it had been recently injected with Cylonite less than an hour ago.

"Now then," A third vykker said cheerily. His name was Brux, and everybody hated him. He used to be just as bitter and evil as other vykkers, but, one day, when he was testing his equiptment, a machine backfired and electricuted him. It had effected his brain somehow, because when he had woken up, he was giddy and happy and overly-exited, much to everyone's horror. Nobody could understand his change in personality.
Brux literally skipped over to the infected fuzzle cages. He shoved Nedd backwards roughly, who landed on his back, suprised. Brux said "Leave the fuzzles alone. We can't have them angry for our tests!" and he skipped back to his seat. Helix shook his head slowly, struggling to comprehend what it would be like to be happy all of the time.
Two vykkers ushered Dan and Nedd away from the cages. They gratefully obliged and stepped behind the safety glass.
An intern who had survived the fuzzle attack, one who was covered in bloodied gauze, pushed a large bulletproof-glass box on a stretcher into the room, limping with each step. The two vykkers latched a fuzzle cage to each side; one that was infected, and one that was normal. The infected one spat and hissed at the normal one, and the normal one quailed under its murderous glare.

"Mmmm?" What's supposed to happen? Dan queried. The two vykkers stood behind the glass, prepaired to release the fuzzles on command.

Nedd shrugged. "Mmmm mm." Beats me.

Helix turned on a tape recorder and droned into it. "Experiment 1, test 1. Tested fuzzle, 51 minutes on Cylonite, vs. regular fuzzle."

They released the fuzzles.

The normal fuzzle recoiled as the contaminated fuzzle hopped cautiously out of its cage and sniffed the air. The atmosphere was tense. Nobody dared to break the silence. The normal fuzzle squeaked hopefully. The contaminated one swung around, flashing its needle-sharp teeth, and dove with abnormal speed and accuracy. It clamped down on the normal fuzzle's neck, thrashing and tearing away at skin and muscle. The normal one bit down above the eyebrow and pulled back, tearing away the flesh. The contaminated fuzzle screamed and jumped back, blood splashing down onto the floor of the container, and attacked again. The normal fuzzle countered, its jaws wide open, and tore away at the sicky fuzzle's left eye. The contaminated fuzzle aimed for the heart, and struck true. It was already over.
The match was followed closely by a bitter silence. The contaminated fuzzle nudged its dead opponent with its snout before tearing into it like a starving lion, tearing away hunks of flesh and swallowing it without chewing.
Helix spoke into his tape recorder:


"Mmmm mmm?" Violent contact? Dan asked, horrified. It was unusual for interns to show any emotion concerning their subjects, but he made an exeption.

Nedd hummed: They can transmit the Cylonite disease by biting their enemies. It happens almost every time. That fuzzle there, the one eating the other one, got the disease from another fuzzle.

Can the disease jump species?

Nedd paused; this information was classified. Nedd, seeing as he was a higher rank and had been in the job longer than Dan, was allowed to know this information. I don't know, he lied.

The fuzzle crunched on the other fuzzle's bones and swallowed them, eyeing the two interns ravenously. Dan shuddered.


The fuzzle didn't know where it was, nor did it care. All that mattered was that it had to bite something, had to spread the disease, the chaos, the power!
It hopped into a room from an air vent. It was a dark, gloomy labryith full of crying animals and endless rows of cages. It liked it here. It was cold, damp, and dark. Satisfied, it hopped under a rack covered with cages and waited.

Another good chapter, setting the scene for the upcoming violence!

Fuzzles have necks?

Whatever neck-like apendage they use to support their heads are called. =/
I didn't exactly know what to call it.

Ohh, very cool. I absolutely adored the way you described the battle and the reactions of the viewers. Very realistic.

I wonder if that escaped Fuzzle with contaiminate the dying animals, causing a huge chain reaction.

Cool chapter but I can't help but feel sorry for the poor fuzzle when it squeaked hopefully.:crying:

Chapter 3: The cherades
 

Huzzah! :D

Five snowflakes fell from the sky, so our administrators decided to cancel school. =/ They tend to over-react the weather here in good ol' Virginia. Thats why I decided to write the chapter early.
Now i'm bored. :fuzsad:

And I tried to make the fuzzle sad. I'm glad it worked. :D






The generator room was a huge chamber built into the heart of the craft. Lined around its inside were two low floors of metal grating with long pathways leading towards a shimmering, cyan-green cylinder in its center. The object was tall and heavily plated with intricate metal gears and tubes that were constantly rotating, generating its own energy. At its top, surrounded by thick steel and a sticky silver liquid, was a paper-thin computer chip the size of a Vykker's fist. It was programmed with artifitial intelligence and ran on a tight scheduel: at exactly 10:00 pm, it turned all the lights in the entire craft off. At 6:00 am, it turned the lights in the entire craft on, minus the basement. The lights in the basement were always kept off.
It powered the entire ship. Certain parts of the generator could be deactivated, such as the private personel locks, but they entire thing could not be turned off, no matter the circumstances.
The ship was on a set course to an airfield hundreds of miles away; it would be three weeks before it reached its destination...






Another day, another dollar. To interns this saying meant nothing. They were grossly underpaid and absurdly overworked, and, seeing as most worked in windowless airships their entire lives, often lost their conception of time. It was slightly depressing, and Nedd tended to ignore it.
Nedd was busily stacking fuzzle cages in order of use. The fuzzles were getting a kick out of scaring him; he was the kind of intern who seemed to be a magnet for trouble. He was always getting mauled by fuzzles or catching life-threataning diseases in some freak accident, and because of this he was always wide-eyed and wary. A fuzzle in a cage bared its teeth and puffed up its fur, a wild look in its eyes. Nedd jumped back, arms flailing, and felt ridiculous when he realised that the fuzzle was just trying to scare him. Nedd frowned smugly and shook the fuzzle's cage around, watching as it was thrown cruely from side to side.
When he was finished with his chore, Nedd pushed the cart of stacked fuzzles back into place and turned to leave. But something was wrong. He looked around, trying to figure out what was bugging him; he knew something was out of place, but what? He spotted an empty glass quarrantine cage in a corner. It was wrapped in a chain attatched to a broken padlock. He jumped in suprise, his head barely missing the cieling.

OH SH--!

He turned and started running at the same time, knocking over his freshy-stacked fuzzle cages. He paid it no mind. Nedd sped hastily down the hall, practically trampling anybody who got in his way, until he came to the domed room where his boss was working. The room was full of vykkers diligantly disecting an elum, but no interns. Nedd gulped; this made explaining a whole lot harder.
He ran up to his boss, humming loudly as he tried to explain his predicament. His boss spotted him and snapped

"What?! What is it this time? Did you give yourself a concussion again---"

"MMMMMMM!" Nedd howled. He grabbed a notebook and a pen and furiously scrabbled a few words, only to find that the pen was out of ink.

"What ever it is," his boss said shrilly, "it can wait."

Nedd began furiously making signals with his hands, but he was moving so fast that his boss had no idea what he was trying to say. A few more vykkers threw in some suggestions.

"I thinks he's saying that the guard slogs broke loose." One said.

"The ships' hurtling towards the ground?" Another asked.

"No, I think he's saying he burned a hole in the floor with a bottle of sulphuric acid--"

"What? This", a vykker mimiced one of Nedd's motions, "does not look like sulphuric acid at all!"

Nedd slapped his forehead and growled loudly. This was getting nowhere. He decided to use cherades, only slower.

He tapped his wrist with three fingers. Three words. He held up one finger. First word. He tapped his wrist with three fingers again. Three syllables.

"Okay." His boss said. All the vykkers in the room left what they were doing and joined in, unaware of the bad news Nedd brought. Nedd looked around, trying to figure out a way to describe Cylonite. He rushed over to the dead elum's head, picked up a knife, and made a careful insicion across on eye. A blackish liquid dripped out. He pointed to it furiously.

"Eye goo!" A vykker said exitedly, sure that he was correct. Nedd shook his head. He opened a drawer, picked up a syringe, and pretended to laborously fill it with the blackish syrup. His boss shrieked,

"Cylonite!"

Nedd nodded exessively. His boss beamed. "Hey, I got it! So the first word is Cylonite."

Nedd held up two fingers, second word, looking pleased; this was working better than he thought it would. He tapped his wrist with two fingers. Two syllables.
He looked around. A fuzzle in a cage was dozing quietly. He pointed at it.

"Fuzzle!" another vykker called out. Nedd nodded again. He held up three fingers, third word, and tapped his wrist with two fingers. Two syllables.
Nedd thought long and hard. How could he possibly describe such a complicated word? He ran over to the sleeping fuzzle and opened its cage. It didn't notice. Nedd angrily slapped it and it sprang to life, hissing and snarling. The cage was wide open. It jumped out, biting and hissing, and scurried under a desk.

A vykker snapped, "Hey! Why did you do that? I spent days trying to catch that thing---"

"ESCAPED!" His boss yelled. Nedd nodded and waited expectantly. The vykkers were silent for a long time, unsure of what to do next. Suddently, everything fell into place.

"OH MY ODD!" A vykker screamed. "THE CYLONITE FUZZLE ESCAPED!!"

It was chaotic! Ten vykkers dove all at once at the emergency control button drilled to the wall. One of them grabbed it, punched it roughly, and pulled a phone-like object from its side. He spoke into it hurriedly.

We have an escape in section four, room 31.... caution advised... we have a dangerous, Cylonite-infected fuzzle roaming the premesis...

A mere seconds later four interns dressed into protective armor burst into a room, each wielding a thick rubber hose connected to a box strapped to their backs. They turned them on and immediately began firing a spray of anti-bacterial foam that flooded the room and bleached all the color from the walls. It was up to their waists and growing higher with each passing second. Vykkers were slipping and falling all over the place and Nedd was practically floundering in the stuff, unable to breathe through the thick wall of foam. The interns finally turned the hoses off and marched down the hall to disinfect the other rooms. Nedd's boss poked his head out of the lather.

"What the hell was THAT?!" He demanded, standing up. He slipped and fell back over, causing foam to fill the air. A vykker dressed in a similar protective suit entered the room.

"Its basic regulations," it droned. "Chapter four, sub-section seventeen, regulation---"

"I don't care WHERE its written," Nedd's boss snarled, "I just want it OUT OF MY ROOM!"

"I can't do that," The armored vykker said dully, "Chapter one, sub-section three, regulation 81, page six clearly states that anyone who---"

"Its RUINED!" Another vykker bawled. "OUR DISECTION! We were cutting AN ELUM TO PIECES! You've RUINED IT!"

"For all elum-related interruptions, please read Chapter----"

"MMMM!" Nedd snarled, his hands on his hips. "MMMMmmm mmm MMM MMM-MMMMM!!!"

"What he said!" A vykker agreed.

The armored vykker sighed. "My apologies," it said without the faintest hint of remorse. "But rest assured that even at this moment we are searching---"

"Uh." Two more armored vykkers shuffled anxiously into the room. Their faces were covered, but there was obvious embarassment in their voices. "Where did you say it ran away?"

There was a pause, and everybody wondered the same thing; who were these people? And more importantly, who hired them? They were disgustingly undertrained, yet worked with almost robotic order.

"Mmmm...." Nedd said, pointing to his left, where he had run from, "....mmmmmm mmmm."

"Thanks!" the vykkers said, hurrying out the door.

There was an even longer pause. Somebody in the back coughed. Then, finally, Nedd's boss said,

"Nedd, go get some more interns. We'll need to clean this up. And get me a new elum!"

Nedd sighed. The last thing he wanted to do was to go back to the room where the violently-infected fuzzle had escaped just to get an elum. He walked to the door, and his boss said as he left,

"Oh, and Nedd," Nedd turned to see what other ridiculous commands he had, "watch your step."

You really do have a flair for writing. And that's an understatement. I'll be waiting for the next chapter.

i'm actually getting into this, i'll be reading the next chapter.

Chapter 4
 

Thank you so much! :D


Glad you enjoy it. ;)





By the time that they had cleaned up all the foam, thrown it off the ship, re-painted the walls, replaced all the vykker's contaminated tools, disected a new elum, and caught the normal fuzzle he had released during cerades, Nedd was exhausted. That, however, didn't stop his boss from rapping our orders just as harshly as he always did.

"NEDD! WE NEED MORE FUZZLES!"

"NEDD! THIS SLOG BIT ME!"

"NEDD! STICK YOUR HAND DOWN THE GARBAGE DISPOSAL AND FIND OUT WHATS CLOGGING IT UP!"

Needless to say, Nedd was relieved when the day finally ended.


The lights came on. Nedd groaned and sat up, only to smack his head against the top of his metal bunkbead. He groaned louder. Dan poked his head down from the top bunk quizzically with a look that read 'you do that every day; don't you ever think?'
Nedd forced himself to get out of bed. He, along with all 299 of his intern collegues, slept in a large, barrack-like room that, for no reason whatsoever, smelled strongly of lemon-scented air fresheners. It was cramped, always lit as brightly as possible, and was hot and sweaty. He hated it.
Nedd yawned as best he could with the stitches covering his mouth and left; the sooner he left that place, which he considered to be some complicated form of hell on earth, the better.
After nearly twenty minutes of walking, taking elevators, trudging up stairs, wandering aimlessly down hallways, and nearly getting run over by speeding stretchers, Nedd came to the large room where he always worked. He looked it over in confusion. For one thing, his boss was up before him and standing in the middle of the room, which rarely ever happened, and for another, every concievable square inch of the floor was covered in mouse traps. His boss rubbed his claws together, snickering evily.

"If this doesn't catch that fuzzle, I don't know what will..." He cackled. Brux peeked inside the room, grinning exitedly.

"I know!" He agreed. He had done the same thing. "That fuzzle will be dead, I know it will! Oh, it just makes me as jittery as a jackhammer to---"

"Okay," Nedd's boss said with a careless motion of his hand, "I really don't care, go away."

Brux skipped away happily. Nedd stared down at the floor, inquesting on how he could get across. There was absolutely no space to walk, no matter how careful he was. He tentatively raised his foot and nudged aside a few traps. One of the traps jumped up and snapped in the air, and Nedd fell back, trembling violently. His boss burst out laughing.

"Your pathetic! Now go get me a fuzzle."

Nedd got up and left before his boss noticed how embarassed he was. He couldin't help being terrified of everything that moved; it was in his nature. Nedd came to a dark, damp room packed to the brim with fuzzle cages sitting on shelves. They all snarled at him as he walked by, and he tried his best to keep to the middle of the room and away from them. He weaved around racks of cages and ducked under more hanging haphazardously from the ceiling, and quickly realised that he was lost. He turned around. Behind him all the cages looked the same. He couldn't even tell which way he came from. Nedd rolled his eyes. He was tired of things like this only happening to him.

Something scuffled across the floor.

Nedd looked around wildly, terror in his eyes. What had made that noise? Had a fuzzle broken loose? The sound grew louder, and a distinct growling sound rang in the air. A little lopsided shape jiggled in the shadows, silouetted by the faint light. Nedd backed up, his hands out in front of him, as though somehow blocking the shape. The shape mumbled and looked up at him with dark, luminous red eyes. It opened its mouth, revealing sharp teeth. Its tongue, throat, and gums were a sickly, decaying, aged-cream color.

NO! Nedd thought, running back. He pushed over a fuzzle-covered rack, and the cages clattered angrily together as they collided with the floor. The infected fuzzle emerged from under the rack. Its skin was blotchy and yellow and it seemed bizzarely swollen. It looked as though it had a bad case of mange. It eyed him spitefully and snapped its jaws, causing foam to fleck the ground. Nedd reached for whatever he could get his hands on. He grabbed a mould-caked mop and waved it threataningly in the air, trembling so vigorously that he could barely keep his grip on its handle.

The fuzzle sprang at him!

Nedd screamed and swung the mop, battering the fuzzle aside as hard as he could. It hit the wall and fell to the floor, suprisingly unharmed. It howled and sprang a second time, skidded to the left, and dove at him. Nedd swung the mop and missed. The fuzzle hit him square in the chest and opened its mouth to bite him. Nedd wrestled it to the floor and punched at it, missed it completely, and cracked his knuckles against the cement floor. He winced, still trembling. The fuzzle jumped up to his face, a fuzzy, snarling ball of terror and agony, and opened its jaws. Nedd slammed it to the floor. The fuzzle was temporarily stunned. He pummeled it again and again and again, screaming in raw panic, until blood drenched his fingers. Nedd fell down on his back in a daze, staring up at the cieling. The fuzzle was a bloodied lump of grizzle on the floor. Nedd held his right hand with his left, covering it as though he couldin't stand the sight. Then, carefully, he removed his hand. Ten small holes ran in a circle over the back of his hand.

What could he do? Who could he turn to? If anybody found out about this, they'd kill him; they were ruthless enough to do it.

He curled up into a ball on the floor, as limp as a dead fish, his eyes unseeing, expressionless. He had been bitten. He was infected.

Just dropped by to say - this is awesomey:D. I'm guessing bad things will happen now the fuzzle is dead and he has the virus, 'specially since he's cram-packed with other interns o.O...Me thinks people shall get hurt, keep it up 8D!

Now this is interesting. I am very curious and waiting for the next chapters. Are the Slogs infected? How will this alter Nedd even more so if he can't bite someone? Will he be more violent? What shall his fate be? All of this demands to be answered by the guy behind this keyboard. Hope you write more.

Wow, good fight between the fuzzle and intern; it'll be interesting to see how Nedd will react when he can't bite people.
It shows the inherent selfishness of the industrialists in a way. He's the only carrier (that we know of) of the virus; if he died it'd come to an end, yet he doesn't do anything to stop himself. He's going to die anyway, but he would rather have those few days completely insane and risk the spread of the epidemic across Oddworld.

Chapter 5
 

Lol, awesomey. xD


Well here ya go. :D


Thats kind of what I was aiming for. I'm glad it worked.



Just felt like saying, the craft is twice the size of vykkers labs, so it is, of course, huge. It contains Vykkers, Interns, Sligs (there are only fifty or so, which are used as guards for patrols and stuff), and Scrubs (they only work in the kitchens, the vykker suites, and in the stables for the elum and meep and such used for tests.)
All of these will be tied into my story one way or another. :D






Just like in all life-death situations, first came denial and disbelief. Nedd was still sitting in the messy, cage-lined room, straining his brain as he considered what could happen. After at least an hour of thinking he narrowed his options down to four possibilities:

One. He wasn't infected and could just get on with his life all happy and cheery and skip through fields of flowers on cloudless days with rainbows and unicorns without a worry in sight.

Two. He was infected and would die a slow and painful death and it would be weeks before his body was found.

Three. He could pretend nothing never happened and hope and pray that nothing ever went wrong.

Four. He could become a ballistic Cylonite victim, go on a killing rampage, and wait for all his problems to just blow over.

Nedd picked himself up off the ground and brushed the dust from his sholders. He decided just to wait it out; maybe an answer would surface soon. He looked around. The little pile of gore that was once an infected fuzzle still sat on the floor. Disgusted, Nedd swept it up with the mouldy mop and pushed it down a nearby drain. All that was left was a bloody stain. He nodded with satisfaction and shook himself off to calm his nerves before leaving.





They vykker stared in horror at the monster slamming itself against the large safety glass cage, its mouth frothing profoundly. It snapped its jaws, tilted back its head, and gave a feral howl.

"Fantastic!" The vykker gasped, pressing his claws against the glass. The infected slog threw itself at the vykker and snarled, enraged that it couldin't harm its target. "Absolutely fantastic!"

"We injected it with Cylonite less than a week ago," a vykker covered in a silver safety suit said. Nedd's boss tapped the glass, sending the slog into a fit. The slog had sickly, creamy yellow skin covered in overlapping maple-syrup colored spots, a massive foaming mouth, and bulging muscles all over its body. It snarled and bit at its own legs as though they were an enemy.

"Its completely dilusional," the vykker continued as Dan poked the glass with his finger, taunting the slog. "It attacks the glass, the ground, even itself. Its metabalism is twice as fast as normal and it can move at unnatural speed, the highest of which we recorded was 45 miles per hour. Even the strongest guard slogs in the basement can only run a maximum of thirty-"

"NEDD!" Nedd's boss screeched unexpectantly. Nedd peeked warily in the room. "Where have you been this entire time? And what in odds' name happened to you?"

Nedd looked down at himself dumbly. His left arm up to his elbow was covered in blood, though his boss couldin't see any injury, and he had ten small, swollen, bruse-colored holes in his right hand. He was also caked in dust. He shrugged weakly, looking startled.

His boss lost interest; he never cared for Nedd's well-being. "Get your ass in here, and wash your arm, its disgusting."

Nedd did as he was bidden. The vykker continued his lecture on the effects of Cylonite, glad that he sounded smart.




It was 9:45 pm.
The day had gone by eventlessly for Dan; he helped Helix and Brux examine a group of chemically-engineered meep, sat boredly through the discussion on Cylonite, and sorted a few files. Nothing special. He passed through a large chamber with at least fifty doors and stairs in the center of the craft that was used as a main intersection- everybody passed through it at some time during their day. He weaved through the crowds of interns and vykkers, heading for the intern barraks, when suddently the unexpected happened.

"Get down! Get down!" Somebody screamed frantically. The crowd chifted, and cries and yelps filled the air. Dan looked around wildly; what was going on? He could hear shots being fired from a distance, and angry barks coming from two broad metal doors leading to the unpredictable gloom of the basement. He stepped back instinctively, terror in his eyes, when suddently the doors swung open. A pack of slogs, twenty strong at the least, careened forward. They drooled ravenously and pounced on the first person they could reach, tearing him to shreds.

"WE NEED BACKUP! QUICKLY, QUICKLY, IN THE MAIN INTERSECTION, FIRST FLOOR..." A slig, one of the few on board the craft and used as a guard, screamed into a walkie-talkie. Fifteen shapes, a mixture of sligs and interns, ran out of the basement in prusuit of the slogs. They all wore silver and black protective suits and were packing snoozis. Interns and vykkers ran flailing in all directions, locking the doors behind them as they hid in rooms.

Shit! Dan cursed to himself, rushing towards a door. It slammed shut and locked. He looked around. He was trapped.

A nearby slig collapsed under a churning mass of slogs, gurgling in his death throes. He threw his arm out at his side and the snoozi in his hand skidded across the floor. Dan picked it up instinctively, and the gun clattered inbetween his quaking hands.

Slogs were everywhere, biting everything they could lock their jaws around. A vykker clad in similar armor, the only one there, fired his weapon. A slog in his range fell over with a strangled yelp. Dan could hear the vykker cursing as he took aim again:

"Damn slogs, just can't get enough action underground... if we had more guards this wouldn't be a problem!" He fired again, killing another slog. Bullets filled the air, screeching as they went.

Two slogs plowed forward through the mass of bodies and dropped equiptment, their tongues rolling over their razor-sharp teeth. Dan cried out and ran the other way, threw himself at a stairway, and screamed again when he realised that it lead to a locked door. The slogs followed relentlessly, their feet pounding the ground and their breath raw and stingy...

Dan fired twice, dropping the first slog. The other slog bolted forward with lightning speed. Dan heard it speed by his legs, felt it knock him flat. He fired again. It hit the slog directly inbetween where its eyes would be. It collapsed under its own weight.

The fight was over. The remaining handful of slogs, some wounded, ran back into the basement, yelping. Dan stayed down. He knew that if he tried to stand up, he would just collapse again; his legs were as limp as wet noodles. He pulled himself up into a sitting position.

"You!" The vykker yelled from the bottom of the stairs, pointing at Dan. Dan pointed at himself, suprised. "Yes, you. Are you working for the Guard?"

The Guard was, obviously, the term for the guards who patrolled the premesis, mostly at night. Dan shook his head. The vykker grunted in suprise.

"We need more guards." Dan's eyes flicked upward, suddently interested. "You have good aim. Want a job?"

That was unexpected. Dan pointed at himself again. The vykker rolled his eyes from under his mask. "Yes, I am talking to you. Well, do you want it or not?"

Dan nodded, beaming. The vykker nodded.

"Report to the Guard Tower at Eight-o-hundred hours." Then he turned and left to help the others clean up the mess.

Dan couldn't believe what he had just heard. He also couldn't believe that he accepted the job. Nonetheless, he felt as content as a cuccumber to show up at the guard tower as assighed; he would get paid more as a guard, and, plus, he had never been in the craft's only tower, which was the highest point in the entire ship. He giggled furiously, got up, and headed for the intern barracks. Oh, how jealous they would be! He couldn't help but laugh.

I think that would been have more effective without the 'most of them have died off' comment which made Dan's reaction seem a bit idiotic. I'd suggest you remove that line.

Otherwise, a good chapter! I liked how it moved away from Nedd. It might have been more effective without the first section though, so we don't know about his decision. It would be more worrying if he just kept turning up for work as normal as we wouldn't know what was going on with him.

I liked how callous you made the vykkers; despite the potential disaster they've already forgotten about the escaped fuzzle and are even testing Cylonite on more dangerous creatures! 0_0

(Claps)...And so, I forgot where Ned went and this Dan guy came along 8). (Reads)...Ah yeah, he came before Dan and uhhh...Was lectured...C8 Carry on, it'll be fun to see how the infection spreads and such <3. I guess he can spit on people and gum them instead of biting, or spread it by makign a blood brothers bond or being eaten...8D.

Chapter 6
 

Sorry. I didn't have a lot of time to write this, so it didn't turn out as dramatic as I had imagined... here you go anyway. :D




The lights in the barracks turned on at exactly 6 am as they always did.
Nedd forced his eyes open and groaned. His entire body was sore, and he was as stiff as a corpse. He felt his neck with a hand. His skin was waxy and he was drenched in sweat. He sat up, careful to avoid hitting his head on the metal bunkbead above, and rubbed away the glue from around his eyes.

"Mmmm?" Whats up? Dan asked, leaning over from the top bunk.

I feel terrible. Nedd complained. Dan glowed with pride.

Well I don't... Oh odd, don't say it, Nedd thought, ... because I got a job working for the guard!

Nedd rolled his eyes. Okay man. You've told me that, like, fifty times already, he snapped. Dan shrugged and clamored down from the top bunk.

Nedd stood up and stretched. Suddently a bright array of colors burst through his skull, and his head pounded like a base drum. Fatigue smothered him like a blanket. Dan stared at him strangely.

You okay? He hummed. Nedd shook himself as though trying trying to shake off the pain exploding in his head.

Its nothing. Nedd said. It'll go away.

They left the barracks early to avoid getting caught in the crowd. As they walked Nedd glanced up at the bright, almost blinding lights hanging firmly above. Almost instantly his palms started to sweat. He had never realised how brightly lit the hallways were. Dan started saying something exitedly, and for a minute Nedd hadn't even realised he had spoke.

... I wonder what my first job will be, Dan said almost to himself. Nedd wanted to hit him over the head and shut him up, but he knew better. I wonder if he'll make me patrol the basement. I heard its really wet down there---

Its dark, too, right? Nedd interrupted. Dan nodded impatiently.

Well yeah, of course it is. They haven't lit lights down there since the pipes' broke.

He paused thoughtfully. Two years ago the basement hadn't even been the basement- it was just known as the Lab Foyer, the first and smallest floor on the ship. It was made of tall, wide rooms and winding hallways that had been flooded with inches of water over time. A pipe had burst long ago that nobody had bothered to fix, it wet the circuts, destroying the lights and all the experiments, and had even set some of the rooms on fire from the sparks. They abandoned it after it had destroyed itself. To keep everyone from going down there they infested it with crazed guard slogs and locked it up with metal doors. It was cheaper to have it there then to get rid of it, though they were saving up to have it removed so that the craft could move faster. There were rumors of a crazy experiment living down there that guarded a metal safe full of cash, but Nedd doubted it.

Nedd's head felt like it was burning on the inside, and he found himself stumbling instead of walking. He looked around wildly, trying to pinpoint what was causing him such agony. It came to him in a flash: it was the lights. He felt like they were melting a hole in his head, though they barely seemed to bother Dan. Dan was still talking about his job, but Nedd hadn't been listening.

Speaking of the basement, Dan said, I heard that since the slog attack they've programmed a new lock that can only be opened with an access key. I think its about time they did that. The slogs would've never attacked if they couldn't-

They have the key? Nedd hummed in suprise. They turned down the hallway and into a crossroad between two corridors. Nedd looked out the window; he could see the tower, standing high and regal and curved to a point, blocking out the faint sunrise. Nedd couldn't help but admire it despite his desperation.

Well yeah, of course they do. Dan said with a careless motion. Without saying what he was doing Nedd walked quickly down the hall in the direction of the tower. Where are you going? Dan asked in suprise, running to catch up. Nedd didn't answer.

They entered a small booth plated with mirrors; the main elevator. Nedd punched a button, squinting against the single light shining from a hole in the ceiling. Dan figured that Nedd wanted a job too. He rocked calmly back and forth as the elevator shot upwards before grinding unexpectantly to a hault, flinging both the interns from inside. They found themselves in the tower, which was suprisingly empty. It was a large, round room with a domed ceiling and dozens of computers that blinked on and off at random. Dan shrugged.

I guess nobodys' clocked in yet, he said, sounding uninterested. Nedd approached a desk off to the left, pulled out a random drawer, and filed through it quickly. Finding nothing, he stuck his arm inside and shifted through the papers, but he still couldn't reach the back.

Dan jumped. I don't think you should do that. he said worriedly. Nedd grunted in reply, but didn't appear to hear him. Suddently, without even realising it, he shoved the desk roughly. It groaned and tipped over in a puff of dust, causing folders and stray papers to skitter across the floor. Nedd seemed to find what he was looking for; it was a packet containing a flat metal rectangle that was a dull brick red. It had a barcode printed on one side, and was lined with numbers on the other. Nedd made a break for the door. Dan stood in his way, anger in his eyes.

What do you think you're doing?! he snapped. Nedd pushed him aside and entered the elevator. Dan followed him as he pushed the button. You can't just steal from people, especially not the guards... Dan whined. Nedd kept quiet; he barely knew what he was doing himself. All he had to trust were his instincts, which were telling him to head for the only place in the entire craft that wasn't lit: the basement.

They weaved through the crowds of vykkers and interns, Nedd with a deer-in-headlights look on his face, and Dan looking crestfallen as though suddently realising everything he thought he knew was a lie. When they reached an empty hallway Dan suddently dove in front of Nedd, fire in his eyes.

Spill it, Nedd, he snapped. What do you want with the access key to the basement?

Get out of my way. Nedd growled savagely. Dan shook his head.

No. he said smugly.

I said, Nedd said, sizing him up. He suddently towered over Dan like a massive thug. Get out of my way.

Dan was slammed against the wall effortlessly by Nedd, who held him wriggling by his neck as though he were merely a ragdoll. He leaned in close, so close that their faces almost touched, so that Nedd was staring at him with wide, dark brown, threataning eyes. Dan cringed helplessly, his hands clasped around Nedd's wrist as though trying to free himself.

When I tell you to move, you move, no questions. If you don't listen i'll gut you alive like the slimy eel you are and feed your entrails to the slogs without feeling any remorse. Understand?

This was not like Nedd at all, Dan thought. He always jumped at the slightest chance of danger, but he never caused it. Dan gulped visibly and nodded as best he could, his face turning a sickly shade of periwinkle from lack of air. Nedd dropped him and he fell to the floor, gasping. Then he turned smartly and marched the other way without looking back.

Nedd came to the main intersection on the first floor and squinted his eyes against the light. The paint on the walls were scratched in places, and he could still catch a faint whiff of snoozi gunpowder in the air. The hallway was mostly deserted. He approached the broad metal doors marked 'BASEMENT- ENTER WITH CAUTION' in bright orange letters, sweat drenching his back from the light beating down on his skin, and stuck the key in the small, slit-shaped lock. It beeped faintly and the doors swung open with a loud clang, revealing the imposing darkness ahead. A few vykkers stopped walking and looked over at him, wondering what a lowly intern would want to do with the basement. Nedd looked around worriedly, took a deep breath, and stepped into the darkness ahead.




Dan still couldn't understand what had happened, but he wasn't about to let it go. He followed Nedd carefully and watched the door close behind him. He reached into his pocket and fingered the key inside- Nedd had forgotten that he, seeing as he was now a guard, had one too. Now, he decided, i'll just have to wait.

Heehee awesome, I'm guessing if a slog eats him it'll get the plague, spread it to other corpses, then others will examine the corpses then get infected then the ship crashes and the rabies plague spreads to fuzzles in Western Mudos:D. Caaarry ooonnn...

Awesome! I've only just caught up with the story and It's amazing. Go on please!

So what's keeping you:p?

Lol Zozo's a man

I love the story! Keep writing!

Sorry its taking so long. I've been extremely busy these last few weeks.
Okay, so my parents work for the state department, so we move around ALOT. Like, every two years. This time it seems we're moving to a country called Jordon in the middle east. But to make sure we actually move there we have to fill out hundreds of files of paperwork, we have to pack up all our things, we need to be interviewed, like, fifty times, we need to get seven shots and blood tests to make sure we won't get terrible diseases while we're over there, and I have to keep my grades up at A's to make sure they'll accept me into one of their schools.
It really sucks.
But I'll be continuing this fic 100%, I just have a 1000-bullet checklist to go through first. Ugh. x.x
I'll start the next chapter today, and I should get it finished. :D

-edit-

Yay! Here ya go:



-----

Nedd winced against the cold air as the doors slammed shut behind him. His head's pounding receded to a muffled thump that Nedd recognized as his own heartbeat. He stood shock-still, waiting patiently for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. It happened startlingly fast. Like a light at the end of a tunnel, the basement illuminated itself in a dim, greenish glow. Nedd was suprised- his night vision had never been this good. He looked around, wondering if an unseen lamp was responsible, but he found nothing.

He stepped forward carefully, his foot creaking against a damp step. The basement had been made out of wood covered in metal plates: it was much cheaper that way. However, the water from the leaky pipes had soaked through and rotted the wood, making the entire structure unstable.
The wood's groaning made Nedd jump, so he ran down the steps as fast as he could. He stamped the ground with his other foot, and was satisfied to find that the floor there was made out of actual steel.

'What now?' He wondered. At his sides were long hallways leading deeper into the basement. He continued down the path in front of him as though it were no big deal.

Nedd soon found himself passing bizzare rooms and hellish corridors that made his heart convulse. The rooms were packed to the brim with jars and tools like that out of a horror film. He saw huge glass cases containing bizzare, mangled creatures preserved in formaldahyde; a giant eyeball the size of his entire torso floating in a jar; imposing, stuffed scrabs with much too many legs; broken test tubes resting on moudly desks containing a black, bitter foam.

'No wonder this place was abandoned,' Nedd thought with a shudder.

A faint glow shimmered ahead, like sunlight passed through stained glass. He flinched instinctively as the light touched his body, but was relieved to find that it didn't hurt him. He passed through it to see what was causing it.

Nedd came to a huge room built somewhat like a subway a hundred feet tall and a hundred feet wide. At the way top of the tunnel were small, blue light bulbs that lit the entire room brightly despite their size. Around the outside of the tunnel, where Nedd was standing, was concrete grading surrounded by thick wire. He approached the wire and peeked over it. Over the edge was a wide trench full of rapidly-running water that was constantly churning and gurgling. It looked to be at least twenty feet deep. Nedd suddenly realised where he was standing; he was in the ship's cooling system, the tunnels that wrapped around the generator and prevented it from overheating. He sighed in relief, feeling strangely comforted.

Something scuttled behind him. Nedd swung around.

Nothing.

Something scuttled to his left and vanished into the hallway's darkness. Nedd turned.

Nothing again.

Then, unexpectantly, something slammed him flat against the ground and tried to maul his leg!

Nedd sprang forward, panting with terror. A slog was circling him viciously, foam sputtering down its jaws. It had pale, sickly skin like something that had spent its entire life in the dark. Without warning three more slogs appeared, looking just as vicious and hungry as the first. The pack trembled with glee at the thought of fresh intern meat.

Niiice sloggies, Nedd hummed, his voice trembling. He tried to back up but was blocked by the wire. Goooood sloggies...

The slogs were unjaded by his attempt to calm them. They stumbled forward, their gums pulled back in a vicious grin, revealing sharp canines. What appeared to be the leader of the pack jumped forward, its mouth open impossibly wide, its throat a gaping hole. It slammed into Nedd with the force of a cannon, knocking the breath from his lungs. The other three pounced, yelping, and Nedd vanished under the thrashing pile of slogs.

Time slowed. The atmosphere grew tense. Something struck Nedd like a brick to his skull, revealing itself as an ancient, primordial instinct.

His claws tore through the slog's flesh like butter. Blood filled the air. The frenzied cries of slogs grew as Nedd hauled one into the air and slammed it against the wall with as much force as he could muster, breaking its neck. The slogs jumped at his back, creating long, jagged gashes. Nedd howled and slammed one to the floor, disreguarding his wounds, and dug his claws into his throat. He felt a burning sensation in the back of his head. He was killing, he was surviving, and he liked it!

Only two were left. He jolted to the left and broke through one effortlessly, his long, spidery hand erupting from its back. Its spine snapped inbetween his fingers, and it died with a sickening yelp. The remaining slog screamed in terror and began running as fast as it could to avoid Nedd's wrath. It slammed itself against a vent in the wall and scurried inside. The vent wasn't far back, however, and it found itself trapped.

Nedd reached inside in an attempt to pull it out, but it was too far back. The slog nipped his hand and scuttled backwards, wimpering loudly.

Nedd slid to the floor and leaned against the wall for support, breathing as heavily as if he had run a mile. The slog could be heard moving inside the vent, eager to escape. Nedd forced himself to stand. Carefully, Nedd tore a hunk of flesh from the dead slog and placed it inside the vent.

The slogs in the basement were starved, cannibalistic creatures who were drawn to all matters of meat like candy. The slog snapped up the chunk of grisle from his departed companion eagerly before vanishing back into the vent. Nedd cooed to it gently and placed more meat into the opening, this time closer to the exit. The slog stepped forward tenatively and lapped up the meat. Nedd repeated this process until the slog was comfortable enough to leave the vent. The slog was a startlingly dumb specimen and seemed to have completely forgotten the terror it had faced just minutes ago.

After the slog had eaten all the meat it began nudging Nedd's hand, begging for more. Nedd patted it gently on the head and it left the vent, its entire backside swaying. It didn't have a tail, so it shook its hips instead. Nedd picked it up and set it on its lap. Its tounge rolled as it panted, absorbing the attention like a sponge.

Nedd suddently had it in a strangle hold. It screamed and kicked, clawing at Nedd' wrists with all its might. Nedd held it firmly with one arm, then, without thinking, tore through his own face with his claws. Blood filled his mouth and spilled out onto the floor, but Nedd didn't even notice. He opened his mouth for the first time, revealing vertical rows of needle-like teeth. It was a horrible sight. In his haste he had cut through more of his mouth than the actual stitches. He bit down on the slog's neck as hard as he could, drawing blood. The slog broke free, howling shrilly as it vanished into the darkness of the basement, leaving Nedd alone in the cooling system.

Pain exploded in Nedd's head. He was suddently aware of the cuts and bruses all over his body, more specifically, the one over his mouth.

'What's happening to me!' He tried to hum. A sickening gurgle of blood came instead. 'Why the hell is this happening! What the hell did I just do!'

He dug his claws into his head, his eyes red with pain and confusion. He collapsed from blood loss. His vision swam before his eyes. Nedd managed to examine one of the gashes in his hand. The wound, which had been a bloody mess seconds ago, was now swollen on the outsides. The bloated skin pressed together, stopping the blood flow. Somehow, the cylonite in his blood had begun healing him.

The pain subsided. Nedd slumped to the ground, his limbs trembling and convulsing. He could barely see. He could feel his skin stretching over his injuries on its own accord, like a living, breathing animal.

And then... nothing.

Wow that was creepy, but do interns have claws? Just a little thing. Carry on at some point, preferably when you're done with the blood tests, regualer tests, and whatever else you need to do.

Claws sounded much better than 'overgrown nails'. :D



----



The main intersection was deserted. Dan glanced around quickly to double check that nobody was watching before approaching the broad metal doors shielding away the basement. He stuck his key in the lock and turned it, half expecting it not to work. The lock beeped in response and creaked open slightly, revealing the depths of the basement just feet away—

“Going somewhere?” A voice behind him inquired. Dan swung around, startled, and came face to face with the head guard, Durc.
“I don’t recall you being assigned to patrol the basement, especially this early.” Dan tried to sum up an excuse on the spot, but was cut off. The vykker examined one of his claws boredly as he continued, his voice oozing with suspicion.
“And I don’t see you wearing your armor... plus you don’t have any weapons and you’re alone.”
Durc’s threatening eyes squinted in his direction. Dan felt as though the guard was trying to burn a hole in his head using just his vision. But, to Dan’s surprise, he didn’t dwell on the matter.
A buzzing sound filled the air. Durc lifted a violently-trembling walkie-talkie to his ear and spoke into it.
“Yeah, what?” He asked. Angry squawks erupted from the device’s voicebox. Durc turned it off abruptly. “Come with me.” He said, marching smartly off towards a hall. Dan was the only other person around, so he followed.

Durc was walking so fast that Dan had trouble keeping up. The guard’s eyes were constantly shifting left and right as though expecting something to jump out of a closet and attack him. Dan couldn’t help but notice that Durc had a little hacker and a snoozi strapped to his belt despite the fact that he wasn’t on duty.

‘He takes his job way too seriously,’ Dan thought with a sigh.

They came to a room with the number 31 painted to the door in wide, white lettering. Dan frowned; why would the head guard be summoned to an average fuzzle storage room? They entered nonetheless.

The room was packed to the brim with vykkers, interns, and sligs. All the racks of fuzzle cages had been pushed against the walls, and the rooms perimeter had been blocked by yellow police tape that read ‘CAUTION - INFECTION ZONE’. Despite the warning, nobody wore protective gear. Durc and Dan ducked under the yellow tape. Durc immediately began chatting away to a nearby vykker, gathering the details of whatever had happened in the room. Dan spotted another intern named Jub who was helping investigate the scene. Jub was a short, scraggly fellow who was always twitching and shivering as though he was half frozen. Despite this, Jub worked for the guard and could handle a little hacker with professional agility.

What happened now? Dan asked, sounding rather uninterested. Jub’s left shoulder jerked as though it had been punched.

Somebody found an infected cylonite fuzzle crammed half way down a drainpipe, The intern said in a small voice. He motioned towards a drain in the floor that was surrounded by interns and vykkers taking samples for crime analysis. The outside of the drain looked to be covered in a dried, brownish-red crust.Somebody musta’ stuffed it down there, but nobody knows who.


Suddently the crowd shifted. Most of the people there, Dan thought, didn’t need to be there. They simply had nothing else to do. They formed a small circle around a vykker who was leading the case to discover how the fuzzle had gotten down there. He coughed into his hand and began to speak. The crowd fell silent instantly, though somebody in the back was taking pictures.

“At exactly o-seven-hundred hours,” A few people looked at each other, unsure of what that meant, “an intern collecting fuzzle cages stumbled across the dried remains of a dead fuzzle in this drain.” He pointed to the drain and paused for dramatic affect. “When we came to examine the fuzzle’s remains, this is what we discovered.
“That the fuzzle had been infected with the deadly germ known as cylonite,” a small gasp swept through the crowd.
“That the fuzzle had been killed and stuffed down the drain with this mop,” he held up a disgusting, disease-ridden mop that looked as though it had been dipped in blood,
“And, from our analysis,” he said, his eyes suddently darkening, “that the fuzzle had died with intern blood in its mouth.”
The crowd stood mesmerised, hanging on his every word. They dreaded what they knew he was going to say.
“Somebody in this ship has been bitten by a cylonite-diseased fuzzle.”
The vykker nodded to himself as though thinking he had handled the situation rather well. The opposite could be said, for a meager two seconds later, everybody ran around screaming like they were being chased by a three-headed slog!

“We’re gonna die! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!” Somebody wailed. The vykker paled suddently.

“No! Wait! WE ARE NOT GOING TO DIE!” He contrived. “If you calm down WE’LL ALL LIVE!”

Somebody fired two shots at the ceiling that silenced the crowd instantly. Dan skidded to a hault from his mindless careening, realizing that the head guard, Durc, was the one who had pulled the trigger.

“Will you calm down?!” He demanded, his voice shrill. “You’re all running around like a bunch of scrabs with your heads cut off! Its not the end of the world!”He looked around accusingly as if expecting someone to shout out ‘yes it is!’

“Ahem,” the vykker from before said, his face as white as chalk. “Very good. Thank you, Mr. Durc. As Durc so clearly stated, its not the end of the world. We have, of course, the sample of intern blood that we managed to save from the fuzzle. Its simply a matter of extracting the DNA from the sample and seeing who it matches with. No big deal!”

“Oh, well sorry to rain on your parade, but it is a big deal. It’s a big, big deal.”

The vykker that had spoken out of turn was Helix, Dan’s previous boss. The other vykker frowned.

“Okay, Helix,” he said venomously, “why is it a big, big deal?”

“Well,” Helix said, “unless you happen to have a blood sample from every intern on board, enough of that DNA to go around, and a lot of time on your hands... we’re screwed, man.”

“What are you talking about?” The vykker snapped. “Of course we have a sample from every intern on board, its basic regulations, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

“Its not regulations at all,” Brux said quietly. For once he wasn’t cheery and exited, which was a relief. “That rule only applies to vykkers.”

“Why?” The vykker asked, looking around weakly. “Thats the dumbest rule I’ve ever heard of.”

Helix shrugged. “Interns are expandable.” He said. Dan looked horrified. “Keeping track of them all would be too tedious.”

There was a long pause. All the interns in the room shifted uncomfortably, wondering just how much of their well beings were at stake. The vykker asked quietly,

“So what should we do?” He asked. Helix sighed.

“Tell everybody to keep on the lookout for odd behavior. Infected subjects tend to have dramatic mood swings that always lead to violence, a fear of light, and poor conception of time.”

Dan felt his heart skip a beat, felt his insides melt, felt the color drain from his face. ‘Could...?’

“Oops,” Helix said, looking at his wrist watch. He spoke as though he didn’t care what happened. “Its my lunch break. See ya.”

He stalked out of the room without further word. Nobody followed.





Nedd was as stiff as a corpse, his body aching as though he had been hit by a bus. Slowly, carefully, he opened one of his eyes. The blue lights above blinded him temporarily, and his head pounded with every heavy beat of his sluggish heart. He weakly pulled himself up and winced as he felt scabs on his back crack. His vision danced before his eyes, filling his brain with twisting, evil shapes.

‘I can’t take this.’

He leaned against the metal wires behind him and flinched as he felt them cut through his soft, sensitive flesh. He turned as best he could, his vision steadily clearing, and glanced down at his back. The crosshatched gashes from the slog attack were glazed over in a sick, yellowish layer of pus, and the skin around them was still swollen.

‘I can’t take this.’

He stood for a moment, balancing precariously on his feet, before collapsing to his knees. Somewhere, a wound split. A thin trickle of blood ran down his shoulder. Tentatively, Nedd reached up and felt his face. His mouth had been cut free, but badly; he had missed the stitches completely at some parts, leaving bits of tightened thread at the side of his mouth. His needle-sharp teeth were clearly visible and ran down his vertical mouth in a zipper shape, each one surrounded by thin layers of skin and curved like mandibles. Even with his mouth closed tightly they were constantly visible.
A voice in his head was screaming at him, but suddenly, in a flush, he realized that it wasn’t in his head; that he was half-screaming and half-humming it, his mouth flashing like a dangerous, empty abyss.

‘I CAN’T TAKE THIS, I CAN’T TAKE THIS, I CAN’T TAKE THIS!”

He slammed himself against the wire mesh. He forced himself to stand despite the pain and torture it inflicted on his body.
He wanted it over!
He wanted to die!
He darted forward and slammed violently against a wall with enough force to render a normal intern unconscious. His bloodshot eyes swivelled suddenly, and both is pupils and irises shrank to the size of a small button. Muscles bulged in his back, tearing at his injuries almost on their own accord. What happened next was a blur, but when the small strand of sanity that had kept him alive finally re-gathered itself, Nedd found himself sobbing on the floor of an abandoned room in the basement, far from the cooling system, surrounded by broken bottles... and blood.

Wow... Scary Nedd. Poor Dan doesn't understand it completely. Nice reaction with the "We're all gonna die!" thing.

Thanks! :D


Okay, seeing as its spring break, i've been trying to cram as much as I can into these chapters to make up for what i've missed.

Here you go:



---




Nedd’s face was pressed roughly against something small and sharp. He pulled himself up and brushed the piece of broken glass off of his face with his fingers, wincing in pain as he felt his muscles strain against the gashes in his back. He had no recollection of what had happened after his sanity had returned; he finally decided that he must’ve passed out. He wasn’t surprised.

He looked around quickly. The room was scattered with broken glass from smashed bottles containing preserved animals. The formaldehyde from the bottles was mingled with blood that drenched the floorboards and left a gut-wrenching stench in the air that burned his eyes. He looked himself over quickly- his headphones and baseball cap were gone, lost to the basement. He wasn’t bleeding anywhere, and the blood all over the floor was measured in gallons. If he had lost that much blood, he would’ve died.

‘What is happening to me?’ He wondered, dusting shards of class off of his body. ‘How long before I completely lose it?’

He closed his eyes for some serious soul-searching, considering his options. He was angry and scared out of his wits, yes, scared, and that troubled him. What did he have to fear? He was a berserk cylonite victim, for odd’s sake! He could crush his enemies like grapefruits! He could cut through slogs as easily as though he were dissecting fuzzles!

He grinned wickedly over his newfound courage. He could kill!

For once, he was in control! He had the power to do whatever he pleased! And what did he want to do?

He wanted to live.

The depression came rushing back. He could do anything he liked, but he couldn’t delay the inevitable; he was going to die soon. He would be lucky if he lived half a month with the cylonite in his veins. He whined pitifully. His stomach groaned. He hadn’t eaten in days.

Nedd left the room and stalked down the corridors, searching for the exit to the basement. If a slog scurried through the darkness, he didn’t jump; if the floor creaked, he didn’t flinch. He was slowly losing his ability to fear. It was reassuring in a twisted, macabre way. After a few minutes of wandering he came to the staircase leading to the main intersection on the first floor of the airship. He crept up the winding staircase and nudged open the door with his hand, recoiling as he waited for light to come pouring out. None came.

Satisfied, he looked up to check the lights. Every light in the elaborate hallway was off, meaning that it was night. He could tell by looking out one of the windows that it was at least midnight, possibly earlier. He carefully left the basement, making sure to leave the door open enough so he could get back inside. Then he snuck rapidly down the hallway, flowing through the corridors with the speed and agility of water. He was careful to avoid security cameras and moved faster and with more stealth than ever before without even realizing it. Occasionally, when he came to areas packed with obstacles, he would creep over everything in his way on all fours with catlike grace. His gracefulness before the fuzzle accident could be compared to that of a drunk cow.
He slid through a tall but wide doorway and examined the room before him appreciatively. The room, more like a chamber, was fifty feet long and a hundred feet wide. It was full of long, coal-grey tables with chairs attached. Trash cans that looked as though they had been used a hundred times and never cleaned were placed randomly in-between tables. The walls were painted a pale, greyish-green color, like something that had been rotting outside for weeks. This was the cafeteria. At the end of the room, Nedd spotted his target; a small doorway leading into the kitchens.

‘If the kitchens don’t have food,’ Nedd thought, ‘then I don’t know what will.’

He weaved around and under the tables, his head down. His night vision had improved so much in such short time that he could now see as easily as though it were daytime, which made his job much easier. Nedd roughly shoved open the door.

The kitchens, unlike the cafeteria, were sanitary and colorful. The walls were painted a cheery golden-orange, while the small ‘island’ counters in the middle were dark red. A dozen round, festive lights with spider-webbed, silvery shades hung unused from the ceiling. The appliances, such as the refrigerator and the microwave, were a pale, champagne-grey. Nedd sniffed the air- it smelled like baked bread and chicken broth. After double-checking the walls for security cameras, Nedd wandered over to the refrigerator.

Normally, interns lived off an unhealthy diet consisting of espresso shots and energy drinks as thick as gravy. They sipped it through thin straws that fit around their stitches. Interns didn’t need much to survive. Nedd, seeing as he had only a short time to live and no mouth stitches, planned to gorge himself on whatever was in reach.

He opened the refrigerator, and light came out!

Nedd shrieked and withered, quailing as the small light illuminated his sickly skin. He slammed the door shut and looked around hopelessly; there was food in the fridge, but how could he get to it? He opened the door a crack, just enough so a thin beam escaped. Nedd stepped aside to avoid the light, but just looking at it made his head pound. Then he swung the door open with such force that it almost snapped off its hinges.

Nedd caught sight of the lightbulb through the blinding, sickening light, and slammed his hand against it with maximum force. His hand tore through the cheap plastic and into the wires in a flurry of sparks and snaps. Oil bubbled from the rip in its roof and down Nedd’s arm. He gave an inhuman roar and jerked his arm back, pulling out a handful of wires and cords. The light flickered and died. Nedd dropped the cords, satisfaction radiating from his face, and sorted through the refrigerator.

It was mostly full of raw vegetables and uncooked meat, but he was too hungry to care. After binging all the alcohol and draining all the canned food in one mammoth gulp, Nedd started tearing into an uncooked, turkey-like bird plucked of its feathers and ready to roast. Who on the ship would take the time to cook a whole turkey anyway? He shrugged and ate it nonetheless. He was just getting to the good part, the little plastic packet containing the heart and gizzard, when suddenly a weak voice called out
“Who’s there?”

Nedd ducked down and army-crawled across the floor, hiding behind a counter. He could see light coming from an open door at the back of the kitchen. A mudokon scrubb, with his typical dirty-grey skin and monochrome loincloth staggered in, shakily wielding a frying pan. Scrubbs were used on board the ship only for cleaning the floors. A few, however, worked after-hours in the kitchen, making sure everything was tidy. The scrubb looked at the half-empty, nearly destroyed refrigerator and the mauled turkey on the floor in sheer horror.

“Who’s there?!” he demanded, waving the frying pan around. “Show yourself! I’ll tell the chef, I really will! ”

Nedd’s breathing slowed. He kept as silent as possible, leaning against the counter. In different conditions the scrubb would’ve spotted the tips of his horns poking out from behind the parry, but seeing as it was nearly pitch black, he didn’t notice a thing. A look of determination suddenly crossed the scrubb’s face.

“Fine. ” he said. “Have it your way. I’ll---”

His sentence was cut off as he caught sight of Nedd, his eyes red and lifeless, his body so hunched that his fingertips dragged the floor, his mouth gaping and ragged, his back torn like fabric. He lunged suddenly, snarling and snapping his sideway jaws. The scrubb screamed and flung the frying pan. It clattered against Nedd’s head, but it didn’t stop him.

The pan landed with a noisy clatter. Nedd flinched, hoping that all the noise didn’t wake anybody up. Then, suddenly, the scrubb fainted on top of an entire rack of frying pans.

‘Shit!’ Nedd thought, making a break for the door to the cafeteria. The pans all struck the floor with a reverberating clang that broke the silence effortlessly. Lights started turning on everywhere. Accusing voices rang out. Somebody shouted ‘What the HELL is GOING ON IN THERE?!”

Nedd sped down the hallways like a bullet from a gun, aggressively pushing over anything that got in his way. He came to the basement and darted inside without a second glance. The door slammed shut behind him, and the accusing voices died off into the distance.







“It was big.” The scrubb looked around worriedly. Every eye in the kitchen was on him, and he could barely remember what he had seen last night. “It was... tall.”
Somebody yawned. The scrubb flinched.

“Is this going anywhere?” Durc asked. He was dressed in his typical full-body armor, though it wasn’t necessary. The scrubb gulped.

“Uh... it had red eyes... I think---”

“How do we know,” a slig asked, prodding the scrubb with his baton, “that you didn’t eat all the food yourself?”

“Of course he didn’t.” A voice said. It was, of course, Helix, doing what he did best: disagreeing with everything everybody said. Being a high-ranking vykker gave him the permission to do whatever he wanted, and that meant pestering the hell out of everybody in the kitchen. “I don’t think a scrubb that drank all our booze, ate twenty cans of creamed corn, and devoured half of a raw turkey would be fit to tell us anything.”

“But still---”

“Plus,” Helix added, “he hardly looks like the type of person who’d tear all of the circuits out of a refrigerator.”

A vykker slowly turned and stared a him humorlessly.

“Do you have to disagree with everything?” He snapped.

“Its what I do,” Helix said, crossing his arms smugly. “Its my talent. Kind of like a hobby, actually.”

The slig jabbed the scrub again with his baton harder than before. “So that’s all you can tell us, huh?” the slig asked menacingly, prodding him for dramatic affect. “That it was big? Why should we believe you?”

The scrub gulped, straining his brain to dish out a few more details. “It sort of looked like an intern, a little bit.” He said quietly. Durc rolled his eyes.

“This is getting nowhere,” he said bitterly. He swung around and barked, “DAN!”

Dan turned, startled. He had been admiring his reflection in the back of a saucepan, seeing as he had just received his silver full-body armor. It came complete with a snoozi and a walkie-talkie strapped to the belt. Dan had to say that it him look quite dangerous and rugged.


“Stop gawking at your reflection and get over here!” Durc snarled. Dan walked over obediently. Durc handed him a tethered leash that he had been holding. Dan looked at it in confusion, when suddently the end of the rope jerked, and a lopsided figure burst out of a cabinet. It was a slog tied to the end of the leash by an intricate knot. Dan looked at Durc with a comical ‘huuuur?’ sound.

“This is Lady,” Durc said, lovingly patting the slog on the head. “She’s a biochemically-engineered super-slog. She can track down anything miles away with just a whiff of their scent. See?”

Dan looked. The slog looked normal except for its snout, which ended in an arrow-like shovel shape. The sides of its snout were dotted with a pair of huge, perfectly round nostrils that flared every time it breathed. The slog licked its jaws happily and sniffed the ground.

Durc wiggled an accusing claw in Dan’s direction. “Your first job is to take Lady and see if she can track down who did this. She’s one in just twenty of these slogs that we have, so if anything happens to her, I’m holding YOU responsible.”

‘Lady,’ Dan thought. ‘What a gay name.’

“And be gentle,” Durc added. “She’s very sensitive, aren’t you, Lady?” He pet Lady affectionately, and Lady barked and jumped up at him. She could’ve easily torn his face off if she had slipped. Dan blanched and turned the other way. “What are you waiting for?” Durc snapped. “Get going! We don’t have all day!”

Dan jerked Lady’s chain roughly. Suddenly Lady took off running in the opposite direction like a miniature juggernaut, pushing over people as she went. Dan grinded his feet into the tiles, but no matter how hard he resisted, he couldn’t help but be pulled along. She lead him through the kitchen and into the cafeteria, where she bowled over trash cans and chairs like an armored tank. Dan winced as he felt rug burns cutting through his armor and digging into his feet. Durc and three sligs followed behind, discussing the latest guard gossip, while Dan grappled with Lady’s leash in an attempt to slow her down.

“Whatever you do,” Durc advised, “don’t let go of her leash.”

Dan shot him a loathing look. After a few minutes of Lady’s unstoppable marching and Dan learning a valuable lesson in friction, Lady finally stopped. She sat down and licked her paws, satisfied. Dan stared up at the huge metal doors before him in awe.

“The basement, huh?” Durc asked, patting Lady on the head. “I guess it makes sense.”
He brandished a walkie-talkie with a flick of his wrist, a wild grin on his face. “I’m calling in backup. We’re going in!”

=O Brave little scrub. Good thing Nedd didn't tear his face off. Lady... that is a gay name. No offense. Why didn't Lady go into the basement if that's where Nedd went? Not trying to critisize but I just wanted to ask. All in all good chapter. I'm just waiting for the next chapter.

The doors were shut. Maybe I should've mentioned that... o.o

This crack-indused chapter was made possible by countless doses of stress, homework, school, and blood tests.
You've made me what I am today, thank you very much. :fuzmad:
I am aware that this chapter is confusing. This is for me to be angry about.

Strong language was used. It seemed only necessary.



---



In the end, Durc ended up sending three seperate patrol squadrons into the basement: his own squad, which Dan was a part of, a smaller squad with gas masks and anti-bacterial suits who would enter the more dangerous rooms, and a squad with attack slogs who would attempt to sniff out the perpetrator. They went their separate ways and abruptly vanished into the gloom, leaving only wet footprints behind.







Dan was surprised. He had always thought that the basement would be an evil place with black walls and scattered with dead bodies (or at least zombies), but he was wrong. The basement looked like every other floor on the airship, only it was dark, wet, and smelled like decay. It was disappointing. Dan had always hoped that venturing into the basement would give him certain bragging rights, but now he wasn’t so sure.

“Well,” Durc sighed as he stroked Lady’s head, “Here we are.” he didn’t sound frightened at all. The same couldn’t be said for the rest of the group.

This place looks like some sort of hell hole, an intern next to him muttered dully, twirling his snoozi. Dan recognized him as Red, an intern with bloodshot eyes who used to work for the chemical division of the ship. He was a rather depressing fellow. Standing next to him was Ian, an intern who was practically Red’s shadow, Hal, an intern who was usually too drugged up to say anything but was damn useful with a snoozi, and Jub, who was shaking as much as he always did.. There were five other people there whom Dan didn’t recognize.

Durc stepped into the darkness without even a passing glance and flicked on his flashlight. Lady trotted ahead of the group, trying to pick up a scent in the wet air, but to no avail. “Okay, so here’s the plan,” Durc said. “You see someone who’s not a member of our squads. You shoot at them. We get on with our lives. Questions?”

Dan didn’t like the plan, but he wasn’t one to complain. He frowned and followed behind the rest of the group, deep in thought.

He hadn’t seen Nedd in days, not since he had gone into the basement. Dan had always figured that Nedd was simply having a bad day and wanted to go somewhere where he could cool off. But now, with the news of a cylonite-infected intern loose on the grounds and the kitchen raid, Dan was getting different ideas. What if Nedd had something to do with all the strange occurrences? What would they do to him if it was him?
Dan sighed and caught up with his group, trying to detract himself from his questions.

A musty smell like upturned soil hung in the crisp, frigid air. The only sounds that broke the silence was dripping water, footsteps against the soggy floorboards, and the buzz of a nearby intern’s headphones as they blasted heavy metal. Dan looked from side to side with each passing hall, constantly alert for anything that could jump out and attack.

A scent wafted in the air that made Dan freeze. It was horrible and familiar, a bitter, metallic smell that stung his eyes. Durc put a claw up against his mouth in the ‘hush’ pose. Everybody fell silent, slowly brandishing their desired weapon. The lead vykker pushed open a door and recoiled as the stench overwhelmed them like an avalanche. The floor of the room was covered in gore and bones that were kept wet from the humid air. Mixed in with the carnage was an array of shimmering glass and a clear, cream-colored liquid: formaldehyde.
Durc bent down and picked out a small, hard fragment that was nested in the gristle. He turned it over in his claws, looking distraught.

“A slog tooth.” he muttered, shaking his head. Lady shrank away from the door, whimpering. “This used to be a slog.”
Dan stared at the floor in pure repulsion. The body had been mutilated so badly that it completely covered the floor, smearing it a ruddy scarlet. No mere slog fight could cause that much damage.

Durc continued down the hall with a wave of his hand, suddenly uninterested. “Come on.” He grumbled darkly. The team followed behind, huddled closer than ever before, their eyes shifting in the dark.

The basement became more and more appalling as they continued their search. Broken glass littered the floor. Bones were piled up in corners. Medical tools, shaped like twisted weapons of torture, glinted evilly in the flashlight’s glow. By the time they reached the heart of the basement water was up to their ankles, sloshing under their feet with each step. Durc held Lady in his arms to keep her from getting wet, looking distressed. Ian yawned.

This is getting nowhere. He complained, kicking aside a jar that was resting nearby.

Red leaned against a wall and crossed his awkwardly-bent legs. How do we know that the guy we’re looking for is even down here? I bet that stupid slog couldn’t find him even if it---

A pale streak shot past the team and slammed Red to the ground, suffocating him under its weight. The water boiled as Red fought for his life under the biggest, ugliest slog Dan had ever seen. It had blotchy skin the color of maple syrup and jaws that spread monstrously wide, flashing serrated shark-like teeth.

Red! Ian cried, diving in to the fray. He pried the crazed slog off of the struggling intern and a bullet screeched through the air, striking it dead. It fell limply at Ian’s side, coloring the water an ailed red.

Durc flourished his snoozi and pointed it at Red, who was soaking wet and breathing heavily. Red’s eyes widened and he stepped back, his hands out in front of him as though to block an attack.

He’s gone crazy! Red hissed, backing up against the wall.

“Did the slog bite you?” Durc demanded, sounding frantic. Red shook his head. “Did it scratch you?” Red shook his head again. Durc sighed and sheathed his snoozi, eyes hazy. He turned to the group, who looked stupefied at his sudden outburst.
“That,” Durc said, motioning towards the dead slog, “Was a highly infectious, highly dangerous cylonite slog.”

Jub jerked involuntarily. But I thought only an intern was supposed to be infected...

Durc rolled the slog over with his foot. It toppled to its side, blood splashing from the wound in its head. Dan stared. Was it just him, or did it have holes in its neck that resembled intern teeth?

Durc said in a voice that sounded worn out, “Lets get out of the water, shall we?” But he didn’t draw on the fact that a practically rabid slog had just tried to maul them.

They stepped out of the ankle-deep puddle of water, their legs sloshing with each unsteady step. Lady whined and nudged Durc’s leg with her snout, wanting to be picked up, but she was ignored.

Durc said quietly, “I have a feeling we’re dealing with something much worse than we thought.”






‘How dare they come to this place.’

He was unconscious of what he was had done, what he was doing, what he was about to do. Dismemberment was easy. Undoing it was hard. Facing it, he knew in the back of his head, would be impossible, unbearable, worth killing over and over and over again for. His eyes were red with pain and his breath made a hollow, ragged sound. He spotted his target. He was standing alone, his blitz packer clattering in his hands like an angry hornet. His butchered comrades lay silent at his sides. The slig whispered,

“Hello?”

And a startlingly sickening voice, like somebody who had never spoken before, replied harshly,



‘I... am here...’








A scream, sounding as though it had come from far away, echoed eerily down the narrow passage. Dan whirled around. His eyes reflected his horror like small, golden pools. Did you hear that?

The question was pointless; it was obvious that everyone had heard it. Durc flourished his lil’ hacker, twirling it effortlessly in his claws. He rapped out orders, his voice surprisingly calm.

“Get in a line, follow me, and keep your head down. Grab a weapon and prepare to shoot like a lunatic.”

They left the hall at a brisk pace, weaving through the labyrinth of corridors with a hushed silence. They had no idea where they were, but one thing was for certain; if they stopped moving it would surely get them, whatever it was. Dan’s hand reached for his snoozi every time something rustled in the dark, and he had to strain his brain to keep calm. One slip, one out-of-place sound, could facilely give them away.

A faint slosh came from behind. Durc raised his little hacker, whispering,
“Look behind you.”

Dan turned his flashlight, his hands shaking, towards the pathway behind them.
Something sped through the light and vanished

“There’s something back there,” a slig said anxiously, cramming a cartridge clip into the back of his gun. Durc swung around and shushed him.

“Keep quiet.”

Lady growled viciously, swaying her bulk from side to side like a caged lion. Durc stiffened.

“Lady.” He called. “Get back here!”

Lady advanced a few steps, warily sniffing the air with her enlarged nostrils. Then, as if deciding that there was no threat, she darted forward so as to be friendly with the newcomer. Durc cursed and let her go: he wasn’t about to advance into the darkness alone. Lady was quickly consumed by the empty void, and her loud footsteps were drown out. Durc motioned for the team to follow before retracing his steps in search of his ignorant pet. Dan muttered,

Maybe its just another squad?, but he spoke too soon.

Droplets of blood began to materialize on the floor, glinting banefully as they walked past. The drops soon grew to splashes, and the splashes grew to puddles.

Durc quailed like a cornered meep and whispered, “Lady?”

Dan stopped and examined the blood. Smear marks as thick as tire tracks stained the floor, as though somebody had run through it. He looked up slowly, perplexed, as the bloodshed lead them to a large chamber that seemed to serve no purpose. The ceiling was spider-webbed with rafters five feet thick that dangled haphazardously only a few dozen feet above their heads. In the middle of the room was Lady, blood dripping from her mouth and nostrils from internal bleeding. She tried to stand up, but staggered to the side instead. Something had slammed into her and broke her ribs without breaking the skin, but how?

“L-Lady!” Durc cried, running forward. A slig yanked him back roughly.

“I don’t like the sight of this. It looks like a trap.” Muttered the slig.

“But my slog!” Durc whined. “Lady! We can’t just leave her there!”

The argument heated up abruptly, but Dan wasn’t paying attention. He shone his flashlight on the wall, squinting against the dim light. Something glittered back at him, dark and messy.

‘Is that blood?’ He wondered, looking at the long streaks. They seemed to go up the wall... and into the rafters. Dan stiffened in horror.

“Fine,” The slig relented. “We’ll get the stupid animal. But after that we have to get out of here.”

Durc sped into the chamber to grab Lady—

DON’T! Dan warned, running in after him. Durc picked up Lady gently, lovingly, and she softened under his grasp. Dan skidded to a hault...

And then: pain. Colors bursting through his skull like fireworks. His collarbone nearly snapping under an impenetrable weight. Dan was slammed against the wall by what felt like a freight train. Bullets filled the air, startled cries followed. Dan felt whoever had grabbed him lower him carefully to the floor before taking off in the opposite direction. Dan tried to get to his feet, but instead of standing he felt a splitting sensation in his stomach, as though his insides had turned to liquid fire. He collapsed to his knees and looked weakly to his side.

Blood and guts were being thrown in the air like confetti by a monster. When the downpour subsided and the figure swung around, Dan realized who it was, and felt as though the world had come crashing down on him. His eyes rolled back and he fell with a loud thump. The screeching of bullets subsided at last.

Dan felt somebody lightly turn him over. Dan tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids fluttered instead. A voice asked,

You okay, man?

Dan forced himself to look up. His vision watered momentarily before revealing Red, his headphones gone and his face bruised, kneeling close by. Red looked fearfully over his shoulder and said venomously,
He got Ian. I swear, if I ever see that bastard again, I’ll kill him. He looked down at Dan sadly. It was Nedd. He’s gone ballistic. I tried to shoot him, but he was too fast...

Dan sat up and rubbed his head. The chamber was as dispiriting as a morgue, illuminated only by Red’s flashlight. Dan could feel a river of something hot and sticky sopping the floor. He looked around wildly, spotting limp bodies silhouetted in the darkness. They were bleeding profoundly, soaking the entire tile flooring. Dan shakily rose to his feet. Red followed.

Where did... he go? Dan asked. He was so horror-stricken that he couldn’t bring himself to say Nedd’s name. Red looked around.

That way, He said, pointing off to the side. He dragged Ian off with him. He turned his attention to the dead bodies, and turned one over with his foot. It was the body of Jub, his stomach torn to tatters and his eyes red and glassy. Red murmured, I thought I could trust Nedd. I thought he was a good guy. He was a coward Why would he ever do this?

He wouldn’t, Dan replied quietly. After a thoughtful pause Dan added, We need to get out of here.

They left the room hastily, wandering the corridors like mice in a maze. Red kept his eyes focused on the ground without saying a word. The soggy floor splashed under their feet and Dan’s insides ached, as though something was punching him in the stomach with brass knuckles. A faint light shimmered ahead, a teal blue that rippled like light passed through water. Red looked up.
This must be the cooling system, he said quietly. We’ll be safer there.

They entered a square-shaped door in the wall that was barely tall enough to fit through. Dan looked around in awe at the watery, underground mote that wound its way around the thin wall separating it from the generator system.

Look, Dan muttered, gazing over the edge of the protective wire. Its like a river–

IAN! Red yelped, jumping back.

Nedd had Ian in a strangle hold and was slamming him against a wall, slowly suffocating him. Ian kicked and struggled, putting up an impressive fight, but to no avail. Nedd hardly seemed to notice Dan and Red standing there, watching in horror as one of their friends fell victim to his mindless killing.

Nedd! Dan exclaimed.

Nedd’s head snapped up, locking Dan with his imposing gaze. Dan was smart enough to guess what was wrong.
‘Cylonite,’ He thought darkly. ‘Why oh why had they ever even considered studying it?’
Dan backed up instinctively, repulsed. The whites of Nedd’s eyes were blood red, a startling contrast to his dark brown irises and diamond-shaped pupils. He looked startlingly thin, like a starving animal, and his mouth had been practically gored, revealing his vertical jaws. He had bruise-colored stretch marks on his arms and legs; his bones and muscles were growing faster than his skin, pulling it to its limit. Nedd stared at Dan and Red, his horns flat against his head defectively. Finally Red broke free of his hypnotic stare and snarled,

Let Ian go!

Ian’s eyes rolled back into his skull and his feeble kicking subsided. Nedd didn’t even look. Red stared on in alarm, his face a mask of horror. Ian?
Nedd, Dan breathed, sounding exhausted. Nedd didn’t even blink. You don’t have to do this. Let Ian go.
There was a pause. Nedd stared down at Ian as though he just noticed him. Dan continued,
Just let him go. The secrets out. You’re infected. But we can help you.

There was a horrible pause. Then, as if finally deciding, Nedd dropped Ian. He fell limply to the floor. His head rolled. His eyes closed. Nedd backpedaled quickly, looking at his crimson-tinted hands in panic. Red ran over and shook Ian gently, staring at him with a look of dread.
Nedd, too preoccupied with realization, muttered

“I didn’t kn---”

Durc sprang out from a doorway and tackled Nedd to the floor, slashing away at him with his lil’ hacker.

“YOU KILLED MY SLOG!” He screamed, diving the weapon into Nedd’s face. “I’LL KILL YOU FOR THAT, YOU SON OF A BITCH!”

They grappled on the floor in a tumbling mass, slashing away at each other every chance they got. Durc, seeing as he was an experienced officer, managed to hack away at Nedd while avoiding his attacks. Unfortunately for Durc, Nedd was a raving berserker, and was practically immune to pain. Dan looked around frantically, unsure of what to do. Either way, one of them was going to die, and Dan was helpless to prevent it.

He ran back off into the basement and searched a nearby room, looking for anything he could use as a weapon without killing anybody. He grabbed a shovel (‘What the hell is this doing here?’) and zipped back to the cooling system as quick as a flash. Ian was awake, and both him and Red were backed up against the fence, terrified. The fight showed little progress as Durc and Nedd were of equal strength and speed.

‘What should I do, what should I do, what should I do?!’

He quickly made a decision, though he regretted it. He ran over, gave an exaggerated battle cry to boost his morale, and smacked Nedd across the face with the shovel as hard as he could.

Nedd lost his grip and fell back, twitching. Dan felt a sudden flush of pity; not for Durc and not for Ian, but for Nedd. Durc laughed in triumph.

“For Lady!” he howled, raising the little hacker over his head.

STOP! Dan snapped. Durc swung around, and stared straight down the barrel of Dan’s snoozi. Dan motioned with the weapon, warning Durc to step away.

“Are you threataning me?” Durc snarled. Dan’s face fell as he realized he was pointing a gun at his boss. He held it out nonetheless, his face blank. Durc stepped away from Nedd and threw his lil’ hacker and snoozi aside, looking, quite frankly, pissed. “There. Now put the gun down.”

Dan new better than to do that. Durc sighed and whipped out his flashlight.
“Okay, look, I’m leaving. Don’t shoot. Okay?”
Dan nodded. Durc flicked on the light and cautiously left the cooling system, looking back over his sholder as if expecting Dan to fire at any second. Dan didn’t lower the gun until Durc’s footsteps gradually faded away.

Nedd groaned and rose, his eyes murky. Suddently his pupils swivelled, and Nedd shot Dan a look of loathing so intense that it made Dan wince. A ragged gash ran across Nedd’s left eye and down his face in a zig-zag. Dan muttered quickly,

Nedd, your eye is cut. It could get infected. If we don’t do something, it’ll go blind... if you’ll just let me—

“GET OUT!” Nedd roared, his jaws snapping shut like a steel trap. They didn’t need to be told twice. Dan, Red, and Ian sped off into the basement guided only by their flashlight, leaving Nedd alone in the cooling system.








Ian whispered a brief thanks.

I thought he was gonna kill me... I would’ve never thought that Nedd would do something like that...

He was infected. Dan said, wincing in pain as his stomach groaned. With cylonite. It wasn’t his fault.

Red rolled his eyes in disbelief, but he didn’t say anything. Ian blinked at Dan strangely.

You okay? You look kinda sweaty.

Dan rubbed his face, feeling beads of water forming on his forehead. Its nothing. He said. When Nedd slammed into me back there, I think he bruised my stomach, but I’m okay.

And suddently, unexpectantly, his vision flashed red. A screech echoed in his ears, a metallic taste filled his mouth, and he felt his bowels jerk as though they had split in half.

Red shrugged. If you say so... Dan?

And suddently there was nothing exept a few brief words that faded into Dan’s brain like a rock vanishing into an ocean.

Dan? DAN!

Poor Dan. Lucky Ian. I thought the Durc was kind of funny in this chapter. What's happend to Dan? By the way there was a single spelling mistake. That would be when "Dan knew better than that" knew was spelled new. Awsome chapter and the only confusing bit was the thing with the slig that said "Is anyone there.". And as a small nitpicky note how do interns know that their teeth look like that?

I figure they must have some idea. o.o;

I made this chapter because it seemed completely necessary to explain what cylonite does and the effects it has on the victim's body. Yay.
I will build a shrine out of your comments and worship it twelve hours a day. :D



---



It was cold and dark. He felt something tugging at his consciousness, prodding him like a curious animal. Dan moved away impulsively, disconnecting his thoughts.

What happened?

The incident in the basement was the most recent thing he could remember, yet it seemed far away, as though he had missed out on something important. He opened his eyes groggily, wincing as he felt an aching pain near his hip. Solid white light blinded him temporarily. His vision swam. The back of his head pounded slightly. Dan reached up and felt his face; he had an anesthetic plate strapped firmly over his mouth. He tore it off and tossed it aside, sitting up.

He was in the sickbay on a stretcher-like bed. The room was pure white and completely sterile, ready to use. Stainless steel tools and machines rested in a corner next to a night stand. There was a barred window in the middle of the wall to his left, draped in thin white curtains. Through the window he could just barely see the tops of trees as they passed over a forest, scattering startled birds in every direction. Somebody, Dan was surprised to see, was in the back of the room, by the door.

Ian? Dan asked with a yawn. Ian turned.

Oh, hey! You’re awake.

Dan rubbed his eye with the palm of his hand. He still felt dazed. What are you doing here?

Ian grinned. Lookin’ at this. He said, holding out a jar. Dan blinked.

Whats that? Dan asked.

Ian looked and said casually, Your appendix.

Dan stiffened. My APPENDIX?

Well, yeah. Ian said defensively. It exploded. We got some vykkers to cut it out. He shook the jar roughly. Its fun to shake it up and watch it roll around—

Give me that! Dan snapped, grabbing the jar. Looking at it made him feel sick. Dan knew how vykkers acted during an operation: they were giddy and over-enthusiastic, often cutting out extra feet of intestines just because they could and coming up with an excuse later. Chances were they’d cut out a kidney as well. Half of their patients died in surgery just because their doctors were too chop-happy.
You cut out my appendix and didn’t even ask me first? Dan demanded, his voice shrill. Ian shrugged.

You were unconscious. Plus it popped like a water balloon, so we didn’t have many options. But don’t worry: you can live without your appendix. Helix said so. Ian looked up at the ceiling as though examining the lights. ... or did that only count for tonsils? Ah, whatever.

Dan leaned against the stretcher-bed’s banister. How long was I out?

Only a day. You didn’t miss much. Ian sighed. After you fainted in the basement—

I didn’t faint! Dan grumbled.

Anyway, like, a second after you passed out a bunch of sligs and interns in these silvery-suits barged in. Somebody had managed to contact them and radio for help before Nedd, you know, slaughtered them. Ian fell silent. There was a long pause where no one seemed to know what to say, so Dan didn’t respond.

Dan pulled the thin white covers off of his body. At the left of his hip, barely hidden by his speedo, was badly done row of stitches, the outsides of which were chafed and swollen. The incision seemed unnecessarily long and made Dan feel even worse.
Dan got up out of bed and searched the night stand for his baseball cap, grumbling to himself. Ian blinked.

Shouldn’t you still be sleeping? He asked accusingly.

Screw that. I’m getting out of here.

Dan crammed the baseball cap over his head, twisting it so it faced the right way. The stitches in his hip were repulsive and completely noticeable. Dan pulled up his speedo in remorse, covering it the best he could.

Ian examined his nails boredly. By the way, there’s an informative-presentation-type-thing on the affects of cylonite going on in the Lecture Hall. I’ve seen it three times already, but apparently we’re supposed to go over it, like, five times, so we might as well go now.

They know about Nedd? Dan asked quietly.

We told them everything. We didn’t have much of a choice.

They left the sickbay, passing rooms full of people who were either missing a limb or had been mauled by fuzzles. Both Dan and Ian left the chambers with a growing sense of dread.

They eventually came to a quiet section of the ship that was rather inactive. The floor was covered with clean red carpeting that made a zipping sound under their feet. The hallways were wide and lined with cubicles on either side where interns were typing. The wall to their right was made completely of glass windows; the halls were to the side of the ship, giving them a perfect view of the guard tower and the forests below.

Red was leaning against a wall by a plain metal door, drinking a bottle of prescription penicillin. He eyed Dan distastefully.
Nice, he grumbled, taking a swig of the medicine. That scar makes you look like a thug. Did you kill somebody?

Shut up. Dan muttered.

Red pushed open the door and entered the Lecture hall, flanked by Dan and Ian. The room was long, with a stage-like podium on one side. A vykker stood on the podium, energetically explaining the horrible side-effects of the disease. Behind him was a large screen nearly as big as the wall, flashing pictures as demonstrations to help explain. Dan wove through the crowd of interns and vykkers so that he could get close enough to hear what was being said.

“...It overwhelms the Cerebral Cortex of the brain, much like a drug, damaging the victim’s hand-eye coordination. However, it is believed to improve the senses greatly, particularly one’s vision...”

The Cerebral Cortex produces antibodies to fight some diseases that try to infect it. That’s usually enough to destroy the infection, but Cylonite is too powerful. Red explained. He had always been better at advanced anatomy than Dan. Dan nodded slowly, perplexed.

The vykker said, “Cylonite is spread in only one way: by being bitten, or sometimes scratched, by an infected person. Cylonite spreads like crazy, traveling the bloodstream until it reaches the brain or heart. When it gets into the heart it either eats through the arteries or clogs them, each of which eventually result in death.”

Dan gulped. ‘What a horrible way to die.’ He thought.
He immediately worried for Nedd, but banished the thought immediately. He couldn’t worry about him; he tried to kill him, for Odd’s sake

“Sometimes, however, the heart can produce enough white blood cells to wipe out the cylonite threat. But there’s little that can stop it from infecting the brain. Once the blood gets inside the skull it damages the brain cells of the cerebellum, causing it to deteriorate. The deterioration screws up the body’s system, resulting in either loss or gain of muscles and bone marrow.”

An image appeared on the screen behind the vykker. He didn’t mention whether it was the nerve cell of an intern or a vykker, but Dan got the general idea. “As mentioned before, it damages the Cerebral Cortex until it eventually breaks out. But after it fights its way through the delicate tissue it reaches the brain stem. From there it squeezes inside nerve endings, slowly working its way down the spine, tearing away at nerves.”

An image appeared on the screen. It was a real picture of some creature’s spine, wrenched from its body and split in half, lying on a table. The inside of the spine was a foul dark brown, and the soft tissues inside, instead of being grey like normal nerves, were an eggplant color. A gag seemed to sweep through the crowd as a second picture was swept into view. It was a picture of the inside of the nerves, which seemed to be made of small, overlapping honeycomb. A dark red liquid the color of spoiled meat was dripping down at its base.

They vykker continued pleasantly, “This is the spine of an elum that had been infected for two months. So as you see, cylonite pretty much eats the shit out of the victim’s spine.
Now, as you clearly see, the ‘benefits’ of cylonite don’t outweigh the negative affects it has on one’s body.
One of the worst negative effects appear to be the inability to venture out into the sunlight. We’ve discovered that the cylonite germs die in bright places. The germs squeeze in-between skin cells, replacing a few of the nerves. When the victim goes out into the light, it starts killing the cylonite, and it causes the nerves to go crazy. When the nerves go crazy, the brain jerks, sending small electric shocks to the body. The shocks, which are usually used by our brains to transmit commands throughout the body, causes the lungs to fail which results in lack of oxygen. Prolonged exposure to light often results in a stroke or heart failure.”

The vykker grinned, satisfied. “Questions?”

Dan raised his hand. The vykker passed him a pen and a piece of paper, and he scrawled his question down.

The vykker read the paper critically. “I was getting to that.” he insisted. “Now, as many know, the cooling system in the basement is lit with blue lights.
These lights do not affect cylonite victims. Cylonite is killed off by exposure to Ultraviolet rays as well as the ‘hot’ lights in the color spectrum. FYI, red, yellow, and orange. The blue lights, which contain no UV rays and are, (wouldn’t you know it,) blue, have no affect.” The vykker scratched his head. “Kind of a flaw on our part, actually.”

The vykker continued answering questions. Dan sighed.
Maybe this isn’t such a big deal, he said. Maybe Nedd will die before he can do any more damage.

Ian crossed his arms. What your forgetting, he said bitterly, is that this is Nedd we’re dealing with. He’s survived more diseases than I can count. If anyone can survive a cylonite infection, Ian frowned, he can.

Now that chapter was explanitory. Interns have appendix's? And kidneys? And tonsils? Cool. I'd prefer that you built a tv out of my comments and watched it for 1 minute on weekends. And that I built myself a huge temple out of your story, put 10 large statues of you inside and outside, and went there on sundays instead of at church (Which I don't go to.). Carry on Moosh!:)

Or I could build a huge empire-state-building-sized monument of a huge Russian dwarf hamster out of your comments and dance around it in preperation for their dark harvest...

*shudder*

Enjoy.


---


It was late. Possibly four am, maybe five. Not that it mattered, anyway.

Nedd clamored up a tall stack of wooden crates, his blood-red eyes flickering slightly in the dark. Something ruffled in the dark and Nedd swung around, hissing like a taunted snake. Whatever it was ran off in sheer terror.
Nedd winced and warily felt his eye. The zig-zags across it were swollen and wet, and stung like a spider bite. Whenever he tried to open it a blinding pain filled his head, and his eye would crack and drip blood. He tried his best to ignore it, but something as degrading as losing an eye was hard to forget.

Once he had reached the crate’s pinnacle, Nedd sprang forward in a catlike motion, gripped the rafters with his powerful fingers, and hauled himself up without making a sound. The rafters stretched on all around the basement, making it a perfect hiding spot. He could pass right over a group of people and they’d never know he was there.

He moved stealthily across the platforms as though he had done it a thousand times, his feet splashing softly against the metal’s wet surface. He took a few turns and jumped across gaps in the grating, alert for danger the entire time. Eventually he came to a wide vent in the ceiling that had been torn forcefully from its hinges. He tilted his head to the side and examined it, making some quick calculations. Then, after what felt like hours, Nedd climbed back down to the basement floor. He looked satisfied. With a little more muscle he’d have no problem getting up the vent and into the room above, whatever room that could be.

He swung around suddenly, his good eye reduced to a slit. His night vision scanned the basement with almost daylight perception. A slog was nosing around a pile of bones, its tongue rolling in a docile manner. It spotted him and whined nervously, drool dripping from its mouth. Its jaw hung at an angle and its skin was a dark, lightly tanned color. It licked its snout curiously. Nedd stared. Where had he seen that slog before? He suddenly remembered, and said,

“Come here.”

The slog looked at him as though it had been slapped. Nedd repeated, this time with a no-nonsense voice,

“COME!”

The slog yawned, flashing its cream-colored mouth. The blotches in its skin rippled as it bent down to sniff the ground. Nedd sighed. What stupid name had they given that thing? Lugy? Lardy? Laddie?

“Lady.” he snapped. The slog yapped with glee and ran over, moving gingerly. Nedd could tell by the bruises on its sides that it had broken ribs, but it didn’t seem to notice. Nedd was slightly surprised; he thought he had killed that thing. Durc sure had acted like it was dead. Maybe he had been so traumatized that he didn’t bother to check for a pulse.

Lady sniffed his hand with her dilated nostrils. Nedd smiled broadly to himself. He could think of at least fifty things he could do with a slog that could track down whatever he wanted. He patted her gently on the head and she basked in his praise, her heavy panting echoing in the dark.



<~{.epidemic.}~>



Dan didn’t even know why he had bothered to show up to the guard tower the next morning. It was a complete waste of time; he knew that, either way, he would be fired. He had pointed a gun at his boss and threatened to shoot him, and for what? To save the life of a berserker who had tried to kill them? Dan wilted visibly. He couldn’t believe how badly he had messed up.

It could be worse. Red said, searching in his silver-armor suit. When he found what he was looking for (a bottle of aspirin, which he stole from a medicine cabinet) he continued, You could have once been a smart, clever, handsome intern....

Ian rolled his eyes.

... just hanging out and sorting chemicals like your supposed to, when suddenly a beaker explodes in your face, permanently turns your eyes red and—

Shut up. Dan grumbled harshly. I’m not in the mood to listen to you bitching about how horrible your life has been---

And instead of fixing your eyes, which would have been, like, freaking awesome, your boss sends you to work for the guard in a hellhole under the ship where a monster that was once a friend of yours is waiting to disembowel you and eat your insides like noodles. He finished his venting with a sigh. Dan looked away. Red might have been an easygoing, cool guy, but that didn’t stop him from complaining about his life once in a while, which often sent him into a spiraling depression.

The elevator jerked to a hault. The whiplash cracked Dan’s neck, and he winced. ‘Well that’s just fricking wonderful.’ He thought.

He glanced around quickly. The room was filled with about twenty other people. Everybody, like Dan, was wearing their shiny protective suits. Durc was saying something that sounded important, so Dan, Red, and Ian hurried over to listen.

“.... would be the left side,” he was advising, pacing back and forth for no reason in particular. “I stabbed its left eye, so chances are it would’ve gone blind by now. Be warned, cylonite victims are violent and extremely aggresive. Don’t mistake them for diseased, brain-dead losers either. They’re clever.”

Dan felt anger burning inside him. They were discussing tactics to kill Nedd, who had once been one of Dan’s only close friends, and they weren’t even referring to him as a ‘he.’ They kept calling him ‘it’, as though he were just an object in need of disposing of. Dan suddenly felt anger for himself overwhelming everything. Nedd was a monster! He deserved to be called an ‘it!’ He wasn’t Nedd anymore. Thinking that way made Dan feel unexpectedly sad, so he shook it off.
‘Don’t think about it... for odd’s sake, he’s not even Nedd anymore...’

“Remember to watch your backs.” Durc finished. “You never know what evil thing he’ll do to lure you in so he can tear you apart from the inside!” A slight sob followed.

Silence. Somebody in the back coughed, making the situation seem even more uncomfortable. Dan looked around.

‘For odd’s sake, it was a damn slog, buy a new one and get over it!’ He thought.

Durc suddently turned to Dan. Dan tensed, preparing for the worst.

“I have a special mission for you.” He said, though something about the way he said ‘special’ seemed to give the word the opposite meaning.

Dan hummed hopefully, Does that mean I’m not fired?

Durc knew what he was asking. “If it were my choice I’d have you fired and thrown forcefully off this ship in a heartbeat.” He said acidly, his teeth grinding slightly. “But, seeing as its not my choice, you’re staying. My supervisors have decided that, seeing as you used to be a colleague of Nedd and actually spoke with him in the basement, you would have a better chance of getting close enough to him to kill him.”
He turned around towards a closet where a slog could be seen rummaging around. Durc called in a musical tone, “Oh, Huuuuugoo~!”

The slog stomped out of the closet. Dan could’ve sworn he felt the ground shake. The slog was absolutely huge, with flabby, overlapping skin and teeth the size of Dan’s fist. Its snout ended in a shovel shape that was bigger than Lady’s had been, with wide nostrils. It trotted over obediently. Dan cringed. It smelled like an animal that had been hit by a bus and left out in the sun for a week.

“This is Hugo.” Durc said, clipping a leash around its fat neck. He handed the lead to Dan. “You’ll have to lead him into the basement.”

Dan jerked the leash. He instantly regretted it.

“Be gentle with him!” Durc whined. “He’s very sensitive---”

Hugo swung around, snarling and foaming like an angry bear. Red and Ian’s hands went instantly to their snoozis, but they didn’t fire. Hugo slammed Dan to the ground and dove forward as though to snap his head in half, when the rope jerked again. Durc held the leash, frowning.

“... and he’s a little temperamental.”

TEMPERAMENTAL? Dan shrieked, fumbling to stand. Durc shrugged.

“No skin off my bones.” He said simply. “But it will be for you if you keep messing with him, if you get my drift.”

Dan picked himself off. Hugo jerked forward, just to mess with him, and Dan flinched. Durc handed the leash back. Dan held it away from him as though it were a poisonous snake that could bite at any second.

“Here’s what we’re going to do.” Durc said. Everybody leaned in eagerly. Durc pulled a large, metal object from a closet. It was a large cart with a huge box on top. The box was filled with little barrels covered in shimmering glass. “This is a strobe light. Its extremely bright, even for normal people.” He pointed to a ring around its outside. A tube wrapped around it, holding a metal coil in place. “Its been fitted so that it magnifies the ultraviolet rays twofold. Nobody with cylonite will bear to get near it. We have six of these lights. We’ll be dividing most of the guard into eight groups. Six of them will enter the basement with the lights on, each mapping the entire premises. If all goes to plan, they’ll flush out the monster into the main intersection. There will be two teams- one team who waits in the intersection to kill the damn thing, and the other team who guards every exit and attempts to sniper our target with these.” He held out a weapon that had been in his belt. It looked like a snoozi, only it was longer and thinner. Durc grinned. “They’re really cool. Anyway, after this is all done, we take the body, disinfect it, burn it, then disinfect the ashes. Questions?”

“What if it doesn’t work?” A slig asked. Durc rounded on him

“What the hell do you mean? This plan is flawless!” The slig looked as though he might object, but faltered at the last moment.

Durc finally said, “Suit up! Meet me in the intersection in exactly o-ten-hundred hours...”

“We’re already suited up.” A slig said.

“So what?”

“...we could go now, if you want.”

Durc checked his watch. “Fine, suckup.” He growled. He turned his attention back to the crowd.

“Meet me in the intersection...” he paused, “...right now!”

They marched off to do his bidding. Dan sighed. What a relief. He would get to keep his job, he wouldn’t be kicked off the ship, and—

Hugo bit his leg. Dan yelped and jumped back. He frowned, suddenly remembering that no matter what you did, there would always be somebody to ruin it. He sighed darkly.

‘Story of my life.’

What's Nedd going to do with Lady? And what's going to happen to Dan? I must see the next chapter. And slightly off topic: How did you know I liked Russian dwarf hamsters? Love your fanfictions.

Sorry for the short chapter. As said before, i've been extremely busy, but recently i've gotten a break so i'll try to cram in as many chapters as I can. Plus I had to re-write this one cuz' the first one sucked.
Enjoy.




---




Dan was in a sour mood. His hip ached from his stitches and lack of appendix, and Hugo was gnawing on his leg. Dan tried to pull back, but when he did Hugo snarled, as though saying ‘would you rather have me chewing on your leg, or your face?’ So Dan had to stand there, helpless, as the slobbering slog bit away as though Dan were a scrap of meat with no free will.

“Okay,” Durc said, holding the neck of one of the strobe lights, “here’s a quick review. When we get inside the basement, you turn on the lights. Everybody takes a separate hall and shines it on anything that goes bump in the night. If said monster happens to be a twisted intern intent on snapping your neck and drinking your blood, shine the light and run like hell.” Durc pulled a pair of bulky goggles over his head and strapped a belt around his waist. “You’ll each be wearing one of these belts as well as infra-red goggles. They’re really great. The belts have a bunch of equipment on them, I doubt you’ll need any, but its basic regulations that you wear them. And with the goggles, you can see in the dark by heat, so if you see anything that looks like---”

“Why will we need infra-red goggles if we’re going in there with strobe lights? Won’t the lights, like, light up everything?” Somebody asked.

“Shut up and do what I say.” Durc said smugly, crossing his arms.

Hugo barked viciously as Dan tried to walk over and get some goggles from the bin. Dan was fed up. He kicked the slog’s snout with all his might and ran like he’d never run before, barely avoiding the fat slog’s snapping jaws and serrated teeth. He grabbed a pair of goggles and ducked behind whatever was closest- which happened to be Ian.

Sh– Ian cursed as Hugo lumbered over, licking his jaws and pulling back his gums.

“Enough ” Durc snapped, jerking Hugo’s leash. Dan nearly cried out in horror as Durc tied the end of the rope around his wrist so tightly that his hand turned purple. “Keep. Ahold. Of. Hugo ” He said piercingly, prodding Dan in the chest with each word for added emphasis. Dan flinched away from the slog, pulling back his leg to avoid it from being bitten.
“Now,” Durc said, “here’s how the squads will go. Dan will take Hugo and go with squad one, Red will go with squad two...”

The list seemed to be endless. Dan spent the entire time stiff with fear as Hugo crept slowly closer, his lips pulled back in a silent growl. Dan tried scooting away. Hugo only advanced more rapidly.

“So, questions? No? Well good, lets get this over with.” Durc turned on his goggles. Dan did the same. The quiet hallway went from grey to blue and purple, and the people around him turned red and orange. He couldn’t make out any defining features; he could only see their silhouettes.
“Okay, lets hurry this up. Now that we know what we’re dealing with, we shouldn’t have any problems.”



<~{.epidemic.}~>
The basement was just as Dan had remembered it; dark, damp, and dismal. Hugo trudged around at his feet, nearly knocking him over as he ground to a halt and nudged the floor, as though spying something very interesting.

Ian was in charge of the strobe light. He flicked a few switches and stood back, satisfied.

That should do it.

The lamp rattled as light poured out of its glass window, buzzing like a nest of angry hornets. The wheels at its base clattered and jumped violently, and sparks were shooting out of its back like fireworks. The screen of Dan’s goggles turned bright red from the sudden heat. He flinched and pulled them off, blinded.

Why the hell is it doing that? He complained. Ian shrugged and kicked it roughly.

Cuz’ it’s a piece of crap. We got the worst one.

Dan looked around quickly. There were only three other people in their squad, defiantly not enough to take down a rabid intern. They were sligs, fiddling with their weapons in an inexperienced manner- one had his finger caught in the barrel of his snoozi and was struggling to pull it out. Dan suddenly wondered how much of their well-beings were at stake.

Ian cocked his gun. Lets get going. He said, his feet splashing against the soggy metal floor as he continued down the corridor. Dan followed closely, worriedly eyeing the rafters above; it struck him that if there was any way Nedd could kill them before they even knew he was there, it would be from above.

Hugo tugged furiously at his leash and scrabbled his claws against the ground, plowing the small group aside with the force of an angry bear.

What the hell— Dan cursed, straining against the leash and digging his feet into the ground. Hugo spun around and bit down on his hand, hard. Dan cried out and jerked his hand back, freeing the leash from his wrist, and Hugo took off running.

Dan had enough to worry about as it was. His friend was a murderer, his appendix had exploded, his boss had nearly fired him, and they were putting their lives on the line just to try to get things back in order. The last thing he wanted to do was to let Hugo get away.



He pushed the sligs aside and dove, slamming his hands down on the leash. He grabbed it and swung back with a Herculean effort, and Hugo yelped in surprise, strangled by the whiplash. Dan jumped on the slog and slammed it to the floor, his eyes like angry, yellow pools.
You stupid animal He snarled, struggling to keep the slog pinned to the ground.

Ian whipped out his snoozi and looked around wildly. Keep quiet He urged. Dan shot him an icy glare.


I’m kind of busy here He snarled. Ian backed up against the wall.

I heard something.

Dan clamped Hugo’s mouth shut, looking around uncertanly. The sligs slowly brandished their weapons of choice and looked nervously over their shoulders and into the darkness.

Where? Dan hissed.

Ian motioned towards a door to the side. In there.

Dan took the leash and wrapped it roughly around Hugo’s snout, forming a makeshift muzzle. He hooked his arm around the slog’s chubby waist and picked him up, clamping on tightly as the beast kicked and struggled. Ian shoved open the door and thrust his snoozi inside, flaring it from side to side.

The room was large and looked as though it were once a storage area. It was roughly circular, about two hundred feet around, and scattered with tall racks that towered over their heads, forming an imposing labyrinth. The racks were stacked with glass jars filled with a yellowish liquid, each with a mangled test subject floating inside. Dan shuttered. The light from the lamp shone through the bottles, casting twisted shadows on the floor.

Ian switched off the light and motioned for the group to follow. They entered timidly, fixing their aim on anything and everything. Ian stepped carefully around a rack and continued down a narrow passage, his team trailing behind. Dan avoided looking at the ghastly creatures and body parts inside the jars, and focused instead on holding Hugo, who had ceased to put up a fight. Dan pulled his goggled back on worriedly, and the room immediately turned a greyish-blue, with the people around him and the still-hot strobe lamp glowing a beet-red.

Something clattered up ahead. Ian tensed and backed up against a rack, motioning for his team to do the same.

Something’s up there. He whispered. Dan tried to look through the glass jars, but recoiled when he realized his view was blocked by a giant tube as thick as his arm tangled inside one of them. It looked like some sort of tapeworm. He shuddered.

What do you see? Dan asked darkly. Ian replied without taking his eyes off his target;

Something too big to be a slog. Its giving off heat, but the jars are blocking it, so I can’t tell what it is. He reached into his belt and emptied his contents- a pocketknife. He frowned.
What did you get? He asked.

Dan rummaged around in his thick combat belt that had come with his infra-red goggles. The belt was thick and bulky, but only contained one thing- some sort of smoke grenade, possibly a flare.

Perfect. Ian said, grabbing it. Without a second thought he pulled off the tab and threw it as hard as he could. It flipped through the air and slammed the ground, popping like a balloon and filling the air with a powdery white gas that stung their eyes and made them gag. Dan snapped his eyes shut, his vision a blur.

A faint hiss filled the air as the gas subsided, leaving a powdery mildew on the floor. Ian stepped forward and peeked around the corner worriedly.

“YOU IDIOT ” Durc screeched, slugging Ian with his fist so hard that he staggered back. “CHECK WHO YOUR DEALING WITH BEFORE YOU THROW A GRENADE!”

Ian looked hurt. I thought you were—

“Thats the problem!” Durc snarled. “You don’t think! You interns are all the same! You can never get the job done! It takes someone with at least half a brain to do the job correctly!”

The racialism against interns was unexpected. Dan’s horns flattened against his head defectively and his teeth grinded under his stitches. How dare he say something like that!

Durc sighed and crossed his arms. “Turn the strobe lights back on; or is that to difficult?”

With obvious loathing, Ian shook the lamp, causing light to brighten the large room. Dan frowned and looked the other way. He had reached his limit with Durc.






“...WHO YOUR DEALING WITH BEFORE YOU THROW A GRENADE!”


Nedd’s head snapped up. Lady looked at him strangely, a faint whine forming in her throat, and nudged his hand with her snout.

Voices! Had they dared to return to this place, his place? Nedd growled loudly, foam dripping from his jaws, and spat a command to Lady. She whimpered and ducked back.

This was his fight.

He would teach them the true meaning of reverence.

Everyone has seemed to lost interest in this fic, so I don't know if i'll be continuing. I'd really like to, because I never finished my last one and would like to be able to say that I had managed to finish one, and because I really like this plot. I might continue it just for the hell of it, though this story seems to be a bit straightforward and the characters are plain. *sob*

Here you go.



----



Nedd crept down the hallway with catlike stealth, his baneful red eyes flicking left to right. With surprising content he peeked inside of a nearby room where voices could he heard.

Light. It was everywhere, glistening through the jar-covered racks and shimmering on the floor like stained glass. Nedd gave a throaty growl and pulled back. He looked around quickly; and, as if spotting what he was looking for, he sprang up onto a metal crate, grabbed a loosely-hanging pipe with his hand and swung across to the rafters. His breath cast small, milky clouds of steam in the frigid air. Quietly, he sneaked across the rafters and crouched at one end, watching, waiting...



<~{.epidemic.}~>



Durc gave a dramatic sigh.

“What did you do to Hugo?” he demanded. Dan looked down at the slog in bewilderment, having completely forgotten he was there. Hugo’s upper lip lifted, revealing sharp fangs the size of baseballs. He grumbled loudly. Dan carefully lowered him to the floor and untied his snout from the leash. Immediately the slog swung forward and bit Dan’s hand, almost drawing blood, before slinking off behind Durc.
Durc crossed his arms angrily.
“What are you doing here?” he finally asked. “I gave you a specific route to take.”

But we did– Dan began, but was cut off. Durc rolled his eyes.

“Fine, whatever happened, its too late now.” Durc crossed his arms. “Keep the lights off until we leave. I think all the havoc you caused could’ve attracted unwanted attention.” He glared at Ian. Ian turned away, muttering something.

They left as a group, taking a separate way, incase they were being followed. They came to a hallway that Dan had never seen before; the walls were painted a steel-blue, and the rafters were decorated with haphazardly-hanging lights that gave off sparks every minute or so. Puffs of steam erupted from broken pipes in the walls, hissing faintly. Dan noticed that the floor was made out of metal grating instead of plates. He eyed the floor warily, anticipating an attack from below, but none came.

They continued down the hallway at a brisk pace, weaving around discarded crates and rotting slog carcasses. Soon the flickering lights vanished behind them, and they were cast into inky darkness, fumbling for a moment before turning on their infra-red goggles. It didn’t help much; the rooms were still dark, and the only things that gave of heat were the steaming pipes and people around him.

Have you ever had the feeling you were being watched? That tingling at the back of your neck that quickly builds in your throat and makes you want to gag? And when you turn towards the source, because there must be somebody there, you find yourself alone?
That’s how Dan felt, only he knew that there was somebody there, and he knew that that somebody was out to kill him. This was not mistaken paranoia. This was real.

Ian. He hummed urgently. Ian grunted in reply. Ian, I think someone’s following us.

Ian rolled his eyes from under his goggles and turned away sulkily. Dan hissed Ian, I’m serious!

We have heat-seeking goggles, Ian said bitterly. If we were being followed, we’d know it.

Durc hushed them. The strobe light’s wheels squeaked as the metal grating turned back into floor, and they returned to more familiar territory. Dan swung around in horror. He had heard somebody breathing. Durc stiffened. He looked behind him slowly and pulled off his goggles, his beady eyes swiveling.

A clatter, a clang, something scuttling across the rafters above their heads. Something wanted to scare them, as though it were some twisted sport that it enjoyed. Durc brandished his lil’ hacker.

An inhuman scream howled through the air, filling Dan with sheer terror. Bullets were fired, whizzing through the air and rebounding off of walls. Durc screeched “The lights! Turn on the lights!”

Something swung out from the darkness and clipped a slig’s neck with a curved claw, slitting its throat. It collapsed to the floor, gurgling, and the strobe light was literally torn apart, its glass and metal peeled forcefully off of its wires. Dan fired a shot blindly into the dark. What was wrong with their goggles? Why couldn’t they see him?

The second light came on, clattering angrily. Ian shone it everywhere, but whatever it was seemed to have vanished.

‘The rafters,’ Dan thought.

RUN! He warned, backpedaling furiously. The group shifted uneasily before breaking out into a dead run, the slig’s gears whirling and the intern’s feet slapping the floor. The rafters rattled and creaked, and something zipped over their heads as quick as a flash. Dan swung around, still running, and crammed a cartrage clip into his snoozi. He fired once, twice, three times, all of which missed, and reached for another clip.

His face collided with the floor, and he preformed an elaborate double front-flip before finally grinding to a halt and laying twitching on the floor.

Dan opened one of his eyes, pulled his broken infra-red goggles off of his head, and heard the sound of the group moving before vanishing in the dark. In sheer terror he forced himself up and looked around. There were two separate pathways. They could’ve gone either way.

He slowly stood, his eyes rotating in their sockets. His snoozi clattered in his hands as he turned in circles, prepared for an attack in any direction; but nobody came. He was alone; just him and his snoozi.

Hello? Dan called quietly. His voice resounded before fading. Cautiously he took the path to the right, hoping that somehow he would catch up with the group and not fall victim to Nedd’s mindless killing.

Soon the metal plates under his feet were replaced with something hot and sticky. Dan stiffened and cranked his head downwards, dreading what he would see. The floor was dripping with crimson, still-warm blood. He felt a gag rise in his throat, as though he might throw up. The blood was splashed across the walls in crosshatching lines and lead pipes lay shattered everywhere, signs of a struggle. Dan looked up slowly into the rafters, and was alarmed to spot the mangled limb of whatever the victim had once been draped over its side. How it had gotten up there, he didn’t know.

...oh odd, oh odd, oh odd... He said in a tearless sob, staggering back. He slipped and fell on the bloodstained floor, dying his armor wine-red. Something moved in the rafters with a faint chuckle. Dan tried to stand, but his limbs jerked convulsively. Being paralyzed with fear only fueled his terror.

He could see the shape more clearly now, hunched over but still big. Suddenly it stood to its full height, tall enough to tower over Dan, its right eye glowing an evil red and its left eye swollen shut. Dan raised his snoozi, but fear got the better of him, and he dared not fire.

The once-wimpy intern eyed him critically: his eyes, Dan noticed, were no longer wide and scared as he had remembered. They were half closed, making him look bored, and almost proud. Dan could barely see him in the dark, but he could still sense his intent.

“I should have killed you when I had the chance.” He said quietly. Each syllable strained on his mouth, revealing it for what it was: a ragged, toothy hole.

Dan flinched. You don’t have to kill me. He said rather uselessly. He was going to die.

Nedd began walking towards him in slow, terrible steps. Dan pulled himself back weakly, but was up against a wall. The feeling was starting to return to his limbs, but was it too late to run?
Nedd reached out and grabbed a heavy-looking metal pipe that was leaning against the wall. It was long and thick. He gripped it tightly between his long, spidery fingers. Finally he was a mere three feet away. He raised the pole over his head, words forming on his lips, his eyes revealing nothing, and brought it crashing down.

Dan dove to the right in a last-ditch effort to save his own life. The pole smashed through the soggy plaster in the wall, crushing it. Dan whipped out his snoozi and fired, grazing Nedd’s shoulder blade, but he hardly seemed to notice.

Nedd bared his vertical, needle-sharp teeth and gave a savage hiss, pouncing forward. Dan fired, and Nedd zig-zagged to the left and gave a mighty leap up into the rafters. His breathing slowed. He became deathly silent, and virtually untraceable. Dan snarled;

Why are you doing this!

There was a pause, and for a brief moment Dan thought that he was alone; but suddenly the rabid intern slammed into him from above, knocking the wind out of him. He grabbed him by the throat and pressed him against the slimy wall, foam and saliva dripping down his face. Dan looked up hopelessly and saw a broken, heavy lamp hanging from the ceiling. It dangled and flickered, and was supported by mere cords wrapped around a support beam across the room. If he could just break free and get to the beam...

“You’re even more pathetic than I remembered.” Nedd eyed him unfavorably. Dan managed to choke,

You’re the last person who should be saying that.

Nedd chuckled quietly; is voice was deep and unamused. “I’m going to kill you. I’m going to kill everybody on this ship. Then I’m going to crash it into the ground.”

Why?

“After all the grief everyone’s caused me,” he paused thoughtfully, “why not?”

He squeezed Dan’s throat so tightly that he couldn’t breathe. Dan still held his snoozi, and in all the havoc he had forgotten about it. He raised it and fired one shot across the room. Nedd frowned at him, his ugly teeth tightening together.

“That’s it? That’s the best you can do? You’re a sickening, pathetic idiot---”

The timber in the rafters groaned in protest as the light fell, tearing away at wires and metal as though they were thread. Nedd swung around, fury in his eyes, but it was too late. The 200-pound metal box slammed down on the top of his neck and the dip of his shoulders. He jerked forward, balancing unsteadily on his feet, dazed. The metal pole clattered noisily from his hands. Dan grabbed it and swung it like a hammer. It struck the side of Nedd’s head, and he flopped over, unconscious.

Dan dropped his snoozi. Things went on as usual. The water dripped from the ceiling, the pipes hissed and sighed, the ratz and whatever else claimed the basement as their own scurried about in the vents.

Dan reached for his walkie-talkie and spoke into it, only to find it half broken. He gave his message anyway (‘Nedd’s incapacitated, I’ll try to keep him out, hurry.’) and stood by anxiously. After a while he decided that it would be best to tie Nedd up so that he wouldn’t wake up and kill him.

He searched around for a rope, but found a metal coil instead. He shrugged; it would probably work just as well. He busily began tying Nedd to the support beam the light had once been connected on, thinking.

Nedd, he noticed, was nearly twice as tall as the last time Dan had seen him, with long arms, legs, and a long torso that seemed strangely out of place. His skin was a dark purplish-grey color from where the cylonite was replacing his skin cells, and being near it made Dan fear that he would catch it. The wounds that had once crosshatched his body had healed and turned to dark grey scars, as though they had been bandaged for weeks, though it had only been days. His left eye was crossed over with four zig-zags, resembling a shaky swastika. The actual eye had turned to a crusty, brownish-red material that was bleeding. It was disgusting.

Dan got to tying the final knot, satisfied with his quick thinking, when suddenly he was crushed against the ground. Again.

Nedd snarled, “Who do you take me for?” And, with a quick jerk of his shoulders, snapped the coils like thread. His eyes darkened. “You really are pathetic.”

Not EVERYONE has lost interest :D

Keep writing, it's really good!

I dunno about losing interest, but I sure have gained it. I need to read this from the start... not now though. It's like midnight thirty where I am.