Obscurum Epidemic: Unnatural Selection
Chapter 11: Unnatural Occurrence
Unknown Location
"Does that boy truly have to be here? He's of no use to us, honestly. I have all De Klerk's diaries from that cave. We can handle the rest on our own."
"That's not your decision to make, Doctor Bokolov. That boy, Issei, is somehow connected to De Klerk in a way we can't even begin to imagine."
"Not my decision to make? How can you say that?" Bokolov took a defensive tone. "You must understand that, if handled properly, Ambrosia could be an unprecedented boon to humanity. We could turn deserts into forest, we could cure IAAN before it is released!"
"Yes, I understand that, but it's the handled properly part that worries me. Correct me if I am wrong, but if we are unable to find a viable specimen of Ambrosia, we still have no way of controlling it—not you, not anybody. Is that correct doctor?"
Bokolov hesitated, "Yes," he said slowly. "No one has developed a kill switch, though it has not been discovered until recently. But I am convinced the mechanism for controlling Ambrosia exists. If it didn't how would it have managed to only stay in that cave and come only out now? Ambrosia sharing almost the exact same DNA with the boy was only a coincidence. Think logically, from what we gathered about Ambrosia, introducing only a few ounces of it in a handful of strategic locations, and without a kill switch, the Ambrosia would spread like a wildfire, destroying all native life in that area until there was nothing else to destroy. There would be no stopping it; if we touch it, the neurodegeneration immediately starts. But what if it was weaponized?"
"Explain, Doctor."
"Take smallpox, for example. It's one of the most feared biological weapons known to man, but that threat alone is not enough. To be sure of infecting the maximum number of victims, smallpox must be weaponized—it must be deliverable over a wide area in a fleeting period of time, so it overwhelms the population and the medical infrastructure. Ambrosia shines in the same light. If weaponized and delivered strategically, it could reach critical levels of mass in only hours. Yes, yes, Ambrosia in its raw form is dangerous, but there would be a chance we might be able to stop it. However, if someone else weaponizes it before us… it's an endgame move. It's game over."
"End?" there was a brief pause. "As in the end of the world?"
"Without a kill switch, yes. We're talking about the fundamental destruction of the earth's ecosystems. We know that Ambrosia—in the lack of any form of life—creates life forms that are incredibly unique."
Another pause.
"How sure are you about the kill switch doctor?"
"I am sure I can develop it."
…
Issei awoke, grass at his back as his eyes struggled open. Above him, constellations of stars spun and swirled, impossibly low, patterns of light that he had never seen before. Pale red stars gathered together and disappeared as a cluster of iridescent green lights drew an image of a cast, coiled snake across the sky.
The churning sky churned his stomach and he forced himself to look away. He pushed himself up, so he was sitting on the grass, fighting to remember what had happened to him. The grass was a green as dark as black, even below the shifting kaleidoscope of lights that whizzed overhead. The grass outstretched around him in a circle by about twenty-five feet in diameter. Around the edge of the platform were statues of ancient gray stones, standing watchfully, without the smallest of gaps between them. The carved figures were grotesque: men and women in contortions of agony, animals in the throes of violence and death, demonic creatures, horned and spiked and scaled, with expressions of lustful pleasure on the faces. Above the statues was nothing but the inky-black sky. Nothing to explain how or why he was he here.
In the center of the circle was a large rectangular block, carved crudely from pale gray stone and standing at the edge of the grass, beneath a pair of intertwined statues depicting such horrifying violence that he had to lose his focus on them to stay calm.
He was alone with his thoughts, which were darker than ever. Wherever he was, it had raised havoc inside him that left him sick and feverish. His eyes fixed to the stars above him, trying to focus, trying to clear his head of the painful sensations that now assaulted his body. His skin crawled, a feverish itch spreading its way over every inch of his flesh like a wildfire. Nausea assailed him, his chest heaving, bile threatening to break from the confines of his stomach. The world turned around him, spinning on the bright, multicolored axis of the constellations above him.
'Focus on the stars.'
Above him, the stars spun, blooming into life and winking out as thought millions of years were passing by in mere seconds. His body seemed to calm, the pains passing as quickly as they had come. His fleshed cooled; the sickness passed. Above him, the stars slowed slightly, gentle now and almost tranquil. Everything fell abhorrently quiet, and he was suddenly calmed.
"I'm going mad…" Issei breathed out.
"You are not mad," a voice echoed around him. "But you are stupid."
Issei looked around frantically, the stars moved with a renewed rage above him. There was nothing in the circle with him. The voice he heard was cruel and mocking, and he tried to think of what it could possibly mean, why it was questioning his intelligence.
"If I'm not mad, then only damnation awaits me here."
"You are damned in all plains of existence." Hissed the voice and Issei knew, deep in his heart, that it was true.
Almost instantly, the air filled with energy; it crackled around him and drove him to his knees, lifting his hair off his shoulders slightly. He watched the hairs on the back of his arms stick straight up and felt thick, greasy power coarse through his teeth and bones. The statues began to move, rumbling to life on their pedestals, inflicting their tortures on one another in slow, gruesome thrusts, a writhing wall of agonized, abused stone. A shadow began to build behind him, a low murky shape that stood out from the darkness with a definition all of its own. Issei turned and staggered back. As the shadow rose, first to the height of his waist and then taller, it seemed to grow outward at the same time, filling the gaping hole that once was a decent space between him and the glob of shadows. Issei stumbled, the strength in his legs failing him, almost losing his footing as he stepped backwards.
Above him, something similar to lightning flashed across the sky—a color he couldn't process fully—and provided a brief glimpse of illumination to everything around him. Stars swirled and shot across the oil-moving black sky as if billions of years were passing in less than seconds. Upon seeing the figure beyond the shadow, he was petrified. A thick coat of oily black hair covered the creatures heavy frame, a foul-stinking pelt that bristled with blood.
Heavy forelimbs swung down from its hunched shoulders, viciously clawed hands emerging from the shadows. Smaller legs were bent double below, supporting the body, threating to spring the great mass forward at any moment in a mighty bound. What appeared to be a long, fleshy tail wound out from the base of its torso, snaking back behind the creature. It stood some eight feet tall in all, towering above him, dominating the darkness in the circle.
Whatever horror the body of the beast had created in him paled in comparison when the fearsome head arose slowly from the black nest of fur on its chest. The long snout came into view, tapering toward the end where a cluster of fanged teeth jutted out from curling blood-red lips. The creature's breath rolled past Issei, causing him to gag at the stench. The foul air carried the scent of rotting flesh and disease, the stink of death and decay, sweet and sickening. Its ears were small and pinned back to its head, almost hidden in the glistening dark coat. Two bright red eyes flashed from pitch-black sockets, narrowing with wicked glee as it stared at its prey.
It opened its mouth wide, throwing its head back as it bared its teeth, a long black tongue lolling and snaking from its maw as saliva spattered down and pooled below it.
Issei's stomach was in turmoil as he stared at the monster. His heart raced, the burn of the fever still gripping his body but now fueling something, feeding something dark inside him.
"What are you?" Issei asked, his voice trembling.
"You could not possibly hope to understand," replied the monster. "and it does not matter. What matters is that I know what you are."
"What do you mean?" asked Issei.
"A monster." The monster's lips curled into a wide, awful grin. "Capable of cruelty that impresses even me. A parasite. A carrion bird. A—"
"Enough," said Issei, forcefully.
The monster grinned more.
"I want to offer you something, in return for something you wont use for a long time."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your soul," the monster said. "I want your soul. It will amuse me till the end of time. Exactly like the last one did. And I will pay you handsomely for it."
"I refuse!" Issei shouted. "Nothing is worth what you request!"
"Are you sure of that? You are dying right now. Those chills you get, the fevers, the churning in your stomach. A devil is trying to save you for what you contain deep inside, but you will die if you refuse my offer. Let me give you a taste, in a week, if you haven't decided, you will die. If you accept, I will give you power beyond anything imaginable, I will give you life eternal. Things will be different this time though, last time it bored me."
…
End of Chapter 11: Unnatural Occurrence
I am going to have a few small chapters to kick this story off again, the events will be different, and the plague is different too. This one is more horrifying, but fast. So, let me catch my own brain up before doing the big chapters.
This story is purely the work of fiction and is not to be conceived as real by any means. The author may or may not use real-time scenarios and locations to enhance the enjoyment factor of this book.
Please leave a review and drop some constructive criticism.
Book Ideas used: Department 19 (Forgive me)