Author's Note: As of yesterday, it's been two years since I last updated this. Two. Whole. Years. You can attribute this to the worst case of writer's block I have ever seen in my entire life. A lot has changed in my life, and I've been thinking about my works ever since then. I said, a long time ago, that I would never truly stop writing this. You can mark my words: I meant it. I don't care how long it takes, I will see the end of this story put to paper or die trying.
Now, because of the two year gap, I'm going to assume that a lot of you are new readers. I began this story long before Prototype 2 came out, and as such, this story completely disregards that game's plot. This is also, to a degree, due to the way that the game turns Alex into a cardboard cut-out villain, completely in the face of what he was. In addition, several years of schooling has a marked effect on one's writing skills, so I hope that you see an improvement in the story from here on out.
Also, terrible as it may have been, this story is a sequel to one of my other stories, Hunger. Bear in mind, as that story was written at a rate of one chapter per day (hilarious in hindsight, I know), the quality tends to be kind of shit. The story can be found here, if you haven't seen it yet: s/6726188/1/Hunger
Alex's eyelids began to twitch as he slowly regained consciousness. He immediately tensed up, the events occurring in his final waking moments not lost upon his confused mind. He remembered Wilson laughing, Dana shouting something he couldn't quite make out, then his vision fading to blackness.
As his mind drifted to this point, he begun to realise that the darkness had not faded, even as he awoke. Had he gone blind? What other senses had Wilson's strange new powers sapped from him? With the thought of Wilson, his thoughts began to darken. The man was clearly insane, that much was obvious. He knew that killing him was, frankly, an impossibility, empirically proven by his own implacable nature. The only real option was diplomacy-an idea that he wished he didn't have to entertain.
Then his mind came crashing back to the present.
He couldn't see. That much was obvious. But-and his discoveries slowly began to alarm him-he found that he couldn't hear, either. Everything sounded muffled, as though there was a brick wall between him and the outside world. And as he tried to flex his arms, he found resistance at all sides. He couldn't move freely. And yet, something was forcing him to, pushing his limbs in an unknown direction.
Just as he was on the verge of panicking, he heard a familiar, feminine voice call out softly to him.
"Good, you're finally awake," Dana whispered. Her voice sounded both relieved and exhausted. Alex blinked a few times in confusion.
"Dana?" He couldn't quite trace her location from the voice, but she sounded very close. Almost on top of him, in fact.
"Shut up!" she whispered urgently. "We're not exactly in the best place for conversation. The less chance we have of being heard, the better." Alex was a little startled by her sudden order, but he complied nonetheless.
"Where exactly are you, anyway?" he asked, now having lowered his voice to a similar level as hers. She paused for a few moments, then gave him an answer he was not expecting.
"You're wearing me. Now shut up and let me steer you somewhere safe." Alex would have started at this, had he been in control of his limbs. As it was, though, he could do nothing but let her continue, hoping she had a good explanation for this.
After a few moments, they stopped. He felt a strange crawling sensation all across his body as his sister twisted and reformed, sliding off of him like an overcoat and reconstituting herself beside him. Alex had to shield his eyes as she withdrew from across his face, exposing his eyes to the light once more. It stung, but it was at least better than being blind.
As his vision cleared, he realised that they were now inside a military warehouse. This one seemed to be devoid of life. He noted the irony in that they had probably abandoned the place searching for Dana and himself.
Which brought him back to the million-dollar question. He turned to Dana, who now had all of her body parts in their correct places once again.
"Care to explain why that was necessary?" He folded his arms, wondering what kind of situation could possibly justify an impromptu puppetry act with his unconscious form. Dana, for her part, leaned up against a nearby crate.
"Things got ugly, fast," she said, her mind obviously occupied by other matters. "I was just trying to keep us out of the spotlight, when all of a sudden the base lights up like a Christmas tree. Alarms going off everywhere, soldiers all scrambling to evacuate." Alex raised a quizzical eyebrow at this.
"You sure they weren't just taking safety measures for dealing with us? I mean, we did catch them with their pants down." Dana shook her head, before continuing.
"You of all people should know, Blackwatch doesn't believe in keeping people alive. If it were us they were reacting to, they'd have tried to find us instead of evacuating. Whatever happened in there was enough to have them running scared." Alex nodded, gesturing for her to continue.
"Right," she said, getting on topic. "Anyway, I figured anything that made Blackwatch run for the hills was worth investigating." Alex tilted his head quizzically.
"This still doesn't explain why commandeering me was a good idea," he said. Dana threw up her arms.
"It was a short-notice plan, alright? I couldn't leave you there, serious shit was going down, and I think Blackwatch would have noticed if some ordinary soldier had strolled by carrying Anticitizen One!" She sighed a little. "Believe me, if I had the choice, controlling you from the perspective of a skin-suit in the shape of a soldier would not be how I would spend my time." Alex pondered this for a moment. As excessive as it seemed, he had to admit that he probably wouldn't have been able to come up with anything better.
"So, where to from here?" he asked her, tentatively. Dana looked thoughtful as she considered her options.
"Well, there are a few things. Firstly, I think we should figure out what's going on with the evac. We're running blind here, and it's be nice to know why a bunch of crazy fascists decided to cut and run." Alex nodded, mulling it over himself. It was at that point that the warning message rang out once again. Dana noted, with a little costernation, that in the switch over to a looped track, the message had been altered slightly. It still had the same general gist, but she would have thought Blackwatch would be less slovenly in their radio reports.
"Code Black. Code Black. Operation: Armageddon is now in effect. PARIAH has been released. Repeat, PARIAH has been released." Dana took little notice of this, until she saw the look on her brother's face.
Alex stood there, his face frozen in a look that Dana had never seen before. His face was white as chalk-to an even greater extent than usual-and his jaw hung slightly agape. His eyes were wide, with his pupils instinctively contracted to mere specks. She also noted, concerned, that his hands were beginning to shake.
She had seen Alex angry. She had seen him shocked. She had even-rarely-seen him smile. But this was new. This was an expression she had never seen on him before.
Dread. Sheer, abject, dread.
"Dana," he said, his voice coming much faster than usual. "We need to leave. Now." Dana raised her eyebrows at this.
"Are you kidding me, Alex?" she asked, disbelievingly. They had come this far, and he was going to give up now? The very idea seemed ridiculous. "What's gotten into you?" Alex, for his part, just shook his head.
"You don't know what PARIAH is," he said, beads of sweat slowly appearing on his forehead. "I barely know anything myself, but it's all bad." Dana folded her arms.
"Well, you'd better educate me then, because I'm not leaving without a damn good reason." Alex balled his fists slightly, then forced himself to relax. Dana had always gotten stubborn when she put effort into things. In other times, it would be endearing, but here, it was likely to get them killed. Alex took a deep breath before beginning his explanation.
"PARIAH...it's Greene's son. They took him from her after Hope was firebombed. The last I heard, he was in California, but obviously, that's changed over the years." Alex leaned up against a nearby decommisioned tank. "The virus that Gentek had me making...the one we're infected with...it was designed to do artificially what PARIAH's virus does naturally." Dana raised an eyebrow.
"I...see," she said, her arms still folded in front of her. "And that means for us?"
"Remember Greene?" Alex asked rhetorically. Dana's brow furrowed.
"No, I'd forgotten her since one of her Leader hunters dragged me off screaming. What do you think?" Alex didn't answer that, but instead continued with his explanation.
"Greene was an imperfect release of the non-coded sections of the human genome. The Blacklight virus was created to artificially create a perfect release. PARIAH...he already is." Dana's eyebrows raised at this.
"So, what, he's like us, but better?" Alex shook his head.
"The genome's a complicated thing. He could have powers like us, or they could be totally different." At this, Alex stepped away from the tank. "The only thing we know for sure, though, is that they would be incredibly powerful. Which is why we have to get the fuck out of here." He had expected Dana to go along with this. Instead, she stood firmer than ever, a determined look in her eye.
"And what if Wilson gets down there?" she asked. Alex shrugged.
"He's on our level. PARIAH should be able to deal with him."
"And what if you're wrong?" Alex opened his mouth, then closed it again. Before he could come up with a counterargument, Dana followed up on her reasoning.
"I'd rather take the risk of PARIAH being hostile than have him fall into the hands of someone who actually is." With that, Dana walked over to a large blast door. "The guys I consumed knew the layout of the base We just need to get down there and...oh shit."
Dana had begun opening the door as she spoke, and as it reached the top, the reason for her curse became plain to see. Corpses lay strewn and bloody across the floor. Thick tendrils stretched across the walls and ceiling, pulsing with life as biomass flowed along them, in a manner reminiscient of the Red Zones back in Manhattan. These tendrils, however, were not red like Greene's. Nor were they streaked in any way, like Dana, Alex or Wilson's. These tentacles were jet black, almost blocking out the light in the dimly-lit corridor. Alex and Dana surveyed the scene in horror. Before either of them could speak, however, a voice , softer than a breath of wind, passed into their minds.
"...help...me..."
Author's Postscript: By the way, if you actually came back to continue reading this after two years, then you officially have my amazed gratitude. Like, seriously, wow. Wow.
