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A wave pulls away from the beach.
The water rears back, clouds of sand swirling in its midst, a tumbling vortex of abrasive grains suspended in life-giving fluid. Foam ripples across its surface as it retreats, wet sand sweeping away from the shore, following it, gradually revealing tiny treasures previously buried beneath the flow: shells, crabs, sand dollars, sticks, and bits of seaweed.
They blink the water from their eyes. The sun sears their backs, their sins laid bare before them on the sand, popping and crackling in the salty air. The ocean roars in the distance, threatening to swallow them again.
They wonder if it was better when they were buried.
He stumbled slightly as the pressure on his mind lifted, his consciousness filtering back into his body. Blindly, he groped around for something to support himself with, his weak legs threatening to give out. His finger brushed against something cold and cylindrical, and he immediately gripped it with shaking hands, hoping dimly that it was stable enough to hold him as he threw his entire body weight against it.
The last traces of the Frenzy gradually faded, his mind clearing. The numbness draping over his body like a blanket dissolved into a dull ache, the injuries he had accumulated throughout the night quickly making themselves known. The night’s chill seeped into his endoskeleton, a cold breeze buffeting against his body and sneaking through the various tears in his clothing. He shivered as the smell of smoke and dust drifted past him, accompanied by the distant wail of sirens and car alarms.
Jack. That was his name, wasn’t it?
Sometimes it was difficult to remember.
In fact, it was getting harder and harder to remember anything, really.
Once he woke up and couldn’t recall what Solar’s face looked like. He’d remembered orange and maroon, and nine triangles, but the face was completely blank in every memory he pulled up. He couldn’t remember his eye color, or the shape of his nose, or his brows furrowing, or the way he smiled. The realization made him feel like his stomach had been carved out.
He had cried.
Jack groaned and plunged a finger into his mouth, prodding at the new open socket where an artificial molar had been knocked out, then froze as the distinct taste of iron grazed his tongue. He pulled his hand out, suddenly noticing the rich layer of scarlet liquid covering both his arms.
He should have been startled. Horrified at the gore coating his casing.
Instead, he felt only a dull familiarity, a begrudging acceptance. He was far too used to the sight of blood by now.
Spitting out the small, meat-like chunk his finger had left in his mouth, Jack turned around and found an open door behind him, nestled comfortably in the wall of a brick building. Inside was what looked to be an apartment: a couch, lamp, and potted plant stood innocently in plain view.
Along with the shredded body of a young woman splayed across the floor.
Jack quickly looked away, trying to ignore the fact that the trail of blood led directly over to him. His slippery hands gripped the metal pole tighter, leaving dark, wet smears across its surface as he tried to steady his breathing, focusing on the other brick building across from him.
She most certainly hadn’t been his only kill that night. There were clearly bits of skin caught in his mechanical joints that didn’t match her complexion.
At least he wouldn’t have to remember the others.
Perhaps that was why Rez’s possession was more tolerable than the Creator’s: he could never recall what happened during it.
While the Creator simply manipulated the bodies of any individual with Dark Star Power in them, Rez only worked through his infection and could control not just the bodies, but the minds of his infected as well. The differences in execution led to wildly different effects, despite both methods involving Dark Star Power manipulation.
When the Creator took control of Jack, he was fully aware but powerless to do anything, thrown into the backseat while someone else snatched the wheel. The Creator could drag him around as if by strings, like a puppet (his heart panged slightly at the thought of his self-proclaimed “mother”—did she even think about him anymore, after she had switched dimensions? Would she try to help, if she knew what was happening to him?).
When Rez took control, however, he directly modified Jack’s mind, changing his thought processes and even temporarily editing his memories. He’d do anything Rez told him to, with an unwavering sense of loyalty and even some sort of forced internal worship of the worm-man. Everything else would dissolve, and the only thing that would matter was Rez, the one who had unshackled him from his affiliation to the weak and ascended him to the party of the strong, the one who knew the true comings and goings of the universe. His infected self brimmed with mindless joy and a distorted view of enlightenment.
It was a disgusting thing to think, but the infection twisting in his chest insisted upon it, reveling in the presence of its maker.
Rez could also speak through him at any time he wanted, completely possessing his body and temporarily making it his own. Several times, he’d been suddenly seized as Rez used him to relay orders to the Creator. He always hated the slithering sensation of Rez coming in and out, like he was a rotting corpse with maggots crawling around in him.
But by far, Rez’s most common method of control was his Frenzy. Through their telepathic link, he would call all the infected in a particular area to regroup and perform a particular task, usually a large-scale attack on a certain town or city. The infected would be forced into a kind of hive mind for maximum efficiency, unable to form any thoughts of their own as they were caught up in crazed excitement, filled with a sort of euphoria as they carried out whatever work they had been prescribed. When it was over, they’d slink back to their respective positions, remembering nothing but a rush of glee, violence, and swirling colors, drunk with dark energy.
It was easy to lose yourself in the Frenzy, to give up the person you had once been and embrace the thing that had taken your place. It was far more comfortable to just give up and let yourself drown, instead of struggling.
Sometimes, Jack wanted to give up.
He wanted to let it consume him, to sink down into the darkness and never have to think about it again.
He would be happier that way.
No more crying. No more guilt. No more longing for a life he couldn’t have.
But then he’d remember climbing the walls with Dazzle, or watching movies with Sun, or maybe even standing on the stairs below Solar, barely holding back tears as his dad shakily promised to get him back.
Maybe. . .
Maybe he could hold on a little longer.
Jack stared down at the pole in his hands, rusted metal flaking off in shreds like his very own mind. He was standing on the apartment’s rickety old fire escape, a couple of stories up. The iron grate creaked under his feet as he carefully shifted his weight back onto his legs, whimpering when a jolt of pain shot up his left one.
He’d clearly sustained a few injuries during the Frenzy; nothing major, it seemed. The Creator would repair him once he was called back. Having been exempt from the Frenzy (He’d said something about being too “advanced” to participate in such tomfoolery), the Creator wouldn’t know whether it was over or not until he tugged on his mental link with Jack to see if it was loose yet. After that he’d be smothered under the Creator’s control again until the next Frenzy.
That meant Jack now had anything between two minutes and an hour of free time, however long it took for the Creator to discover him.
Blinking the fuzziness from his eyes, Jack cast his gaze over the horizon despite knowing it wouldn’t give him any information. He’d long since lost the ability to distinguish between day and night. It was possibly the cruelest feature of the infection, designed specifically to break the spirits of those under its influence.
He couldn’t see the stars. Not even the sun was still visible.
The intended message was clear:
The Astrals have abandoned you. No comic entities are coming to your pathetic rescue. You’re on the other side now; you belong to us. They don’t care about you. They’d kill you without a second thought. You are merely collateral damage in their great scheme.
Instead, something else hung in the sky. Something ever present, always watching. Something incomprehensibly massive, millions of light years away, yet still bright enough to wash the eternal night in a distinctly purple glow.
Four pinpricks of light hovered in the northwestern sky, lined up in an arc.
They almost seemed like stars themselves, but then one of them would disappear for a moment, reappearing a few seconds later.
Blinking.
THE EYES OF CETUS ARE UPON YOU
They constantly hung over his head, witnessing every step he made. Every breath he took. Every murder he had committed. Nothing escaped their sight.
Jack tried not to look directly at them. There was something viscerally terrifying about making eye contact with the very embodiment of destruction, the personification of the heat death of the universe.
Eventually, there would be nothing left, and the only thing for Cetus to consume would be himself. This dimension would die with him.
He was being watched by the one who would someday be the only one, the last survivor of his own miserable campaign.
Shuffling along the staircase, Jack slowly made his way down to the alleyway below, the fire escape creaking unsteadily under his weight. In the distance, he could see several pillars of smoke twirling up into the sky and the silhouettes of a few ravaged, partially crumbled buildings. The distant sound of tentative birdsong suggested that it was nearing sunrise, so he’d probably been Frenzied for roughly twelve hours.
Jack stared down at the back of his hand, at the half-dried viscera coating his body. The stringy trail of some discarded organ still clung to his elbow like a thirsty leech.
He and the other infected had been slaughtering nonstop for twelve whole hours.
No wonder the city was so quiet.
Jack winced when his foot finally landed on the asphalt street instead of another metal stair, the rocky surface digging into his heels. The bottoms of his slippers had long since worn away, exposing the softer padding on the soles of his feet that typically absorbed the impact of running at Mach 2. Now the padding itself was beginning to disintegrate, and it was growing more painful by the day. He could feel his ankle joints beginning to grind as the damage worsened.
He didn’t want to ask the Creator for a repair, though. Doing so would risk the possibility of getting his entire lower body restructured to fit the Creator’s needs, and he really didn’t want his legs replaced. He already had enough attachments in his upper body; heck, if he twisted his torso too far, some of the new weapons along his spine would painfully dig into his casing from the inside. After that discovery, he tried to avoid new additions at all costs.
Stumbling dazedly down the alley, Jack’s tired eyes searched for a small crevice to curl up in, something preferably soft where he could catch a few minutes of sleep. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d taken so much as a nap; most of his time was spent either racking up a kill count the Creator could claim as his own, or assisting the Creator in whatever twisted project he was working on next.
He could, of course, decide to crash out on the dead woman’s couch—not like she was going to use it again, anyway—but that felt abhorrently disrespectful. She deserved to lay in peace for however long it took for her body to be discovered.
No, he’d much rather find a cardboard box or a blanket or something. He probably wouldn’t be sleeping for long anyway, so there was no point in trying to get comfortable. Anything was preferable over being on his feet constantly; for some reason, the Creator hated letting him sit down for any extended period of time.
That was probably why his back was hurting so much.
Jack groaned and reached back to rub at his lower spine despite knowing it wouldn’t do him any good, because (1) he was a robot and therefore massaging his sore parts wouldn’t do anything, and (2) he couldn’t even touch the parts that were hurting due to the metallic armor the Creator had installed along his body.
Though, now that he was thinking about it, he wasn’t sure he could reach the ache even if the armor was removed. It felt. . . deeper, somehow, like it was coming from his endoskeleton rather than the supports closer to his casing like it normally would. . .
Then suddenly, something snapped.
Jack shrieked as pure agony instantly flooded his body, stumbling back from the sheer force of it. He felt like someone had just plunged a large corkscrew into his back and was twisting it, forcing it deeper and deeper and deeper.
He whirled around, nearly falling over in the process, expecting to find a vengeful survivor of the slaughter or maybe even one of those gremlin things with a sick sense of humor—but found nothing. No one was there.
The pain was coming from him and him only.
It traveled in pulsing bursts from between his shoulders, down his whole back, and into the rest of his body like a repeating electric shock. His neck and arms burned, and his legs and feet suddenly ached three times worse than before.
Jack cried out, arching backwards while reaching over his head to scrabble at his upper back, then abruptly hunching over and gripping his sides in an odd self-hugging position, digging his fingers into his casing.
What was this? Where did it come from? Why was it happening? Was it some sort of punishment for all the atrocities he’d committed?
Why did it hurt so much?
His breaths came out short and quick, little gasps frequently interrupted by pained choking. His oil pump stuttered with the speed at which it was racing, sending bursts of barely warmed fluid through his lubrication system like ice in his veins. Trembling violently, he craned his neck around to get a look at whatever injury must have been inflicted on him
Again, there was nothing. No visible injury revealed itself. The armor along his back was as smooth and perfect as it had been when the Creator installed it.
There was no problem to identify.
He had no idea what was happening to him.
Jack dug his fingertips into the area right below his eyes and slowly pulled down, his mouth hanging open in a silent scream. That weird black goo that always seemed to be coming out of him poured down his cheeks like thick, globby tears and fell from his chin in long strands that landed with little plops on the asphalt below.
Stop.
Please.
Make it stop.
A loud ringing noise gradually overtook his auditory sensors, drowning out everything else. His vision swam, colors and shapes blending together until the figure of the alleyway was completely lost. The ground seemed to shift underneath him, undulating like the waves of pain wracking his body. He could barely even tell where he was anymore.
Then it got worse.
He felt something. . . twist inside him, like a parasitic worm stretching itself across his chest cavity. He whimpered at the sensation, shakily tracing its path with a finger along the front of his casing as it. . . wrapped around his endoskeleton.
He was only able to let out a little cry of horror before he felt it pierce his spine, like a dozen tiny needles were being pushed up into his spinal cord. He couldn’t stand it anymore, literally; his legs buckled underneath him as he crumpled to the ground with a strangled scream, his knees cracking against the asphalt.
With a growing sense of terror, Jack realized that the thing inside of him was beginning to spread along his spine, growing heavier and heavier. . .
It was getting bigger.
Whatever it was, it quickly wrapped around his internals and began squeezing, constricting around his normal body parts and drowning them in its own girth like a snake trapped under his casing. A wail escaped from his lips as he slid from his hands and knees down to his stomach, splayed across the ground like one of his own victims.
Dirt and shards of rock dug into his cheek, scraping off little bits of his paint. Agony forked across his body like lightning as he curled his shaking hand into a fist and pounded it against the ground, biting back another scream.
“Please. . .” He whined, his voice wavering, too quiet for anyone to hear. “Please. . . help me.”
A wave of static washed over his vision as the thing inside him swelled, pressing against the inside of his casing and shoving his endo closer to his front. He felt the supports in his shoulders slowly being forced apart, the joints nearly dislocating as the thing moved to take their places. It felt big and tight and awful. He hated it. He hated it so much.
Sobbing uselessly into the ground, Jack’s knives sprang out of his fingers as he dragged them along the asphalt, stone shrieking against metal as the sharp points left silver streaks across the darker concrete. He was aware that he was muttering something, speaking dazedly as though there was someone around to talk to, but he couldn’t even make out his own words over the pain.
He wished there was someone there with him.
He’d even take the Creator, at this point.
Just please, please
don’t leave him alone.
It took a few minutes for him to realize he was screaming for his dad.
But no one responded to his cries.
The thing inside him continued to grow, filling every empty space in his body it could find. It seemed to be primarily concentrated in his back, though he could feel little bits of it beginning to wrap around his sides. His metallic casing creaked with the strain of holding it in, his spine bending painfully to make room for it. A ragged scream tore from his mouth as he felt the exoskeleton around his shoulders stretch; one of the armored plates on his back slid to the ground, the bolts holding it in place popping out from the force.
Whatever it was, it clearly wanted out.
And at this point, Jack was willing to do anything to get the pain to stop.
Stretching out an arm, he released the valves on his internal adaptium tanks, allowing the liquid to flow down to his hand. It felt cold and tingly; he usually avoided using it due to the discomfort it caused, but it was nothing compared to the stabbing agony in his back.
On most occasions, the adaptium would form into a weapon, but this time he manipulated its shape into a sort of wedge, like a large, sharp flathead screwdriver. Turning the tool over in his shaking hand, he maneuvered it over to his back and shoved the tip underneath one of the armor panels, wiggling it through the space between the bolts, then began to painstakingly pry it off, using as much force as his weak arms could manage.
Doing maintenance on yourself from behind your back was difficult enough, let alone doing it while in massive amounts of pain, but Jack was too desperate to think about the logistics of it. He moved from one panel to the next, nearly twisting his arms out of socket as he repeatedly forced the screwdriver between the armor and his body, choking and writhing silently all the while. Every time he popped one off, the thing inside him pressed outwards on his body even harder, causing his original casing to swell out like a boil.
Once the last panel came off, Jack retracted the adaptium and took a thirty-second break, panting heavily. He really didn’t want to do this next part, but it seemed that the thing couldn’t (or was unwilling to) exit his body on its own.
He’d have to cut it out.
Jack’s knives slid tentatively out of his fingers, as if unwilling to perform this next step. He stared at them through static-laced optics, dismissing the pop-up in his HUD that somehow sensed his thought process and begged him to desist. He didn’t know Solar had created him with anti-self-harm programs.
Reaching over his head, he positioned the tips of his dagger fingers against the apex of his back’s curve, placing the thumb of his other hand in his mouth so he’d have something to bite down on. Taking deep breaths, he desperately tried to steady his trembling hands.
One, two, three—
Jack dug his knives into his own casing, shoving down until the blades managed to break the surface. More pain stabbed through his body, and he nearly withdrew, but instead he clamped his jaws around his thumb with a muffled shriek and kept going.
Slowly, he dragged the knives along his back, leaving deep lacerations in his body. The thing inside him trembled as if in anticipation, eagerly pressing against the wounds from within. Oil poured down his sides and neck, pooling around him and making his cutting hand slippery, but he ignored it.
Having finished the first cut, he moved to a different angle and sliced again. He didn’t care how messy the wound was; he just wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. He felt his thumb joints snap from the force of his bite, oil filling his mouth as well. His screams transitioned into gurgles as his own lifeblood poured down his throat; he choked back a twinge of nausea.
Jack kept cutting, shearing off shreds of metal from his own back. The work grew more and more difficult as time went on; his knife fingers weren’t made to cut through metal, and they were growing duller with every slice. As he readied for another incision, his knuckle brushed against something sticking through one of his wounds. The only thing he registered was that it was weirdly wet before he yanked his hand away, whimpering slightly.
He paused for a moment to question what the actual hell was coming out of him, but another spasm of pain wracked his body and he stabbed himself again, reminded of his current task. His cuts grew more frantic, transitioning into frantic clawing over his shoulders. His thumb left his mouth as his other hand joined the first in its terrible work.
He wanted it to stop. He wanted it to be over right now.
Jack reared back on his knees, gaping at the starless sky as he reached both hands behind his back, dug his claws into the gashes along his spine, and pulled outwards with a final scream towards the heavens. Metal shrieked and snapped as it was rent from his body, pain sensors blaring before abruptly being disconnected. He felt the cold night air hit his warm internals as his inner parts were gradually exposed, the layer that constituted as his “skin” peeling away, a waterfall of oil spilling down his body. Then, once there was enough room—
Something erupted from his back.
He felt it—no, them; there were two—flare out behind him, before abruptly going limp and flopping down on either side of him. He dropped with them, their weight pulling him back down to the ground. He was too exhausted to even attempt to break his fall with his hands, his face grinding into the asphalt again.
The next few minutes were mostly a blur to him. The unbearable agony gradually transitioned into a sharp ache that throbbed across his back and shoulders. His panting softened to shaky breathing; his fingers throbbed with the strain of pulling his own torso apart, especially the thumb. His vision swam, the ringing in his ears gradually fading.
Awareness came back to him in little waves. He was lying on his stomach again, his head pillowed on the concrete and his arms laying out in front of him. Bits of road grit were plastered to the side of his cheek and most of his body, glued on by his own half-dried oil. He was unable to retract his dagger fingers; many of them were bent into odd positions that couldn’t fit back into their respective slots.
Worst of all, he still felt the things attached to him; their massive weight kept him pressed to the ground like an insect pinned down in a display case. The vast majority of their mass was concentrated outside his body now, but he could still feel bits of them plunging down into his internals like they didn’t want to let go.
Slowly, Jack turned his head to one side to get a look at one of the things, subconsciously fearing what he may see.
He was greeted by something large and dark and wet sprawled across the asphalt next to him, glinting slightly in the light of Cetus’ eyes. Its surface shimmered with his own oil, globs of it dripping off its ends. Dark veins spiderwebbed across thin membranes, pulsing slightly; little spikes protruded from parts of it, particularly the areas closer to his shoulders and along the front edge. He quickly realized that what he was seeing was not spikes; it was wet fluff sticking up in tufts. A finger-like appendage extended from one of its corners, a long, wickedly sharp claw protruding from its tip.
It was a wing.
And it was attached to him.
Tentatively, Jack reached out one of his hands, still sticky with oil, and poked the top of the wing.
Instantly, a horrible sensation fluttered through him, from the wing to his back all the way down to the tiny stabilizers on the ends of his feet. He could feel it, like it was connected to his sensory systems. Like it was a part of him.
Jack stared at—at the—the thing attached to his body, hanging on by its stupid stringy organic threads embedded in his endoskeleton. It sat there plainly, daring him to accept its presence.
“Stop.” He whispered, a renewed surge of panic careening through his systems. “ Stop it.”
He shuddered, and with an odd burning sensation the shudder traveled to the wings as well; they vibrated against the ground, trembling as if in mockery of his distress. He hated it. He hated it hated it hated it hated it hated it—
“I’m done!” He cried, kicking uselessly at the ground; the wings shifted with his movement, pulling and tugging at his internals as if threatening to take them out. “I’ve had enough! I’m done now!”
He wanted to wake up. He wanted to wake up from this living nightmare and run to his father’s room and climb into bed next to him. He wanted someone to hold him and whisper reassurances into his ear and hug the pain away.
Was it ever real? His life before? His fading memories of the past offered no confirmation of its existence. Was it all just a fantasy he’d made up and convinced himself of? The distant dreams of a war-hardened soldier wishing for something more?
Was this what real life was? Pain and suffering, murder and war? Why would Solar bring him into a world like this? Was the very state of living a curse?
“I wanna—” Jack choked, planting his palms on the ground and pushing himself up to stare at the sky, the connection points fastening the wings to his back yanking painfully at his endo. “I wanna go home.”
New tears spilled from his eyes as he silently begged that whatever might be listening to him in that moment might take mercy upon him. “I want to go home! Please, please, please, please, please—”
His muttering gradually grew into desperate screams that echoed through the walls of the alleyway. “Please, just take me home!” He howled to the powers that be, writhing in place, the distant ache in his body sparking back into a roaring fire as his open wounds were twisted with his erratic movements. “I’ve had enough! I don’t want to do this anymore! I hate this!”
A fading part of his mind that still possibly held some semblance of self-awareness scolded him for throwing a tantrum like this, but he barely listened.
Jack twisted around and grabbed a wing in both hands. Its slick, fleshy surface slid between his fingers, stiff, hair-like bristles prickling at his palms. He hated that he could feel the touch in all three appendages, metal and pseudo-organic material clashing together.
Gripping at the long webbed fingers that constructed the wing, Jack yanked hard, desperately trying to dislodge it from his body. He felt its awful cords sliding around his chest and shoulders and tightening painfully when he jerked the wing. They were invaders in his body; false flight muscles wrapped across his endoskeleton to anchor the intruders to his back. He could feel them pressing at his air ducts, his ventilation system, his oil lines. . .
Would he have to cut the rest of his torso open, too? How much mutilation would it take to alleviate this discomfort, this blaring agony?
Trembling, Jack positioned one of his knives against the “shoulder” of the wing, stretching out the limb with his other arm and preparing to saw through it, all the way down to the bone (or whatever material it was made of) if he had to. He wanted it off and gone and away from him right now—
He. . . he. . .
He couldn’t do it.
The wing slowly slid from Jack’s grasp and flopped back down onto the ground as sobs began to wrack his body again. He didn’t want to do it again; he didn’t want to claw off another part of himself. He didn’t want it to hurt anymore. He was afraid of the pain.
He was a coward.
“I wanna go home.” He wept, burying his face in his oil-soaked hands, his twisted knives prickling at his forehead. “I just wanna go home. . .”
“Brother.”
Jack’s head shot up at the voice, clearly displaying his tear-streaked face. An odd, lopsided creature sat beside him on the ground among the puddles of oil and shreds of metal. Purple veins of infection pulsed beneath its thin skin; abnormally long legs were pressed to its chest as it rested its chin on its knobbly knees. It might have been an opossum once, before it was infected.
Its head tilted slightly to one side, whiskers twitching as it studied him. Bottomless black eyes gazed deep into his soul.
“You have received a gift.”
Jack sniffled, inching warily away from the infected creature, one of his brothers and sisters in the Frenzy. “What?”
Something brushed against hi—the wing on his other side, and he whirled around to see something like a heron stroking it reverently with the back of a claw.
“Cetus smiles upon you.” It gurgled, its beak twisting into an unnatural smile.
A wave of cold dread washed over him at the mention of the name. His optics flicked up to the dots in the sky for a moment before plunging back to the asphalt beneath him.
Cetus. The one whom the Dark Astrals praised. The ultimate authority on this side of the galactic war. The one who’d sent Rez and Kerian to Earth (the planet) to convert Lunar.
He didn’t want anything to do with Cetus.
“Your kill count last night must have been impressive.” Purred a gremlin-creature as it approached, knuckles clicking against the concrete. “He sees all, you know.”
“A generous master.” Hummed the opossum as it paused to groom itself, running its hands over its face. “He gives freely to his loyal servants across the galaxy. Rez himself has told me.”
“‘Gives’?” Jack echoed, nervously hugging himself as several more infected creatures spilled into the alleyway, apparently intrigued by the situation.
“Yes!” Squeaked the heron. “He rewards those who please him. And you have received such a reward.” The heron’s own feathery wing ghosted over Jack’s; a shudder traveled up his spine at the sensation.
“Our sister in the northern town was blessed last week.” Called a voice from the growing crowd. A chorus of delighted whispers followed it, tiny confirmations and excited questions. “They say she cleansed the whole neighborhood single-handedly. Her wings are even larger than yours.”
By “cleansed”, they meant “slaughtered”. But no one ever bothered to question Rez’s word choices.
“And to think, Cetus is still giving at this very moment, all across the universe!” The heron spread its wings, gazing up at the starless, hopeless sky. “Eternally kind. His power knows no end.”
“Hail, Cetus!” Shrieked one of the gremlin things, throwing its hands towards the sky. It was instantly answered by cheers and whoops from the other infected, echoing its exclamation.
“Hail! Hail!” They chanted, slamming their fists into the ground and flapping their wings as they collectively fell into some sort of feverish fervor, caught up in their praise for their master, whom none of them had actually met. Jack curled into himself, clutching his head with his hands and trying to block his auditory sensors so the infection in his own chest wouldn’t force him to join them.
A few stray tears squeezed their ways out of his eyes as the reveling went on around him. Occasionally, one of the infected would crawl up to him to marvel at the wings, poking or stroking or even licking them, to Jack’s disgust. He felt like a museum exhibit, like a monument to some other cause: seen for what his appearance represented, never for what he actually was.
How could these. . . things be considered a gift? They were nothing like the fluttery little wingies he possessed while in his Chao form; these were big and fleshy and way, way too heavy, like massive weights on either side of him. They still ached, sending little bursts of pain down into his internals where their bases were fastened.
Was it really a gift, or was it just another way for the infection to say you are mine? That he no longer belonged to himself, that his own body and mind were merely toys for the Dark Astrals to play around with? Was he just their little doll to dress up pretty, drag around, and then dump into the garbage?
The slight decrease in the crowd’s noise was the only warning he got before a force like a vice grip seized his body, freezing him in place. A barely audible whimper escaped his lips as the awfully familiar sensation crawled over his casing.
“Now, what’s all this ruckus about?” Mused a buzzing, slightly accented voice from the opening of the alleyway.
The crowd suddenly parted jerkily, as if tugged out of the way by invisible strings as the Creator stepped through, metallic footsteps clanking against the asphalt. The fluid surrounding his brain sloshed around in its glass dome as he moved, antennae twitching, closer to Jack with a practiced grace that seemed unfitting for a being of his size and shape. Folding his arms behind his back, the Creator bent over Jack and studied his trembling form, a singular eye wandering over the oil and metal scattered across the street.
“You’ve made quite a mess of yourself, my boy.” The Creator chuckled, somehow finding humor in Jack’s sorry state. “Didn’t think you would ever be one to receive a gift.”
Jack did not answer, keeping his eyes trained on the ground. He’d learned very quickly not to speak to the Creator without being ordered to.
Straightening back to his full height, the Creator nudged one of the metal panels littering the street with the tip of his foot, his eye narrowing. “Now, look what you’ve done; you’ve ruined all the lovely armor I custom-made for you. Don’t you remember how long that took to install?”
He hadn’t even wanted that armor.
“I. . . apologize, Father.” Jack forced out, voicebox warbling with the lingering pain of the wings’ appearance. “Please forgive me for my insolence.”
There was no point in trying to explain the situation; it was better to just accept his punishment and move on.
The Creator made a movement as if he were going to tap his chin, but since he didn’t have a chin he just ended up poking his chest weirdly. “You’re going to have to make it up to me, Jack. I put a lot of effort into that upgrade just to have it ripped apart.”
“I will do whatever it takes to regain your favor.” Jack droned quietly, bracing himself for the inevitable seizure of his bodily autonomy.
The Creator barked a laugh. “As if you ever had it.” He muttered under his breath, before abruptly snapping his fingers. “Get up. There’s no use wallowing about in the muck.”
The fact that Jack was forced to obey didn’t make the action any easier. Planting his palms on the ground, Jack shifted into a half-kneeling position, wincing at the lingering ache in his limbs, and tried to push himself to his feet. He struggled for a few minutes, weighed down by his new wings yanking at his internals, but eventually managed to straighten his back and face the Creator in his default standby position.
Oh gosh, it hurt. Everything hurt. His back screamed with agony, the massive, gaping wound stinging in the night air. He felt sore all over, like someone had removed his endo, bent it, and then shoved it back inside him. His wings hung limply at his sides like wet towels, still threatening to drag him down.
“Well?” The Creator huffed. “What are you waiting for?” He gestured impatiently at the slabs of thin flesh clinging to Jack’s back. “Show us your wingspan.”
Panic stabbed at Jack’s chest; he hadn’t even tried to move the wings yet, much less spread them. He wasn’t even sure if his new flight muscles could lift the things.
It wasn’t like he could argue with it, though. Jack gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, and pushed hard, slowly shoving the wings upwards. Artificial muscle fibers trembled with the strain of bearing weight for the first time since their development; pain shot through the entire length of the wings as they slowly unfurled—Jack quickly realized they were even bigger than what he had initially thought as they stretched further and further, veiny membranes pulling at bony fingers. Finally, the joints seemed to fully extend, and he was left shivering before the Creator’s judgemental eye, wings fully extended.
“Thinner than I thought they would be.” The Creator observed as he stepped closer, reaching out to grip the edge of a wing with one hand. Without any hesitation, he began pinching parts of the membrane, testing their thickness, then pulling and twisting the flappy skin for its elasticity, running his fingers over the wet, faintly fuzzy surface. Jack winced; each touch, whether it had pressure behind it or not, felt like a staple had just been clicked into the wing: sudden, startling, and painful.
“Fascinating.” The Creator murmured, bending the wing’s joints to see how they worked. “Organic matter generated from pure Dark Star power, fully integrated into your systems.” He abruptly let go of the wing; it fell back to the ground, quickly joined by its twin. “I’ll have to take samples and run some tests back at the lab. And we’ll have to replace your lovely armor, of course.”
Jack bit back a whimper. He didn’t want to go through more tests; he was exhausted as is! And his wings already hurt terribly; he didn’t need the Creator’s scalpel slicing off bits of them or nicking their veins to study at a microscopic level.
He didn’t have a choice, though. He just hoped the armor installation would be bearable, at least.
“The full dissection will have to wait until you inevitably expire.” The Creator explained to no one in particular, turning to leave the alley. “I don’t think Rez would approve of me slicing off one of Cetus’s gifts while the recipient is alive and can still use them.”
The small crowd of infected murmured in agreement, moving back out of the way as the Creator began strolling down the alley, gesturing for his charge to follow.
“Come now, Jack.” He called, chuckling slightly. “No time to waste. We have lots of lab work to do.”
He was so tired.
Jack lifted one foot and took a shaky, cautious step forward. It took far more effort than it should have. Grimacing, he kept going, stumbling along behind the Creator like a fawn on its new legs. The wings completely threw his balance off; he was not used to the extra weight, and the fact that he could barely lift the trailing limbs did not help. They dragged behind him like useless flaps of skin, their soft edges scraping against the rough concrete.
He hurt all over.
“‘Jack’.” The Creator hummed thoughtfully. His tone suggested that he would have been smirking if he had possessed a mouth. “Considering the rate at which your appearance is changing, that name might not fit you anymore. Perhaps we should get you a new one. How do you feel about being a little Sven?”
Jack tried not to gag at the thought of taking the Creator’s old name. The core of the statement still ate at him, however. Considering how quickly bits of his original body were being replaced with the Creator’s “upgrades”, and whatever was going on with these “gifts”, it was entirely possible that he’d end up unrecognizable to his former self.
Perhaps, someday when Lunar was an Astral warrior, they’d meet in battle and Lunar would kill him without a second thought, unable to identify him. Or maybe Solar would give up his search mission once he couldn’t find anything that looked like him anymore. Maybe his family would one day look at him and see a monster instead of their little boy. Or did they already think that?
Maybe he’d become just another nameless abomination padding the Dark Astrals' army, a faceless soldier falling in battle and forgotten by the Astrals' history. How many of those had there already been throughout history: unnamed victims regarded as monsters and then slaughtered?
His frame creaked emptily as a familiar numbness washed over him.
He didn’t want to feel anymore.