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Gregory House, despite being in the middle of what was essentially a battleground, still provided any luxuries that it could reasonably afford to its guests. The banged up wooden frames and ratty cushions better than nothing, and the well used building and furniture were a semi-welcome view every time the poor zombie who reincarnated there crawled back up from the floor out of their abandoned grave. It had been countless times attempting to claw and bash their way through the hordes of colourful characters that called the place their home, and while the other zombies were the least of their worries during each time out, they still never managed to make it that far before succumbing to the onslaught and their injuries.
‘How do zombies even get injured? Clearly it’s possible, but one would think that being a dead body meant not feeling any pain. But pain was different than injury, that fact was also true.’ They thought this to themselves countless more times, every now and again as they re-awoke under the floorboards of the hotel. It was getting troublesome, but nothing could be done about that without taking care of that rose outside. They looked out the window of the building, seeing the plant from there. It would be a task, that was for sure.
“You’re back again my friend! How many times has it been now?” Gregory greeted them back in the same mischievous tone that he said everything else in.
The zombie’s head tilted to the side, their eyes falling to the side with it. “You don’t know? Hee hee hee…time travels differently here than you might be used to, but death is all the same.” The zombie couldn’t help but roll their eyes, a groan escaping them in response to Gregory’s odd statements.
“I know that this isn’t the most fun for you, not liking fighting and all, but without your help Home might be done for! So please keep trying! You do seem to be remembering things along the way too, don’t you want to continue learning about who you were?” Despite the words sounding more genuine, Gregory laughing to himself again afterwards did not comfort the peaceful zombie watching it. They nodded and Gregory seemed pleased with the answer, even if it meant nothing to how things had been going recently.
Turning away from the keeper of the hotel, the zombie instead made their way to the other, much more helpful mouse nearby. “Hey buddy! You want me to upgrade your Soul Taker for you? What’ll it be?” James greeted them before they offered the parts that they had been collecting the last few excursions outside of the hotel. The zombie thought for a moment, wondering what might be the most useful aspect to add to the technology embedded in their arm.
Eventually, they had decided to increase the fortitude, the strength, their health so to speak. “Right on! This shouldn’t take long.” A glint shone in James’ eyes as he looked over the pieces that had been handed to him, fresh from the battlefield. The little mouse pushed them towards the aforementioned furniture of the hotel. He exclaimed “Come on, you know how this goes by now!” before taking a seat himself and pointing towards both the spot next to him and the small table nearby.
Even after multiple upgrades the process of such a thing weirded out the zombie by quite a large margin. ‘Surely there was a better place to perform such things than in the lobby where the residents tended to gather?’ Though, none of them seemed to mind. In fact, some residents -mainly Dark Tailor- had treated it as a show and even provided James with better tools for the job.
Why he needed tools from the deranged person who wants to sew everything together would be a good question…if it hadn’t been answered before the zombie could even ask it the very first time. They didn’t feel like bringing it up during any subsequent upgrades either.
Sitting down in the spot next to James, they laid their arm containing the device onto the stubby wooden table. It was the only way they ever elected to touch the thing. The zombie looked away from it first, staring across the room at anything they could focus on. Without warning James started his work. He never gave warning.
A searing bubbling pain exploded the inside of their forearm, which once again ignited the question on why they could feel pain at all. The zombie tried not to pull away, as they had the first few times James had done work on the Soul Taker. Doing so would just make it worse. Their free hand grabbed at the cushions of the couch, and at their shirt for something to grip. They needed some kind of way to use the strength that the pain and at the moment irrational fear had given them without it getting in the way.
Was it an irrational fear? They knew James wouldn’t hurt them past what was needed to tinker with the device in their arm but on the other hand there was a kid with sharp objects poking and prodding them with an expression of glee.
They could feel the layers of whatever their body was made of, not quite flesh, not quite bone, being pulled away piece by piece. They were separated into which sides of the arm it was from, that didn’t make it any easier. Each removal flared up new pain as it was moved, the sounds of crunching were unavoidable. The final step of the first part came when the separated pieces of their arm were pinned down to the table to keep them out of the way of James’ access to the machine within. They were unsure exactly how the little kid had absolutely no problems doing this, but they had asked that to Gregory already and the older mouse just shook his head and didn’t elaborate.
Against the instinct to not look, they looked at their vivisected arm, now pinned to the table. It was like the machine was grafted onto their very essence, it being unclear where the Soul Taker stopped and where their internals started. Some of the structure was still organic inside, and that was the part that really made the zombie feel like vomiting, though it never happened and they were unsure if they even could. Still, it didn’t stop their free hand from flying up to cover their face each time. What little blood they did have inside their body seeped around the open wound, though not enough to leave outside of it more than a small collection of droplets. Somehow, it all felt cold. They wondered if the table even got cleaned after moments like this. There wasn’t much of a smell, but what was there was all blood. Some the ting of old congealed stuff equally rotting in its own right, and some fresh liquidy stuff. It was like they were filled with rust.
James was already tinkering away at the machine housed inside their arm. At least he made quick work of it, the process never normally took very long. “So buddy, I think there’s enough left over parts for me to work on something else after this upgrade to your health, want me to do that too?” The kid asked without looking up from the machine, his new tools stuck at odd angles to hold things in place for the time being. The zombie could feel it all in there.
“Buddy?” James asked again when the zombie didn’t respond. “What’s up?” This time James did look, and was met with an expression devoid of anything conscious. The zombie only stared motionless at the insides of their own arm. “Come on, I don’t know how you’re still so shocked about this stuff!” The mouse said, poking their face with a free hand. “You need this stuff if you want to get back out there and kick some butt! Another upgrade, yes or no?” After a few more pokes, he earned a half-hearted nod from the zombie, which was enough of an okay for him.
There was no possible way for one to truly ever get completely used to seeing their insides being out in the open, even if it was a limb or something even smaller. Worse yet, this was taking some time, and for the first time ever during upgrades, they had started to feel a pounding, a throbbing, at the site of their cuts. How can their boy bleed and throb when they don’t have a working circulatory system? They were pretty sure they didn’t actually have a working heart in their chest. They wouldn’t have to think about these things if they had just stayed dead!
“There we go, all ready for ya!” James announced as he removed the tools from their arms and took the pins out of their flayed tissue. The mouse seamlessly slapped the chunks of their body back into place, placing the pins back into them to hold the sides together. Blood continued to seep down their arm from the seams of the cuts. They wiped it on the edge of their shirt.
“Oh don’t be so lame, it looks cool! Plus, you know it’ll heal the next time you come back.” The zombie nodded, but that didn’t change how grotesque they found the whole operation to be. James hopped off first, back to his spot next to Gregory’s desk, while the zombie stayed for a moment, experimentally flexing their fingers and wrist to make sure James didn’t sever anything important.
With a sigh and a hope that maybe this time it would be enough to lead them to victory, they got up from their seat, took a soul that they had resonated with from Gregory Mama’s record, and approached the door that led to the graveyard once more.