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wouldntyou-liketoknow · 1 year ago

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Day 13: Bloodbath

(Note: the characters you’ll be reading about here are more fan-egos that belong to me. None of them will be referred to by actual names; instead, they will be organized by the same number system as the one in ISWM. This story is NOT related to ISWM Lore at all, the numbers are literally just inspiration easter-eggs. If you know your lore, then you won’t have any trouble figuring out who each character is based off of. As usual, the amazing @sammys-magical-au helped me shape this story, and the character L7181 is a nod to one of their lovely Lixian Egos!)

(Disclaimer: the horror game IRON LUNG is the property of David Szymanski. While I did create the characters in this story—except for The Convict/Mark’s Character/M2702, technically—the story itself is obviously inspired by the game’s elements. I STARTED WRITING THIS IN SEPTEMBER, AND AS OF RIGHT NOW, MARK’S IRON LUNG MOVIE HASN’T COME OUT YET. I HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING WHAT THE MOVIE’S PLOT IS GOING TO BE LIKE. THIS STORY IS NOT AN ATTEMPT TO PREDICT ANYTHING. THIS IS LITERALLY JUST BASED OFF OF AN IDEA I HAD WHEN THE MOVIE WAS ANNOUNCED. SO PLEASE DON’T TRY BLASTING ME WHEN THE MOVIE INEVITABLY HAS DIFFERENT ELEMENTS THAN MY FANFICTION. AND EVEN IF THE MOVIE GETS RELEASED BEFORE I POST THIS STORY, I’M STILL KEEPING THIS STORY BECAUSE IT TOOK A LOT OF TIME AND EFFORT. IT’S JUST MY PERSONAL IMAGINING OF WHAT THE MOVIE COULD BE LIKE.)

(Trigger Warnings: blood/gore, claustrophobic environments, isolation, flashbacks/implied trauma, imprisonment, physical violence, implied self-harm, slight mentions of eating/drinking, thalassophobia, mentions of suffocation, strong language. Please let me know if I missed anything.)

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10 Day 11 Day 12

It felt like hours had passed since the Iron Lung was lowered into the bowels of AT-5’s ocean, and yet M2702’s stomach was still being wracked with that instinctual dropping sensation. He shifted in the provided chair, practically leaning on the control panel in order to maneuver the submarine. The bright lights were harsh against his eyes, but they were far easier to handle than the darkness at the rear of the vessel.

He’d already had to retreat back there three times. Three stops aligned with the markings on the map, three photographs collected. That was the whole goddamn point of this voyage, after all. And each time he did, his instincts swore that something in the shadows would pin him to the floor and tear him apart. The brief illumination offered by the camera or terminal’s screen did absolutely nothing to ease that paranoia.

The walls were so rusty that M2702 was pretty sure he’d contracted tetanus just by looking at them.

Not that he’d have enough time to find out.

He found himself recoiling out of nowhere, shaking his head as an oily sensation bloomed under his face to announce that a vein somewhere in his nose had burst. A thin scarlet line slowly but surely seeped down over his lips and chin.

___

Pink.

That was the first thing he saw after his capture.

The space station he’d been dragged off to was a vast expanse of steel platforms and iron tunnels. He’d expected that, of course. It was no secret that iron was the C.O.I.’s pride and fucking joy. What he hadn’t expected was for the station’s interior—or, everything in the section he and the other convicts were being held in, at least—to be tinted the pastel color of candy.

But it most certainly was.

The walls, the floors, the tables lining the commissary, the intercoms in the corners of the ceilings, the plastic tubes containing very tiny amounts of freeze-dried food that were given to him and the others twice per day.

Everything. Pink.

(Even with the way supplies were dwindling, he had to admit: this probably helped enforce the strict policy against alcohol in space. Spending any amount of time here with a hangover would kill you.)

It truly seemed like the only non-rose-colored things in here were A. the headache-inducing fluorescent panels, B. the stainless steel sinks and toilets set up behind privacy screens in the far corners of the holding cells, and C. the almost scrub-like outfits required to be worn by anyone who was here against their will.

That might’ve been the part he hated the most. The goddamn uniforms.

Before he’d been beaten to the ground at the Filament Station, he’d worn a special type of clothing made from hydrophobic materials that also happened to be reinforced and self-cleaning. Now, he had to dress in simple garb that would’ve been found on Earth: a thin, itchy gray shirt with trousers to match, as well as a pair of laceless shoes that were determined to chew blisters into his ankles with every step he took.

To top it all off, his arms had been wrapped in a pair of black bracers, the left one adorned by a white patch that silently announced M2702 in a bold font. They reminded him of the blood-pressure cuffs he always saw in pharmacies as a child. Whatever fabric had been used to make these things, it was tough and tight; the skin hidden underneath felt so damn sore.

But hey, at least he wasn’t alone in that particular suffering.

Hours after he’d been taken prisoner, after those stupid bastards were finished examining him and looking over his vitals, he was practically shoved into one of the station’s excuses for a cafeteria. Other people had been there—more members of Eden whom he just hadn’t worked closely enough with—milling about, all turning their heads in near-perfect unison at the sound of the heavy steel door sliding shut behind him.

He kept his expression neutral, glaring right back as he maneuvered around the tables. By the time he’d collected his meal (a water bottle and a small vacuum-sealed package of what was apparently dehydrated chicken breast), everyone else had resumed either silently eating or having muted discussion. . .except for one.

A woman sporting a head of long, gently-curling chestnut hair. She waved to get his attention, nodded when he gestured toward himself, and beckoned him over to one corner of the area. As he cautiously drew closer, it took little time for him to realize just how petite she was despite obviously being an adult. She also appeared to be ill; her big brown eyes were watery and red around the edges, while her skin was a few shades paler than it probably should’ve been. The white patch on her left-arm-bracer read R1126.

“You’re from Eden, aren’t you?” She asked barely a second after he sat down across from her.

He hesitated before nodding. “Yeah, I am.”

R1126 wrung her hands. “So he was right, then.”

“Who’s ‘he?’” M2702 inquired. “What was he right about?”

“My brother. He said he saw a few people in his sleep a couple weeks earlier. The way he described one of them sounded exactly like the way you look.” She paused, glancing here and there as she drummed her nails on the table. She seemed to be bracing herself for something, like someone who knew from experience that there was a dead animal in the middle of a path they needed to take every day. “He saw the battle at the Filament Station.”

M2702 felt his mouth open and close a few times. He leaned back, blinking and slowly shaking his head. “That’s not possible. The attack only broke out a few days ago.”

“He dreamt about it,” R1126 responded in a very exasperated manner. Her tone became rueful and concerned as she continued. “And you’re right: it shouldn’t be possible. But it’s been years since he started having nightmares. Up until now, they’ve just gotten worse, much more frequent. And the things he remembers happening in them. . .”

The seconds felt painful as they dragged by, jeering at M2702 as he stared at his new conversation partner. If this had taken place decades prior, he probably would’ve rolled his eyes at her, maybe even scoffed. Her claim was outrageous; he couldn’t just believe it.

He never would’ve believed that so many of the stars and planets could just blink out of existence, one after the other, either.

He didn’t want to believe in something like that.

But he had to.

That was the reason for all the tensions between Eden and the C.O.I., the reason he’d wound up here in the first place.

“Where is he now?” M2702 wondered aloud. He wasn’t sure why he’d asked that, of all things. Then again, a person who had regular nightmares laced with a premonition or two was probably someone to look out for. “And why’re you telling me all this?”

“In solitary confinement. He was taken in two days ago, but he’s supposed to be let out sometime today.” R1126 chewed her lip. “I want you to understand. . .when you’re able to meet him. . .”

Her eyes suddenly grew wide, the grim anxiety that’d just wormed its way into them quickly warping into panic. She gasped for air, drawing her arms closer—one hand hovered before her mouth, and the other clutched at her stomach.

“H-He’s not a bad person, I swear. All our time in this place has just made him scared. Desperate. Paranoid. I know he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He’s just trying. . .”

Her movements were soft as she began to rock back and forth in her seat, visibly swallowing several times as though there was a literal frog trying to climb up her throat, “. . .to find a way o-out of here. . !”

M2702 halfway rose from his chair. He’d learned the warning signs of vomiting at an early age, but his thoughts still seemed to sink through his skull for whatever reason. What was he supposed to do for her? Give her water? Alert someone else and lead them to her?

R1126 must’ve seen the way he glanced at the counters across the cafeteria, because she shook her head. “No, no. Don’t bother; even if they had the right medicine around here, I doubt they’d give it to me.” She straightened her back, gingerly rolling her shoulders as her hands found their way back to the table. “I-I’ll be fine.”

M2702 squinted at her, moving slowly as he sat back down. She sure as hell didn’t seem fine. “What’s wrong? What happened to you?”

R1126 stayed quiet for another moment. She started drumming her nails again, her eyes drilling through him with the exhausted demeanor of someone who’d developed a habit of expecting the worst of people. “I have no idea, honestly. I’ve just been able to. . .taste things in the air. And I’m not even sure what those things are.” She paused, shuddering. “But they’ve been so horrible. Even if I’ve adjusted somewhat, I just can’t seem to go a day without nausea.”

M2702 felt his brow furrow as the information sank in. He’d heard about plenty of sensory disorders in his time, but this was in a weight class of its own. The way she described her condition reminded him of how snakes could taste scents instead of just smelling them.

Again, a voice in his head demanded to know where the logic could possibly be, to which another voice chided it for still trying to find logic in times like this.

“It’s stuck with me for years now. Since before I was taken prisoner,” R1126 continued. Fear integrated itself with the pain and frustration in her expression. Her voice tapered down to a whisper: “I think the Rapture caused it. I think it caused my brother’s nightmares, too.”

More silence festered between the two of them.

Eventually, M2702 thought to ask the million-dollar question: “Were you two part of Eden?”

R1126 flinched, tilting her head at him.

“Sorry, it’s just—” M2702 sighed. “I was limited to working with a specific team, and I can’t recognize your face.”

R1126 fidgeted in place for a long, tense moment. “. . .We were traveling to Eden. Before the Rapture, we’d inherited a small ship, and we were using it to planet-hop for personal research.” Her voice hitched on Rapture, as though the word was a bundle of thorns caught between her lungs.

M2702 knew that feeling all too well.

R1126 took a quick, deep breath. “After we found out how all the things we’d managed to document were just disappearing, we had to keep changing course and sending out distress signals every day. Sooner or later, we remembered hearing about the tree gardens on Mars, so we figured that might be the safest place to land. While we were making our way there, we came across this station. Some of the people here answered our call and welcomed us inside. But once we explained our plans to them. . .”

The tremor in her voice grew worse. Her eyes began to glisten, clearly more out of emotion than sickness. “They got hostile. Wouldn’t let us leave, seized our ship and everything we had left on it.” She lowered her head, furiously scrubbing her tears away before they could start flowing.

Something awful stabbed its way through M2702’s ribcage. One part of him wanted to place a hand on her shoulder, to try and offer some support as she grounded herself. But another part ordered him to stay still, insisting that he was past the point of being able to help.

R1126 briefly ground her jaw as she resumed eye-contact with him. “I’m not sure how long we’ve been trapped here since then. It’s just gotten so hard to keep track of time.”

M2702’s train of thought came crashing to a violent halt. He and his colleagues already had their suspicions of the C.O.I. being corrupt, of its collectivist ideals being more focused on cult-esque control than conservation.

But to hear that this organization had been imprisoning civilians. . . people who had absolutely nothing to do with what was going on at the Filament Station. . .

Without warning, the same booming, metallic hiss he’d heard not too long ago raced through the air. M2702 turned in his seat just in time to watch another man being pushed into the cafeteria.

The new stranger—P0620 was printed on his left-arm-bracer—was the same height as him, fair-skinned with short, chocolate-colored hair that appeared to have been pulled on a regular basis. He gained his bearings quickly enough, fixing whoever was on the other side of that door with a venomous glare. Just as he began venturing further into the room, a blur manifested in M2702’s peripheral vision. That blur turned out to be R1126, who rushed over to P0620, tugging at his arm. P0620 wasted no time embracing her, briefly closing his eyes as his grimace melted into something that managed to be relieved and anxious at the time. Almost as if he thought she’d vanished in his absence the way so many planets and stars had.

It didn’t last.

The duo exchanged a few hushed words, and stress came flooding back to P0620’s expression as he scanned the area. M2702 couldn’t help but slightly recoil when that gaze landed on him. P0620’s eyes were bloodshot, wild, impatient. And when he began stalking toward him, it was all too easy to realize just how calculating they were.

M2702’s instincts told him to get to his feet, to be on-guard. The other man quickened his pace, only stopping once he was a few feet away, hands half-outstretched.

“Which side started firing first? How many casualties have there been so far?” P0620’s tone was sharp, almost searing. Despite never having known him before, M2702 could somehow tell that his voice wasn’t meant to be like that. It alone was damning evidence of trauma. “How exactly did they catch you? Did you kill anyone before that?!”

M2702 narrowed his eyes, holding his hands out in a defensive gesture. But before he could actually respond, R1126 stepped in front of him.

“Stop,” she commanded, her voice becoming solemn in time with the way her eyes hardened. “You’re not doing this again.”

P0620 sputtered, glancing back and forth between his sibling and the new inmate. “Wha—I have to!”

R1126 shook her head. “No, you don’t. And even if you did, I still can’t just let you. Not until you’ve actually calmed down, at the very least.”

P0620 took a few deep breaths. One of his eyes twitched as he began kneading at his temples. “Being calm hardly matters anymore.”

“Not the point. You really think I don’t know how the punishments have been getting worse? It might not be much longer before those bastards start torturing you for no reason!”

“That’s why I need to get a better understanding of the visions!” P0620 threw his hands up as his voice shot through a good few octaves. “I saw the conflict before anyone else did! So, if someone involved with it would actually answer my damn questions, then maybe I could use that info to put more pieces together when the next one comes!”

M2702 cautiously stepped away, moving in order to see both of the sibling’s faces.

“That doesn’t mean—” R1126 tried, only to cut herself off, dipping her head. She cleared her throat, grit her teeth. “You can’t just—”

A low scraping noise seemed to crawl out of her mouth. Her breathing grew more and more ragged. Both her and her brother’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates.

“N-no—not here—I need. . !”

And just like that, R1126 collapsed, clawing at her neck as she dry-heaved on the floor.

All the frustration evaporated from P0620’s features, replaced by panic as he cried out and knelt down beside her, trying to help her stand.

___

It didn’t matter that the front window had to be kept closed due to the pressure down here. It was pointless to have a window at all. Just hearing the gallons upon gallons upon gallons of blood churning and stirring around the Iron Lung would’ve been enough. Even if he hadn’t actually touched any of it yet, he could still tell just how viscous it was.

That wasn’t it, of course.

Relentless heat oozed through the submarine’s framework, making its interior humid even before one of the pipes spat out a plume of steam. This almost made M2702 miss the uncomfortable chill that always seemed to be present in the space stations he’d visited before.

That infamous metallic stench was nearly palpable in the air: to the point that he could taste it with each breath he took. He wondered if this was similar to what R1126 had been suffering through.

___

“Y’know, my training really made me a light sleeper,” M2702 mentioned. “I never had insomnia or any of the typical sleeping problems growing up. But when your job requires you to travel so far and be aware for as long as possible, you just learn to wake up as quickly as you drift off.”

He quietly paced the floor of his cell, which almost could’ve passed for an enormous display case. Three of the walls surrounding him were glass, adorned by uniform rows of holes just barely wide enough to fit his index finger through. The fourth one, the one closest to the mattress he’d been lying on a couple minutes ago, seemed to be made of metal.

They were all tinted that goddamn specific shade of pink, obviously.

“It was tough, but I managed. Can’t really say the same for the others I shared a unit with, though,” M7202 continued as he leaned against the privacy screen in the corner. “So many of them always tossed and turned for hours; that didn’t always keep the rest of the room up, but it could still be so aggravating sometimes. . .”

He peered out from behind the screen, glaring into the glass cell on the right of his.

A woman sporting pale skin and long, straight black hair scrutinized him from behind a pair of thin-rimmed glasses.

“. . .It’s safe to say you would’ve been a problem back there,” M2702 concluded dryly, ignoring the chill that raced down his spine. “Look at you. You’re not even pretending to sleep.”

“There’s no point in doing that,” C4560 answered. While she too made sure to keep her voice at a whisper, her words still dripped with acid. “I told you: I can’t sleep anymore. No matter what I try, my brain just won’t allow it. I’ve gotten to the point where I can’t even close my eyes for long periods.”

M2702 snorted as quietly as he could. “Yeah, well, I’m struggling to see the merit in taking that out on me.”

Out of all the other prisoners he’d come across so far, C4560 was undoubtedly the most tense.

Much like R1126 and many others, he hadn’t been able to recognize her. The first evening he’d been locked into his holding pen, he’d asked her a few questions; her replies had been terse, as well as a little too infuriatingly cryptic for his taste. (It sort of made him sympathize with P0620.)

He’d only learned three things only about her: she’d never been a member of Eden, she’d apparently been kept captive here much, much, much longer than anyone else in this particular branch of the station, and. . .right, the whole loss-of-ability-to-rest-and-not-be-such-a-damn-creep thing.

It shouldn’t have been possible.

Even if science still hadn’t learned exactly how long a human could survive without sleep, M2702 was certain that his next-door neighbor should’ve been dead by now, with the limited explanation she’d given him.

And yet, here she was: breathing, speaking, watching.

Not that she looked healthy at all.

Her cold brown eyes almost looked sunken thanks to the bags that had long-since formed right beneath them. The skin in that area seemed like it held so much more pain than any bruise he’d ever witnessed before. Of course, that did nothing to change the fact that it felt like she was stabbing M2702 every time she glanced at him.

“What did the Rapture do to you?” C4560 asked for. . .what was it, the thirteenth time in just five days?

M2702 scowled at this, marching closer to place his hands against the glass. “Where the fuck do you get off? It didn’t do anything to me.”

She hummed, stepping forward to touch the barrier of her own cell. “No, it did. You just aren’t aware of your symptoms yet. Maybe they’ve been slow to develop for you.”

“Even if that was true, it’d be none of your damn business.”

“Oh, you mean, just like you didn’t have to try and ask about my business when you got here?”

M2702 could feel his knuckles turning white. He then heaved a guttural sigh, lightly shaking his head. “Fine. Let’s say there’s a modicum of truth to that. How exactly can you tell that there’s something wrong with me? And how are you so sure that it’s because of the Rapture? What, were you there to see it happen? Were you the one to accidentally flip the wrong goddamn switch and set it all off?”

Other than the way she raised an eyebrow to such blatant sarcasm, C4560’s face barely moved. Sure, it was dark in this area right now, but M2702 had seen her under those obscenely bright fluorescents elsewhere in the station. And in broad light, she still gave the impression that a dozen or so vipers were coiled up together inside her head, looking at the world through her exhausted yet piercing eyes, patiently waiting for someone else to make a wrong move. . .

“I think I’ve just learned to tell,” she eventually declared. “That’s the only thing you can do when you have so much time and nowhere to go: you learn. One way or another. The process isn’t pleasant—or, it isn’t anymore, at least. But that’s all we have left.”

M2702 felt his face soften by just a smidge. He’d only known C4560 for a few days, and he already knew that he’d never understand her or what her damage was.

But there was absolutely no denying just how real that last statement was.

C4560 studied him, then carefully slanted her head to the side.

“Well, I hope you manage to learn something before your symptom is ready to start working. I get the feeling that it’s gonna turn you inside-out,” she mused. “Yeah, it’ll just drag all your blood and bones and sinew out for everyone to see. You’ll survive, but you’ll have to be so much more careful with doing anything after that, won’t you?”

It was everything M2702 could do to not start shaking. “Oh, go to hell,” he hissed as he tore himself away from the glass. “Go straight to hell’s fucking boiler room.”

There was a pause.

And then. . .C4560’s lips twitched before slowly, ever-so-slowly, curling into a grin. “Hell?” She repeated. She dipped her head as a strange, quiet chuckle seeped through her lips. “Saying that makes it sound like there’s an alternative.”

The words had barely slithered into the air before a chorus of terrified gibbering erupted from across the room. For the first time all night, C4560 took her eyes off of M2702.

M2702, meanwhile, crept over to the front and foremost wall.

“DON’T LISTEN TO THEM! THEY’RE LYING TO YOU!” P0620 shrieked. He seemed to be clawing at his head. “THEY’LL JUST TAKE YOUR LUNGS AND DRAIN THEM INTO THE ENGINES!”

It wasn’t hard to see the other row of glass cages opposite of his and the two flanking it. Through the darkness, however, it probably shouldn’t have been so easy for him to make out the form of P0620 as he thrashed and quaked on his own mattress in his own cell.

“THEY’LL TAKE YOUR EYES FIRST! THEY’LL CHOOSE ONE SET AND KEEP THE OTHER SET TO BOIL!” P0620 howled again. In the cell next to his, the outline of R1126 was very clearly shivering, digging her nails into her ears as she rocked back and forth.

“IT’LL SET THE BLOOD ON FIRE! YOU’LL BE PART OF THE OCEAN! YOU’RE NOT HIM!”

It took a couple minutes for the screaming to taper down a notch. P0620 didn’t go silent; he was still murmuring, still yelping, still trying to escape whatever was attacking him from inside his eyelids.

M2702 backed away, skulking over to his mattress before C4560 could return her focus to him. He wasn’t sure why he bothered.

He could tell that she was still watching him through the obstacles between them.

___

The long, droning bellow felt like icy needles stabbing into M2702’s skull.

It made his intestines burn.

It was trying to persuade his spine to tear itself out of his skin, to slither out between the rusted walls and into the ocean of gore.

If that were to happen, he supposed his vertebrae would be right at home.

He’d already taken so many pictures of enormous carcasses that had sunk down to the very bottom. They were just piles of bones; he couldn’t tell whether flesh had eroded away or been picked clean by smaller creatures that worked themselves into a frenzy once their meal’s original killer swam far enough away.

It was almost a surprise that he flinched at the feeling of a droplet plopping down on his head.

Another crimson tear fell from the ceiling, landing against the control panel with a tiny splat.

And another. . .and another. . .

___

M2702 would’ve been lying if he said he wasn’t proud of himself for keeping track of the days. He knew his internal clock was suffering, and he knew that suffering would only get worse the longer he was kept here. But for now, he made an effort to go along with his new, enforced schedule.

He’d watched more and more convicted people manifest into the space station. Most were severely wounded in one way or another. About half had been unconscious upon their arrival, and half had been awake and struggling much like he’d been.

Of the ones he’d seen being brought in, he only recognized two. He hadn’t worked with them directly, but he could remember seeing their faces, passing them in hallways back on Mars. One of them had black hair almost as long as his own, the bangs of which sometimes covered one of his warm amber eyes. The other was an adult, but still clearly younger than the majority of people around him, lean yet muscular, boasting stark-white hair and grayish-blue eyes.

They’d quickly been labeled L7181 and E9342, respectively.

L7181 had been the only new prisoner to not outwardly fight. Oh sure, he’d snarled at the people who’d flanked him—if looks could kill, both of those bastards would’ve been reduced to decorative splatters on the pink floors—but he’d still walked in time with them, his face shifting between bitter resignation and very obvious resentment at being guided along as though he couldn’t move for himself.

And after that, L7181 barely spoke at all. He made a clear effort to keep some amount of distance between himself and everyone else, his expression always cold, frustrated, disinterested. (Not that he could be blamed for that behavior, of course.) Even when M2702 saw that same spark of recognition in the other man’s eyes once they’d eventually settled on him. . .well, nothing really came of it, unless you counted a curt nod.

It took what M2702 estimated to be a month before that disposition ripped itself apart.

He’d been pacing up and down the precious few corridors he had access to—it was in between meal times right now, but the cafeteria was just too goddamn crowded for him to think—when he heard the distant screaming.

“UUUUUAAAAGGH!”

Now, screams weren’t at all uncommon in this place, but when the source grew closer and closer to where M2702 had paused, he realized just how. . .different these ones were.

“AAAAIIIEEAAAAAH!”

They were horrified, desperate, almost completely unhinged.

They were nearly on-par with the way P0620 shrieked in his sleep.

And they were all coming from L7181.

M2702 was just barely in time to duck around one shadowy corner.

“NO! NO, NO, NONONONONOOO!” L7181 careened down the hall, not even seeming to gasp for air in between his cries. “NOOOOOOOOOOO!”

A few of the station’s researchers were in hot pursuit. They shouted after him, but their words were almost totally drowned out by all the noise he was making.

M2702 watched from his impromptu hiding spot as one of them finally caught up to L7181, hands slamming into his back, throwing him to the floor and pinning him down. L7181 didn’t stop screaming, thrashing with more energy and strength than M2702 had ever seen in him before.

The rest of the scientists circled around him, helping the original one keep their hold. Then, as a unit, they half-carried-half-dragged L7181 further down the passage, over to the door that led to one of the cell rooms.

M2702 didn’t know why he decided to follow them. It wasn’t even a concrete decision; from deep within his guts, a quiet voice just demanded that he take advantage of this chaos in some way.

So, he crept along after the group, managing to slip past them all without being seen once that door slid open. He retreated around the now empty glass cages, pressing himself against the wall, trying to make himself as small as possible.

L7181 was hauled over to the cell he’d been assigned to—one right next to P0620’s, on the opposite side of R1126’s. Still shrieking. Still fighting. One of the researchers typed a code into the keypad on the cage’s sliding door, then shoved the panicking man through.

The extra force wasn’t even needed; L7181 sprinted into his cell the second its door was opened. He lost his balance, tripping at the center as the threshold was sealed once again, but it was obvious that he didn’t care. The only thing he seemed to be focused on was movement. So, he crawled. Crawled as fast as he possibly could until he reached one corner, where he pressed himself into that space where glass connected to metal.

He didn’t go limp there. No, he clawed at the walls, squirming with such violence that he could’ve very well been mistaken for having a seizure.

The researchers watched him for what felt like an hour, shaking their heads and murmuring amongst themselves. Then, they finally filed out of the cell room, one by one, none of them even glancing in M2702’s direction.

M2702 stayed down, stayed hidden for another moment. Once the sound of footsteps truly disappeared from the other side of the wall, he slunk out, trudging along the space in between the rows of cages until he was hovering near L7181’s.

The convict in question was rambling now, a mess of terrified phrases set in Portuguese leaking through his teeth. His screams had gotten a bit shorter with a few more seconds between each one. “I-I can hear them! I can hear them! I CAN HEAR THEM!”

“Hear. . .what?” M2702 called with more hesitation than he’d care to admit.

L7181’s head shot up, his frantic eyes now fixed on the man outside of his cage. He didn’t stop spasming.

“The things on AT-5,” he eventually rasped. It truly seemed like he had to force the words out. “The monsters living in its ocean!”

M2702 felt his heart skip a beat. The ship that’d transported him from the Filament Station to this one. . .through one of its few, pressurized windows, he’d gotten to take a brief look at the enormous pool of scarlet.

It would’ve been impossible for anyone to not know about the sea of blood that resided on the moon nearest to this station.

Just as it was impossible for anyone to doubt that there were lifeforms inside that sea. . .

“He means The Gongoozler,” another voice suddenly called from across the room, wracked with manic giggles. “He’s gotten a chance to listen to The Gongoozler and all the other screamy-scaley-squishies swimming around in the plasma.”

M2702 startled, glancing over his shoulder. It took an embarrassingly long few seconds for him to remember how E9342 had essentially been put in a timeout earlier.

The young man leaned against the door in his cell; one of his eyes was swollen shut, a fresh bruise still blooming around it. His grin seemed to stretch quite literally from ear-to-ear as he surveyed his fellow inmates. “You should be grateful, y’know. I’ve always wanted to hear The Gongoozler’s call for myself! Quick, what’s it sound like? Please, please tell me!”

M2702 chewed his lip, now fluctuating between dread and irritation.

Back at Eden, E9342 had made a bit of a reputation for managing to stay positive and productive in such bleak scenarios. It was a bit odd, yes, but it’d been pretty damn refreshing at times.

But ever since he’d been brought here, that trait had changed in an awful way. His smiles were now twisted and eerie. The jokes he insisted on constantly making were dark and morbid. And the giggles that he apparently couldn’t go five minutes without emitting sounded. . .poisonous.

“I don’t know what I did wrong,” L7181 stammered, screwing his eyes shut. He held one trembling fist close to his mouth, biting at the knuckle of his index finger. It hardly took any time at all for him to draw his own blood. “I’ve just gotten their attention. Th-they know I can hear them. And now they’ll NEVER. STOP. MAKING. ME. LISTEN!”

C9342 snickered and nodded along, dragging his nails down the length of his forearm over and over and over again, leaving harsh red lines in his skin. It wouldn’t be longer before he started bleeding as well.

“People have ALREADY DIED DOWN THERE! I heard a HUMAN screaming and drowning! I-I-I heard metal being torn to shreds and scattered!” L7181 lurched forward, curling further into himself. Even his eyes seemed to be shaking, all the way down to the pupils, which had shrunk to pinpricks. “Someday I’m going to wake up outside the station! I’ll be falling as soon as I open my eyes and the blood will reach up and wrap around me and drag me all the way down to the deepest pits it has! Oh no, oh no, oh no, n-n-no!”

M2702 felt his hands tangle themselves in his hair. He reeled back from the other cell.

The world seemed to be moving without his consent.

His vision was growing blurry around the edges.

“I’m gonna die,” L7181 choked out. He covered his face in both hands, his screams having transformed into sobs. “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die. . .”

“Yeah, but not exactly,” C9342 mused, his face almost thoughtful as he chortled. “We all will, but it shouldn’t be too bad. We’ll get to see each other again in six years, nine months, four days, twenty hours, thirteen minutes, and thirty-seven seconds. The time will go faster than you think, I promise! Then we’ll all be together.” He cackled, seeming to choke on his own saliva. “With The Gongoozler, of course.”

“Will you shUT UP ABOUT THE FUCKING GONGOOZLER?!” M2702 raged, halfway closing the distance as he stormed over to E9342’s cell.

E9342 flinched, but he remained standing. His sanity-breaking smile grew even wider. “You think I DON’T WANT TO?!” He practically howled with glee as he punched and kicked at the glass in front of him. “You think I’m CHOOSING THIS?!”

He started ramming his head against the barrier with a chorus of dull, heavy thuds. Along with a loud, sickening CRACK as blood started gushing from his nose. More and more bruises were already forming on his face. But he just kept on laughing, struggling to speak or breathe. “YOU JUST DON’T FUCKING GE-HEHEHE-ET IT!”

___

With all the weight it had gained, it was no surprise that the Iron Lung was now dragging along the ocean floor rather than gliding above it.

M2702 was up to his waist in blood. He could feel it dripping from his hair, trickling along his face. His chest heaved in and out as he waded through it.

The air had become so thin, so rancid. He could barely even take in a full breath anymore.

He was completely enveloped by a horrific gurgling sound from the outside.

When the submarine had first started leaking. . .the blood had been cold. Cold enough to feel like thousands of tiny knives against his skin as it seeped through his clothing.

But now. . .now the blood was warm.

So warm.

Too warm.

Nearly scalding.

M2702 knew that he couldn’t think anymore. There was no point.

His brain was well-past not receiving enough oxygen. He knew he wasn’t going to resurface.

Even so, he knew that the blood needed to be as hot as it was.

After all, the ocean itself was alive.

It didn’t just house the individual organisms that’d been taunting him for so long, that’d been swimming closer and closer to him and ramming the Iron Lung's outer walls with their tails or fins or teeth.

This ocean was a living creature.

And soon, very soon, M2702 would get to join that life.

@sammys-magical-au @altegos

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wouldntyou-liketoknow · 1 year ago

Text

Day 5: Drain

(Disclaimer: none of the characters here belong to me. Celine and Damien belong to the Markiplier Cinematic Universe. The star of this story, Fenwyn, is an oc of the awesome @saria-the-phoenix. I learned about Fenwyn during an RP game that Saria and I used to play; unfortunately, life happened, new ideas took over my brain, and that RP was never really concluded. I wrote this fic as an apology for that.)

(Trigger Warnings: blood, gore, bones, animal death, knives/blades, descriptions of ritual, implied tampering. Please let me know if I missed anything.)

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10 Day 11 Day 12 Day 13

Fenwyn felt air rushing through her fur, felt her heart and lungs threatening to bash their way through her ribcage, felt the speed of the world under her feet.

Up ahead, the elk was a blur as it galloped, its breath coming out in frantic, wheezing huffs.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed since she’d found the elk in the first palace, since she’d begun to stalk it, since it’d eventually noticed her and started running. It felt like she’d been in pursuit of her prey for an hour or two.

It wasn’t that she’d been dragging this out. Sure, she loved hunting as much as any other lycan, but that didn’t mean she was a sadist. The elk was simply terrified and stubborn; survival instinct was just as strong in animals as it was in humans, if not more so. The elk couldn’t exactly be blamed for not wanting to die.

And if it was being chased by normal wolves, then it might’ve had a chance to get away.

But that wouldn’t be happening.

Fenwyn was a lot of things, but a normal wolf wasn’t one of them. Aside from that, she had an arrangement to hold up her side of.

She let her jaw drop open as she forced herself to run even faster than before. The elk didn’t glance over its shoulder at her, but a voice in her head swore that it was aware of how the gap between them was shrinking.

Seconds passed, and Fenwyn was close enough to risk getting a swift kick to the nose. Even if the elk had been consciously trying to strike her, it wouldn’t have mattered. Fenwyn leapt forward, her forepaws—which, while looking very much like any other wolf’s, were adorned by opposable thumbs—outstretched to pull the elk’s hindlegs out from under it.

Despite how large normal wolves could be, it would’ve taken a huge amount of effort for them to kill something like an elk. It would’ve taken an entire pack biting and clawing and tearing as one in order to make a hunt successful.

For lycans, however, hunting was a bit easier. They still naturally worked together in groups, but they also tended to grow to the same size as horses, if not larger. So, that certainly had its advantages.

The elk let out a keening shriek as it came toppling to the ground, immediately trying to get back up as its pursuer came to loom over it. Its cries were cut short as Fenwyn, in one swift, fluid movement, drove her claws deep into the center of its chest. For good measure, she sank her teeth into one of its shoulders. Blood gushed out, trickling along her tongue and down her greedy throat. More oozed between her digits, slick and warm.

Though muscles in its back and legs twitched, the elk was dead before its head came to rest on the forest floor. Out of instinct, Fenwyn shook her head, forcing the fresh corpse to lightly shudder side to side

Her eyes almost fluttered shut in response to the salty, metallic flavor of fresh meat. It’d been too damn long since she’d gotten to catch a meal like this.

. . .Of course, this elk wasn’t supposed to be a meal for her. Not all of it, at least.

With that in mind, Fenwyn unlatched her jaws from the elk’s shoulder. She eased her grip around its chest before lowering herself onto the grass, shoulders squared, neck craned. She ducked her head, hefting the corpse onto her back, its limp legs dangling over her shoulders. She caught one of the antlers in her maw; she could’ve snapped it like a celery stalk, but she applied just enough pressure to hold the elk steady.

Fenwyn started trotting back the way she came, the dull weight now piled up on her back not slowing her down at all. Her pulse was still struggling to calm down.

Crickets, cicadas, nocturnal birds. . .they’d all gone silent when she’d made the killing blow. But now, as the elk’s dying call had officially stopped echoing, the animalistic chorus was slowly but surely starting up again.

Fenwyn knew which scent to follow, so she was able to gaze up as she ambled along. Small shapes flitted through the air above—bats soaring after mosquitos and other insects to fill their little bellies.

There were varying amounts of space between the trees here, so this forest lacked a canopy. This allowed soft light to stream down, to cast long shadows here and there. The stars resembled diamonds that had been painstakingly sewn into a black velvet tapestry.

But that had almost nothing on the moon. It was full tonight, so it glowed like a pearl against oil. As Fenwyn stared up, up, up at it, its silvery craters almost seemed to be moving in place, like it was a liquid being stirred.

It was so, so, so beautiful.

She wanted to wrap her claws around the moon and coax it out of the sky and. . .Well, if she was honest, then she wasn’t quite sure what she would do with the moon in her grasp. One part of her would probably want to swallow it up, and another part would beg her to just curl around it and bathe in its glow forever. . .

“There’s something you don’t see every day,” a familiar voice called. “Prey getting piggyback from predator.”

Fenwyn flinched, blinking as her meditation promptly fell apart. She tore her eyes away from the night sky, now focusing on the voice’s direction. She’d just barely returned to the center of Whitacre Woods. A Pierce-Arrow Model 66 was parked on the opposite edge of this clearing.

About ten feet away, sticks had been piled up in a makeshift firepit; the same one she’d helped to dig out earlier. Flames licked up at the cast-iron pot that hung from a sturdy tripod. Celine was pacing around it, carefully prodding the kindling with a long metal poker. The way the fire reflected against her eyes made them look even more piercing than usual.

Fittingly enough, the shawl draped around her shoulders was a deep shade of red.

“This is more efficient than just dragging,” Fenwyn replied as she wandered closer. She released the elk’s antler and rolled her shoulders, letting the elk hit the ground with a dull thud.

It’d been a few months since Celine had discovered Fenwyn’s secret, since she’d revealed her own inhuman nature to Fenwyn, since the two of them had made a fateful deal.

Celine had continued to study the supernatural entities that always seemed to be popping up on campus grounds for whatever reason—now with Fenwyn’s assistance.

It wasn’t always a perfect arrangement, of course.

On one hand, Fenwyn couldn’t deny how amazing it’d been to see some of the things Celine had shown her.

A couple wisps here, the odd wraith there. The ghosts of animals and humans alike (some had been intelligent; talkative, even, polite as they were ominous. Others had been silent, staring with pale, lifeless eyes almost as curious as those of a newborn infant). She and Celine had even discovered that one of their classmates was a revenant (who, through some trial and error, they’d helped to fully move on and rest).

On the other hand, however. . .

Well, Fenwyn could’ve gone her whole life without seeing a faerie turn himself inside-out just to prove that he could. And she certainly hadn’t appreciated having to tiptoe around everything in her dorm room after the furniture in the Student Lounge had been possessed by a few foulmouthed yokai.

And that was just the start of all the ungodly nonsense she’d gotten mixed up in.

But that didn’t change how Celine hadn’t gone back on her word at all.

She’d refrained from summoning anything to the university herself.

She’d kept Fenwyn’s secrets closely-guarded.

Hell, she’d been the one to tell Fenwyn about Whitacre Woods being a mere twenty minute drive from the university (furthermore, she’d helped Fenwyn find a more secluded route to the forest so she could shift in peace).

That wasn’t exactly something Fenwyn could afford to ignore. . .

Celine hummed in response, setting the poker aside as she examined the elk. She squinted at the fur of the elk’s chest, which was now very much saturated with blood.

“It’s already bled out a bit,” she murmured.

“Is that a problem?” Fenwyn inquired as she stretched. The burning ache in her arms and legs was a good kind of ache, but she’d be sore tomorrow if she just left the tension stay in her muscles.

“No, not really. Anyone who hires a lycan to hunt and doesn’t expect the haul to be bloody is some kind of idiot,” Celine reassured. “There’ll still be enough for me to work with.”

The bag she typically carried around campus lay just a few feet away from the firepit. As Celine knelt down to rummage through it, she pronounced, “The carcass needs to be drained. Can you hold it over the pot, please?”

Fenwyn nodded, then reared up to stand in a more bipedal position, the joints in her legs popping and clicking.

She took hold of the elk’s hind legs, dragging it closer to the firepit before raising it up. She had to maneuver it carefully; she might have been towering (now the same height as a grizzly bear), but the elk was still quite a large animal. Its head hung limply, the tips of its antlers touching the ground.

Celine came to stand opposite of Fenwyn, now handling a large knife. It caught the firelight, making the odd symbols that had been carved into its wicked blade gleam. She reached across, one hand coming to rest on the back of the elk’s neck while the other pushed her knife forward.

A chill ran down Fenwyn’s spine. She peered down at Celine, and although her eyes stung as the smoke met them, she couldn’t blink. For whatever reason, she felt the need to hold her breath.

Slowly, calculatingly, Celine drew the blade across the elk’s throat.

A soft, slick, fleshy sigh was almost drowned out by the crackling of the fire.

Even with the light, the blood almost looked black. Fenwyn almost expected it to come spraying out, but considering the elk’s heart was no longer pumping it, the blood simply oozed down the elk’s chin, sizzling as soon as it flowed into the pot.

“Remind me why you needed a dead elk, again?” Fenwyn asked, trying to ignore how her ears flattened, how her nostrils flared. The scent of blood was rich for a second or two. . .but then it mixed with the stench of smoke. Which did not make a pleasant bouquet.

“Well, every part of the specimen can have multiple uses. Blood can be the easiest part to remove, so, it comes first,” Celine explained, not taking her eyes off of the viscous, slow-moving fluid as she reached back into her bookbag to produce a handful of bleeding-heart flowers. She quickly tore the blooms to pieces, which she then sprinkled into the pot. “This will just be part of a larger brew.”

“For. . ?” Fenwyn clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes, but still chose not to directly announce that her question hadn’t been answered.

“For one of the Humanities professors,” Celine continued, picking the poker back up and using its blunt end to stir the blood and shredded petals. “Because, aside from being generally incompetent, he hasn’t been treating Damien fairly at all.”

Fenwyn’s movement was sharp as she tilted her head to the side, her wide eyes filled with a combination of fear and frustration. She knew which teacher Celine was talking about, and she considered herself very lucky for not having to attend his course. She also knew that Damien hadn’t had that same luck.

An ember of sadness manifested in her heart at the memory of Damien venting to her about being mocked in the middle of class one day. She remembered the confusion and anger in his eyes, the disbelief in his voice as he theorized about the awful reasons as to why that particular professor had singled him out for thinly-veiled insults and outrageous marks on his assignments.

However, protectiveness over friends didn’t necessarily mean condoning potential torture.

Celine definitely felt Fenwyn’s glare, because she huffed a sigh and glanced up at her, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, relax. This isn’t going to kill him. It’ll just make him violently sick for a week or two, that’s all.” She glanced at the wide, wet smile in the elk’s throat—no longer draining, merely dripping now—and added, “That’s about as much blood as I’m going to get, by the way.”

“You realize how risky using a potion can be,” Fenwyn mentioned as she set the elk’s carcass down and dropped back onto all fours.

“Obviously, since I’m working on more than one right now.” Celine nodded, moving around the firepit to get down on her knees beside the elk, dragging her bookbag with her. “I haven’t been caught yet, have I?”

Although Fenwyn stayed silent, she couldn’t stop a slight snarl from etching its way across her muzzle. She paced around the elk, giving Celine a bit of a wide berth.

Celine shifted the knife in her hand, then began dragging it about the elk’s side. The incisions left in her wake soon created a rather complex pattern. She chewed her lip as she worked, peering over at Fenwyn.

“. . .Even if they could link my projects back to me,” Celine said softly, “it wouldn’t put you in any danger. I always take care of any evidence that might lead to you.”

Fenwyn slowed her movements, pawing at the ground in thought. Celine had respected her terms, so Fenwyn needed to keep respecting hers. It was only right.

In spite of all the things she’d gotten mixed up in that were solidly on the more horrific side of the spectrum, she couldn’t deny how good of a choice it was to work with Celine. If that one run-in had never happened, if Fenwyn were still trying to stay under the radar all on her own. . .

There was a chance that she’d still be safe, if not stressed and exhausted more than half the time. But there was also a chance that she could’ve been discovered by someone a lot less reasonable than Celine.

With that in mind, Fenwyn sighed in the way only beasts could, finally curling up on the ground a few feet away from the witch. “You really have no idea how much I appreciate that.”

A small smile graced Celine’s lips. “I might someday. We’ll just have to find out.”

Fenwyn hummed, resting her head on her forelegs. . .

Only to jolt in place at the sound of Celine hissing out a few words set in a language that was very much not English. In response, the elk’s carcass twitched once, twice. Then, the pattern she’d sliced in its hide took on an oily glow. Right before both the witch and the lycan’s eyes, with a very odd, rubbery, stretching noise, the elk’s skin effectively crawled off of its body. The elk’s clammy, red-stained muscles and fat were left exposed to open air, glistening against the firelight.

While her voice was deeper and raspier than the voice she spoke with in her more human form, it still felt embarrassingly high-pitched when Fenwyn whispered, “. . .why. . ?”

“Oh, bone marrow can work wonders for migraine or insomnia remedies.” Celine shrugged, looking supremely unbothered by what she’d just done. “Skinning a carcass can typically take an hour or two. This method is much faster, don’t you think?”

“Couldn’t you have just taken the marrow from the antlers?” Fenwyn asked, unable to stop staring at the ribbons of flesh now lying on the grass.

“I guess I could’ve,” Celine agreed, not pausing as she started cleaving layers of flesh from the elk’s chest, slowly but surely getting closer and closer to its ribcage.

Fenwyn subconsciously clawed at the ground, trying to suppress a shudder as Celine explained how and why bones that were usually encased in flesh tended to make more effective materials. . .

@saria-the-phoenix @sammys-magical-au

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