"I can’t wait, sir," I wheezed trying to breathe. "When will we start the interrogation, sir?"
"Huh? What interrogation? You mongrel! What are you talking about?"
"Never mind, sir," I wheezed. No matter how hard I tried, I was barely able to take in air. Due to devil dulling my pain, I hadn’t noticed sooner, but there were enough smoke and heat in the room to barbeque meat. No, surely, he wasn’t going to burn me alive.
"If you insist!" Edwald cried and flipped over a switch, audible enough for me to hear. A current of electricity started running in to the cell, and before long, the heat became almost unbearable. I smelled charred skin, probably my own. It didn’t hurt much, just as he’d promised me it wouldn’t. I would have to play my role for a while longer and try to scream my lungs out.
It didn’t take long for me to lose my breath and pass out. Edwald's laughter was almost as evil as the torture had been doing, but it didn’t bother me in the least. I could barely breathe at all. Who knew what he’d do to Levi if I hadn’t taken her place? Oh, Levi. Why the hell did I have to be so smart and try to win?
"How does it feel, scum?" Edwald snickered.
"I’m doing—fine, sir," I coughed. "Please tell me—why you’re doing this."
"Oh? Well, why didn’t you ask right away? See, there’s this group of highly influential people whose sons and daughters are ranked on their ‘abilities’ as we call them. Who can cause the most pain without killing someone, or the fastest way to destroy a mega-corporation? Then there are the bets, you know?"
"Shut up, Edwald!" Cafka’s voice snapped over a speaker in the room. "He doesn’t need to know that!"
"But, father! He’s just about to—"
"Shut up and get it over with! And don’t kill him!"
At least I’d go out having learned why we were being tortured. So, the bastards were gathering points on us, huh? Soon I’d become a Human torch, or at least that’s what I assumed once my eyelids burned through. The image of Edwald in a fire-resistant suit and a flamethrower in his hand would always stay etched in my mind. He didn’t hold the button down to finish me off. No, he pressed it for a second, stopped and repeated it. There was just enough flame to burn the skin, but not to kill me. One could even compare it to using the smallest caliber pistol possible to kill a horse.
I said a short prayer of thanks to Lucifer for helping me out in this shitty situation, and then I finally understood. He wanted to use me for his gains with the inbred captain and his sons. I’d let him do so for now, as our goals aligned in more ways than just one.
Playing possum, I started coughing heavily and finally went limp, as if I’d choked on the fumes. The fire went out immediately, and I could hear him curse. Now, I knew he was a nasty little thing, but to be dumb enough to think you could burn someone so badly and keep them alive for long enough to survive? That was beyond me.
"Damn it! Father, I need to put him in one of those special vats for recovery and re-growth. Please, can you do that for me? Father?" he pleaded. He must have been facing toward the camera, the sick bastard. Cold air filled the room and doused the flames. I couldn’t help but notice the charred walls around me.
The door buzzed open, letting in more than one pair of footsteps. Whoever entered undid my clasps and put my arms over their shoulders. A sudden, excruciating pain shot through my body, and I could feel my heart stop for a mere instant.
"Are you hungry enough? Feed on the guards. Bite their necks open and feed on their blood. Go ahead, do it! Now!" a voice growled in my head. Was I changing into the creature I saw back in the mirror? Or was that the Armament speaking?
"Yes! I want to kill and devour them! But I can’t. I’m too weak!" I snapped mentally at Devil, who wasn’t seeing the position I was in.
"At least that’s a start," Devil snickered. "Soon, you’ll have your turn to prove it to me. Just a little bit longer."
"Oh, lord. The prisoner’s cooked through! Look at his meat and skin," one of the guards whispered to the other. "Oh no, not this! His skin is stuck on my hands and shoulders!"
As the door closed behind me and the gurney started moving, I let out a deep sigh. They didn’t seem to have noticed or didn’t care I wasn’t dead yet. Maybe they’d become so used with their victims dying so easily that they couldn’t imagine someone surviving.
Sometime later, after passing dozens of corridors and hallways, we arrived at a new pair of white, metallic doors. They slid open after the guards demanded entry. The orderly’s stood at the door, demanding to know what the fuss was about.
"Commander’s orders. He’s to be put in one of the vats and healed up," a loud, male voice said.
"Captain, the first vat is different from the rest. It’s untested," a familiar voice replied. It belonged to the doctor I first met when I awoke on the ship. She looked like she wanted to bolt when she saw my mangled and burned body. I guessed it couldn’t be helped that she darted around the room, coughed and puked in the sink.
"Heal him with the Feraline liquid," the doctor ordered after she snapped out of her predicament. I could see it in her eyes. She wanted to know more, but she didn’t dare ask questions. However, the woman beside her seemed to know the guard captain.
"What the hell did they do to him?" she whispered as they pried the burnt smart cloth from my body. It tried to repair itself over and over again, but under the extreme heat, it stood no chance.
"Heather, don’t ask a question if you’re not ready to hear the reply. And besides, you know I can’t talk about it!" the captain snapped.
"Goddamn you! Is this normal behavior in this Legion? Is this why I married you?"
He looked away in embarrassment.
"You do know that if anyone even dares raise questions, they and anyone in their family disappear overnight, right?"
So that’s what was going on. Oppression and suppression. But if there was a single person who questioned all of this, then there could be more like them.
"So, we should keep turning a blind eye when young men and women get disfigured and dismembered over and over again?"
"D-Don’t worry, lady," I croaked and turned my head her way. Her eyes and mouth went wide with surprise as if she’d been caught red-handed. The captain brought out his gun and put it to my head. I could see he was deeply conflicted if to let me live or die.
"Couldn’t you have stayed quiet, rookie?" he whispered. I gave him a half shrug as if I didn’t care.
"If I were you, I’d rethink—your action, captain. Once we arrive at our—destination, things are going to change around here."
The door behind him started hissing and slowly opened. He hurriedly stashed his gun away and stood there as if he was guarding me. From the corner of my eye, I could see a familiarly pompous figure walking in. It was the peacock commander.
"Doctor, captain," he said with a half nod. "If that young man dies, I’ll have all of your heads. No excuses. I need to deal with him personally, and to do that, he needs to be in top shape. Understood, Ashiala?" he ordered. The commander was calm, but his face was flushed red, and there were blood splatters on the lapel and sleeves of his uniform. Had he been beating someone with his fists?
"Yes, commander. Perfectly," she replied as if it was the most ordinary situation for her to be in. Maybe it was. If he acted so openly on this ship, then she must have had her fair share of threats.
"Good, now put this sack of shit in a second vat. I’ll need to have another word with him once he’s healthy again," he added, turned around and stormed from the room.
"Sorry, sir? What sack of excrement did you mean?" the doctor called after him. Just then, two guards pushed in a second gurney with a broken and battered Edwald on top. He was unconscious, though I could see him breathe. Good, he was still alive. He was my sack of shit to deal with, no one else's.
"What the hell do we do?" the tech hissed at her husband once the door shut close behind them. He shrugged and grabbed my arms while she and the doctor grabbed a leg each.
I wasn’t that big or heavy, but in this state, I must have weighed a metric ton.
A large, oval vat opened before me; it was half-filled with a bright blue liquid. The cold slush embraced me like a long-lost lover when our bodies met. A small tube was forced down my throat and two smaller ones down my nostrils. By then, they administered something through a syringe, and I relaxed as they closed the hatch. More of the blue liquid substance poured down from above and filled the vat up. Soon, I was too far gone to understand what was going on anymore. Everything played out in slow-motion as I drifted off into a deep slumber.
Chapter Seven
The blaring of sirens and the red strobe lights from overhead brought me back to my senses. I slowly opened my eyes and noticed most of the blue liquid was gone with just over a third left in the vat, and what was left looked very dirty, almost grey. I looked around, not understanding what was going on and tried to move my body. It wasn’t quite listening.
"What the hell?" I murmured, slowly lifting my right arm against the glass. It hissed open on touch, letting in a cold breeze. "Where is everyone? Are we already fighting down on beta?"
An intense, gut-wrenching shock blasted through my gut and my heart. Hunger. I was so hungry. So insanely hungry. How long had I been out of it? No, that couldn’t have been it, this was something different.
A number appeared at the dead center of my vision. It was a big, fat, red three. It flashed angrily at me as if trying to tell me something. I looked down at my arms and legs, only to find them showing me 70 percent, and slowly dropping.
A distant scream drew my attention. Were the battalions fighting amongst themselves? Or had the commander ordered wholesale slaughter? Dozens of scenarios rushed through my mind as I sat there trying to force the big three to disappear.
Heart racing, I forced myself up but dropped back down quickly. The pain was excruciating. I looked my body over, only to find out my skin was far from recovered. Open muscles and sinews stared right back at me as they worked to repair the damage.
A loud, thundering boom was followed by the rocking of the ship. Even more gunfire and screams echoed outside, both left and right of the room I was in. Something felt wrong, and I needed to know what that was. But I hadn’t recovered yet, and worse; I felt all of the pain. Lucifer’s barrier that dulled pain was gone for sure.
"Shit, I need to find out what the hell is going on," I groaned and dropped over the vat against a medical examination bed. Loud footsteps approached from outside. I could easily distinguish that there were three pairs and that they were approaching quickly.
"Get back in there," a voice hissed from outside in the corridor. I tried to move out of the way and hide before they got in, but I couldn’t. I was still far too weak. And oh god, oh so hungry.
The door hissed and slid open, revealing a man in a combat suit along with two women. I narrowed my eyes on them, trying to see through the blur.
"Doc?" I asked.
"Oh, hell! How did he get out of there?" she replied and hurried over to me. "Gene, help me seat him."
The man in the combat suit put away his rifle, picked me up, and carried my weak body over to the closest comfortable seat. Hunger. Oh, the hunger. It kept tearing at me from inside, and even more so when I saw the two ladies and their bare necks.
Ashiala bent over me and inspected the open wounds, winced and turned to the other woman. I could feel her vein pulsate and almost saw it through her tanned skin. I licked my lips and let out a low growl. She cursed and pulled back.
"Heather, he doesn’t look too good. Look at his eyes and his mouth. It’s like he wants to eat something. Just listen to his teeth grinding," the doc said.
"Do you think the vat awakened him?" the nurse asked, moving away from me. Gene didn’t seem to understand what was going on, but he picked up his rifle and backed up.
"You just sit there, alright?" he said but didn’t train the gun on me, though I could see he would like to.
"I’m so hungry. I need to feed. Give me something," I growled not recognizing my voice. I shook my head and tried to force away the bad thoughts. "What’s going on outside?" I asked, leaning back against the seat.
"We’re under attack," Gene whispered. "There was an ambush when we arrived near our destination. An enemy ship slammed into us and damaged the outer hull in multiple places. The good thing is that our mothership isn’t floating debris yet, but they boarded us," he commented dryly.
"What’s with the fighting? Who’s winning?" I groaned from the pain.
"There are dead soldiers and civilians everywhere. The rookies and regulars are pushed hard from what I could pick up on comms chatter before it went down. There was a full battalion with Gremory at the training bay, but they aren’t doing so well."
"I see. And what about the nearby screams?" I asked flexing both my arms and legs. The sensation was coming back much slower than I'd appreciated, but I could finally feel my arms and shoulders again, though it was far from ideal. Pushing myself up, I stretched but winced as some bones felt like they were still finding their way back home. The captain looked like he understood what was going on first. He frowned and put up his rifle, training it on my head.
"They didn’t breach the ship in only one place. Just after the ramming occurred, they blew up two more points from the outside. The Gebradim ship rammed our aft, while the other teams entered near the engine room and up front at some of the civilian quarters. We’re in between the engine and aft attack teams."
I nodded slowly and took a step toward them but keeled over. The pain from inside was getting worse—the damn hunger.
"I need to eat. What the hell do I eat, Doc?" I growled. She backed up a step and held her hands up.
"Usually, awakened soldiers aren’t hungry. At least not to the point you are, I assume. In theory, that is. Oh, come on, I have no idea! I’ve only been here for a few years and no one awakened in that time! When Gremory brought you in, I almost peed myself!" the doc cried.
I held my hand up for her to be quiet and pointed at the door.
"I think we got company," I whispered. "Give me your other gun," I added and pointed at the one strapped to his back. He reared back as if I’d insulted his mother.
"No way!" he hissed and caught himself. "I don’t trust you!"
"Can you protect your woman and the doctor by yourself? All while making sure I don’t do anything funny?"
The captain narrowed his eyes on me.
"If you do try something funny, you’ll be the first thing I shoot," he said and stared at me wonderingly. He came to a decision rather quickly, handing me the weapon while cursing under his breath. Along with the weapon, he gave me a spare belt and three magazines. I nodded appreciatively and trained the weapon at the door.
"Ladies, hide behind the wall over there, please," I said while motioning for them to move. Ashiala grabbed Heather’s hand and dragged her off as I attempted to turn over the large desk but had to give up immediately. The pain in my arms, legs, and back was still too severe. Maybe I’d been a weakling for giving up so quickly, but it hurt like a hot, red poker in your eye.
"Let me," the captain said and turned the desk over with ease, then walked off toward the door. It was clear what he wanted to do, and I’d oblige. With nothing else to do but wait, the tension grew to a level it could be sliced with a knife.
More gunfire and screams reverberated outside before everything turned dead silent. I tried to listen in, and to my surprise, the sound from the corridor was amplified, allowing me to hear the chattering of teeth or something similar. It was unnerving, to the point I wanted to go out and kill them then and there.
The door hissed for a long moment before it opened, revealing an ant-like, bipedal creature. Two thick legs held up a thin torso covered by a primitive-looking armor. In its four long arms, it held a rifle and some sort of contraption.
Hunger. I keeled over again and dropped my rifle, drawing its attention to me. It fired a salvo of energy-based rounds that s
truck the desk and went right through. One hit my left shoulder, but the others narrowly missed. Pain. Hunger. Rage.
"Release me," a voice whispered seductively in my ear. "Release me, and I’ll save us both. I’ll save us all."
The image of my monstrous self brought me back.
"Not yet," I replied mentally. "I want to kill these fuckers myself!"
Beyond the desk, I could hear someone struggle. Peeking low from the side, I trained my gun on the insectoid that was grappling with Gene and released two shots. The first deflected off its back plating, but the second pierced through just below its neck. The creature screeched and crumbled in a heap just as the second alien entered.
"This one’s mine!" Gene growled and drew an energy-based blade. With a practiced motion, he sliced off the creature’s front left arm. The rifle dangled in its remaining right arm, but off-balance as it turned on him. Using his left hand, he blocked the rifle and pointed it at the ceiling while using the blade to stab at the guts and hack off the second appendage.
"Kill!" the alien shrieked and brought down its two remaining arms, slamming them against Gene’s helmet. The blow wasn’t strong enough and bounced off harmlessly against the door. Gene brought up the blade again and slashed across the Gebradim’s left side, drove it in deep and tackled it to the ground. Big, round eyes looked back at us as if asking why we had to do this to him.
The captain’s blade sang anew and grazed the left side of his opponent’s skull and the arm it defended with. A quick second hit and the creature’s head dropped to the floor.
"Hunger! Food!" I exclaimed stumbling over to the corpses. "Finally, food."
Gene stood and backed up to the women with a disgusted look on his face.
"Is he really going to?"
"Shh, come here," Ashiala whispered. "This is so fascinating!"
I knelt beside the first dead creature and ripped off its chest armor with my newfound strength as if it was nothing more than a dress strap. Leaning in close, I sunk my teeth in with delight and ripped out its throat. A thin, reddish liquid squirted from the wound and bathed me in its lifeblood. The creature tasted better than anything else I’ve had in all my life; even better than the one steak I ate for my last birthday.
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