Chapter 3: Diclonius
My head throbbed. Nothing else came to mind except pain. My limbs were sore and the sides of my head felt like branding irons were left there for hours. I gradually found the strength to touch where I had shot my own horns off. I was surprised to feel my own skin. I sat up and groped the sides of my head with both hands. I felt a line of hard material on either side of my head underneath my skin. My horns were definitely there, but why were they gone now. I know I shot them off but why would they be safely pushed back under my skin? What's going on?
I flinched when I heard a door open and close. I realized that I was lying on a hospital bed in a sterile, windowless room. A single ceiling light filled the room with light and the door that Kurama just entered through looked like it could withstand a grenade.
"How are you Sora?" Kurama asked in his usual calm tone. He used the tone so often that I wondered if he was just an apathetic sociopath.
"I wonder how I should answer you. Should I lie to you like you did to me about your work or should I tell the truth like you should right now?" I glared at him. He obviously knew what was wrong with me and neglected to inform me all these years.
"Alright I get it." Kurama began. "I'll explain everything to you." he pulled up a chair beside the bed and adjusted his glasses. He pressed a button on a small remote in his hands and the lights went out. Images of X-rays and brain scans, depicting human skulls with horns jutting out of their heads, suddenly littered the walls as Kurama began to speak again.
"Recently, a mutated species of humans emerged into our world. These mutated humans were given the name Diclonius and are physically characterized by their varying shades of pink or red hair and cat ear-like horns protruding from the sides of their heads. They have an enlarged pituitary gland and advanced capabilities of psychokinesis, which manifests as arms of varying strengths and lengths that we call vectors. These vectors, as I'm sure you're aware, can cut things and affect physical objects and even pass through them. We have been thinking that they might be able to disable bonds between things on a molecular level."
He paused and looked at me for a second. "Any questions before I move on with my lecture?" I was quiet for a while but I eventually shook my head.
"Normally, Diclonii are all female and mature at alarming rates compared to humans. They reproduce by penetrating male humans with their Vectors and passing on the Vector Virus. This virus makes any child bared by the male a sterile silpelit or baby Diclonius born from human parents. The spread of this virus is alarming but we have been able to keep it under control in the past. Their ultimate goal is to replace humans as the dominate species on earth. They are ruthless and sadistic, killing and maiming any human they can get their hands on, purely out of instinct."
Kurama looked at me. "Continue, I understand so far." I said.
"They have the ability to sense each other and other Diclonius' vectors if they ever need to combat one another. They are weak to damage to their horns and large amounts of pain, both of which disable their vectors for a short period of time. It is also heavily implied that their desire to kill is directly encoded in their DNA. Almost like a-"
"Like a voice inside their heads telling them to kill anything in sight?" Kurama looked at me surprised and curious by my comment. "What? I already put together that I am a Diclonius. The only problem is that I'm not a girl. Why is that?"
"I don't know, but I still have a few more things to say." Kurama adjusted his glasses after finishing.
"Go ahead then." I replied.
"There are two different types of Diclonii, the Queen and the Silpelits. As a newly created note, it seems that you are in a class of your own Sora." he paused for a minute before continuing. "I think we should call you the King. Either that or the Arachnid."
I was a little surprised when he finished his sentence with such a strange word for the situation. "Why call me the Arachnid?" I asked him as I sat up in bed.
"It wasn't my idea, it was the director's. We showed him surveillance footage, with a camera that can detect vectors, of you eating other Dicloniis vectors and gaining nourishment and increases in power. The manner in which you did this reminded him of a spider trapping and killing its prey and drinking their blood. In this case, you seem to consume the very nature of the Diclonii instead of their blood. And I think that's what the director meant when he said that." he looked at me when I didn't answer him for about a minute. "I personally think it's a cool nickname. I thought you would think so too."
"I don't like it." I finally said. "It is a simple name of a type of animal when you first hear it, but it transforms into a murderous sound if you apply the director's meaning. It sounds like a name that was meant to label a completely merciless killer." I laid back down and stared at the ceiling. "I just don't think I would like being called that."
Kurama stood up and motioned to exit the room. He turned and threw new information at me like he had forgotten to tell me the most important part of a speech.
"I just wanted you to know Sora, shooting off your horns with that gun really took willpower and guts. Most Diclonii fall into comas after losing just one horn, but you showed strength losing both and even more of it is shown by you waking up so quickly." He smiled a little bit but it was so slight that he still looked as unhappy as ever. "As a result of you dealing such pain to your body, you seemed to have destroyed that voice inside your head but this is not conclusive. For now, it looks like you act out of your own actions and not out of the influence of your Diclonius instincts. This is good because now we don't have to put you in a cage like the other Diclonii."
He was silent but I know Kurama was thinking really hard what to say now.
"I have two more questions before you leave." He simply nodded a reply. "Did my dad get infected before mom had me?"
Kurama looked at the floor before answering. "Yes. He was careless one day and accidentally made contact with the vectors of a silpelit. But he didn't realize it until after you were born, we ran tests on you and it turned out that you were not affected by the vector virus, or so we thought. We calculated at best you would have thirty years before the virus affected you drastically. We had always kept an eye on you out of suspicion that your killer instincts would awaken and get out of hand. I hope that this answers your question about your father's involvement in all this."
"It does for now. What will happen to me now? What should I do with my life now that I am a killing machine that could destroy the world if I wanted to?" Kurama was silent as I looked at him questioningly.
"Stay here for the time being. I'll arrange something with the director so you can continue your education and learn to control your Diclonius abilities so you won't be considered a threat to Kamakura and its people. Also, I'm sure the director would want to find out how you possess these powers to begin with and how you were able to live this long beneath the radar of our organization." he paused to turn off the light and open the door. "In short. just rest here until we find out what to do about the sitution." He left me in the dark room, slowly falling into a deep sleep. But not before I could get some thinking done.
So, I am basically the first evolutionary development in a mutated human species that wants to kill all humans and become the dominant race on the earth? I just didn't know what to do now that I could ask myself that question without knowing that I could answer by remembering that my question makes no sense. I felt like the only life left form would be stuck here in a lab like all the other Diclonii. And I also don't know what to feel about the other Diclonii. Should I feel compleled to rescue them or should I feel nothing because they have little to do with me? If I tried to break them out, I would have to kill humans and I would also be responsible for releasing a small step in the apocalypse on the world. I didn't want that and I thrashed around my brian trying to come to a decision but I eventually became sleepy and drifted off to sleep.
I suddenly woke with a start, my inner Diclonius instincts itching at the back of my brain stem. I subconciously shot my vectors from my mind and wrapped them around the source of my disturbed sleep and instincts. I rolled over to see a small girl with pink hair and cat ear-like horns on the sides of her head. She wore a lab coat splattered with blood from one of the beheaded doctors in the blood soaked hallway and she resisted my vectors by wrapping hers around herself like a protective cocoon.
"You!" the girl shouted with rage. "You being here sets my blood on fire with killer instincts that could kill in a glance."
"Why would I do that? Am I that infuriating to you?" I inquired to the barely clothed girl.
"You are! You are a male! We all hate men!" She screamed at me. Suddenly her vectors broke through mine and one bashed my bed into the floor not milliseconds after I pushed myself out of the way.
She lunged her vectors at me. I pushed her away from myself and stepped back. At the edge of my range, she was not able to reach me.
"Let me go disgusting half-baked filth. You don't even deserve to have these powers! You don't even kill humans or give in to your deepest emotions and instincts." Her screams were imbued with searing rage and killer intent.
"Shut up. I have these powers whether you and me like it or not. So I'll do whatever I want with them." I felt my own killer intent rising. How? I thought I suppressed those emotions.
"The girl struggled to get free and she used her own vectors to grab random things like blankets and broken shards of metal at me in attempt to loosen my grip on her. I accidentally tripped and the sudden lack of my focus made my vectors let go of the girl. She bolted at me, arms and vectors clawing at the air as if she was a feral animal let off the leash. Her vectors barely brushed my face before I used my own vectors to smash the girl into the ceiling and floor repeatedly. After two hits, to both the ceiling and floor, I let the girl slump to the floor, a heavy weight of pain and rage.
My face broke out in an inhumanly gleeful smile. I felt warm and ecstatic inside. I could not control myself. I reached out with my vectors and entered the girls head. I forcibly dragged out the girl's vectors. She cried out in pain as I brought one up to my face and sank my teeth into it.
"What are you doing?! her voice was more shrill and filled with agony.
"I'm eating your vectors. They taste so good!" I took another bite and dragged the apparition of a limb into my mouth and bit it off near the girl's head. She cried out in pain and began to speak again.
"This is why I tried to kill you. This is why we all want to kill you, so-called Diclonius king!" my eyes widened at hearing what I remembered to be one of my unofficial nicknames that Kurama suggested to me.
"What did you call me?" I said as I swallowed another one of the girl's vectors.
"That's what that 'director' called you at least. That scientist Kurama said that at least, and he calls you that too." She paused to scream out in pain as I bit into her third vector.
"Well, that might be better than Arachnid actually." the girl looked at me with confused eyes.
"Why are you called Arachnid?" the girl looked a little afraid now.
"The director thinks that the manner in which I eat another Diclonius' vectors before or after killing them reminds him of a spider capturing and sucking the blood out of insects. And I actually think it's catching on! I like it." my happiness felt weird and unreal. Like my inner instincts were controlling my body again. But it was a better feeling, like these feelings are my own and not my inner demon's. Whether they were mine or not, the girl didn't care, she was suddenly afraid of me. I could see her tremble and her eyes were wide with obvious fear.
"Damn you! Spidery freak!" the girl shouted and forced her remaining vector at me in an attempt to burrow the razor-sharp, vibrating fingers in my skull. My own vectors pinned her remaining one on the floor before she could finish forming her demonic smile of victory. I lunged forward and bit into her last vector. I enjoyed her pain as I slowly moved my head away from hers, ripping the ghostly limb from her mind in an inhumanly torturous way. Her screams were shrill and painful but I ignored the ringing in my ears as I slurped the vector down my throat like ramen noodles. The girl began to cry and gasp for breath between heaving sobs. I released her from the floor and stood up, hanging my head with demonic ecstasy and human feelings of regret and sadness. Tears rolled down my cheeks and the girl looked at me with clear, humane eyes filled with sorrow, pain and confusion.
"Why are you crying?" she sounded like a normal girl, she looked like she was five years old but I knew she was far younger than that. She was a silpelit, she might be two or barely that. Her eyes were watery with tears, those of human levels, imbued with real sadness. Killers would not shed those and couldn't, even if they tried.
"I hate what I did to you." I said, letting out a sob. "How could I do that to you? Why did I do that to you in the first place? Why am I like this?!" I fell back down to my knees and my hands, my real hands, held the girl close to me. I embraced her and she embraced me, we cried into each other's shoulders and felt warm tears on out backs.
"I should thank you." the girl said. "You freed me from myself." those last few words were so mature for her to say that I paused my sadness and sat up to look into her eyes.
"What do you mean?" I asked the girl.
"Ever since I began to kill people, I've been at the mercy of this demonic voice in my head and I haven't been able to suppress it and make my own decisions." she let out more sobs, burrowed her face into my chest and gripped me tighter. "And now that you took away my vectors, it feels like you took away my killer instincts as well." I flinched, I was stunned at what I had just heard. "I can't feel the voice inside my head anymore, and now I think I can make my own decisions. I can no longer harm another person if I don't want to. I'm so happy mister!" she began to laugh and cry, at the same time, out of sheer happiness. I slowly wrapped my arms back around her and held her as gently as I could. She was injured after all. Then I heard someone's finger pull the trigger of a gun.
One of my vectors shot forth and swatted the bullet away while the rest made a barrier around myself and the girl. The soldiers were stunned and stood back when they saw me. Kurama suddenly pushed between them and bent down beside me.
"What happened Sora?" he looked at me with his usual emotionless eyes.
"Nothing, she did attack me but it's alright now." Kurama looked at me puzzled. "Could you run some tests on her? I don't think she can use her vectors after I ate them and she might need her horns surgically removed."
"What for?" Kurama and the girl asked at the same time.
"Well, if she can't act the part, then she might not have to look the part." I looked directly at her. "Would you like to have them removed?"
"Yes! I don't want a reminder of what I was." she tried to stand up but groaned in pain. I realized that the damage I dealt her temporarily disabled her. I cradled her in my arms and stood up. Kurama looked skeptical and leaned closer to me. He kept his eyes on the girl as she spoke.
"What are you doing Sora. She's dangerous."
"No she's not. I somehow got rid of her Diclonius killer instincts when I ate her vectors." Kurama gasped and looked at me.
"Are you sure?"
"Just run those tests and see if I'm right."
"What should I look for?" Kurama looked at me intently.
"Behavior patterns, other ways she could transfer the vector virus, whether she is psychologically on the same level as any human her age or not, things that could be the deciding factor of whether she can be released from the program or not." Kurama looked at me with startling eyes.
"I don't think that the director would approve such actions Sora." Kurama said with an apologetic tone.
"I think he will." Kurama was silent. "I think he would be wise to confirm whether I did or didn't just cleanse this girl of her Diclonius abilities and turn her into a little girl with horns, a growth problem, a reproduction problem and a virus she can't transfer." Kurama smiled a little and turned to the soldiers.
"Go. return to your post. I'll handle things from here." the guards disappeared down the hallway and Kurama turned to face me.
"Come on, lets talk to the director about this in person." He walked down the hall and I followed.
The little girl clutched my hand tightly and refused to let me go. She rested her head on my shoulder and looked as if she might fall asleep. She moaned in fear suddenly and squeezed my hand tighter.
"It's alright, don't be afraid." I suddenly felt bad, I didn't even know her name and I want to comfort her as best I can. "What's your name?"
"I don't have one. I killed my parents before I knew what it was." She began to cry again. While she tightened around my hand with her own, she used her free one to wipe the tears out of her eyes. We kept walking through the cold corridors and she kept sobbing. I felt bad for her, I was the one that caused her a lot of the pain she's feeling. But I could make it up to her. I could make her happy one of these days. I repeated that to myself while I followed Kurama to the director's office.
