Who: Adrian Where: Unmarked location When: April Status: Complete Warning: Ew
Adrian somehow expected things to turn out better than they did. It was naive, he realized that too late, but he had hoped coming back to the mysterious institution would be his saving grace from the growing hold his curse seemed to have over him. Of course it wasn't even if it seemed like it might be at first. He showed up at the spot his handler had told him to go to, stared into the camera for a while and then sat down and waited until someone came to pick him up. They weren't gentle with him but that was okay, he hadn't expected them to be. His handler was dead and Adrian had been missing for a long time, of course they were suspicious. He could clear it all up with the doctors and that was exactly what he did.
There were long sessions of telling them where he'd been and what he'd been up to over and over again, as if they were looking for reasons to doubt him, trying to find holes in his story. They did have a good reason to, of course, he wasn't telling them but half the truth at best but the things he left out needed to be kept secret for a reason. It wasn't just to protect him, but also to protect Mila. He also had the good sense not to tell them about his magical recovery from death, that was a whole new thing and the last thing he wanted was for them to test his ability to do so again. They would, he was sure, so for now he just focused on what they knew about him and hoped they could help him like they'd helped him the first time.
They let him call Mila once, a sign of good faith that he latched onto, certain that this meant they would do everything they could to help him and that it would be different this time. He went along with their examinations, gave them all the samples they needed, took all the tests they wanted him to take. He'd grown taller, they told him, not by much but enough that it was measurable. He couldn't help but wonder if they hadn't measured him wrong the last time but if not then it was a change that indicative he might gradually look just like that thing that had attacked him in the woods, long and spindly and inhuman.
They were working on finding a way to stop it, stronger magic, more tattoos, or even a cure and that was what Adrian clung to when the weeks went by and they wouldn't let him call his sister again. Too risky, they said, and he didn't understand why; was going out of his mind, knowing Mila would be going out of hers with worry.
"This won't hurt" the doctor told him one day as he came into his room with a needle. Adrian was all too used to the needles by now and he didn't protest when it got jabbed into his arm. He might have even offered to do it himself because this particular doctor was terrible with needles. They weren't drawing blood he realized a little too late and it was only after the doctor had pushed the plunger that Adrian even thought to ask what it was. "Don't worry about that," the doctor said and Adrian frowned at him in confusion as everything began to blur.
"Wait," he started but his body was already tilting, strong hands grabbing him before he keeled over and passed out.
They allowed him the modesty of his pants. For some reason that was the first thing he noticed when he came to, that he was just wearing pants. White hospital type of scrubs that were a little too short on him, or maybe they were designed that way. He was groggy and he was in an empty room with one wall made of glass. Like a zoo animal.
He didn't need to be told what was going on, it took him a few minutes to take it all in but at that point he knew. There was no cure, there was no stronger magic. They were just going to let him turn. There was a camera outside the glass pointed right at him and he didn't know how long he'd been out but he was already hungry.
"No... wait" he muttered quietly as he struggled to get to his feet. This couldn't be it. He'd fought this damn thing for five years and for nothing? He couldn't accept that, banging on the glass and pleading with the camera. There was nobody else around, but he could feel them watching, waiting for the change to start overtaking him.
"That's your plan?" he yelled out at the camera, though he had no way of knowing if they could hear him or if this perverse exhibitionism was purely visual. "You're just giving up on me?" Some part of him hoped he was strong enough to break this glass before his mind was gone. His body always started changing before his mind did and if he managed to just hold on... but wasn't that why he was here? Because he was afraid that once he turned again he would never return to human?
Anger turned to fear turned to desperation and after a while he was not above begging, crying even, curled up on the floor with his hands covering his face as if he could hide from those eyes watching him, make it less interesting. Were they taking notes? Were they clinical about it or was this an exciting scientific feat for them? "I hope I kill you all," he whispered when his tattoos started bleeding, the last defense against the monster within him finally cracking. "I hope I rip you to fucking shreds." He wasn't ready for it to be over and he didn't know if he'd still have his thoughts somewhere underneath all the slaughter. Memories of the monster that had killed his friends flashed in his mind and he once again wondered if somewhere underneath that pure evil there had been a scared man just like him. Maybe that was why it had worn a makeshift mask. Adrian just hoped they'd find a way to kill him after he turned. He really hoped they would because he did not want to find out the truth about what he was becoming.
It wasn't instant, it never was. Like the hunger it just grew steadily but not so fast that he could really keep tabs on it. He was hungrier, his body hurt and his senses were keener. He could hear the hum of the camera now, doors opening and closing somewhere far away and then, the screams and gunshots. It was all muted, coming from somewhere beyond this room and he let go of his own misery to listen, his heart beating so loudly it almost drowned out those outside noises.
It went quiet again and then the door outside his glass cage opened and Adrian got to his feet in one hurried move, unsure who to expect or what to expect from them. It wasn't anyone who worked there who walked in, it wasn't even a someone at all - it was something. Adrian stared at the distorted shape of it, tall and animal-like, no human features visible in its face, nothing resembling skin covering its limbs. There was a sickening slithering sound when the creature moved, lumpy parts of it rubbing against the wall and ceiling leaving blood and some other fluids in its wake. It towered there, blood dripping from its maw and long fingers, the entirety of it too visible in the fluorescent lights - against the stark white walls. For one mortifying moment their eyes met and Adrian felt incapable of moving or making a sound as he stared into that endless blackness in those small multiple slits. Its grotesque fingers closed around the camera until it crunched in its grip and pieces dropped to the floor with clanks that felt entirely too loud to Adrian's sensitive ears. That made him move on instinct only to cover them, though he couldn't bring himself to take his eyes off that thing outside his cell. It lost interest in him fast, licked at the air, as if tasting it like a lizard might, then turned slowly and lurched back out the way it came, unhurried and yet somehow too fast. Once it was gone, it was eerily quiet with the camera no longer making that awful buzzing sound but that didn't last long.
Adrian could hear more gunshots after that, more screaming. and while he didn't give a shit about those people who were so willing to let him die, the fact that there might not be anybody left out there was becoming clear and he knew all too well what that would mean for him. He wasn't scared of that creature he'd seen, it clearly didn't give a shit about him and Adrian almost wished it would because then it might at least kill him too. Had it been human once? Another messed up experiment? He couldn't let himself think about that, about what he himself would become if he didn't get the hell out of there so he started attempting to break the glass but he had nothing in there to chip at it with. There was nothing but his own body and no matter how much he flung himself at the glass wall or how hard he kicked at it, it was no use. He tried to be smarter about it, tried to figure out the mechanism of how he'd gotten in there in the first place. There were no signs of a doorway in the walls, ceiling or floor so the glass had to move, but he was incapable of moving it. It wouldn't break, wouldn't budge and the realization hit him that he was going to be stuck in here for the rest of his life, twisted into some monstrous form, starving and crazed. The smell of blood wafted in from the outside and it only made it harder to think and he slumped down in the corner again, his body now bruised and sore, his hope shattered and his humanity slowly slipping away.