The Figure: Revolations
Happy Halloween
(Warning Mild Body Horror)
The gelid air lanced through my lungs as I lay there. Lungs crackled as my lungs began to fill with ice. The fading glow from what remained of my mask dancing in the vapor from my ragged breath. In a survival reaction I took a deep breath of the airless space around me feeling something within me go deeply wrong. As I started to cough I felt coppery liquid fill my throat and mouth. Unable to move I lay on my back slowly drowning in my own blood. Lethargically I move my eyes from one corner to the other, scanning the numerous shapes skittering and loping through the oppressive umbral force around me in every direction. I tried to move my head again, ivory sparks danced across my fading vision, scantily catching flickers of movement as the shapes moved in slowly like predators accessing their kill. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
Suit torn recklessly from flesh, helmet violently pulled from skull, bone twisting and shattering, the wet squelch of muscle and tendon rending, agony ripping my vocal cords as body ripped and tore from each tissue severed from its subsequent tissues. New anguish coursed through every pain racked nerve in my body as my skull crack in fiery white flashes in my eyes, my ribs shattered shifting inside the cavity of my chest. Eyes rolled back as my body convulsed, still hot blood, thick and sticky pooled under my body. The seizing waning, breath sounding like the crushing of paper, laced with wet bloody coughs. Tears ran from the corners of my eyes in the moment between old pain and new. Bone began pulling itself into a new shape, growing anew filling in the missing structure. Muscle and tendon reknitting and anchoring to bone, skin boiling melting like wax over the exposed muscle, skull fitting itself together like a jigsaw puzzle reshaping and solidifying, ribs mending leaving room for newly grown organs, vocal cords stitched together voice returning in sharp hoarse groans, and vision slowly returned dimly at first sights no more than shapes in frozen glass eventually resolving to sharp relief. I pulled myself up, using the metal workstation, managing to get on my feet. Familiar yet different, new, pale, pink, raw, fleshy, thin. Every inch of my body was the same, malnourished, nearly skeletal, streaked with blood slowly cooling. Holding up my hand near my face I stared at my wrist, a tattoo of the number two slowly fading from view. I took note to replace it when I was able.
The air locks hissed as the first door opened, the tubular hallway between sections before me, stepping inside the door closed behind me. A mist of warm water sprayed over my cold skin, followed by a blast of drying air. The second door hissed open and I entered the man room, taking an exact copy of my suit from storage on the wall. The suit fit loosely on my fresh thin frame, the helmet locking into place. Once fully dressed I walked over to the floor to ceiling window, staring off into the void. “Another set back.” My voice was like gravel, harsh and heavy. Even if I were in the shape to do it, there was nothing left of that body even if it survived the counter measure. The real loss was the supplies on the body.
Not an ideal situation. I gathered the supplies to replicate ‘body two’. I retired to the blood soaked room. An injector used to draw up some blood from the floor. Once a full vial was secure I called for ‘Number Four’ sending instructions that a clean up was needed. The tallest of my ‘associates’ entered through the hissing door and silently began to clean the blood and tissue off the laboratory floor, and I stepped aside to let them work. Going to a nearby panel of knobs, levers and switches. A glass tube roughly two feet wide and five tall, filled with a colloidal liquid filled mostly full, a tube running from its lid to the ceiling and out of sight.. First I added the blood and resealed the container. A few switches flipped, a lever pushed slowly forward as the machine hummed to life, turning a knob slowly, something dark oozed from the pipe and into the strange liquid of the cylinder. The final switch flicked and the fluid began to churn and roil inside the glass tube. Heavy thick sloshing sounds took up the prior silence of the laboratory. I stepped back and watched the process. I lost track of how many times I had done this. The blood and strange ooze began to congeal. Its color slowly shifted from a light swallowing black to a peach like color over the course of a few hours. Once I’d ensured the process was as far along as I was able to help it, I left it to grow. I needed food and it wouldn’t need a change of container for a half day at least.
In what passed for a kitchen I removed the helmet again. Placing it on a table I touched the top of my head. The hair had grown in during the rebuilding of ‘Number two’, and I pulled some of the locks into view. “Whiter than last time…” I thought. Though not an aged white, it was more the lack of color. Clearly a flaw in the process, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was getting any source of sustenance into the changed body. It took far too much out of him to do this process, and true research into the exact way the process could be flawless would be too dangerous.
Number Four bustled into the room and stared at me for a long moment. Silent words passed between us, and it finally bowed slightly and left me alone once again. After so long I could never get used to having the helmet off anymore. Not for long periods at any rate. I poured a powder into a bowl, and added heated water. Stirring slowly until it was a thing grayish gruel. Horrible in appearance and texture but it tasted identical to whatever you desired it to…which made it worse. It might taste like a perfect roast dinner but that was all ruined by the watery sludge texture. Drinking it down as quickly as I could, trying to power through the texture, knowing in a few meals I could eat properly again.
Once my stomach was as full as I dared, I went where I always go. The Lab. Stepping up to her containment tube I caught my reflection for a moment. “Sorry dear.” I heard my voice echoing off the walls. It sounded like violin strings played too hard. “Sorry if I look different. I had another accident while looking for answers.” … “I know, I should be more careful.” … “Yes…” … “I’ll be more careful I promise.” she gave no more reply after that…if she’d given any at all. I slowly put my forehead against the glass of the tube, shivering as I felt the cold run through my bones. I would find a way to save her, kill the twisted god that saw fit to abandon this place, and go back to the real world. I wouldn’t die here, she wouldn’t die here.