Author's Note:
Hi everyone~
Sorry for an extremely short chapter. To be honest I felt that this was a chapter that needed to be written and I felt that it was more power with the way I ended rather than trying to extend it out. I can promise that chapters in the future will be longer with the occasional chapter being short like this one.
Trust me. I have plans. Many plans…
By the way, as of writing this chapter I am dedicating myself to write at least 600 words per day meaning that it will take about a week to write one chapter. That being said I have been tending to write a bit more than 600 words per day -_-'
Morie hadn't gotten a wink of sleep that night. The only company she kept was the blue light emanating from her computer and her wandering thoughts. Due to the coffee she drank at Anteiku and her active mind, her eyes remained wide open and refused to droop with tiredness.
When the morning light shone through her window, she stretched and tidied up her desk which had been littered with scraps of paper and trash from midnight snacks she ate just to see if her sense of taste had returned, which it hadn't. She had work to do today and nothing could keep her from that even if her body was still a bit sore from the previous day's events. Morie didn't want to be hanging around the campus for too long anyway to avoid any unwanted attention.
Before she left, Morie opened a draw and retrieved a pair of aviator sunglasses. Even though it was the middle of spring and still early enough that the sun was still hidden behind morning clouds, with a flick of her wrist, she wore the glasses. The thought occurred to her last night when she took a break in order to bathe that wearing the sunglasses may be a good idea until she knew exactly what was going on with her body. If a kakugan manifested itself at an inconvenient time, then it would be her death sentence. At least Kaneki knew which eye turned ghoulish.
Upon arriving at Kamii, Morie slunk around the campus, avoiding any of the people who were heading to their early morning lectures and crept into Nishiki's office space to retrieve her belongings and Shirozumi who gazed at her in curiosity. Picking up her belongings, Morie looked at the quiet room. Nothing had changed since yesterday which was to be expected but it felt empty. Maybe it felt that way because the window was left a crack open so wind gently rustled the fabric blinds or maybe it was due to the lack of noise in the general area. But if Morie was honest to herself, she knew why it felt so lonely. Although not friends, she still valued Nishiki and knowing that he attacked her purposefully with the intent to kill, left her heart hollow. She left the room leaving her feelings behind in the locked room knowing that she had better things to do then wallow in her emotions.
She walked down the long hallway until she reached a set of doors that lead to a room full of machinery for the pharmaceutical students. Equipment ranged from microscopes that Morie had access to in her lab space but it also contained tablet presses and heart monitors. The storeroom itself was located in the very back past rows of pristine workbenches and shelving. Using the keys Nishiki gave her yesterday, Morie opened the door to the storeroom and grabbed out an empty blood bag, a few syringes, plastic pipes and an adapter to connect a needle to the plastic pipes then promptly wandered to the biology department.
Eventually she wandered to her lab space which was located in the furthest corner of the actual biology lab. Compared to the other workspaces hers was much bigger and contained a select number of special equipment which were given to her by her sponsors. Amongst the things given to her included a set of dissection tools made of quinque steel and a small fridge that sat under the metal bench which was used to store samples of kakuhou, splintered kagune and a few grams of samples taken from ghouls the CCG had disposed of.
Morie couldn't lie, the CCG were kind to her once upon a time but now they turned down her requests so she was running low on supplies which was why her first course of action after placing Shirozumi and her backpack down was fishing around for a needle she could use. Upon connecting it to the adapter, pipe and then blood bag, she felt around her left arm for a vein then stuck the needle in not caring for constricting her arm to help with the flow of blood. There would be time for that as she waited for results.
Using one of her feet, she dragged a small stool that was standing underneath the bench to sit on as her blood slowly begun filling the bag. She then sat on it after retrieving her notebook from her bag with her free arm. Flicking it to the bookmarked page, she gazed at her notes.
August 29th 1991: RC level- 201
July 18th 1996: RC level- 272
July 17th 2001: RC level- 404
September 9th 2004: RC level- 689
Even when she was younger, her RC levels were above average and were high enough that doctors considered her at risk of ROS just like her mother. Nothing came of it though. No strange tumours appeared neither did the nausea or pain associated with it. It was a conundrum that puzzled herself and her doctors which she had to visit yearly after she turned twelve. Because of her doctor's appointments, Morie had a record of her RC count over the years and it each year it increased to dangerous levels.
Last year, when she had to go through an RC gate, the alarm sounded that there was a ghoul on CCG property. She remembered as panic swept through the building as employees grabbed their weapons and civilians were evacuated. It was only when an investigator who recognised her from the academy saw her and called off the defence, that Morie was freed from the situation and taken immediately to a certified CCG doctor who took her samples. Since then she was given special papers from the doctor so that CCG officers could turn off the gates when she entered.
April 26th 2010: RC level- 1026
She skimmed through the other entries on her list then placed a pen inside the page to hold it open as she reached for a small machine no bigger than her palm and another needle. Morie poked the needle into the tip of one of her fingers and dropped a drip of blood onto the paper attached to the machine. After pressing a button, the machine flashed a number on the screen. Morie then sucked the blood off her finger before grabbing her pen and writing:
October 12th 2011: RC level- 1255
It was a wild increase from the previous years. Usually, it took around five years for her RC count to increase by 200.
She still had more she needed to do.
Grabbing a swab, she opened her mouth and wiped the inside of it. Once done she pulled out a slide and wiped the swab onto it transferring anything it picked up onto the slide and placed it under her microscope. She wouldn't be able to look at it right at that time due to one of her arms still being attached to the blood bag.
Morie waited a few more minutes before removing the needle from her arm and pressed firmly on the wound it created with a tissue until she was sure that blood wouldn't spill everywhere. The blood itself would need to be dried so Morie grabbed out a large metallic pan and let blood slowly drip into it from the bag. It would require at least a day before she could compress it into tablets for her mouse and to be honest, she really don't want to be using her blood to feed anything for extended periods of time.
Once done she removed her sunglasses, scooted over to the microscope and adjusted it to focus on the micro-organisms on the slide. Strange strands of squiggles made themselves clear as Morie adjusted the dials. These squiggles were enzymes Morie knew well. Earlier in her life she had dissected a tongue of a recently slaughtered ghoul and analysed parts of it under the same microscope. She looked at the tissue and structure in addition to the enzyme that ghouls produce which makes human food indigestible for them. Right now, right in front of her eye was that same enzyme but it was mixed in with the usual flecks of saliva cells, cheek cells and white blood cells. The ratio of the enzyme lower compared to that of the ghoul tongue she analysed making it possible for her to still eat human food. Morie hypothesised that the low amounts of it was the reason she couldn't taste any food.
Shirozumi squeaked angrily besides her, banging on the sturdy walls of the enclosure. Its white fur bristled before its eyes flashed red. Tiny yet sharp claws scratched creating a screeching sound like nails on a chalkboard.
"Yeah. Yeah," growled Morie, covering her ears. "Will you be quiet for A MINUTE!"
The noise was getting unbearable as the mouse frenzied and Morie couldn't take it anymore, not just because of the sound was irritating and hurt to listen to but because images of Kaneki flooded her head. His singular kakugan glinting in the alleyway as his figure pinned her down. Her experiment was just like him, staved.
Morie glanced down at her hand, opening and closing her palms, contemplating. With one more bag, Morie quickly opened the lid and dangled her right hand inside. She bit her lip expecting herself to scream out in pain as the mouse walked over and bit into the tips of her fingers. Blood tricked down leaving a splotch of red where her fingers hovered and a mouse whose oozed psychopathic murder.
Once the mouse had its fill Morie was left there panting, huffing to avoid her mind drifting to the slick sensation of blood and pain. Grabbing a fistful of paper towel, Morie lifted her hand out of the cage and pressed the paper against the wounds. More pain accompanied her with that action and Morie met it by continuing to heavily breathe.
When she lifted the paper off her hand to check the injuries, her eyes bulged slight of stings stitching themselves together around the white of her exposed distal phalanges. Red still oozed from the tips but was slowly halting before her eyes until her fingers had completely mended. All that was left was the blood that had leaked.
"Holy crap," she laughed as she hunched her form over the workbench. She creeped her hands closer to her face until they gripped her face. Eyes watery, she held them there giving a wonky smile.
So, this is what happened to you, wasn't it Mother?
Author's Note:
Distal phalanges: This is the name of the group of bones that make up the tips of fingers and toes. As you can probably gather each person has twenty of these small bones, one on each finger, thumb and toe.
In the future you will probably see more bone definitions as I will be covering events leading up to a certain famous scene in the manga. :D