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Cellbit is covered in blood. Genuinely covered, too. It’s clotted in his hair and slick against his skin and when he takes a step he feels it squelch up from the soles of his boots. He holds the taste of it between his teeth like he’s starving.
Halting gasps scrape out of the faceless worker at his feet. Cellbit looms over it, flicking blood off his knife. It paws weakly at the ground, trying to crawl away, but he kicks it onto its back with ease. It gurgles at him as he crouches over it.
Cellbit plunges his knife through the middle of its collarbone and tears down to the pelvis. The worker goes rigid, though that only makes it easier for Cellbit to dig his hands in and vivisect it. The wet ripping of flesh is like music, and he takes a moment to close his eyes and relish it.
Then it’s back to business. Cellbit fishes around in its chest cavity, locating the small intestine. He meets the place where the worker’s eyes would be and slowly unwinds the organ out of its stomach. It’s a shame they don’t scream, but he makes do.
The worker is still spasming beneath his touch, so Cellbit decides to put it out of its misery. He locates the lungs and wraps both hands around the organ, gradually pressuring it until its pulsations grow rapid and feather-light, before tapering off entirely.
Cold metal presses against the back of his head. Cellbit does not think, he moves. He ducks, darting towards where he left his knife on the floor. A gunshot leaves him deaf for a moment, but it misses and embeds itself in the opposing wall. He hears the slide being pulled back in slow motion, and Cellbit realizes the knife is too far away. Instead, he grabs his most recent victim’s mutilated intestine and spins behind his assaulter — a worker with one arm dangling from its socket by a few strips of flesh.
Cellbit presses a foot against its back while simultaneously wrapping his makeshift garrote around its neck. Then he kicks it, pulling back, and the momentum combined with Cellbit’s own strength causes the worker to immediately drop the gun to scrabble at its neck. Cellbit needs no further incentive — he releases the worker, picks up the gun, and blows its brains out point blank.
Brain matter splatters against his face. As much as he’s tempted to lick it off, any self-respecting cannibal understands the risks of prion disease. Besides, he has a veritable banquet to choose from. Bodies paint the white Federation floors red, all in various states of mutilation, depending on how much he was thinking about Richarylson while killing them.
He decides to keep it simple and goes with his freshest kill. Cellbit severs the last threads connecting the worker’s arm to its shoulder using his knife, then cuts a strip of flesh off the bicep.
The meat is near worthless, but the blood is sweeter than anything. The taste has him carving open this worker’s chest too, digging between the ribs until he feels its motionless but still-warm heart.
Cellbit uses all his strength to rip it out bare handed. He rises and lifts it over his head and squeezes.
He likes the way the blood chokes him as it goes down. That’s how he knows this will be the end of him, one way or another. Bagi was right, really. It was a suicide, dressed up like a genocide. But it’s all for the best. Better Cellbit — feral, psycho, cannibal Cellbit — than someone innocent. It’s the only redemption he’ll ever get.
When he’s done he tosses the empty organ aside. The Federation lobby is silent. There’s probably two or three dozen bodies scattered about, all unprepared and therefore easy prey. Cellbit sighs slowly, gently pressing the blade of his knife against his thumb. His indulgence has left him exhausted and spent, and he… he can’t go back like this.
So he just lays down, knife cradled to his chest. He watches blood seep sluggishly from severed heads and slit throats and countless impromptu amputations. He lays there, like just another lifeless body, and he sleeps.