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“Stick me,” Bryan rasped. His good arm was trembling as it rose, reaching out for the mortified scientist in front of him. Everyone else was dead though, so he supposed the fearful reaction he was receiving right now wasn’t unwarranted. But didn’t the man understand? If he got the cure, this would end. Just one prick. He wouldn’t even feel it.
Half of his body was a horrific mess of agony and gore and things he didn’t even know how to describe. Then again, he couldn’t if he tried. Half of his mind was fuzzy, and thoughts he couldn’t quite make out were weasling their way into his coherent ones. His brain couldn’t comprehend the amount of information it was receiving from the amount of limbs he now possessed, so they more so acted on their own. The maw in his stomach- chest? He couldn’t tell anymore- was only a vague feeling that was suppressed by the anguish going on everywhere else.
The scientist- Stanley?- kept backing away. Bryan’s thoughts were slipping and it made him spiral into a panic. The two clashing sides of his brain locked onto the target immediately as the ginger haired man staggered away from him. Bryan couldn’t tell if rage or desperation was starting to cloud his judgement.
Or was it already clouded? Perhaps it always had been. If his head was clear from the start, he would have never accepted that run. He would have told Michelle from the start he wanted to keep the baby. He would have gotten his shit together and he would have been there for his girlfriend and child. Was this some sick form of irony? There had to be something poetic about this, he thought.
Bryan charged at the scientist, stumbling with each step as the horror show that was his body evolved. There were so many limbs and so much gore and flesh he couldn’t even turn his head. That was fine. It would be gone soon when he got his hands- well, hand- on the syringe.
The metal doors closed on him and he couldn’t help but feel a rush of rage. That scientist just didn’t understand! One prick and this would all be done and over with! Bryan would go home and tell Michelle everything- god he missed her he missed her so much- maybe answer a few questions from the government or some confidential shit like that and that would all be possible because Stanley regained his senses and made his way towards the horrific monster chasing him. Was that so hard to do?
Sure, Bryan killed and ate his coworkers, but that was an accident. That was the weird tentacle thing protruding from…somewhere on him. Multiple somewheres, probably.
One of those tentacles ripped the heavy door open and Bryan would be impressed at his new, brute strength if he wasn’t so dead set on that serum. The scientist was running down the hallway now and Bryan pursued, strings of pleads and requests coming out of him repeatedly. It was although his brain had reduced his vocabulary to “stick” and “me” and “please,” because that was pretty much all he was saying. He would laugh about using the word please when his mouth is usually spilling out vulgar language, but he was kinda in a lot of pain right now and really just wanted to go home.
He almost didn’t see the glass that marked the end of the hallway.
The scientist cried out, skidding to a stop but Bryan couldn’t bring his mutated body to stop in time. Glass shattered beneath the two, and a tentacle reached out for Stanley because of course his own body was an asshole that hated when anything good happened to him. He caught the scientist with the wrong fucking hand. It wasn’t even a hand, actually. What the hell!? He was cursing the shit out of the tentacle in his head right then, and he distantly mourned the disconnection he was feeling with his mind and body. He really wanted to say “fuck” right now.
The man and the monster fell onto the skybridge. The ground beneath them cracked but didn’t crumble under the pressure.
The appendage tightened around the ginger haired man and he choked, arm with the syringe growing slack from no circulation. Shit shit shit- the arm- yeah- that guys arm was definitely being ripped off. He was definitely about to eat that guy. Would eating the syringe work? Bryan didn’t want to take the chance. Half of a working mind was slowly going down to a third. Most of his thoughts were just “hungry” and “angry” and “starving.” He felt like Groot with the amount of repetition going on in his head. It was pissing him off.
Despite the iteration of words going on mentally, he still managed to croak out one more thing to the scientist. To the only person left who could help him. Maybe the only real person left in the city. “Stick…” he hoarsely said, “…me..”
The mans arm rose. Bryan’s consciousness began to slip but by god would he rather die than to allow himself to succumb to this beast, especially now. His vision was growing spotty and the edges were fading into a red but he could still see the scientists expression of both horror and triumph as he gripped onto the needle. Bryans pupils- all of them, including the ones in his newer eyes- dilated and formed tunnel vision on the moving target. It took far too long and Bryan wanted nothing more than to scream out and shout to the man that he needed to hurry up before something sank into the bulging eye on the side of his head.
He didn’t think such a small thing could hurt, especially not now when he was already in so much pain, but apparently the human body was always testing its limits to how much the nerves could handle. His pain receptors flared and something sickeningly inhuman escaped his vocal cords. He could truly feel it then, the horrible thoughts and urges that disease gave him. He wanted to kill this man. He wanted to rip that arm off and consume every ounce of meat and blood he could from anything and everything in sight and he couldn’t even hate himself for it because such a feeling of complexity was lost to him in that moment.
The very concept of anything more than instinct was a distant memory as the serum kicked in. A blood curdling scream tore its way out of him as pain radiated through his grotesque body. He couldn’t tell where it started and ended because his whole everything was on fire. Things were falling apart around him, and he could vaguely make out limbs and pieces of flesh falling from the sky bridge. From him.
The man in his grasp began to slip and Bryan could feel the extra limbs he grew losing connection with his nerves and anatomy, completely disconnecting themselves from him. For a moment, he nearly wanted the odd limb back just so he could catch the now falling man, but he didn’t have any more energy left to feel awful about it. That guy was stupid anyways. For a scientist, he was certainly the dumbest person Bryan had ever met.
Stanley fell, howling with pain from his bent and broken arm and with horror as he realized no one would be there to catch him this time. Viscera and debris were crashing down with him, adding onto the load about to hit the ground.
Bryan looked down from the edge, standing on shaking knees like a baby deer walking for the first time. How do people walk again? He couldn’t remember in that moment. He couldn’t remember much of anything for a little bit. He collapsed down onto his knees and then slammed his cheek onto the stoney roof of the sky bridge. Bryan wasn’t sure how he felt now. Everyone was dead. But he wasn’t. Did he look okay? He could see Michelle now, right? See his kid? How long had it been? Certainly not just one night.
A maniacal laugh bubbled out of him. That’s silly, he thought. There was just no way all of that happened in just a few hours. He didn’t shoot a little girl. Or that lady. Or that other guy in the house. A dog definitely didn’t try to eat him demogorgan style, and surely those two umbrella or whatever the fuck people didn’t die. Maxinne was cool. He didn’t find half of her body in a garage and there was not fat guy in the sewers who exploded into a visceral scene of gore covered rats. None of that happened and it didn’t happen in one night.
Bryan shivered when something cold hit his face. Good, he could still feel that. Coldness. What was it, though? Rain? Was it raining? Raining people again? Was that just how the world was now? People rain would certainly be a hassle to avoid. He did it once and it definitely wasn’t enjoyable. 0/10. He wondered if that would make it onto top ten weather phenomena. The thought made him try to laugh, but he only managed a few shakes of his limp body. His stomach hurt. Maybe it was all the people he ate. Or that maw retracting.
Okay, he mused, time to get up.
His hands- he had two of those now- slowly curled up beneath him. He trembled with every movement, even breathing hurt, but he pushed up anyways. Did he still have his green bag? Hopefully he did. When he was finally sitting up on his knees, Bryan looked to his lower left as he panted. There was still some serum left. He sighed. The mayhem below the hospital tower wasn’t quiet at all, and now that he wasn’t losing his shit completely anymore, he could actually hear his surroundings properly. That mess wouldn’t fix itself. He looked at the nearly empty syringe.
Sorry, Michelle.
His fingers wrapped around the fragile glass of the needle.
I’ve got one more delivery I need to make.