"Ladies and gentlemen, it is with the greatest pleasure that I can finally announce, we are moving onto the last stage of testing for the project!" The Doctor at the podium loudly announced to the large room of party guests, dressed in an expensive yet very fashionable dinner suit to parade his success. "Thus, I would like to invite a toast, to all of us for our success in this project!"
The room at large chanted back at that, raising glasses before then doing the ceremonious sipping to a toast. It was a comfortable space, decorated traditionally with expensive oak furniture, heavy red carpet and more classical themes as befitting a manor built from the 1700s. It was a small hill filled with guests in evening and dinner attire, many clutching drinks as they gathered around the main empty space to listen to the man on the podium.
"And so, as I announce now, at the hour of 1746 on Thursday the 12th October, 1912." The Doctor stated in a celebratory, loud voice that conveyed clear his proud feelings to the current gathering. "Tomorrow shall be a day of revolution! We shall prove tomorrow that mankind can achieve more than it ever dreamed of doing, that not all is lost! I drink to you all, a dedicated team of researchers that has done me proud, that shall tomorrow help me wrap up the project that I shall then take to London next week to prove to the world our success! To you, my fine compatriots!" The Doctor finished his speech as he held his own drink up before downing it in one gulp before them all, the shouts from the party that accompanied this toast being louder than the last.
Ten minutes later, the Doctor was avidly talking to one of the senior researchers who seized his hand warmly. "Doctor Howard, to have cracked the theory before us all as you did last week, you truly are a genius, Doctor." The woman praised the named Howard, who only chuckled. "I much look forward to progressing the project with you tomorrow."
"Oh please, enough of that, Elizabeth, I could hardly have done it without you all." Howard responded in a friendly manner, about to continue before he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around. "Oh? What is it, McArthur?"
The named man who had gotten the doctor's attention, apologised to the group Howard had been speaking with before turning to the doctor. "I apologise for the interruption, Doctor, but might I have a private word for a few minutes?" The man apologetically asked of the scientist leading the project.
Howard thought for a second, before acquiescing with a nod of his head. "Very well, McArthur, over here please." He motioned over to a corner of the gathering where less people roamed and the noise of chatter would cover up their conversation. Both men moved over there, the tapping of McArthur's black cane as it struck the floor each time sounding out before they turned to one another. Howard was about to question his friend, when confusion entered his face as he saw the expression on his partner's face.
"Listen, please, Doctor, I merely implore you to listen to me." McArthur pleaded to the man, the tone of begging audible in his voice - the desperation and hesitation from years of work spent on one project finally pouring through at last. It took Howard aback, not expecting this turn in his friend in the slightest. "Your dedication is admirable, Doctor, and the work we have both done together on this project is merely transformative, but there is several... complicating thoughts that has arisen now that the hour of importance is on us at last."
Howard straightened part of his suit as he thought over what his partner pleaded to him, his brilliant mind turning over what complications could have possibly come up that they had not planned for - but even he came up empty. "What is it, McArthur?" Howard questioned in a low tone after a few seconds.
"You and I have spent years of our lives dedicated to this project, Doctor, but..." McArthur trailed off slightly in hesitation before summoning his courage again. "Perhaps we lost sight of something crucial, of morality itself, Doctor."
Howard gave a groan as he could sense where this was heading, and responded with frustration in his hushed voice. "We've been over this before, McArthur." The esteemed scientist spoke out with a low tone. "We have spent so much time and effort upon this, planned for so much - you cannot let such trivial thoughts consume you now we are so near-"
"Trivial thoughts?!" McArthur raised his voice in indignation, to the extent that several nearby party guests looked around and Howard hurriedly shushed him so that his partner's jitters weren't transferred to the rest of the research team. McArthur complied in lowering his voice once more, but the heated tone contained within it was not lost as did the hand gripping his cane tighten. "Why, Doctor, perhaps that is the very root of my concern for this matter! We have spent so long doing this, doing what we could to transform the very boundaries of science - that we didn't stop to conceive on whether we should!"
Howard guided his slightly irate partner further away from the guests, before looking to him seriously. "Just what is it you are asking of me, McArthur?" He questioned in soft, severe tone.
"Delay the human testing." McArthur responded, in an equally muted tone with a deadly seriousness in it. "We know how to do it, the theory is sound, I admit! But we don't know what we're getting into." McArthur lowered his voice further into an almost hiss to impression upon Howard just how sincere his concerns were, the man hearing every word despite the drop in decibel. "We are not Gods, Howard. Morality exists for a reason, and to push the boundaries of science beyond the boundaries of the natural order itself is something I'm not sure I want to get into-"
"Just what the devil has gotten into you, McArthur?" Howard asked of him then, the confusion that had ben building throughout their conversation finally being expressed. "Just what has caused you to doubt our project so, when you yourself are our primary backer?"
It was true. McArthur was the man who had financed virtually the entire project with his lucrative assets for his gifted friend in the scientific arts to be able to carry it out. But it seemed his earlier intrigue and enthusiasm in the project that he had such a stake in had turned sour, as he expressed to his long-time friend. "We just, we just don't know Howard!" McArthur finally shouted at the man. "To mess with the unnatural realm of the dead is something that could spell doom on such a level we don't know about, or it could impart upon the present entire past generations of lost knowledge! Anything could happen, and to mess with something so unknown could spell disaster. We could lose our very humanity in defying God himself! We don't know, which is why I implore you - test the theory further! Delay the next stage of testing! Ensure that before we plunge into the darkness, we can pull ourselves out of it!"
The party had gone quiet around them from the raving shouts that now emanated from McArthur, Howard grimacing as he noticed the stares at both of them that his partner most certainly did not. So, to save whatever face was left and to put his foot down, the scientist seized hold of his partner's dinner jacket - and gave him a sound shake. "For God's sake, McArthur, just listen to yourself for crying out loud. Delay the project? Are you mad?" Howard voiced out loud for everyone to hear, abandoning all motions to contain the conversation now that McArthur's concerns had been spilled for everyone to hear anyway. "This is exactly why we are testing, McArthur - to find out! We have spent years of our lifetime testing the theory to develop and ensure its competence and sound structure, and no outstanding concern has arisen from it! We have conducted the project tests successfully upon animals, and no complication has ever come up-"
"Successfully?!" McArthur squawked out in indignation then, interrupting the research doctor thoroughly with a loud shout. The hand gripping the cane clenched it fully then, the appendage going white from the brute strength it squeezed the walking aid with. "You call those animal tests successful?!" McArthur was now fully expressing his shock and anger then, his eyes bulging and spittle flying from his mouth as if he really couldn't believe what he was hearing. "For Christ's sake, Doctor, it was just last week we reanimated that fox! That poor creature was roused from its eternal slumber howling and losing its mind as soon as the injection was taken to its reconstructed body! Screaming in agony from causes we don't know!"
"We don't know that it was in agony, McArthur, it could merely be the stage of awakening from death-" Howard started, but McArthur interrupted him once more, more physically this time.
"LISTEN TO YOURSELF, MAN!" McArthur roared out, jabbing his finger into the dinner suit his partner wore. "You are a genius in the field of biology, Doctor, but you are no zoologist! Even I, with no such scientific backing, could discern that something was clearly wrong! Every test we have undertaken has. Gone. Wrong!" McArthur accentuated his words with a further jab with each syllable. "The fish were clearly in pain, writhing and moving about, frantic to get away from a non-existent threat that clearly existed to them! The deer escaped the premises in absolute terror before we were forced to put it down! The rabbits - they starved themselves to death! The plants we did - each and every one of them - dead by sunrise! All shrivelled up and keeled over, from stress! The plants were STRESSED, HOWARD!"
A final jab was pushed into the doctor's ribcage with such force that the man was forced to take a step back as McArthur took a step closer with a thunderous face. "So please, Doctor!" McArthur finally lowered his hoarse voice, the tone clearly taking on a begging tone once more. "Listen to reason, man! Delay the human testing, as all testing has gone so wrong! The theory may be sound, and the project clearly functioning, but I do not wish to see a sentient lifeform scream in agony as all the previous subjects did. Please, just delay it until we can resolve these issues at least-"
"No, McArthur." Howard's voice cracked out in a firm tone then, quietening his partner in an instant as he fixed the entire room with a solid gaze. "I will not delay anything. We agreed to this, and agreed that there is much more chance of such a sentient person having a better reaction than a bunch of animals. We are ready, and we will find out, McArthur. And if you don't like it, McArthur, then simply don't be there tomorrow. Me and the team have given up far too much to stop now." He finished with a finalising tone, his head held high in the face of disbelief portrayed by his friend.
It took a few seconds for McArthur to find his voice, but when he did, he spoke in a soft and resigned tone that matched the sigh he gave. "Very well, Doctor." McArthur spoke tiredly, looking to the side of the scientist he'd never seen before in all the years they had been friends. "I will be there tomorrow, if only to see this thing through to the end. But do think, for even a second, that if anything goes wrong with those poor people tomorrow, that it is a mere 'stage of awakening', Howard. We have been clearly forewarned."
With that, McArthur slowly turned around and began leaving the room, taking no notice of the stares that followed him as Howard said nothing; only the rhythmic tapping of the cane sounding out as it faded out the room. They both had far too much on their minds to take notice of a thoroughly ruined party in that moment.
It was thoroughly ruined for them all, for it brought out all the thoughts every researcher had been trying to suppress.
THE NEXT DAY.
The new day dawned for them all, and with it brought the nervous anticipation for the entire research team as they gathered within the surgical laboratory room. Several medical assistants flitted about the sterile, white room laying down and double-checking pieces of equipment, decked out in swathes of protective clothing of their own with not a single exposure of skin. For such a project, no expense had been spared - and indeed, it had required a great monetary amount to fund.
"I see you did come after all, McArthur." Howard spoke out then, a sarcastic tone evident in his voice. Neither man had got over the events of the previous night. "I'm surprised, given your hesitation."
"Begone, Howard, and complete this infernal project." McArthur responded without even looking to the scientist, only the several angry raps of the cane against the floor signalling his displeasure. "I told you only the previous night that I have to see this distasteful thing through to the end, for I am as buried in its history through financial supply as you are through the entire engineering of it."
McArthur had turned up in a suit that he would wear to every day workplaces, the dress of the man echoing his desire to not treat the day of reckoning for their project with any special honours. It certainly was the opposite of Howard, who wore his celebratory attire beneath his laboratory protective clothing, mirroring his certainty in his work and its future success.
The Doctor said nothing as he merely strode past his partner and into the surgical room through the double doors, giving McArthur a view of him at last through the viewing glass pane in the wall which looked into the operating theatre. Only McArthur and the researchers not involved in the laboratory practices of the project stayed in the observation room, not a single guest or journalist amongst them in the private affair.
No opening speech was made as Howard was not in the mood, and to delay the culmination of his life's work would try his already strained patience anyway. Merely putting on a pair of gloves and stepping towards the hospital bed put on display for them all, he began to take the beginning measurements. "The time is 12:32 exactly, of the 13th October, 1912." He began as he looked at his watch before glancing to one of the assistants on the other side of the hospital bed, who was scribbling down a transcribe of what was occurring.
As this was going on, McArthur just watched on with a steeled gaze and a beating heart as he just wished it to be over with already, if only to stop the ruminating thoughts in his mind with a firm conclusion. He was shook from his stupor as a research assistant stepped close to the window and posed a question, the question that was on their minds. "Do you think it will work, sir?" The research assistant asked as they looked away from the window to McArthur with wide, curious eyes. "Do you think Doctor Howard can really do it - reanimate someone from the dead?"
McArthur looked back to the female corpse that was being deposited on the bed, before narrowing his eyes and giving voice to his answer. "Oh yes. Howard is too brilliant a mind for this to fail now. He will bring them back - of this I have no doubt."
The assistant looked back to the team preparing the body now with an almost star-struck gaze. "Wow - to think that we could ever do such a thing-"
"That is just it, you poor boy." McArthur almost rudely interrupted the assistant then, who looked back shocked as the man also gave voice to his shrewd thoughts. "As I told Howard, you have spent so long thinking on what you could do, on what was possible, that all reason of morality has become short-sighted." McArthur merely lifted his cane up and directed everyone's attention to the body being prepared for the reanimation. "It will be on all our heads if an actual human, bless their soul, wakes up screaming like every other poor creature we've awaken. Their agony, will be our doing."
Silence filled the room at McArthur's statements, not a single man or woman responding to the heavy criticisms as the uncomfortable atmosphere pushed down on them all. It only dissipated when Howard signalled the observation room, before then motioning to an attendee to dim the bright lights.
"Can we please have silence now." Howard declared, eyes roaming the room and settling onto the observation window where McArthur stared back with a serious expression, before looking to the body on the table. "For those of you who do not know, this woman here is Emelia Bonnet, deceased from a heart attack three days ago due to a sudden shock to the heart. We have physically examined the body, and declared it suitable. I want absolute silence as we begin the injection and shock therapy, and absolute respect... should it succeed."
True to the Doctor's request, not a single person responded as Howard then nodded to the assistant beside him, who handed him a vial and needle. Drawing out a suitable amount of the concoction contained within the vial into the needle, he held it up to the light before looking back to the body - and swallowing nervously. "Beginning now." He announced.
The chemical injection was depressed into the ribcage of the corpse, close to the heart before Howard quickly withdrew his hand as it began to shake. Only pausing to motion the lab technician at the dials, he took a step back and put the needle down on a tray. All he could do now was watch, and await the results of the efforts of his entire life.
The masked man standing beside a table only gave a nod at Howard's signal, before reaching forth with both hands to a tray containing a lot of electrical equipment. Flicking a couple of safety switches with one hand, the technician slowly twisted a dial upward and round to a reasonable setting of voltage. The man then stabbed the red button.
The entire body on the bed gave a twitch as the electrodes attached to the skin of the corpse deposited a low amount of voltage into it. Seeing the results, Howard motioned for it to happen again - and the best he received was a twitch in the fingers of the hand closest to him. Signalling for the voltage to increase, Howard motioned for the electricity to flow again.
It took three more times before they got a better response - a larger increase of electricity making the entire body spasm as Howard's eyes shined a little. Just like in every other experiment to date, they were getting closer to the optimum voltage output for awakening a specific species. Making a pinching motion with his hands, Howard signalled for a minor increase in electricity, before doing it again. They were so close to it, that Howard could already see how this proved his theory had merit.
What he didn't foresee was how sudden the subject awoke.
Emilia Bonnet was roused from her eternal slumber with a deep gasp as she sat up suddenly, and then stopped. Even McArthur's eyes widened as he saw the undeniable proof laid bare before his very eyes - most of the observation room matching Emilia's gasp as the only movement within it seemed to be to take a step closer to the window.
Silence reigned within the operating room with only two exceptions - the frantic breathing of Emilia as her laborious breaths quickly tried to acclimatise her to living once more, and the heartbeats in the ears of the every person there. It continued for a second more as the reanimated woman scoured the room with wide eyes, obviously alarmed and frightened - before McArthur closed his eyes in resignation as he saw exactly what he feared.
Emilia opened her mouth wider, and began to scream.
Throwing herself off of the bed, two of the assistants yelped and stepped back away from the writhing woman, whose wide and frantic eyes looked each and every way as spittle flew from her mouth, the echoing screams she emitted never ending. Not just agony wailed within the noise that assaulted the eardrums of every lab practitioner there, but the sheer desperation and misery contained within the chorusing pitches clearly sang to those who recognised it over the deafening shrieks that echoed across the room. The poor woman shook and trembled, backing away from everyone there as if they were all contributors to the nightmare she was experiencing - frantic and desperate to escape what she had woken up from - or into.
Howard raced around the hospital bed to reach the screaming woman who was crawling away from them, kneeling down to her level and trying to be friendly. "Miss Bonnet, please! Please calm down and we can help you-"
Emilia continued to scream however, only becoming faster in her attempts to get away. Everyone else surrounding Howard stood shocked and unmoving, also unwilling to get in the way. The clearly desperate and frantic woman was displaying something so certainly wrong, and the entire operating theatre was at a loss.
"Miss, please!" Howard tried once more as he gently grabbed an arm of the woman, before she wrenched it from his grasp with surprising strength - and kicked him away. Howard keeled over backwards as he couldn't stop himself, his ears ringing from the close proximity to the woman's deafening screams which had increased in pitch due to his attempt.
The episodic mess and dilemma was only halted when McArthur hit a certain pressure point in the woman's neck from behind her, completely masked in his approach to even the staring observers by the caterwauling eruption that had occurred. Seeing the woman slump back with closed eyes, rendered into unconsciousness, McArthur only clicked his cane against the ground in displeasure before looking to the Doctor with serious eyes that contained vestiges of fury.
"I warned you, Howard." Was all McArthur stated to the downed doctor, still on the floor with another tap of displeasure from his cane. "God help us all from whatever we learn about this. I warned you."
Picking up the unconscious woman and exiting the room, McArthur ignored all the stares sent his way as he left.
The good doctor wasn't ready in the end. None of us were.
That poor soul was only dead three days. And yet there she was, sobbing her heart out, traumatised just from existing.
We found what we were looking for. We found we could revive the dead, raise a soul from its resting place to once more join the living. We found out there is a realm after this one. We found that humans do indeed have souls. But, by God, did we find more than we ever should've done.
Is there even a God? This evidences the sheer nature of one, but what God would do this? That wasn't hell. What we found was worse - that there is no heaven and hell. Just damnation on Earth.
"Now, Emelia, - is it alright if I call you that?" Howard began slowly and softly, his voice containing an edge of trepidation as he set a small glass of water down by the traumatised woman, who would make a frightened bunny look calm. Spooked, and rattled by every sharp noise, her eyes darted around the room constantly, as if to still reassure herself despite the hours of reassurances she had already received.
It had taken three days of constant interaction, reassurances and visits from the on-site therapist to get Emelia Bonnet to just stop screaming. A constant, and stressed, importance was found and thus emphasised on forcing Emelia to react, to interact and realise that she could move, breathe, taste and utilise the bodily senses, that she had been truly reanimated. It was not that the poor woman was in denial, but that a staggering amount of truths could be plied away from the absolute shocking state of those three days.
Somehow, the woman had been aware of the time spent in the afterlife - in the context that it had been somehow related to Earth, like she was aware of what had been going on around her. There was no other reason for Emelia having to be constantly reassured of her bodily functions - which placed several members of the project in denial rather than Emelia. But what could not be denied by any member of the team was what her reaction within such an afterlife, in whatever context, had done to her.
It had sent her on the path to the beginnings of a frightening insanity. That the doctor had only just pulled her from, just three days into the journey down such a path.
Emelia did not respond to the softly spoken question, and instead continued to shiver, to quiver slightly but constantly visible despite being situated on a plush armchair situated close to a cackling fire.
"Emelia?" Howard tried again, still in the politely spoken, soft tone that conveyed his concern, yet anticipation to find out more. There was still no response.
McArthur watched from the side of the room, stood just inside from the hallway, shrewd eyes analysing the scene as the nightmare continued to unravel and lay its secrets bare before him. He could discern much from appearances alone, and so the truth began to become ever clearer, closer, as did the horror that mounted upon the growing burden on his psyche. He had already accepted that as the truth unravelled, so would he continue to become caught in the veil that descended upon the minds of all those that would soon learn the truth. One did not take a taste of the nightmare, and then continue to plunge forth into it anyway expecting to come out clean.
"Emelia, please." Howard let out this time in a whisper, a desperate tone of begging perpetuating it, and this time succeeding. Whether it was the desperation for answers that matched her own desperation to leave the hell she had entered that didn't match the hell she left, she finally gave a reaction to the doctor.
Slowly, ever so slowly but surely, the tortured woman's gaze rotated at a sluggish pace to settle on Howard's face - before trembling violently for the first time in only an hour. Although not as religious as his fellow co-workers', Howard could've sworn to God then that he saw her very soul in that traumatised, incredibly saddened complexion of her irises. And it was not that her soul looked lost, but rather that it was the process of being found that traumatised her so.
And McArthur knew from that point, as he stood in the doorway with a firm grip on his cane, that they would finally get their answer that they had been seeking for all these years. Just so then she could beg for her soul to be lost once more, so she would not have to scream anymore. Howard could see it.
He could see, just as well as Howard, that her soul was still screaming.
It took three more days to get the truth out of her. As I write this, I wonder, is it somehow symbolic? Three days? Three days to die, be pulled out and reassured, then finally have the truth plied from you?
Now all I can think of is this damning nightmare that surrounds us all.
All I can think of every time I step foot outside is the souls of the damned that surround my every footstep. Billions, hundreds of billions of humans have died throughout history - and the Earth is littered with their souls. Everywhere we go, we cannot see the torture that goes on every second of existence, a sheer numbing fact of just being that has driven hundreds of billions to insanity - and yet they are still forced yet to endure every second of it. They will do for millennia more, for as long as the Earth continues to spin. What after that? When Earth itself crumbles to the test of time - will their souls continue on into the abyss? This is just a few of the thoughts perpetuate my mind ever since that unnatural project was completed.
It as if the mere knowledge is almost as damning as what these poor souls experience every second of their existence. That Earth is not some planet of life, the cradle of humanity - but rather a mass grave that imprisons every creature it creates in perpetual agony forevermore. We do not wander ecosystems of wondrous life - but rather there is a veil we cannot see or hear beyond that shields us from the silent screams of billions that just are.
Perhaps the worst part to all this is that there is no escape. Perhaps the knowledge is worse, that I know what lies ahead - there is no afterlife. We remain here, upon this planet, trapped in a stasis of perpetual insanity in which we are forced to endure every minute of it.
Oh, but how I repeat myself! It is as if the veil is already reaching for me, gripping my mind with the throes of insanity it departs onto every being that passes on!
We should never have discovered this. We should never have defied the natural order that now haunts us too, every second of our still-alive state. It is as if we already trapped within the veil, for it keeps eating at my mind - it is too much to bare. And yet, I cannot pass this burden on. Some burdens are too heavy to be shared, lest you overload the person that seeks to help - this knowledge shall die with me.
I will sabotage the project, destroy every record of it and take the good doctor to a good resting place before I put a bullet in his skull. The least any human deserves now is good scenery for their prison, for any modicum of easing the beginnings of the veil's punishment. After I have ensured no person may replicate this forsaken project, I will join the good doctor.
For perhaps there is bliss in the insanity. The rest of humankind can remain in bliss for as long as they are alive, for there is no bliss to be found in the damnation. But for me, I will never find rest again for as long as I live. Ignorance really is bliss for the rest of humanity, unaware that the heaven they spend their lives working for, their days spent toiling to reach is in fact the very hell on Earth they so avidly avoid. I cannot do this to anyone else, for it is tearing apart my own mind at the seems - let alone what it would do to all of humanity should this knowledge be spread.
No, no one else can know. I am already going insane, yet I am still sane enough to count out every second that passes by - aware of the enormous pain that goes on behind a veil that already grips my mind. When I join the good doctor, I will find more rest in the insanity such a veil provides - when I begin to scream among them, and do not know any more of anything; I will find more peace in my mind having been torn apart already than this numbing madness that has infected me now.
"Unfortunately, the good doctor is currently...indisposed. Busy." MacArthur began. There, stood in the wide meeting room of the laboratory stood the thirty-so strong team of the reanimation project. His shrewd eyes gazed around the league of scientists, zoologists and experts, as he reflected on two things. The first was that many faces were still pale, containing slivers of white etched into their very expression - as if the very daunting horror that also plagued McArthur, steeped into his very bones and carved into his eyelids every time he closed them; was now a permanent piece of themselves. "But that still does not stop me now from trying to bring a conclusion to this... dreadful mess. As a partner to Howard, I think I speak for him that it is better for us all that a finalising tribute to this project be reached, and as such he and I will discuss later upon what to do with this profound new knowledge of ours. As for yourselves, I think it simply best that you all become... no longer involved with the process, so to say."
A quick glance around the room showed there was no adverse reaction to his declaration, for indeed, it appeared that tinges of relief had entered the horror-stricken faces of some at the news that they would no longer have to participate in the nightmare. "As such, I announce that we release you all from your contracts with immediate effect, with full honours, pay and rewards still included - with the only the singular stipulation of the secrecy oath you all swore to also included." McArthur announced once more, and ocne more received no adverse reaction - nor positive reactions either. The only reaction he got was that the entire room's eyes finally looked to him, rather than elsewhere lost in thought, to give him their full attention on the conditions of their departure. "I only ask that you please drink with me one last time, as colleagues, before we conclude this business." He stated to them, as he raised his own glass of alcohol out to them.
Settling his eyes on the small, narrow window set close to the ceiling itself, he slowly raised the glass of alcohol to his mouth as he watched a blackbird set itself down on the outside ledge. It helped to soothe his nerves, to remind him of the greater good he was enacting as he refused to look at the gathered party, and instead reassure himself with the sight of the bird. Even as his lips and hand continued to tremble slightly, being gripped tightly around the cane handle to the extent that the knuckles had gone white to stop it his depressive feelings and grief from being obvious. He only continued to smell the pungent smell of the celebratory alcohol, and slight gaseous aroma of a deadly extract, as the rest of the room just drank to what he said - lost in their own feelings and thoughts.
Only after five minutes had passed, and the bodies start to fall, did he permit himself to look down. A woman had time enough to let loose a scream as her colleague let out a gasping choke, spitting out fast-flowing and extreme amounts of foaming spittle before he collapsed right onto her - before the poison meant she joined him right after. Shrewd eyes roaming the room once more, the incredibly stewing cocktail of grief and guilt in his stomach was only clamped down upon by the depressive resolution that forced him to believe he was doing the right thing. The very feeling that had kept Howard pushing forwards, had now pushed them all to their graves.
His eyes stopped moving as he just took in the wider scene, a lone tear allowed to freely fall from the right eye as he drank in the sight of what had become of the fine colleagues he had interacted with for over six years now. But, he only permitted himself a minute more of feeling the guilt and remorse before he forced himself onwards, callously stepping over the still-twitching bodies as he thumped his cane down with displeasure, as an anchor to push himself onwards. To ignore the couple of hands that weakly fumbled to grip at his ankles.
He still had two more to see to. This way, at least they could all scream together. It was inevitable.
What a waste it had all been. The waste of resources poured into the project, the millions poured into it, and the absolute waste of human potential of the experts in their fields that he'd had to silence so that the planet could continue its charade of ignorance.
So that the reanimation project didn't animate the very veil itself into the minds of humanity.
HOWARD'S OFFICE.
"Well, doctor, did you do it?" McArthur gently asked of Howard, who looked somewhat startled to their main financial backer, and his partner. Out of all the time he'd known the man, this was the first time he'd ever heard the great man use such an ever-so-gentle tone - and despite all that had happened so far, it still startled him. To realise that such a man could also lose hope.
"Yes." He merely responded to the question, a grave tone filling his own voice as he looked to McArthur - who could not look back into his eyes. Despite his warnings, and thoughts of the greater good, McArthur could not stop the thoughts plaguing him on how he was now worse than the doctor before him. "Emelia was painlessly sedated and drugged, and laid back to rest just an hour ago."
A sigh emitted out from McArthur, whether in minute relief or just to exhale some emotion out at receiving more news from the ever-dreadful project, Howard could not tell. Instead, he just listened as McArthur took out a hip flask from his jacket, unscrewed the lid and downed a great gulp of whiskey - not finding it within himself that the man did not drink from the alcohol poured for him sitting on the desk. "Thank you for listening to me on that much at least." McArthur muttered, some bite to his tone as he finally looked to his partner and friend. "At least she will no longer be plagued-"
"My God, I beg of you, silence your tongue!" Howard snapped, his emotions finally boiling over as he let out an angry sob from his mouth, the guilt, grief and rage from the horror he had discovered finally bursting out. "I do not wish to contemplate upon these matters right now!"
"Then when will you contemplate?" McArthur snapped back. "When you have tortured more souls, or when you have lorded your results in front of the scientific community?" The man sneered now, his expression daunting as he looked to the grimacing and angry look on Howard's own, etched with grief. "That was always your intention, after all!"
"BUT I NEVER INTENDED FOR ANY OF THIS TO HAPPEN!" The man screamed out as he bellowed at his partner, finally stilling the sharp tongue that lashed at him as he then lowered his head and began to sob anew.
McArthur did not shed anymore tears. He had already had his time to grieve, and was now firmly resolved and committed as after a minute, he spoke in a soft tone this time. "Neither of us intended for this to happen, Howard..." He trailed off slightly, before his voice returned ever more quietly - but still heard by the sobbing man. "To think, that the afterlife does exist, but in such a state... condemned to remain in the same spot for eternity..."
Howard's sobs continued unabated as he was forcibly reminded of their findings, as McArthur stood up, and tapped his cane absent-mindedly enroute to the large viewing platform Howard had in his office that overlooked the beautiful cliffs and sea the laboratory sat beside. Placing both hands on his cane, McArthur then continued his ruminations as he looked over the scenery after a minute. "I just wander, Howard, what was it that pushed us so? To so casually defy the very rules of morality and God himself, to defy nature so abhorrently so..." He trailed off, before picking up once more. "I also wandered if it was worth it, on whether the value of whatever we would find would make the resources and our own sanities worth risking all such assets. And the stunning conclusion is no... no, it was not worth it at all. We have condemned countless animals and a poor woman back to experience what could be considered hell on Earth, and all for what? To find out that there is what - no afterlife, just an eternity of screaming in a silent, insane abyss as nature itself mocks us as time goes ever onward-"
"Please, I beg..." Howard whispered out through his sobbing expression and hands. "Stop pursuing these cursed matters for just this moment in time..."
"Then drink, Howard." McArthur's voice commanded clearly this time, back to full volume with a resolved tone. A steely gaze entered his eyes as he turned to look to his friend. "Drink, and let us remember no more of such cursed matters then."
A few moments more passed of Howard's sobbing, misery-stricken grieving before he violently moved to do as McArthur said - picking up the glass of alcohol before him with such force that some sloshed over the edge, and then downing it with a single swallow. It was slammed back on the table as Howard looked back to his partner with a similar, fire-filled determined stare - before his eyes then popped open wide and mouth dropped into a betrayed, open-mouthed scream. Before he slumped back involuntarily into his chair, as McArthur joined him back in his own.
The cane made its way back into McArthur's hands as he placed it between the space of his own seated legs, giving it a few taps upon the furnished floor out of habit. "A fast-acting paralytic and painkiller concoction of my own making, instilled with some of the best ingredients renowned across the planet moreover." McArthur informed his now paralysed friend, who could only shakily move his eyeballs to look at him with a panicked, betrayed and spasming expression to them. "A deadly cocktail that would kill you in its own right, as I am a novice, but it works for this purpose nonetheless. You shall feel none of the pain before I have finally brought this dreadful project to its rightful end - to back beyond the veil and to the grave. Where it should've remained."
He received no answer, making him sigh as he enjoyed just a seconds more rest - before standing from sitting position. The last time he would ever sit. "Let us go, my good doctor." He spoke tiredly to the paralysed, panic stricken doctor forcibly slumped against his own will as McArthur reached out to grab him. "Let us not delay the inevitable that comes for us all."
The cane clattered to the ground in some symbolic gesture to McArthur as he let go of his feelings and thoughts, firmly filled with a resolved mess of grief and depressive emotions that pushed him to finish this. Grabbing the doctor by the shirt and marching to the door of the viewing platform, sobs now fully leaving his own mouth in the slow-moving motion process to the door, he kicked it open as the roar of the sea battering the rocks below them slammed into his ears. Taking a moment to merely take in the sounds of it all, the taste of the salty air and the sight of the sea that would become his permanent field of view forevermore, he then looked down to the paralysed doctor.
"I'm sorry, Howard. I wished we had just listened to the warnings, I really wish we both had." He spoke out loudly over the roar of the sea, suspended on the platform as they were above the drop of the cliff and water below. "But it is better that the insanity not claim the planet too early. It is better for the veil to remain where it is, only to be crossed at the passing point of death, than for it to claim all of humanity. Surely, you understand, Howard. Surely you must know, that what we know, cannot be shared with the rest of humanity lest the veil plague their minds too."
Howard's spasming eyes gave the only indication of an answer that he could - one of panic and betrayal. Grief, and horror, that had been all they had been feeling for the past six days. He could clearly see that the insanity that had begun to be entrenched in the now dead Emelia Bonnet was firmly clinging to the mind of his esteemed partner, a brilliant mind in his own right now devolved to madness by the 'veil'. And he wasn't even dead yet.
A small calibre pistol emerged from McArthur's jacket into his hand, which he cocked back ready as a tear dripped from his right eye again, despite his pledge to not cry again after he had done his grieving. "I'm truly sorry, Howard." He apologised once more. "But at least we'll be together! Just as always, my friend! Side-by-side, even in death!" He took a moment collect and compose himself, breathing in deeply, before looking back down to the bulging and red-tinted mad eyes of his life-long friend. "I'm sorry." He repeated once more, as a tear escaped his left eye as the gun was pointed solidly to Howard's forehead. "Goodbye, my friend. Nobody shall ever find out what we have."
A singular gunshot barked out as Howard's brain matter exploded across the floor of the balcony, only the roar of the sea now being heard in the ringing of McArthur's ears as he just numbly stared at the bloodied corpse of his now deceased friend. Tears streamed fully down his face now as he began to sob once again, grief and guilt beginning to overwhelm him as he utilised the last remnants of depressive willpower that had pushed him forward thus far to cock the gun once more. Forcibly turning his head from the despicable act now lying on the slowly burning building that he'd set fire to just two minutes prior to their brief conversation, McArthur just looked to the sea instead. He could almost see the sea of souls that was just seconds away from being a reality to his vision, that of the billions of fish, mammals and humans screaming into the void that would be his escape from this hell on Earth that the nightmare of knowledge had forcibly induced into him.
He was ready to scream too as he closed his eyes and pulled the trigger beneath his chin.