Chapter 4 - HUMAN FRAILTY
Content Warning
Violence / Implied Suicide
Alba sat in the cafeteria with a plate of serviceable food and a glass of water. She looked across the mess hall, past all the other patients, at her twin Luna who was seated on the opposite end.
Her black hair looked frazzled and she had dark bags under her hazel eyes. But she maintained eye contact with Alba almost the entire time, with a look of apprehension.
Alba inhaled, gathered courage, then grabbed her plate and got up.
Almost immediately an orderly put a meaty hand on her shoulder.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he said in a thin and whispy voice.
“I-I-I…” was all that Alba managed to say.
“Now now, Mr Prim.” a husky voice chimed in from behind them.
The two of them turned around to find Mama Brutus in her head nurse’s outfit approaching them. Her hair was always tied in a bun and on her face she wore the same cold smile as always.
“No need to manhandle our patients.” she said as she approached. “I’ll handle this.”
The orderly grimaced but relented and continued his patrol of the mess hall.
“And where do you think you’re off to, little lady?”
Mama Brutus’ steely voice somehow always perfectly conveyed the uncaring nature behind her false smile.
“I-I-I just wanted to…sit with my sister…” Alba managed to say.
“Oh Alba, you know that’s not allowed.” Mama Brutus said as she placed her hand on Alba’s shoulder and gently, but firmly, forced her to sit again. “We’re switching things up today and the two of you always sit together.”
“But I…”
Mama Brutus leaned down to look her straight in the eye.
“We don’t have any room for patients who don’t follow the rules. And rule breakers will be either thrown out or put in their place. Are we clear?”
Alba nodded.
“Good. Now eat your food.”
Mama Brutus stood up and continued her rounds around the mess hall as well.
Alba made eye contact with Luna once more, wishing more than anything she could be with her right now.
Alba was frozen, crouching over the dead security guard, his keys in hand. Looming over her was the elongated and twisted figure of Mama Brutus, now no longer resembling her old human visage.
Her head nurse’s uniform was stretched and torn, much like her face which was mostly shrouded in the shadow of her wild hair. One bloodshot eye stared back at Alba with murderous glee as its lips stretched into an unnerving smile.
“Taste the blood…or Mama will…put you in…your place…”
Mama Brutus stretched out her arms and wrapped her spider-like fingers around Alba’s head. She could feel the increasing pressure it was putting on her head, knowing it was probably going to squash skull in a matter of seconds. Its palms covered her ears and drowned out all other sounds. But then she heard it again.
When all other sounds were removed she heard the whisper again. Had it always been there? Had it just been engulfed by everything else? Or had the drawings in the reading room below awoken something in her mind.
Mama Brutus began squeezing her head as it gleefully giggled. But Alba couldn’t even focus on it.
The voices now spoke to her louder, in tongues she couldn’t even begin to understand. They were in her mind, flowing through her veins, it was as if her blood was singing to her.
The crushing weight of Mama Brutus’ hands made a fresh river of blood pour from Abla’s nose. Without even realizing what she was doing, Alba reached up with her left hand, and the blood began dancing around her finger tips. Little droplets that quivered and undulated like little crimson blobs caught in a tiny gravitational field.
Mama Brutus leaned back in surprise, its crushing hands relenting a little. Alba’s eyes flashed with red light and the droplets solidified into sharp and angular blood crystals. Then, with a flick of her fingers, they shot out like shrapnel into Mama Brutus’ face.
The monstrosity recoiled as blood sputtered from its face, its arms releasing Abla to clutch its bleeding wounds.
Alba clenched her fist around the key and bolted down the hallway. Behind her she only heard the veiling screams of Mama Brutus as it frantically got up and stormed after her. Its heavy footsteps getting closer and closer, Alba dashed around the corner, nearly slipping on the floor yet again. Mama Brutus didn’t manage to round the bend as well and came crashing into the wall, giving Alba a little more time to get away.
She ran down the corridor and quickly darted into the maintenance room and began sliding down the pipe.
“Did you get it?!” Nikolai exclaimed.
Alba slid only halfway down before letting go of the pipe and dropping down. However, just as she hit the floor, Mama Brutus’ gangly arm reached down through the opening and grabbed her hair. Alba screamed in pain and Luna quickly darted forward to grab her, but it was to no avail.
Mama Brutus quickly smacked Alba into the ceiling and she could feel her skull fracture in the process. It then swung the two girls around and managed to then slam Luna into one of the walls, knocking the air out of her.
Nikolai activated his weapon and winced as it drew blood directly from him. It opened up and extended, revealing the horrific fleshy core at its center. He then ran forward and jumped up, slashing the cleaver into the monstrous arm as it was about to retreat.
There was a flash of red and they heard a terrible scream as the arm let go of Alba and retreated up into the opening.
Alba fell to the floor but Nikolai quickly grabbed her and began pulling her away.
“Be careful with her.” Luna scolded.
Nikolai dragged Alba out into the corridor and then put away his weapon before rummaging through his bag again. He then quickly pulled out the bloodshot.
“You’re not injecting her with that gross ass blood!” Luna commanded.
“If I don’t she’ll die!” Nikolai retorted. “Look at her!”
Luna looked at her twin who now lay on the floor with an alarming amount of blood pouring from an open wound on her head.
“She needs blood to heal. This won’t heal her wounds right away but it’ll give her what she needs to do it herself.” Nikolai explained while holding back on injecting Alba with the bloodshot.
He wanted permission before doing it.
Luna looked at her sister, who appeared to be on death’s door. Panic arose in her. Was she really willing to have her sister injected with something that she herself had been reluctant to take just a few minutes ago? Or was she going to let her sister die because of something as stupid as this?
“Do it.” she finally relented.
Nikolai nodded and placed the bloodshot on the side of Alba’s neck, where the jugular was. He then pressed the trigger and a small needle pushed out from the barrel, quickly injecting the blood into her.
Much to Luna’s surprise, Alba didn’t even react, at least not in a painful manner. But her eyes did soon stop fluttering so wildly.
“What now?” Luna asked.
“Now we wait. Give her time to heal.” said Nikolai as he sat up against the wall. “Shouldn’t take too long.”
Luna sat down on the wall opposite of him.
“How do you know all of this?” she asked.
“Been trying to escape for a while. I need to get back to my mother, she’s sick and she needs my help. Guess I quickly picked up on a lot of things in the process. When it’s a matter of survival, you’d be surprised by how quickly you learn things.”
Luna suspected he might be holding something back, but she didn’t see any reason to press him on it. They needed him if they were going to escape.
Nikolai opened the bloodshot, ejecting the empty blood vial from within it and replacing it with another full vial. As he closed it up again he held it out towards Luna.
“No thank you.” she replied.
“Like I said before; it’ll help you with that leg.”
Luna thought back to how fast the wound on her thigh had closed up and upon looking at her sister it seemed the horrific headwound she had sustained was already scabbing over. She sighed and ultimately accepted the offering. She placed the device on the crook of her elbow and, after a moment’s hesitation, pulled the trigger.
In a flash, the needle pierced her skin and she could feel the warm sensation as the fresh supply of blood coursed through her veins. It was almost intoxicating. The pain in her leg slowly began draining away.
She handed the device back to Nikolai.
“Now what?”
Nikolai looked down the corridor, an expression of longing in his eyes. He wanted to get moving.
“Like I said, now we wait.”
The two of them had remained sitting on opposite sides of the corridor, with Alba lying unconscious on the floor between them, for almost an hour. It had been terrifying at first, constantly worrying if Mama Brutus was going to come rounding the corner, charging at them. But when nothing had happened for an hour it had only become dreadfully boring.
“So…what’s wrong with your mom?” Luna asked out of sheer boredom.
“There’s nothing wrong with her.”
“I mean how is she sick?”
Nikolai sighed. “She’s got consumption.”
The bored look in Luna’s eyes disappeared as they widened with understanding.
“That’s…pretty bad. That’s really bad.”
“I know. Which is why I signed up for this program. I was hoping they might be working on a cure here. Now I just want to get back home to take care of her.”
Luna understood that sort of responsibility very well.
“I’m sorry.” she said sheepishly.
“It’s fine. She’s not sick because of you.”
“I know, it’s just…I don’t know…maybe, since we can heal ourselves so fast, maybe we can heal her?”
Nikolai shrugged. “Maybe.”
For a moment they heard a distant scream, followed by silence.
“So…” Luna started. “...this is what the experiments were all about, huh?”
“What?”
“This. Us. They were trying to create us, right?”
Nikolai shook his head. “No idea. Probably. This seems very intentional.”
“Makes you think: Why? What’s in this for them? What were they trying to learn from this?”
“My guess? They wanted to perfect a method before trying it on themselves. As I understand it, not everyone survived the experiments. We are the rare few who came out…successful…I guess.”
Luna contemplated this for a moment.
“What’s so special about that weapon? You know, other than being made of meat?”
Nikolai sighed. “What’s with all the questions?”
Luna shrugged.
“Normal weapons don’t seem to hurt those monsters, at least not as much as they should. But when you hit them with this, especially after activating it, they go down real fast.”
“And…do you always have to feed it blood to activate it?”
Nikolai rolled his eyes. “I guess. I don’t exactly know how it works, I just know it drinks blood. It’s like the perfect weapon for a warling, I suppose. Maybe that’s what they were going for.”
“What kind of supernatural shit can you do? Can you do spells? Do you have powers?”
Nikolai gave her a pointed look as she asked this.
“I don’t really see how that’s relevant. What about you?”
Luna gave him a coy smile. She remembered being able to instinctively make a dagger out of crystalized blood and she had been wondering what the extent of that power was. But since he wasn’t going to share then neither was she.
“How did they do it? How did they manage to make us like this? Do you remember?” she asked, changing the subject.
“No.” said Nikolai. “Sometimes I think I remember being taken into the basement and I get flashes of…something. Something horrible. But that’s all I remember. Don’t think I want to know.”
Luna looked at him and waited for him to make eye contact with her.
“We’re gonna get out of here. We’re gonna get you back to your mom.”
Nikolai smiled sadly.
Then, suddenly, Alba sat up with a frightened and bewildered look on her face.
“Where is she? Where’s Mama Brutus?!”
“Don’t worry. You escaped.” Luna explained. “Nikolai helped fix you with his bloodshot thingy.”
Luna looked perplexed before her fingers traced her head, quickly finding the scars of her recently recovered head trauma.
“Oh…thanks I guess.”
“You’re welcome. Now should we get the fuck outta here?” Nikolai suggested.
The trio made their way North until they came upon the windows looking out onto the courtyard. The darkness of night hung over everything but they could still see the elegant cobblestone pathways, the neatly trimmed trees and bushes and what looked like the central fountain. Right below them was a burning pile of what, at first, looked like various bundles of clothing and pillows. But upon closer inspection they quickly discovered it to be a smoldering pile of corpses.
Looking to the right they saw the security door to the East Wing but looking to the left they not only saw the corpses that Luna had observed earlier but also the westward security door. And much to the twins’ surprise, the door was open.
“You said all the doors were closed.” said Luna.
“That one was closed.” said Nikolai while looking towards the door with a severe expression.
“Are you sure?” asked Alba.
“I’m sure, because I closed it when I came through there.”
The twins looked at one another.
“You were in the Surgical Wing?” asked Luna.
Nikolai just kept staring at the open door. “We need to leave.”
He then turned towards the eastern security door and used the newly acquired keys to open it as quietly as possible. He then motioned for the twins to enter while keeping an eye on the opposite door.
The twins did so, although Luna hesitated only for a moment as she couldn’t take her eyes off the corpses she’d seen earlier, and once they were through he followed and gently closed the door.
The third floor of the Therapy Wing first led to a series of offices, most of which were closed. One office door was open, revealing the dismembered corpse of a doctor lying on the floor behind a wooden desk. The trio peeked inside but quickly noticed a darkened shape lurking over the doctor’s corpse, feasting on their innards. They quietly stepped past the office, making sure to make no sound as they did.
They then entered a wide open space, a dedicated lounge area for the patients. What had once been an obnoxiously pleasant space was now filled with overturned tables, splatters of blood and the occasional corpse of a staff member or patient. A few of them were strewn about the main space and their various organs had been pulled out from the torsos and then used to ‘decorate’ the lounge area.
“Over here.” Nikolai whispered, as he continued to lead them to the next hallway.
Luna followed but not Alba hesitated. Her eyes remained fixed on the corpses in the center of the floor. Not because they were familiar to her. But because she alone could see the pattern painted with their blood and organs. It resembled the spiral drawing she had seen in the reading room. And as she stared at it, she could hear the dissonant whispering getting louder and louder in her head.
“Alba.” she heard her twin whisper at her.
She shook her head and followed the others.
As Nikolai led them through the next series of hallways, which he knew would lead to a staircase that connected the various floors, Luna stopped as they passed an open door.
The door led to a decently sized therapy room with a large wooden table and several chairs surrounding it. But what had caught her attention was the doctor who sat in one of the chairs, one dangling arm still clutching a bloody knife, and his throat viciously cut open. The man’s face and clothes were completely covered in blood. But even then, there was something familiar about his face.
“What’s the matter?” Alba asked.
“I think I know him.” said Luna as she quietly stepped into the room. “I…vaguely remember sitting in this room, answering his questions.”
Alba and Nikolai followed her into the room. While Luna inspected the body and Nikolai secured the room, Alba was drawn to the numerous papers that lay spread on the table. Most of them had been completely drenched in blood, but a few were still legible.
She picked up one page and started reading it, in her head at first but then…
“Wait, listen to this.” she said to gain the attention of her companions. “Even after all of our research, all the experiments, we still don’t know how the change occurs or how extensive it may be. It at first seems to manifest in simple, almost unnoticeable, ways. A change in the coloration of the subjects irises, a discoloration of the skin and even pronounced canines. But there is also a randomness to the mutations. Or at the very least, if there is a design behind it, we cannot see it.”
“This is very interesting…” said Nikolai. “But we should keep going.”
“Wait, he’s talking about us.” said Luna.
Alba continued. “All we know is that the rift is the key. If it hadn’t been for subject zero, we would never have been able to send so many subjects through it. It has provided us with invaluable information. We’ve gathered more research in the past one and a half years than we have in the past century. And with each subject we send through into The Beyond we learn multitudes. Whoever holds the key to that abyss, controls the world. Signed, Dr Ingmar Richardson. November 25th, 1861.”
The other two listened in horror.
“N-n-no…that’s not true…” said Nikolai.
“1861?” Luna asked in shock. “We’ve been here for a year and half?”
“No, no, no, no. That can’t be. My mother is waiting for me. It cannot have been here for that long.”
Alba put the papers on the table again and placed a hand on Nikolai’s shoulder.
“Maybe they made a mistake. Or maybe they’re using the wrong date on purpose.”
“Why would they do that?” asked Nikolai, his heartbeat increasing with each second. “That doesn’t make any…”
But then Luna’s hands darted in to cover both of their mouths.
The three of them heard the echoing pitter patter of multiple feet rapidly approaching and quickly ducked behind the table. Looking at the open doorway from under the table they soon saw dozens of feet sprinting past. Some wore tattered pants, a couple still had shoes on but most ran barefoot, leaving a bloody trail as they did. Their toes seemed twisted and almost animalistic in nature and as this small horde ran past they could hear them breathing heavily and growling like a pack of rabid dogs.
Luna looked at the other two and whispered. “We have to get out of here now. Which way to the stairs?”
Nikolai pointed towards the door and then to the right.
“Stay close to me and get ready to run if anything goes wrong.” she then continued.
“You mean to lead us out there? With those things out there?” Abla replied in quiet dismay.
“It’s the only way. They’ll find us if we stay here.” said Luna.
Alba and Nikolai looked at one another with unease.
“Alright, stay close to me. Aaaand…go.”
