He rises from the fog to a drone of monotone voices, the scratching of pens.
"Life signs stable," a woman says. "Blood toxicity within acceptable parameters."
A man answers. "S-cell assimilation meets expectations. Proceed with mako infusion, five hundred milligrams."
Heels clop on a wood floor and an old door squeaks open.
"Sir—he's in shock. He hasn't gained consciousness long enough to test for mental integrity."
"Unnecessary frittering," the man scoffs. "Mako will speed recovery in all aspects."
"And if there's an adverse reaction?"
A sharp laugh. "This one's no Zack Fair. If he fails to thrive, replace him. Five hundred milligrams, doctor."
"Yes, sir."
The walls ring with the closing of the door, that particular stagnancy of a sealed room.
"You can open your eyes," the woman says.
Green sparks flash again, and he squints at the blurry shape of a boarded-up window. It's a new room. Smaller, same wallpaper. There's only one bed. The other patient is gone.
"How…" His voice grinds over a dry throat. Something's pressed to his lips and tipped upward. Water.
"I have your brain activity on a monitor. Hojo should have noticed, but he's absorbed in his primary subject. Be grateful that isn't you."
She's a tall woman, with blonde hair cropped at her chin. Her glasses are a garish yellow plastic, the color of fireflies and caution tape. A beauty mark offsets her bowed lips, which seem caught in a perpetual frown.
"Hojo?" he rasps. The doctor doesn't answer. She puts her clipboard down on a side table and leans over him.
"Can you sit?"
Before he can answer, she pulls him upright. The bandages around his chest loosen, and it feels like his guts might spill out. The gauze is stiff, caked in dry blood. It unwinds, a bit at a time, to reveal a crater down the center of his chest. Staples and stitches hold the halves together like a child's craft project. He almost faints.
"Looks better today," the doctor hums.
"Should be smaller," he says.
There's no thought precipitating the statement, no memory to validate it. It comes out like a radio broadcast, like someone else speaking through him.
She nods, pouring clear liquid onto a gauze pad from a brown bottle. "The stab wound grazed your heart. An operation was necessary to stop the internal bleeding. You're looking at the entrance incision."
He'd ask more questions, but then she presses the gauze pad to the wound and scrubs. He blacks out from the pain.
There's no telling how long he's asleep, only that it's night when he wakes. The curtains are closed and the room is pitch black.
The pain is manageable, and the bandages feel thinner. It's quiet. Peaceful.
He dares a full breath and rejoices when there's only a dull ache. He's stiff and bedsore, but it's nothing like before.
He sucks in as much air as his lungs can hold, and feels like he's floating. It's euphoric just to be functioning, to be capable of organizing thoughts.
All told, there isn't much to sort through. He was injured, gravely. He was brought to… this place. There was another guy with him, someone important. He's not here anymore.
This fact, more than his injuries, upsets Subject C. What happened to the other guy? Where did they take him? His chest tightens at the thought, even though he can't recall anything about the man. He reaches, trying desperately to remember, but the green pain flares again, bigger than before. His hands come to cup his face.
Visions pass behind his eyes, too quick to comprehend. A mountain in winter. A girl with tennis rackets. Black hair, blue eyes. We're friends, right?
C sits up, too fast for his body. It seems to leave him behind, stumbling over the edge and leaving him in the sheets.
"Za—"
His knees crash into the wood floor and he's jerked back inside, his own weight suddenly foreign, the press of gravity suffocating. He crumples forward, just managing to catch himself before he breaks his chest back open. Something about the motion, the calamity of the fall, punches the rest of a lost name out of his lips.
"Zack."
Sunshine on his face, the first leaves of fall. He says it again and again, until he's shaking with it. Blue sky, greasy pizza, an arm over his shoulder that made him want to stand on his toes and—
He cranes his neck, needing light, an escape. There is a door on the other side of the room.
Arm over arm, he crawls until his fingers brush a baseboard. The tubes connecting him to the machines go taut. The doorknob is just above, just out of reach. He stretches and fumbles, but the old wood doesn't budge. It creeks like it wishes it could help, like it's just following orders.
He flicks a switch in his flailing, not really meaning to. The electric lights hum on. It's the same room as before; moth-eaten curtains, bookshelf, bed. The curved stone wall of a turret cuts strangely into one corner. He hurries to kill the lights before someone notices, but it's already too late. Footsteps hammer through the wall behind him in the hollow cadence of stairs.
Stairs. He's not on the ground floor. It's such a small thing, but it's something he didn't know before. He slumps forward, panting from exhaustion. No keys jangle before the door opens, no locks are thrown. There's just a pause and a small 'beep' before shiny black boots approach him.
His body hangs limp when the man lifts him and throws him back onto the bed. Firm hands manipulate his limbs, arranging sheets and tubes. He lets the deep voice pass over him, not fighting the press of something strange and stiff across his chest, and retreats into the security of his mind.
Good, puppet, the void whispers gently. Give me your sorrow.
He shivers, but it's too late. There's no will left in him to fight.
"Wakey-wakey, Subject C, it's time you began your treatment," a nasally, gleeful voice says.
It drags him into wakefulness like a fish in a net, eyes wide and gasping. Murky images cling to him, lingering wisps of his dreaming. Tendrils of soft magic had flowed around him, emitting strange orbs of light. Inhuman screams had rung out from them in a harrowing siren song, puncturing his psyche until he thought he might be the one screaming. It was like drowning, like a prolonged, undying death.
Now awake, cold sweat covers his body. He tries to wipe it from his face, but finds thick leather straps holding him down. A man hunches over him, olive skin and glaring spectacles dominating his angular, aged face. Greasy black bangs fall over his wrinkled forehead from a low tie, giving the impression of someone too busy to care about looks.
"Hojo," he surmises.
"Indeed. I heard one of my birdies tried to flee the nest." The man clicks his tongue and shakes his head in theatrical disapproval. "And after I authorized so many procedures to heal you. It's shameful. Such a lack of appreciation."
C spits in his face. It lands right on his gaunt, sallow cheek. Shrill laughter fills the space.
The old man pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes the wet smear away without a hint of distaste. He tips his head over his shoulder, and it's only then that C notices the female doctor from the other day.
"Note that Subject C is cogent, demonstrates powers of speech and reason, and a delightfully defiant attitude."
The woman in the corner doesn't look up from her clipboard, and dutifully takes notes. Though she'd been horrible in her own right, he feels vaguely betrayed. She at least treated him like a person, before.
Hojo gives him his back, shoving the kerchief in his pocket and dancing his fingers over a line of metal instruments on a tray. The gesture starts a tremble in C's fingers that quickly works its way up his arms and down his spine He covers it with a fierce frown and a strong voice.
"Where's Zack? Where have you taken him?"
Hojo picks up a tool, small and pointed. He holds it in the air and turns it around a few times, like he's inspecting it for scratches, before replacing it and selecting a wicked scalpel. Subject C's fingers curl around the straps.
"Hmm," Hojo taps the dull side of the knife against his lips. "My dear boy, I don't believe there's anyone by that name in this building. You must be mistaken."
"I know he's here. I feel him."
"Zack Fair is dead. His body was lost to the fire. No record of him exists within this facility."
"You're lying," he snarls. "Tell me where he is."
Hojo stills. The woman's pen stops on the clipboard. C's stomach turns to lead as the old man's smile drops. He tips his head just slightly towards him. The scalpel is still there, still hovering in the air like a pencil between long, deft fingers.
"What was that, Subject C?" Hojo turns, taking long strides to stand over him. "It sounded like you contradicted me, but I must be mistaken."
C's eyes follow the blade, the light of the window shining off of the edge with each step. Weight settles beside him, the mattress dipping as Hojo sits between his arm and waist. He gestures with his hand like he's forgotten there's a knife in it, like it wouldn't make any difference if he flicked his wrist the wrong way and it buried itself in skin.
He pats C's shoulder like a grandfather dispensing advice, which brings the scalpel an inch from Subject C's cheek.
"Because you see, if you ever did speak to me in such a rude manner, I would be forced to punish you," Hojo says. C swallows, trying not to move, not to give his hand any reason to slip. "But I'm an old man and my hearing isn't what it used to be. So I'm going to assume that I… misheard you. Does that sound agreeable?"
Rage builds up in C's chest at the tone, at the unspoken rule being imposed. His hands shake in the restraints. He nods.
"Good. I'm glad that we agree. This endeavor will be easier if we maintain a good working relationship, isn't that right?"
C looks away, only to have his head re-centered by the press of the scalpel to his other cheek. Hungry black eyes drill into him with a penetrating interest that chills his bones.
"Right," he says through clenched teeth.
That manic smile returns, as empty and cold as before. "Then I recommend you think very carefully before opening that smart mouth of yours."
As quickly as he came, the dominating shadow of Hojo retreats. His skin itches where the cold metal was, a suggestion of the cut that could have been. Revulsion wracks him, and he tries to steady his breathing, to calm the heartbeat that's rapidly become painful.
The doctor opens a compartment under the tray, a box with many buttons and a rubber seal around the lid. Cold smoke pours out, licking at his hands and arms as he reaches in and extracts a syringe of pulsing, glowing liquid.
The green ocean flickers over his vision. He sees the girl praying again, hears the disembodied wails from his dream. Mako.
The bag from last night is empty. Hojo replaces it, then empties the syringe into the IV tube.
"Bennet, note that Subject C appears stable and improving on five hundred milligrams of S-001.2 formula, administered daily. We will continue at this rate until S-cells replicate."
"Yes, Professor," Dr. Bennet says.
Hojo tosses the used syringe on the tray, and kicks the mako cooler shut. He wipes his hands with a towel.
A creeping, slithering sensation crawls up C's arm, tight and frigid. He can feel the mako move, can trace every inch that it climbs toward his elbow as it mixes with his blood. His muscles lock up, one by one as it spreads.
A thoughtful look crosses Hojo's face as he watches C kick and squirm. He pauses on his way to the door, and slips his hands into the pockets of his lab coat.
"Know… feel…" Hojo hums, nodding to himself. "That's what you said, you 'feel' him."
Subject C grunts, not wanting to answer, but it seems his silence is enough.
"Fascinating."