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" . . . experimentation with pure Mako . . . failure. Chaos Subject V's body . . . not responding to Mako treatments . . . overall consciousness scores low . . . continues to d-decay-"
Lucrecia's soft, delicate voice cracked.
Vincent opened his sandpaper eyelids, and she was standing to his right. Standing over him, looking down at him through tear-filled eyes and furrowed eyebrows. She clutched a tape recorder to her chest, her trembling hands clenched around it so tightly it looked like the only thing keeping her from breaking down.
He didn't know where he was. His head swam, equilibrium doing somersaults. The image of Lucrecia became two, swirling and spinning in front of his eyes, and the lingering pull of anesthesia threatened to close his lids once again. But he fought to hold on to consciousness.
Vincent reached for her, but his arm met resistance. He lifted his head to look down at his naked body, swaying with the feeling that the table he was laying on was pitching back and forth, taking him with it. A thick, tan leather strap ran across his shoulders, the buckle sitting on his sternum. Another cinched around his waist, and another ran across his thighs. Thick, padded cuffs encircled his wrists, restraining him to the cold slab that he lay on. His ankles were strapped down as well.
He was too weak to hold his head up any longer than that. He let it drop back against the table. A cold sweat from some distant pain he couldn't remember coated his body, plastering his hair to his forehead and the back of his neck and making him shiver. The air around him was cold as well, cutting straight through his bare skin.
"Lucrecia," he said, and it hissed airily through his dry throat and clenched, chattering teeth. She didn't respond. Didn't even react. He pulled against the straps until the leather groaned, hoping the sound would get her attention. Lucrecia closed her eyes instead, her breath hitching, lip quivering as her face crumpled.
"Tissue is becoming too necrotic to use. Total organ failure is . . . is imminent." She hiccuped once, curling tighter over the tape recorder, then she fell to her knees, elbows hitting the table on which he lay with a dull thud. The shudder ran up his spine, tearing his heart in two inside of his chest. She threw the recorder to the floor, burying her face in her hands. Her bangs fell, further obscuring his view of her.
She let out a loud, tearing sob, smothered by her palms.
"Oh, Vincent," she moaned, "I'm so sorry."
"Lucrecia!" he said, stronger as he remembered how to use his voice. He could barely move. He still jerked and twisted to his left and right as far as he could until the straps bit into his skin. It wasn't working. They were softly unforgiving, and Lucrecia wasn't looking. Wouldn't look. "Lucrecia, I'm not . . . Let me go. Please. Hojo's not here - you can let me go!"
Lucrecia's shoulders heaved again. She lowered her head into the crook of her elbow and put her other soft hand on his chest, forcing him to still. She was ice-cold, colder than the table, and it seemed to seep into his body and freeze his insides.
And then without warning, her touch turned to fire.
A loud pop echoed in his ears, making them ring. A flash blinded him. Hojo's bullet pierced into his chest, flesh tearing in slow motion beneath the sharp, spiraling metal, digging an inch at a time. He moved to clutch at the wound, to brace it, put pressure on it, but he was held down by the straps. Blood spattered from him with a wet squelch, peppering the sleeves of Lucrecia's crisp, pristine white lab coat and dashing across her hands, her face, gumming in her hair.
He sucked in a stunted, wet, convulsive breath, and screamed. The expulsion of air made his chest tighten, and sharp, residual pain punched through him. Each beat of his heart drove the bullet further down, grinding against the bones of his spine, and his blood throbbed in his ears. Black spots appeared in his vision, blurring Lucrecia's form, but before it could completely congeal and swallow him, under Lucrecia's hand, his skin began to change.
At the point where they made contact, a red mark emerged and spread rapidly across the rest of his body. His veins blackened, visibly spreading whatever poison she had infected him with. It curled around his shoulders, down his arms, down his stomach and legs, and it burned like acid, doubling the agony in his chest.
"Lu-Lucrecia!" he pleaded, begging that she would see him, that she would respond, that she would make it stop, but she continued to cry, seemingly unaware of what she was doing to him. He wanted to look away, but he was transfixed on the myriad of colors that began to splotch over his body. Fresh red turned into a pale, waxy white that morphed to sickly green and yellow. When parts of him began to turn black, his nerves ignited, the active decay withering away at each fiber in a violent pins-and-needles feeling that curled his hands into fists and forced him flat against the table even without the straps. His muscles contracted and spasmed outside of his control, pulling against the restraints, and he could only grit his teeth, the moans and cries that came from him completely involuntary. Unintelligible sounds that tore from his chest, his throat, until he tasted blood.
Parts of him sallowed and bubbled. Other parts of him withered and shrank, actively decaying before his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the images away, but the agony didn't stop.
Lucrecia's sobs came faster, the vowel opening up into a distinct, tall A. Her sniffling turning into wild, gasping inhales. The timbres of her voice deepened, but it stayed in that crazed upper register, wheezing underneath each punctuated sound.
She was laughing.
He opened his eyes again and saw white. Blinding white. He turned his head, and another figure was standing where Lucrecia had been a second ago. He wore black slacks, a white collared shirt, and a neatly folded tie underneath a white lab coat, and he leaned over Vincent, hands clasped behind his back. The surgical light above him reflected in the circular, wire-rim glasses, concealing the beady eyes behind them. But it didn't hide the wide smile that spread across his cheeks, splitting his skin beyond what was normal, stretching all the way to his ears and revealing pointed teeth. The man's black hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, the pieces that framed his face dangling forward and making him look disheveled despite the cleanness the rest of his appearance.
Hojo.
A chill spread down Vincent's spine. The cries that he hadn't been able to control a moment ago froze inside of him, his hands and feet going numb. His breath came faster into his ravaged chest, the bullet ripping at his insides, but he couldn't process the air. Terror made him break out into another sweat, his dead, decaying body trembling uncontrollably.
"N-no," he whispered, renewing his attempt at the restraints. "No, no, no, don't-"
He blinked, and suddenly Hojo was wearing a surgical mask, hiding that smile. But his cheeks were still bunched underneath, his eyes crinkling with sadistic delight. Hojo turned away from him, and the sound of metal clattering against metal rang in Vincent's ears. He couldn't move, paralyzed by his own fear and the restraints. He couldn't breathe. When Hojo reemerged, he had a scalpel in his latex-gloved hand. Vincent watched Hojo's hand crawl towards him, the sharp blade winking beneath the light.
He was about to be cut open.
He knew how badly it was going to hurt.
Hojo's hand blurred with motion too fast for his eyes. He jammed the tip of the scalpel down into Vincent's chest, then drew it smoothly down towards his stomach with the cold precision of years of careful practice. Muscle and sinew tore beneath the sharp point like butter, blood instantly welling up and pouring out the incision, tickling the sensitive skin on his sides.
Burning, searing pain erupted inside of him. Tears of agony and despair instantly welled up in his eyes, pouring down the sides of his face in thick tracks. He was forced to lie still and endure the agony. Mere seconds stretched into hours, the occasional attempt to get away forcing him to thrash ineffectually on the table. When Hojo finished cutting him open, he turned away again, coming back with forceps. He reached for the cut, peeling the raw flaps of skin back with his fingers, hand disappearing. He burrowed his way in inch by agonizing inch, destroying tissue and bone in his wake.
The forceps clamped around something with a soft tink! Hojo tugged it straight out, emerging with the bullet, holding it aloft like a prize. The black in his vision came back. Sound began to fade away from his ears, blurring like it did when he was in the Mako tanks. He sagged back against the table, sensation fading away, but Hojo must have seen the light dimming in his eyes. Hojo lightly slapped his cheek, the sound of latex punctuating each smack that jolted through him. He was jarred back to the world around him.
"No, no, no! Don't pass out on me, Mister Valentine!" he threatened with a delighted lilt, his whiny voice harsh and unpleasant.
A flash of white on Vincent's chest caught his eye. He looked down at his own body again to see ribs exposed, his wildly beating heart visible beneath. Revulsion twisted in his stomach. He lurched to the side and retched, but there was nothing to expel. Hojo's hand suddenly reached down again, his ribs crumbling and cracking like they were paper before his hand even touched them. Hojo's hand disappeared from view again, and then he felt his fingers wrap around his heart. He could feel his heart tapping rapidly against Hojo's hand until he squeezed, stopping it completely.
Hojo turned his face towards him, smiled past the limits of the surgical mask, and tugged.
Vincent's chest came with it, and he blinked again, no longer on an operating table. He was in a metal cage, curled up on the floor. Hojo stood outside the bars, that smile still on his face. He pointed to Vincent.
"Give him another dose."
Without warning his chest spasmed again. Something felt wrong inside of him, and he curled tighter around himself, wishing it would go away. His stomach rolled. His heart began to pound against his rib cage so forcefully that his entire body pulsed.
And then his jaw shattered. His bones were snapped violently to the side and down as his joints unhinged. Searing pain stabbed through his face and his neck, spreading up into his nose. His sinuses pulled, elongating into a beastly snout, gums aching as his teeth spread out to make room for sharper canines. Then his face knitted itself back together, cracking and popping until it settled. His temples throbbed as pieces of bone stabbed through his skin, curling into sharp horns that he could see the tips of if he strained his eyes.
The tendons in his hands and feet elongated, his short nails growing into inch-long claws as his fingers broke and healed and rebroke into their proper position. His shoulders popped, wrenched backwards and then forwards, and his body swelled. His muscles corded, strengthening far beyond his normal limits. The aches moved to his spine, and his back arched. Like his jaw, there were several horrifying cracks as his vertebrae separated, moved, and reformed.
He kicked pathetically at the floor. His sharp nails scraped along the metal. He tried to cry out, but all that came from him was a deep, animalistic growl that rumbled through his body.
"A genius!" came Hojo's high-pitched, tinny voice. "That's what I am!"
A violent, uncontrollable rage swelled inside of him, foreign and feral. Vincent crawled to his feet, all four of them. Hojo's voice coiled inside his mind, echoing over and over and over again. He lunged for him, claws outstretched and teeth bared to clamp around his neck. He collided with the bars.
Vincent snapped awake, hands colliding with the lid of his coffin.