Chapter Text
His half-submerged body makes an odd sizzling sound as the cascade of acid trickles to the awaiting pool over scales. The hum of machinery vibrates in the ground below its clawed feet.
The restraints are a nuisance, strung around his limbs in a vain attempt to assure themselves they have control over him. It's laughable and It oh so enjoys reminding them of their powerless attempts to stop him.
His brief respite from the acid lasts a measly second before they descend the metal stairs into the observatory. A march of ants is in sync with their toting of guns and the pathetic humans chitter their questions to receive the same answer he gave yesterday. Nothing.
Today, He senses a new presence amongst their ilk and growls in a warning. Is this another test of these foolish researchers?
The toxic sludge of chemicals drains down. The relief from his pain and breathing oxygen is minimized when the doctor comes in with the air of a queen in her castle. Shrewd studying her subject.
His mouth opens exposing white teeth and deadly points. It whips its tail at her. Lashing the strong glass, the room shakes with echoes of the hit. A lightning strike.
He gets immense pleasure from seeing a flash of fear on her face. She collects herself, scowling down at him in a pathetic attempt at intimidation.
"Old hag." Her paper-thin skin becomes red. She announced that they'd be conducting another test.
"We have a treat for you 682."
Humans and their half-pint theories. "Cooperation is expected." She sneers.
He stretches his neck, sloshing the acid. Ready for whatever they throw at him. Will it be the swordsman? The last time he'd seen that lapdog he put him in his place. The crier? they had torn each other to shreds, once done a pool of blood had risen. Or a new creature?
Either way, one of them will meet their end and it won't be him.
The door they stop at is big. Her nerves are tightly packed with tension and the buzz grows louder, warning her that what's inside will kill and eat her corpse. At the edge of a promise of brutal violence. The guards and doctors enjoyed recounting tales of the inhabitants of the facility.
She jumps when a loud smash shakes the building, and lights flicker. "What is it?" She whispered.
The guard on her left chuckles and tightens their hold. "You're going to find out."
In a flash, the door opens and she's tossed inside too fast to process. The door is shut when she lands on the wet concrete smelling strongly of chemicals that sting her skin.
Loud breathing is heard across her.
She scrambles up to face the cell's inhabitant. There's a dark pool of green sludge and a concrete ledge, other than that at first glance it is bare of inhabitants.
Dangerous. The Beatles in her throat trill. Run .
There is nowhere to go. The hanging light is low, one can hardly see, instead, she feels its presence in the murky water watching her, She feels like prey, She is prey.
How bizarre, this is what those boys felt when she chased them down, right? She asked herself. Head full of flies, each a racing thought, a ' should have.'
Should have watched the sun draw instead of sleeping in.
Should have made more of an effort to appear human.
Should have gone to the park as usual instead of following those human boys into the city. Into the alley crawling with maggots.
She trembles in place. Trying and failing to make out anything besides the dark shape of mass under the acid's surface. The cement ledge hitches up two inches as a minuscule warning. Painted with a small yellow stripe from wall to wall. She takes a step forward to peek into the depths, its murky form is still. The occasional small bubbles travel to the surface and soundlessly pop
In the observatory the researchers argue and look on in complacency, drinking out of steaming mugs, she pays them no mind, it's only her and the creature waiting underneath the surface to strike its prey.
She dares not to gaze away. Her poor beetles trill their warning once more, 'run please if you can run. It will eat us-'
A great splash of cold shoots up, and the accompanying roar bursts her eardrums, her answering scream is a high note drowned by the awful sound. She wipes the chemicals out of her eyes in frantic swipes. Tears sting her puffy eyes, and she cranes her head up and up at the looming monster.
The size of the creature dwarfs mind-boggling, from the vantage point of a speck It's all she can see, like the crowning of the sun over the earth.
Tiny, insignificant insect. A cockroach.
The scaled body and heavily armored snout that resembles an alligator's opens and the fair teeth display the ability to shred you to strips of meat. Uneven and jagged. It brays its hot breath upon her. The mouth is a flower pink, The thick hide and green scales are hard plates of bone, encasing it in spikes from head to long winding tail. Swishing angrily.
Claws sharp and soot-black already tearing the floor.
"Pest." It hisses. its gaze sears her trembling body where she stupidly stands like a calf waiting for slaughter.
She wonders, are her eyes as baleful? She'll get no sympathy from the butcher.
Why didn't the guards just shoot her again?
"Eliminate her." The intercom cut off. He doesn't need to be told
Before she had a chance to shriek he digs his teeth down to slippery marrow.
The fifth time she awakes she's ready to be smashed into mush once again. Healed and resting, tired after being revived and killed in a repeat cycle of tooth and nail, she cowers in a corner naked and afraid, expecting another bite.
The behemoth lays away from her, head on its frontal claw with an air of boredom about it, the one eye opens a sliver, peaking the fiery orange color that robbed her of common sense.
It focuses on her and she lets out a cry. "Please don't." The jaws, the teeth, the jaws, the teeth!
Her short nails clench at shaking shoulders, in an attempt to slow her panicked breathing. Dry blood under her nose flakes.
The heavy breathing coming from the reptile doesn't get closer, nor does the mouth in case her.
It is silent.
She dares to peek out between fingers and finds it still lying across from her, his eyes are closed. Is it asleep? She's scared to breathe, any noise can revert its attention to an eating frenzy. She spends the day locked in a hunched form, the aches from back pain are a reminder of being alive.
It's a creature of bespoken harshness, the matted black hair, coiling tail, and slitted eyes are a confounding mix of features. A huge malformed crocodile.
The staff throws a sack into the enclosure from a dropping point in the ceiling, wrapped in a brown paper bag and written in neat handwriting is her number.
Neither move. She can smell the food inside the sack and the responding grumble from her stomach has her flinching.
"Can I-?" She ventures carefully.
"Don't speak to me." His breath is pure ash and brimstone. The literal butterflies in her stomach take in this scent with relish. Where she expects them to lurch and crawl signaling danger like yesterday they seem… if not calmed then less anxious
Which is crazy. This thing has her limbs dissolving in its stomach,
'You must have permanent brain damage from being stomped to death by him.'
She takes his answer as a go-ahead. Inch by inch the bag comes within reach, slowly to not upset him the bag is in her grasp. She scurries back to her corner.
The burger sinks like a rock. There's a pile of clothes underneath that. She puts them on.
"You will kill me again." She asks another question and is surprised when it is answered.
"Yes." His rumbling voice states it as fact.
Face buried in her knees she whispered. Stating. "You hate me."
"How observant." It sneers. "Shut up or I'll turn you tintoa meat pile once again."
The researchers in the window watch in befuddlement as she 'survives' a day in its cell. Must have tired him out with all the reappearing after dying and little other stimuli.
The head doctor of this project, Morgan Lafayette, is eager to see how long it takes before the girl breaks and begs to be let out.
She had heard that the girl could heal endlessly from scratch and asked for the assignment. There are countless tests that a doctor can do with a subject that refuses to die.
There is always tomorrow.