Yay! A reply! =D
Anyway, I was listening to 'A Mirror is Harder to Hold' by Jon Foreman while I wrote this, which really makes no sense. Anywho, it looks like things are starting to heat up as the fight for survival on the airship gets even harder.
8D
Enjoy.
----
The basement was virtually inactive during the day. Its inhabitants had grown accustom to living nocturnal lives in response to their inability to venture out into light. It didn’t seem to bother anybody, though; it wasn’t like anything interesting happened during the day.
Except this time, of course.
Nedd rolled over so that he looked up at the ceiling, his arms crossed. He could see mold and water stains forming in the cheap plaster, creating long, twisted shapes as dark as coal. He grumbled and rolled over again, so that his bad arm draped over the side of the rafters. Nedd closed his eye.
His dreams were surprisingly peaceful, for a berserk cannibalistic murderer, at least. Nedd dozed quietly, as still as a corpse. His horns were limp against his head and his face twitched occasionally, in reaction to whatever he happened to be dreaming about. Silently, he rolled over, smirking slightly in his sleep. Then suddenly his smug smile vanished and his eye snapped open. Nedd’s horns twinged. Slowly, he sat up, a dry growl forming in his throat.
He descended swiftly from the rafters. Quietly, Nedd picked up a wrench lying nearby and crept down the hall, careful not to wake any of his sleeping slogs. He ran his tongue over his lips and sniffed the air. A familiar scent hit him; it was like upturned mulch. He kept going.
Nedd turned the corner, his eye shifting uneasily, and suddenly flung his back against the wall, pupil dilated. Hesitantly he glanced around the corner. He saw the door where he had trapped Ian. But the pipe he had used to lock the door was not crammed over the doorknob, but on the floor, shattered into dozens of fragments. The door hung open slightly, dark and uninviting. Nedd lowered his eyelid and growled through his teeth. Could Ian have escaped already?
Nedd stalked slowly around the corner to investigate. His feet crunched softly against the broken pipe that littered the floor as he approached the door, his grip tightening on his weapon. With his stubby arm, Nedd pushed open the door, and slipped warily inside. Ian was nowhere to be seen.
“&%@$,” Nedd cursed under his breath, scanning the room for signs of the intern. Marks from finger nails etched the walls and broken glass peppered the floor, but other than that, the room was empty. Nedd backed up, his teeth bared. A hiss came from out in the hallway. Nedd’s horns perked, and before he could even turn, Ian was on him, his spidery fingers locked around his throat.
Nedd’s jaws snapped together as he tumbled to the side, legs kicking. Ian had a grip like a vise. Nedd clamped his good hand around Ian’s arm and dug his nails in, struggling to pry him loose, but to no avail. Ian had two working hands; Nedd had just one. Squinting, Nedd jumped back and into the hall, crushing Ian with his shoulder blades. Ian cried out in surprise.
Nedd’s head began to swim. He released his held breath in a sputtering hiss, swung around, and struck Ian with his blunt hand, directly between his eyes.
Ian’s grip slackened. Nedd grabbed him and threw him aside, springing to his feet. Ian crouched at the end of the hall on all fours, his shoulders raised sharply. He hissed through his stitches like a feral animal. Nedd took a cautious step back, throwing his weapon aside. It was useless in this situation. His fingers opened and closed compulsively and his pupil broadened yet again, nearly the size of a quarter. Only then did he notice Ian’s eyes.
They were solid black.
Ian bolted in the opposite direction like a bullet from a gun, turning the corner so fast that he slammed into a wall. Nedd took off after him, cursing in rage. Nedd was fast and nimble; he could just climb or jump over anything that got in his way. Ian, on the other hand, was a juggernaut, bowling through anything and everything that happened to be in his path. Nedd could have easily done the same thing, but he was smart, and knew when it could be avoided.
Nedd swung around the corner as Ian burst through a wooden crate, flinging soggy wood in all directions. Nedd shielded his face from splinters with his arm, squinting in the dark. Ian ducked quickly through a door. Nedd was just seconds behind.
Nedd entered the room and skidded to a halt, his horns curved back. He recognized this room. It was the storage area full of preserved animals he had fought Dan in before. Racks of jars with silhouetted test subjects were set up in rows, some of which had been knocked over. Nedd stooped down and leaned with his back against one of the racks in a defensive position, his eyes flicking left and right. He could hear, faintly, the sound of breathing up ahead. Slowly, Nedd pushed aside some jars and looked through.
A shadow moved across the floor, then was gone.
“Where the hell are you, you little bastard...” Nedd whispered through his teeth. He got up from where he was hiding and moved quickly down the rows, his patience thinning. A jar fell off a rack and shattered on the floor. Nedd tore forward, shoved the racks aside, and grabbed Ian by the arm, pulling him forcefully from his hiding spot.
Ian shrieked like a crazed animal and lashed out with his legs, kicking Nedd in the stomach. Nedd doubled over, locked Ian with his bloodshot eyes, and smiled through his needle-like teeth, tightening his grip.
“You’re coming with me.”
Ian immediately started struggling. Nedd held him effortlessly in a headlock, his bad arm around his neck and his good arm holding him still, and left the room, still breathing heavily from the struggle. He continued down the hall, stepping over shattered wood and crumbling debris without so much as a glance. Ian stared at him with black, terrified eyes the entire time. Nedd chuckled under his breath. He loved having power over others.
Nedd stopped walking. Ian peeked out from behind his arm and started struggling even more wildly, eyes horrified. It was the room he had been locked in the entire time. Nedd dropped him suddenly, and Ian darted to a corner, staring. Nedd watched him for a moment. He was more animal than intern, crouching tightly on all fours with his wide eyes unblinking. He had a few cuts and bruises on his body, some of which were already beginning to heal.
“I’m not gonna kill you.” Nedd said bluntly, but something about the way he said it had an opposite affect.
Nedd reached down and picked up a sharp shard of broken glass. Ian seemed to sink into himself as Nedd walked towards him, though he was too paralyzed with fear to run. He watched, wide-eyed, as Nedd took the glass and cut his mouth stitches. Ian opened and closed his mouth a few times, spitting out pieces of surgical thread. Nedd stalked back into the hall, and returned with the dead slig he had stored in the rafters. It was dripping and rotting, its skin hanging from its bones, and there was hardly any meat left, but it was still food.
Nedd threw it with a flick of his wrist. The corpse skidded across the floor, halting in front of Ian. Ian cocked his head to the side, looking at it in confusion. Then, suddenly and without hesitation, Ian tore into the remains like a starved scrab, swallowing huge mouthfuls without chewing. Nedd’s mouth watered looking at the meat, but he made no move to retrieve it.
Ian gnawed on the slig’s spinal column, breaking it in his teeth and devouring the soft flesh inside. He stared at Nedd while he chewed, looking slightly more relaxed.
“Its good.” Nedd said half to himself. Ian’s only response was to toss the slig’s spine aside and start chewing on a second bone. Nedd looked him over critically. “Can you talk?”
Ian’s head snapped up. His eyes were no longer solid black. They were horribly bloodshot; the whites had turned red. It was an ugly contrast to Ian’s soft blue irises and widened pupils. There was something in Ian’s face -recognition, or maybe understanding- that told Nedd all. The cylonite had overwhelmed him. He was as he appeared to be.
An animal.
“There’s more where that came from.” Nedd said as Ian rummaged through the pile of bones. Nedd grinned, showing his shearing teeth. “Stick with me, you’ll have all the meat you ever wanted. They’ll know us and fear us.”
Ian licked the blood from his fingers, watching Nedd. Nedd chuckled quietly.
Everything was going as planned.
<~{.epidemic.}~>
The laboratory was small and white, sterilized down to every last scalpel. Helix was alone, cutting apart a fuzzle infected only slightly with cylonite. When he was stuck on his research, he found it helped to go back to basics and go over what he’d done before. For him that meant getting to cut open more innocent critters, much to his delight.
Helix dug his scalpel into the fuzzle’s bare skin, biting his tongue. The fuzzle’s fur had been shaved off to make the operation easier. Sighing, Helix sliced the creature’s side open and pulled the skin aside, watching as its heart twitched and shuddered.
The door behind him opened and closed quickly. Helix looked back over his shoulder. Vhern was standing there, his arms crossed. He didn’t look as fake-happy as he did before; no, he looked angry, and Helix had an idea why. Vhern’s two bodyguards flexed their fingers, looking ready to bust some heads.
“Hello.” Helix said weakly. Vhern smiled through his teeth, though Helix could see the fury in his eyes.
“Hello.” Vhern echoed, striding over to where Helix was working. His bodyguards lumbered behind. Vhern licked his lips slowly. “Helix,” he said, “do you think I’m stupid?”
“No.” Helix replied innocently, though his mind screamed ‘YES ’
“Then tell me,” Vhern said, resting his elbows on the surgical table. “Did I not make myself clear when I told you to keep quiet about the cylonite tests?”
‘Oh, boy.’
“I think you made it clear,” Helix said quietly, unsure of how he should answer. Vhern sighed and dusted his glasses with a rag.
“Then allow me to make myself even clearer.”
One of Vhern’s bodyguards grabbed Helix by the throat, knocking over the surgical table. The slig then pressed him up against the wall, a growl forming deep in its barrel chest. Helix cringed, his eyes clamped shut and his claws around the slig’s huge fist as though trying to pull himself free. Vhern sighed and stood up, looking at Helix humorlessly.
“When I give you an order,” he growled acidly as he leaned closer, “I expect it to be followed.”
The slig tightened its grip. Helix let out a squeak of fear.
“.... am I being
clear, now?”
Helix nodded weakly. The slig dropped him, and he fell against the wall with one hand over his neck, gasping.
Vhern smiled, adjusting his glasses. “I’m glad we’ve reached an agreement.” He said, leaving the room. His two bodyguards followed closely, leaving Helix on the floor of the laboratory in a state of complete shock.