Chapter Text
It always started the same.
You’d find yourself in the submarine, hatch unlatching to give a new light to your surroundings. Randomized, but after the first 100 times they’ve all become familiar.
Then you’d grab the keycard, maybe a password depending on how this cruel world decided it wanted to torture you every fine evening. A constant repetition that would serve to drain you of all possible surprises.
Yet, it wasn’t you. If that made any sense.
You were simply a puppet for whatever was above you.
And you’d learned after the first 200 deaths that whoever was there was an utter disgrace of a person. In short;
They were stupid.
You’d observed from your body the way they’d move you around. Checking doors if they were fake, opening drawers that may or may not hold valuables. There seemed to be a basic intelligence.
But they’d also slip up horrendously half the time. Yes, sometimes they did things correctly, and sometimes they’d miss a very obvious flicker of lights or another set of footsteps besides your own. You wondered if they were doing this on purpose.
It’d control your body like nothing more than a fabric doll. Lifting your arms, moving your legs, shifting your line of sight to be somewhere in another direction then you were being forced to walk.
They’d open doors by backing into them. They were the type to try and make you hide behind a metal pipe against the wall thinking it would save you from a giant maw swallowing you whole.
But the worst part? You couldn’t resist them. Not mentally, if they forwarded in your mind you shortly realized there was nothing you could do to reject their terrible choices. By the point you came to terms with the fact you were helpless, you’d already given up.
Yet each run they never failed to make you feel smart. (It was a miracle they ever got you past the Searchlights, could they really not hear the growls emitting from its mouth?)
Another strange thing you’d come to terms with is the fact that this apparently doesn’t happen to anyone else. Hell, you’ve tried to ask through the parasite’s influence, but the most you gathered were weird stares and social distancing but take away the need for it.
You were pretty sure the other EXR-P’s thought you were schizophrenic.
So, with that lesson learned you began to hide their presence the best you could. By Best You Could, you mean giving up entirely.
You tried to imagine— no. It was you. You were the one doing this, not It. It should’ve never been a staple. This shouldn’t be happening to you. You wouldn’t wish this upon anyone.
Even as your throat got clogged with green smoke, even when your hands faltered on the handles of a locker. Even when those weirdly humanoid teeth closed around you-as those white eyes stared at you through the beast's throat.
It was your fault, there wasn’t anything else there trying to manipulate you.
You struggled.
When you hit your head into spinning fans, when you run head first into the mask of sadness. When those turrets shred into your body like it’s nothing more than a pest. When it was stupid enough not to run away.
The only person you thought was aware of It has probably chalked it up to either a Bipolar disorder or insanity by now.
Sebastian didn’t care much for the inmates anyways.
You doubted he’d spend his valuable time trying to figure out why one singular expendable acted like they had voices in their head.
…it’s not like you could tell him.
Your body moved forward without you, you minus well just be a separate being. A consciousness trapped in a high security prison cell, with no way out but death. It died for fun.
That’s another great point;
It killed you for fun.
If it got bored, if it didn’t like the room, if it disliked the monster coming after it. It would make you relent. You’d panic, you’d scream for it to move, but your thoughts didn’t matter. You were simply a vessel for its own destruction.
Your body followed its will like a dog to a bone, the first few times you tried to kill yourself before it could do it to you.
Your efforts went in vain. The few times you’d succeeded you just found yourself back at the beginning. Right back in that lobby, your legs would walk you back to the submarine.
It’d keep going until It finally killed you Itself. Mentally, physically, all of the above.
You were destined to die. You could hear it laugh when your guts were splayed across metal flooring.
After a while you might even hear It speak to you. Saying words or phrases that cut out or became so loud it deafened all other sound, like It couldn’t figure out how to control its own volume.
It wanted to hurt you.
It meant to hurt you. Your suffering was Its greatest privilege.
Countless occasions led to you staring off into the void while your body bled from numerous bullet holes on the ground. Or a slash to the ribs, or when it felt bored maybe you were turned into It’s personal sacrifice to a void mass.
You remember everything It’s done to you. You’ve begun to fear It. After all, who wouldn’t be scared of a thing you had no control over?
Something that was in your own body.
Something you had to keep hidden
otherwise you’d be seen as crazy.
No one would believe you if you told them there was an invisible being dictating your every move. That’s simply not how common sense works, the other prisoners were already insane enough as it was.
Though despite it’s apparent bloodlust, you still found it lacking in brains. It’d still run you face first into walls or try to make you stand up in a ventilation shaft.
However, you doubted there was a chance It only hurt you by accident.
With how many deaths it’s forced you to endure there was simply no window for it to have pity. You decided that the best way to deal with it was through fear.
If you weren’t scared of It, you were sure it’d fix your opinion on that. Its separate thoughts rang loud and clear within your mind.
The only times you’ve remembered having been solo—
Nevermind. You don’t remember. As far as you’re aware It’s always been there, maybe before you were able to die multiple times it was weaker. Maybe that’s why It’s never intervened until now. Maybe it could be some form of… Guardian angel?
If that was the case It was really bad at Its job.
It couldn’t control you so directly when you were in a place besides the Blacksite. Or… the docs. Thank God. (Or whatever deity caused this).
______________
You were running on hopes dreams and maybe some duct tape.
Since the moment you’ve left the submarine, things immediately begin to go haywire. You’ve already “died” once, revived, and then got practically mauled and turned into humanoid Swiss cheese.
In short, your front looked like the back of those… Wall dwellers.
You refused to take the blame, not when this damn entity kept running you into fake doors. Not when it put you straight in a turret’s line of sight.
Your flesh parted and yielded against the bullets, you didn’t collapse. It didn’t let you collapse. It wasn’t done yet.
Though your body hurt, it gave you no choice but to keep moving. Your body walked effortlessly like nothing even scraped it.
But you felt it.
You felt the sting of bullets you were unable to patch up without the help of a medkit.
You saw one. They didn’t pick it up. The memory of it a ghost in your vision. A fleeting memory. They could’ve helped—they could’ve helped you they could’ve help you they-
…shame on you.
But it was right there? Were they blind?
The sound of grass echoed on through the underwater room. Windows giving a view to the great looming void beyond fragile glass on each side. All around you, it crushed. It hurt, it hurt.
Everything hurts.
Overwhelming groans heard from the building surrounding you. It wanted to cave into the pressure, even if the file said the Blacksite was made out of strong materials you’ve seen the wreckage in the walls and floors.
If you lacked any more sanity you were sure you’d love to collapse alongside it.
You didn’t doubt this place would cave in eventually. You didn’t want to be here when it did.
The fresh aroma of greenery and the dampness of the water outside filled your senses. A stark comparison to the irony stench that practically coated your form head to toe—not your fault.
As usual.
The bullets whined in your legs. Ankles bending unnaturally to accommodate the limp it caused. The gore that pungently clouded your jumpsuit was little of priority at the moment. It didn’t stop it from hurting with each step your body took.
It’d be fixed once you got back, anyways.
Every shift, every move forward. You felt your bleeding flesh pinch in on itself. The gashes on your side pressing together every time your foot hit you the grass—
Grass.
They had walked you straight into the middle of the DiVine’s garden. You were at risk, did they know that? Were they not aware?
Get off the grass get off the grass-
Please get off the grass-?
A surge of panic twitched through your body.
On the grass, they’d come alive.
The DiVine had less patience for organic life forms, you knew this. They knew this, this wouldn’t be your first encounter with its fist.
But you couldn’t move, not against its will. It couldn’t hear you. It couldn’t hear you beg or plead, it wouldn’t hear your curses when you inevitably died.
Your fingers twitched like a second sense. You wished you could point.
Get off the grass- pleasepleaseplease—
Closed mouthed begging fell on deaf ears. What were you hoping for?
You hear the rustle of leaves. Vines snaking together, a muffled snap of the creature breaking from its rooted spot. Move, why aren’t we moving?
You heard its steps, too fast and too light to be human. Something that possessed much more strength than should be physically possible was barreling towards you and the puppeteer wouldn’t move.
You twitched, you tried to squirm in the prison that was your skin. The only response given was a solid steel grip your shoes had on the coarse dirt below.
They could move, they had the ability to move. They didn’t want to die again right? Right right right…
Please.
You tried your hardest to ignore the whine of your wounds. No matter how much your feet stuttered under with each passing breath. You had to get them off the grass.
It took top priority. You didn’t feel too keen on adding bruises and more split skin to your already barraged body.
You didn’t have much left in you before you were forced to collapse.
You heard the steps behind you. Multiple, they were awake. They were closing in, but it didn’t allow you to look.
It kept you staring forward. Unable to see the flowering faces of those that were chasing you. Why weren’t you running yet? You could’ve sworn they picked up a SPR-int earlier.
Your thoughts stuttered as a hand clasped your shoulder.
It flipped your body around, your forehead met with an unyielding force. You swear you felt a crack in your skull. You heard it. It seared across your mind.
It knocked you down, your poor head spun like a loose globe.
You vaguely registered the blood that pooled beneath your scalp, fresh fertilizer, it supplied. Your hands shot out to try and block the sight of the creature above you. They shoved your arms away.
Your legs kicked, you squirmed. You fought. It fought.
A sharp thorned blow was delivered straight to your neck, you sputtered and choked on your own breath. Fluid flooding your mouth like a broken faucet. You were barely conscious enough to feel your jaw disconnect.
You were lucky enough for that, you suppose.
Iron clouded your senses.
You felt your teeth be pulled from the gums as the next hit caved into your skull. A kick to the stomach was enough to make your body seize.
Your sternum snapped under the sharpness of the sheer pressure. Stray bone, broken ribs dug painfully into your lungs.
With your mouth full of blood and a punctured lung, you found you couldn’t breathe. You choked. Drowning in an ocean of blood at your own making, you fought the currents.
White hot pain flashed across your mind as its knuckles made contact with your eye. Tearing through delicate tissue, rendering it into pulp. Your scream did not reach your own ears.
You felt it pop. Your vision split in half.
The last thing you saw with half an eye as your vision swam with red, was the humanoid figure of vines raising its hands high above your head, and bringing them down.
Down down down…
Your brains spattered across the grass like a morbid mosaic.
In all honest truth, there wasn’t much you could’ve done.
You were weak to begin with, all at the fault of your little friend here.
Your dirt filled hands twitched around blades of grass, gripping it like it was a lifeline. In this case, maybe it was. You shouldn’t be alive.
Nothing scraped across your vision, as there were no eyes to see with. Your brain squirmed like earthworms amongst the ground. If anything, they resembled guts more than your flattened head.
Nothing. You felt nothing. Not as your hands ripped up a fistful of grass, the body managing to flip itself over like a land breached fish.
The DiVine must’ve been tired after the beatdown, you were unable to track the sounds of its footsteps. Had it walked away?
You felt your palms meet the ground, something like a pause stretched on for longer than you could count. You felt like your body was melting away, flesh falling off the bone like tender barbecued ribs.
Your entire body shook. The pain was so intense you could barely even process it, you were too weak to take this—It should’ve never been you.
You were a terrible person, of course you deserve this.
You could’ve experienced far worse, the being made certain you knew this.
Braindead. Nothing more than a walking corpse on the verge of becoming one with the local vegetation. Yet it wouldn’t let you die.
You felt your lungs scream for air, yet the sensation that usually came with a lock of oxygen wasn’t making itself present. Maybe your head couldn’t register it, you had half a mind it couldn’t register anything anymore.
Why can’t you see? When did it become so dark? This wasn’t good. No good at all, how were you supposed to live in a place such as this without the bare minimum of sight?
Bold of you to assume you were still alive to begin with.
Your feet wobbled forward, a haunted mannequin with a vengeful spirit. Its strings held you tight, snatched along your arms and moved your legs from a wooden armature. Your lifeless body would persevere no matter if you were there to witness it.
The soft crunching of grass blades turned to the sound of a dull shoe sole hitting concrete ground. The toe of your boots hit against metal furniture once in a while, yet, that should be the least of your worries.
Even through your blind path it was like It still had an idea of where to go. Could It still see? Why didn’t It just give up?
It hadn’t even done anything substantial this time. It almost never did.
Your corpse pressed itself to a cold wall, the remains of your fractured head briefly recognized the leg shaped hole your shoulder pressed into.
A shift of your feet resulted in the crunch of broken drywall. Squashed beneath the heel of your boot.
Cold liquid dripped down your neck, it stained the already ruined fabric of your jumpsuit. You felt a drop against your pants, the light pitter patter of the drops hitting the ground. You heard breathing.
Your breathing? It’s breathing? It didn’t matter. You’re already too dead to think.
Dragging the body forward, its hand landed limply against the handle of a drawer. Pulling it open, stuffing whatever it found inside in the bag that hung from the corpse’s shoulder.
The research papers drenched with red stain. It paid no mind, it still had a goal—did it not?
And so it went on like this. Room after room, the beaten dead walked like a risen zombie. It would be wrong to call it you, by this point perhaps you’d lost track of yourself.
The body was like a giant metaphoric walking middle finger to death.
Vents were popped, knees were bent. Lightbulbs exploded and eyes stared from outside the underwater windows. Though, without eyes to look and without ears to hear, its coaxing wasn’t very effective.
By now you’d expected to be met with a different kind of dark room. Where there were different eyes, where an esca hung over a file dictating what caused your unfortunate demise—yet the body persisted.
It kept going. You were a mere forethought.
It was dizzying. Or, it would be had you still been conscious enough to feel it. It might feel like something’s missing, something’s wrong. But the mind makes a habit of blocking out persistent troubles to resist irritation.
Maybe it could be the adrenaline that shot through your veins at the mere mention of bodily harm. Perhaps it would’ve been doing the favor of numbing the pain until you were safe enough to scream.
Far enough from danger—sounded like a child’s imagination gone wild. A hope that would never be reality.
Songs ripped through the metal walls, echoing from a distance. Unable to hear it, you felt the vibrations of its sheer intensity through your boots.
The ground rattled, your faraway mind wondered if it could feel what you did.
Maybe it was a sadist, or… a masochist?
Who even was this being?
You’d wondered about it when you first found your body was no longer your own. At first you won’t deny you’d been curious.
Was it a person?
A simple question that should’ve had a simple answer.
After the first few deaths it put you through until you deducted that no. This… thing was not likely a person. Instead a spirit of some sort, again, a guardian angel.
A terribly sad guardian angel.
Angels were meant to protect? Correct? They were meant to bless. To raise the soul to the heavens once the mortal vessel was wasted. Benevolent beings that held only love for the people under their care.
Gifting the person things, whether it be their simple adoration or something much greater, an angel was supposed to be kind. It was supposed to have care. Not what appeared as utter dislike for the mortal they were stuck with.
Maybe this one was still learning to not be a nuisance.
A hollow song carried along the walls. Not one of happiness, a groan that stretched like a war cry in the guise of a gentle hum.
You’ve heard this before. Red clouded along your mind—what was left of it.
Your body did not react quick. It was slow, almost lazy in its movements. Lackluster searches through cabinets and drawers ended with nothing but a few data piles and DNA samples.
It couldn't get much with that.
The hand-It’s hand. Your hand? Our hand. It trembled, shaking with a fear it couldn’t name nor comprehend. You weren’t even conscious enough to know your body was reacting this way.
The sounds drew louder, rumbling only from a short distance. A sweet tune…
Red spots danced across the mind like poppy petals in the wind. Or rather like those dancing fruits the vessel saw when it was younger, on the television. It yawned.
You yawned? You had no mouth.
It yawned.
It was bored.
It shouldn’t be much time until the harmonic mumbles in the distance became a close quartered screech in It’s ears. When it would no longer be safe to search here, when It’d need to hide the body away from ghostly pale eyes.
It’s seen it before. A creature like that, from your eyes. The silent scream that tore from your mouth. It’d only be scary if It was the one being directly affected.
Not an angel. Couldn’t be an angel.
It moved you to a locker. Just around the corner, the hums grew louder.
Not very enthusiastically grabbing hold of the metal handles, hauling you in like moving the body around was a workout in and of itself. A dead body moving like nothing but an organless carcass, hollow, plaint to the will of this being.
It waited in silence, but even the silence was loud. Filled with the static of the groaning walls and the echoing tunes of the creature nearing.
Your hands, all too warm against the locker’s doors.
The darkness of the enclosed space felt as though it were trapping you. Closing you in, another prison added to the one you were already inside of.
It did not let you falter.
The body’s knees felt weak, its arms lacked energy to hold the doors shut. It lacked strength, it lacked life. Something detrimental to both of your survival down in this underwater Hell.
If you still had a head, you might’ve been able to hear your own heartbeat. But surely you could feel it, couldn’t you?
You could count the beats. Slow, pulsing. Like a timer attached to a ticking bomb. It teased you of your absence of life. It mocked you. Lady Death did not take kindly to those who defied it.
The sound of the heart pumping became a source of fragile comfort to your primitive mind. A soul of humanity, something that was truly yours and not at the hands of whomever puppets your body.
Gushing blood flowed through your veins, rattling and spiking like iron to a magnet.
Closer. The noise drew near, it could not hear over the sound of the corpse’s heartbeat.
Pounding in Its head, thundering through Its body like an electric current. The part of this body It couldn’t control was making It flail, an imbalance in control It simply either wasn’t used to, or genuine panic at the mere suggestion at not being in front.
It panicked. You panicked. The noise’s persistence caused It’s hands (your hands? It’s hands) to scrape along the edges of the metal locker. Scrambling for something to hold onto. For stability.
Latching to a face that wasn’t there, something? Anything. Anything at all to keep the beating at bay.
Doors shoved open with the fury of a raging dog. The body collapsed to It’s knees.
Cold ground met with fragile skin. It’s hands pressed against the sickly body like it was trying to keep itself together. Clutching at the body’s arms and bunching the fabric of the jumpsuit between Its fingers.
Pulling, twisting, anything to keep the beating at bay.
The ground felt as though it were shaking. Through It’s panicked state all It could comprehend was an end. Make it stop? Please. Make it stop make it make it? Make… it.
Make what it.
What the fuck.
A flurry of movement in the corner of It’s vision, nothing you could comprehend. The song, once a melody to your dying ears now a scream so loud it shook the earth below you.
but It did not get up again.
It stayed, so peacefully on the ground. Acceptant of the pain you must endure. In the shadowed corners of your consciousness you considered this to be suicide. Wether it was actually you, or…
The creature was massive. Torn brown flesh and scales and bones, human teeth and stringy tendons that connected its jaws like a terribly done stitch. It screamed? Roared? There didn’t seem to be a correct word for it.
Not that It could think of.
A gaping maw should’ve been all It’d seen or felt. Yet the eyes that stared at the body through the creature's throat was a mocking shallow sentience. It knew, it saw.
It was smart enough to know the body wouldn’t be getting up. It was too cruel to let such an opportunity pass up.
Didn’t matter if you were alive or dead. The entity's hunger outweighed Its needs to complete this cycle. The crystal will not be held by your hands, perhaps not ever. However many times you were told this was your only reason in this world you’d fail just as often.
A curse, though It gifted you this eternality. A second thought, whatever it was it was not your own.
Blunt teeth seared through your body. Human in its shape, yet no denying the pain that registered in the corpse. Nerves lit on fire, an everlasting flame that was bound to be endlessly extinguished.
There was no more light. Your body was no more, its control was no more. The leverage It once kept of you was surrendered as It had done to your body. You couldn’t choke, couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t feel, the numbness spread through your chest like a toxin. A poison no cure could get rid of.
Your blood no longer clouded your senses, no feeling. No flexibility. You were left floating in a void that you called eternity. Its strings did not extend so far.
Open your eyes.
Open your heart, do whatever it is you have to do. You must return eventually.
You can’t stay here forever. That’s not part of its promise.
If you didn’t do it yourself he’d do it for you.
A light flickered somewhere in the distance, the fog cleared to give way to three knowing eyes and a glow that shined like a dead bulb. Casting warm light across a wooden table.
It was cluttered, always cluttered. Full of vials and classified documents, yet one sat right under your fingertips. The words smudged under the dull light of his esca.
Sebastian huffed in the seat across from you. Despite the fog obscuring his features you wouldn’t doubt he looked annoyed. Tired at best, annoyed at worst.
His claw tapped idly along the edge of the table.
“What was it this time?” He hummed.
The blue eyes narrowed in on your (body?) form. You lacked the strength to do so much as falter away in your position. Shoulders hunched, caved in and quiet. You couldn’t speak.
Not like It did.
Your fingers raised to grip the file, bringing it closer to at least make an attempt at reading—to seem like you actually cared enough. To give It a reason to try again. If you could, you’d sigh.
Your actions were limited. No matter how free you were from Its cage, Its grip never seemed to falter. Dragging you back to where you came, no rest for the wicked.
You heard a thump across the table—a glance up rewarded you with a very deadpan looking glare from Sebastian. He must’ve thought you were dumb, dying to such a thing so easily avoidable.
It wasn’t your fault. You wanted to yell, to scream. It wasn’t your fault. He didn’t know of It. He didn’t care for you, you were probably just a liability if anything.
Why would he care if you died? If it was up to him, you doubted he’d be helping you in the first place.
A clawed hand broke you out of your stupor. Lazily reaching down to flip the cover of the folder closed, shame. You didn’t even get to read the name of what killed you (It).
Sebastian only stared at you, you stared blankly back. He looked at you like it was your fault this happened, that you were to blame for dying once more.
You knew what he was. He was human, just as human as you might be. Just as human as the inmates still in the lobby, still human enough to sense.
A murderer. You’ve seen it, he’d kill other Expendables from time to time. When you loiter in his shop for too long, or when one of your teammates got a little too friendly with him. He’d rather die than feel hands on him again.
Perhaps you were the same way. Just… with strings instead of hands. But you didn’t get to make that choice. You didn’t have protection against It.
In a small way, you could relate. To an extent. You didn’t shoot people.
He grumbled something about a “staring problem” pushing back from the table and slowly disappearing into the darkness, he didn’t seem particularly chatty today. His eyes dimmed down.
“Next time, try to stay in a locker once you enter it.” He sighed, a short clipped answer in that same tone he used whenever you were dismissed.
It was dark again. Your “body” fell down into the endless fog.
Looks like It didn’t wish to resume in that run.
For a being that hated you so much you'd expect it to throw you back into that Purgatory immediately after death. Torture the soul until It decided you’d been broken enough.
So dark you couldn’t tell if your eyes were opened or closed, Hell if you cared.
It wasn’t clear, it wasn’t solid. It was overwhelming and all consuming, like a silence you’d only experience in the dead of night. A quiet peace that’d end as soon as the Sun returned.
…That’s a stupid analogy. There was no way of telling day from night, not down here.
Back in the Lobby. Your eyes focused into reality, actually you weren’t sure if focused was the right word. Your hands no longer belonged to you and your feet moved without a second thought.
Oh, so It wasn’t done yet.
Did you expect it to stop? You’ve gotten too confident with such a brief reprieve. It wouldn’t stop until you were no more, until you’d eventually stop being brought back.
It wouldn’t stop this unless there was no you to begin with.
______________________
The loading docs were never quite empty.
The hollow tone of the man over the speakers echoed through your skull like a familiar mantra. You weren’t moving, It wasn’t moving yet.
If you could, you would’ve yawned by now.
You’d— It’d been standing here for the past 928 seconds, and counting. Your ears have been subjected to the same few messages on loop as well as the mindless chatter of your fellow inmates.
You barely paid any mind. The two talking next to you had been yapping nonstop about some crackhead who said they were all going to die to monsters beyond human comprehension way below sea level.
You wondered who. You wondered. Hah.
They never believed you. Yet maybe the writing you left on the whiteboard was enough to scare them into not going.
Stalling, you vaguely remember these two from the last time you were near the docs.
Urbanshade couldn’t keep it under wraps forever. Sure, terrible people. They deserved terrible fate. At the teeth—the maws. The guns or the parasites. They all deserved this.
The prisoners deserved to suffer. They were on death row for a reason, yet this “opportunity” wouldn’t be saving them from much. If anything this was much worse a fate than just dying.
Cannibals, murderers, rapists, thieves. Maybe all four, maybe more that you didn’t care enough to keep track of. Terrible people deserved terrible fates. They deserved this.
You deserved this.
After all, you were one of them.
A person from a high security prison, given the promise of freedom and a cleared record? It sure sounded like a dream come true at the time.
You deserved this for what you’ve done.
Don’t you understand that? Expendable. You’re a terrible person—one who can’t be forgiven.
That’s why you’re here.
You’re not supposed to be forgiven. Not yet, you’re never going to be pardoned. It made sure of this.
It stuck to you like glue, perhaps the only good thing about this was that no one had direct access to information about you. Though you wouldn’t put it past Urbanshade to keep a record of each of these Expendables.
If they did succeed—no matter how low that chance may be. Their records still must be cleared. The promise must be fulfilled.
If you give an infinite amount of monkeys an infinite amount of typewriters, one of them is bound to write Shakespeare. Or so the saying goes…
But for this?
You’d say throw over a hundred lives to the darkest depths of the ocean to attempt something almost impossible. Though you won’t deny, it’s inevitable to happen eventually. What will happen to you when it does?
Will you still be stuck? Only Urbanshade knows. Maybe they’ll kill the rest of you.
Those armed guards couldn’t just be for show. Fitted around the docs like pest control.
Or… maybe they’d give you back to the prison. That is, if they didn’t know you’ve seen everything down in those walls.
That you knew. Then again you couldn’t really actually say anything at all.
What—were you gonna go to an official and start vigorously signing to them about some illegal underwater research facility? No. They wouldn’t understand. They haven’t seen it for themselves.
It’d just sound like mumbling from a restrained person in a white cushioned room. Crazy, unethical, so undeniably stupid, that it just couldn’t be true.
1042 seconds. Up up up up…
Until you? It. Moved.
You moved. Finally.
It unlatched your mouth to breathe, it hugged your lungs like that of a child latching to its mother. Deep breath out, so heavy you almost thought it wasn’t you.
You yawned. It yawned? You were unsure.
You could hardly tell your own actions from It’s own.
Maybe that was proof enough It had controlled you for far too long. You wanted your body back, no matter how fruitless the endeavor might be.
It headed towards the nearest submarine.