I breathed a sigh of relief. I was getting closer. Soon I would apply the same techniques to myself…but perhaps I was getting ahead of myself. As the delicate bones of the hand began to form I wondered at how all this was possible. How did the body know what bones went where? I wasn’t consciously doing this. I was simply encouraging healing at an exponential rate. I hadn’t paid much attention during my science lessons in high school and of course I had never done any further studies. It had just never seemed important. My studies in Mana took precedence in all things.
Perhaps if I had sought knowledge outside the sphere of Mana, things might have gone differently.
* * * * * *
I glanced down at the corpse on my table in fury. Things had looked so favourable. The technique had been performed flawlessly. I had read every damned paragraph in Victor’s books numerous times and I was sure that I had done nothing wrong. The technique was right! So why hadn’t it worked?
As I looked at the subject’s necrotic arm I at least consoled myself with the fact that the outcome this time had been different - worse perhaps, but different. I had left the examination room late last night confident that I had finally found success. Things had looked so positive. The cells had formed and looked healthy, his blood pressure seemed stable. Hell, his restored arm had even bled properly and then clotted when I cut it.
Why hadn’t this worked?
Last night I had left a healthy functioning man here. When I returned in the morning I found a corpse with a blackened dead arm. It had shrivelled and become necrotic during the night. Unfortunately the necrotic flesh had poisoned the rest of his system, and he had died sometime before day break. I cursed inwardly even as I instructed Randall to dispose of the corpse.
“Another one?” a voice from behind me murmured.
I didn’t turn around to look. I knew who it would be - Karl. He had been one of the original test subjects at this facility. He was almost as dead as Randall, with one notable exception. He still had a pulse and a consciousness. Victor had turned this man into a living corpse. He had once been a mage, but his powers had burned out sustaining his extended life. I doubted the price had been worth it.
Victor had obviously thought so too. He had left Karl behind as a failure. Victor had perfected the technique and achieved immortality without the cost, but that wasn’t what I was interested in. I had no desire to live for a moment longer in this hell cursed world than I needed to.
I had never discussed my experiments with Karl, and for his part he never seemed to venture any sort of judgement. In my quieter moments I sometimes wondered how this was possible. How could he stand idly by when I performed the same evils that had been perpetrated upon him?
I didn’t bother answering him. There was no need. He hadn’t really expected a response anyway. Karl wasn’t quite fully there. Sometimes, like today, he would be aware of his surroundings and could interact with me; others he would fall into a torpor-like sleep and remain immobile for days. He had been locked in a cell for over seventy years. It wasn’t hard to assume this would have caused some psychological damage.
“You will never succeed in this,” Karl murmured with his desiccated voice.
That was new. That sounded like judgement. I turned to glance at the man. Karl’s face contained no clues. His muscles had long atrophied and his face couldn’t contain expression even if he had wanted to show it.
“What do you mean?” I sought to read the world’s most flawless poker face.
“Perhaps this knowledge is not meant to be learned.”
“Victor learned it.”
“Are you willing to become as he is?” Karl whispered.
I sighed. The truth was that I didn’t know. I didn’t even know if it was possible today. I hadn’t balked at human experimentation or Necromancy. But I didn’t think that I could achieve the same level of atrocity that Victor had. The sheer number of people who had died here was staggering. I couldn’t possibly achieve the same evil. I simply didn’t have the same level of resources or organisation available to me. And I wasn’t sure if that was the only thing stopping me.
“What’s one more monster in this world?” I grunted towards my undead accuser. Karl didn’t answer. I wasn’t even sure if he was even there anymore. Ironically, the dead man moved like a ghost. I grunted and made my way from the examination room. As I turned I saw that Karl hadn’t left. He was standing there, staring at me. His unusually blue eyes pierced into me. I didn’t know for sure if his eyes even worked or if he managed to navigate through the complex blind.
“What if everyone felt that way?” he murmured as I pushed my way past him.
That was probably the longest conversation I had had with Karl in some time. Perhaps my frequent visits here were starting to bring him back to the real world. He had been loathe at first to even leave his cell. Now he haunted other areas of the complex. I didn’t answer him as I left the medical wing of the facility and made my way back to my office.
This structure had once been a Nazi scientific research station and it still looked the part. Third Reich propaganda and paraphernalia hung everywhere. The office I had claimed as my own had once been Victor’s, but I doubted he would recognise it now. There were only two things I had kept. The first was the bookcase that held his books on Mana, and the second was a portrait of a woman in a frame that had been on my old master’s desk.
The portrait fascinated me. The portrait was of a woman who for all the world looked like Renee, but there were subtle differences. Who was this woman? Was this Renee? If so, what was she doing in this photo? This photo looked like it was taken in the forties. It was faded with age, but due to the undisturbed nature of its location, it had endured better than most photos from that age would have.
If this woman was Renee then it meant that she, like Victor, had attained the same immortality and never told me. The possibility of this deception sent shivers down my spine. She would have told me. I was sure of it. If the woman wasn’t Renee, then who was she? Renee’s mother? Renee’s grandmother? She was obviously someone important to Victor. The woman was wearing a Nazi uniform, and she was smiling. There appeared to be a building in the background, but the photo was cropped to only show the woman’s face and shoulders. No other details were easily distinguishable.
If the woman wasn’t Renee, then it didn’t really matter who she was? She resembled Renee closely enough to give me fleeting comfort and memories of a better time. I could look at this woman’s face and dream of the woman that I hoped I would never see again.
That was enough for now.
* * * * * *
The clanking noise reverberated throughout the cellblock as the wrought iron door locked Randall in place. I wasn’t prepared to give him free run of the complex when I wasn’t there. When I first encountered him, he had been crazed and uncontrollable. Disturbingly enough, it appeared that a portion of his original mind had taken control of the body during the long period since his creation. I had no intention of letting this occur again. Victor had seized control of the body and had reverted his destructive and mindless nature, turning him into a mindless automation.
I hadn’t wanted to originally return to this place, I had been hunting Victor and hoped he was holed up here. I was wrong. It didn’t look as though Victor had returned since he had defeated me here so many years ago. I found Randall in the examination chamber where Victor had left him. It had taken me quite some time to learn how to control him, but in time I had learned to control the vessel as if he were an extension of my own senses. At first the sensation of being in two places at once sent shivers down my spine. I would send my consciousness into the corpse, issue orders, and then beat a hasty retreat. Over time, however, I found that my distaste for the experience lessened and I could control Randall for large periods of time.
I had no idea how long I could leave Randall in an inert state before his primal nature would take control again, and I had no wish to leave a potential threat in this place. N
o, it was best to secure him away so he couldn’t cause any damage.
“So you’re leaving again?” Karl’s whispered voice echoed from behind me.
I didn’t bother answering him. He knew I never stayed long, especially after a failure. This place wasn’t exactly homey - even the military base felt like a warm abode next to the darkness and cold of this place. I had spent several nights here in the past, but I wouldn’t do so by choice.
“Do you know when you will return?”
I turned to face Karl. That was new. He had never asked me that before. He was regaining more and more personality with every visit. This was a good thing, I suppose, although he would never be able to completely regain his humanity. He would always be seen as a monster – too much damage had been done to his body for it to ever function normally again - but perhaps his mind could be recovered.
“No,” I replied curiously. “Is there something you need?”
He had never made any requests of me before. It would be interested to see what his response would be.
“Yes,” he whispered softly. I almost hadn’t heard him. His normal talking tone was mostly whisper anyway. His word had been little more than a brief exhalation of breath.
“Oh?”
“You promised me once that you could end this.”
He didn’t need to elaborate. I had once promised him I would find a solution to his current state. I had hoped that my experiments into cellular regrowth could be used to restore his form. I still held out hope that once I perfected the technique, I could restore normal function to his withered and desiccated body.
“My experiments haven’t exactly been successful,” I grunted, ensuring Randall’s cell was secure.
“No!” Karl hissed angrily. “I don’t want you to restore me. I want you to end this. I want you to kill me.”
I sighed softly. I had once promised him that too, many years ago, before the war. At the time I had made the promise, unsure if I would be able to fulfil such a request. I still didn’t know if it was possible. The Mana kept his form in a kind of forced stasis. In life, Karl hadn’t been powerful enough as a mage to do little more than keep his body in a state of zombie-like preservation. Victor had intentionally experimented on mages hoping to achieve immortality for himself. His experiment with Karl had gifted the man with immortality, but at the cost of his powers.
Had Karl not been left unattended in a cell for close to seventy years, it was possible that with regular consumption he would still resemble a healthy, functioning thirty-year-old man. However, his time in the dark and without sustenance forced a kind of ghoul-like existence on the man. Although he couldn’t feel pain - his nerve endings had long since died - his existence must have been a cruel form of hell.
I didn’t blame him for wanting it to end.
It was possible that by disrupting the Mana flow throughout his body, I could end the process and he could finally achieve death. It was equally possible that would only make matters worse. If I disrupted the Mana within him and then burned his body, would the Mana simply reform his body from the ashes?
I had once thrown a metal pole through Victor’s stomach. He had pulled it from his body and I had watched in terror as the flesh surrounding the wound regrew over the injury, forming new, healthy flesh. How much damage would need to be done to the flesh before this was no longer possible?
“There are risks,” I explained as Karl followed me from the cell block. “Very well,” I murmured. We passed into the former parade ground and headed towards the examination chamber. The ghoul’s wordless silence spoke volumes. He was ready and he understood the risks.
“I assume now is acceptable?” I murmured wryly, heading towards the hospital complex.
Karl followed me and climbed onto the examination table without comment. I took his silence for acceptance. I breathed out slowly. Hopefully this would be more successful than my last procedure. I flexed my fingers as I looked down at the skeleton of a man lying before me. I could see the Mana working through his body repairing his failing flesh, keeping him alive, but other than that his body was still, no movement associated with breath. His body relied solely on the Mana now. I had never taken the opportunity to examine Karl properly earlier, and I immediately wished that I had. The process used to keep Karl alive was some kind of twisted genius, flawed yes, but genius nonetheless.
I could see the Mana moving through him in waves, moving through his nerves and across his muscle structure. It was repairing damage as it occurred. This was probably why Victor had left Karl abandoned in a small room under a mountain. The human body is an amazing machine; when it is damaged there are two ways in which it renews itself: regeneration and repair. Regeneration causes creation of new cells to replace the damaged ones, and repair fixes damaged cells, which results in scar tissue. But Karl’s body wasn’t regenerating, it only continually repairing the existing flesh, but unable to create new. His whole body at this point was nothing more than scar tissue. Had Karl been allowed freedom, it was possible his body wouldn’t have lasted this long. He would have eventually encountered catastrophic damage, and while it would not kill him, it would damage his body beyond its ability to repair. Victor hadn’t locked him away to be needlessly cruel. There had been a reason. Victor had been attempting to see how long this process could keep someone alive.
Even so, how was Karl still alive? If such a term could be used. His internal organs were probably barely functioning. The body received all its sustenance from the Mana. How? Was this something Victor had done? Or was this something Karl had unconsciously done to himself? I didn’t know the answer to this, but I knew where I could find out.
“I will return,” I grunted as I teleported into Victor’s office.
Victor had been meticulous in his record keeping. There had been hundreds of documents stored against each of his patients and procedures. It took me some time to find what I was looking for in his archives.
Patient 616.
It didn’t have a name anywhere on it. I suppose these people had been just numbers to Victor. I quickly perused the info sheet and came across something curious. The document was dated August 15, 1945.
That was interesting: the procedure had occurred after the war. I had assumed the end of the war had brought an end to Victor’s experiments – that didn’t seem to be the case. That date was certainly after the theatre of war had finished in Europe. Hell, it was even after Berlin had fallen, and, as far as my admittedly primitive high school history informed me, that was the end of the war for the Germans. If the end of the war hadn’t stopped Victor, then what had?
I read quickly through the details of the experiment Victor had performed. It was difficult as my abilities with the German language didn’t extend too far into its written form. It was made even more difficult due to the clinical and dark nature of the content. I recognised Victor’s writing style easily and his journal notes were succinct and to the point. This was the only reason I was able to understand any of the document. Even so, it was mostly just technical information. It wasn’t until I got to Victor’s summary of the experiment that I found what I was looking for.
The patient exhibits normal signs of life and function, but it is as if his normal dependence upon external sustenance has been removed. The Vis Viva within the subject’s body instantly repairs any damage incurred; however, there is no regeneration of new tissue.
This wasn’t new information. I had already surmised this. It was interesting to note that Victor had used the term Vis Viva to describe Mana at that time. I briefly wondered at what point he switched to calling it Mana. The first book on Mana I had read had referred to Mana as Vis Viva also.
The extent of the power required to perform this feat has removed the subject’s rudimentary Vis Viva abilities. All conscious power is focused upon the repair of his body. This is unacceptable. I refuse to trade my abilities for extended life. While this experiment has exceeded its scope, I must deem it a failure. It is unlikely that th
is subject will ever regain his abilities and I refuse to subject myself to this. In time perhaps his powers will return, but they will be far weaker than they should be. This is not what I am seeking. I will continue my search. I know what I seek is possible, I have seen it.
He had seen it? What was this? Had he met someone who had already succeeded in this line of experimentation? Or did he mean that he had somehow foreseen his success. I didn’t think either option was very likely. Victor had been very dismissive of the art of divination, calling it petty trickery and intuition. I doubted he would have done so had he known it was possible with our powers. As for seeing someone who had already succeeded at extending their life, that was a more interesting concept. I had assumed Victor was the first to discover these dark arts, but what if he wasn’t? What if there were others who had come before him? Was it possible? I hadn’t even known that mages existed before I had been inducted in their ranks. Was it possible there was another group of immortals who had been secretly hiding amongst us? It wasn’t impossible. Someone like Karl had been living amongst us for half a century. He had no need for food, water or even air.It was unlikely, but not impossible. I read on.
Unfortunately this experiment has removed my use for this subject. Without Vis Viva he cannot possibly achieve the end I seek. I will leave him in this facility when I leave. I suspect eventually the constant strain of extended Vis Viva use will burn him out and he will expire. This note concludes this experiment.
Victor had thought Karl’s Mana would burn him out and he would die. That very well could have been a possibility; however, it was obvious that Karl’s power had been sufficient to maintain the level of repair his body had required. Even when his internal organs had shut down and withered, the Mana had provided the necessary stimulation to keep him alive. It was an impressive feat. I wondered just how much Mana was being consumed each minute. To look at Karl, it didn’t seem that he was using that much raw power. The Mana seemed regulated and even, but that didn’t really tell me anything. It did give me an idea though. I returned to Karl.
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