The victim becomes the god
I can see it now seeping from your eyes, curling over the edge and sliding down your cheek like a tear, but we both know it's not water you cry but the seep from the injection stabbed into your neck by a syringe full of blue slosh. I see it sliding down your nose, and your other eye is completely shot red as blood vessels break open and pour out from behind the lens. The bubbling blood from your mouth like foam is the most unsettling reaction yet witnessed. You convulse on the floor, your skin melting into goo as it slides down, mixing with the puddle of blood under your body. I then looked at all of you behind the glass, the observers taking notes on touchscreen pads and swiping at numbers. I had no idea what they meant. I wondered if we were the numbers displayed above us, just out of sight. If so, were the numbers dropping faster than we wanted? I looked down at what used to be a human but had morphed into a pond of red and tan swirls, seeping into each other to create a darker shade of red.
Who was next?
Three men in sterile yellow hazmat suits entered the observatory to collect samples of the goo on the floor, making the effluvium in the room a stench of busted intestines and antiseptic from a hospital before someone else arrived to contain the rest of the slosh for further analysis. I watched what used to be a woman get scooped just like melted ice cream into a large glass container and carried out the door. We all gawked at the scientists with scribbling hands and men in sharp suits who were murmuring to one another, never out of order, walking around talking on phones and typing notes on their computers. We were the subjects, all here voluntarily under false pretenses.
Real starvation makes anyone do the unimaginable so you can get something to eat, and this man wearing his spicy musk cologne, in his sharp suit had a buffet for me, waiting just beyond the horizon. I was introduced to a stern looking woman sitting behind a large white desk which was stationed in the front of a massive glass building that the man in the suit led me to. We went to the shiny elevators and pushed the down button. A ding came as our cart arrived and we stepped inside the elevator on a velvet carpet freshly cleaned and I watched the man in the suit push the very bottom button of the building. I gulped as my stomach dropped on the way down. We entered a floor I assumed was the only half-legal operations center for the system I was now locked into. We passed through a rambunctious laboratory running around with men in undressed suits sitting behind computer screens typing away like their fingers were on fire and reached another elevator that went deeper than the sub-basement we were in currently, beneath the building’s basement. If a lower sub-basement was our destination, I was about to experience many illicit programs that would mark me to never see the light of day again.
I would not live through this. Understanding the situation but having no solution was an agony threatening to burst me like a balloon. The elevator opened to a common area, a place of gathering and understanding. The room was furnished with chairs and couches and the smell of febreeze was a nice tickle to my nose. In the back of the room, I saw a full liqueur bar with a man in uniform making drinks for everyone.
“Come with me,” the man in the suit was taking me past the other waving volunteers and into an office where I had to sit across from him at a wooden glossed desk.
There was a lot of paperwork I needed to sign quickly, but the blurred words project, Dr. Neil Price, injections, and results were bolded in my brain. I suddenly felt an impending doom I had never felt before and with that feeling came a copper taste that invaded my mouth like poison.
“My name is Mr. Joe, and here is where you will be living until the project has concluded. You will be provided with all of your needs, and you will be properly taken care of.” His smile was so charming, and the way his dimples came out made you want to say yes to any offer, but how could I enjoy any of this without questions?
“I think there is a lot more to be said about that. I wasn't expecting to be an experiment for some company that is obviously doing illegal shit. I want to know what is going on and if I am going to die here.” Coming to terms with my reality was hard to swallow, but one I had to accept if I didn't want to go mad.
“Okay, whatever.” Mr. Joe got nonchalant with me after that little candid outburst he probably wasn't expecting from me, even though everyone else was frantic about the situation once they understood, kind of, what was going on. I just wanted to know how this operation was running and if my death will be helpful or useful at the end of it all. “Our people have found an algae that adapts well to a certain chemical compound made in a lab. We are testing the syrups made by our people with each volunteer that has agreed to be here. Everyone will get an injection everyday until we have the one we are looking for.” Watching Mr. Joe swivel around in his chair made me want to punch him in the face, and I did. He didn't see me coming as my balled-up fist hit the side of his face as hard as I could, and he fell over, sliding out of his seat onto the floor.
“You don't trick people.” It was ludicrous he had to keep this secret to invite volunteers. You can find people desperate enough to do anything for survival. “I would have said yes to anything to get off the streets, but you shouldn't lead people into this experiment blindly. You have gone past caring about human lives, I know this, but I hope you understand when I say you're an asshole.” He got off the floor and straightened up. Being hit by a girl wasn't fun, but not that impactful either.
“Welcome to the project. If you need anything, we are always listening.” Mr. Joe showed me to the door, and without any more answers, I left, having nothing else to do.
Finding an empty place to sit was easy since there were only six people in the room, not including me. I didn't want to interact; I just wanted to wait until the dinner bell rang and the food came to us, which happened sooner than later. All of the volunteers sat at a long dinner table which featured a full buffet lining down the table runner, brought in by men who looked like servers in their uniform and posture. I was introduced to meals I had only seen in movies, and the drinks that went around the table were the best spirits I had ever tasted as some were as sweet as a nectarine and others were bitter like fire and wood. Everything was perfect, too perfect. Considering we were all going to die because of this, it was the least the man in the suit could do for us. I wondered what he promised the others to get them down in this charade paradise. After dinner, I was shown into the observatory, where the other six followed me into a blank white room with a giant window at least twelve feet from the ground. Through the window I could see men in white lab coats and others in pristine suits that made the wealthiest look poor.
The doors shut behind us once a man in a white hazmat suit followed us inside. I could hear his heavy breathing when he got close to me. He had a cart with seven syringes, each a different color and texture from the others. The needle pierced my neck with a spiked purple liquid that felt like ice hitting my bone when injected through my flesh. The needle went so deep I thought it had gone through my windpipe. The man in the hazmat suit left after all injections were administered, and the seven of us were left standing, looking at one another, waiting for something to happen. Then, a girl my age hit the floor as she began to aggressively convulse and spew red foam from her mouth like a rabid animal. I watched as each humerus unlocked from its position in the shoulder socket and twisted backward, making her skin twirl like a cyclone. Her hands were flat on the ground, sticking inward on crooked elbows. Then you could hear the loud pop of her femurs getting yanked from her hips as they too dislodged from their place and rearranged themselves in distorted ways. Witnessing the bones turn backward, I was shocked at the elasticity of her skin as it rolled with her bones and stayed twirled up like a cone of soft serve.
Her torso was faced up in the air, and her stomach was sunken so far inward that her ribs were sticking out like twigs under her thin protective layer of skin. The woman’s face was not backward like it should have been in her current position, but instead her head was upright, and she was looking at us all through bloodshot eyes, which cried rivers of crimson staining her face. I put my hand over my mouth as I saw the webbed black veins under her paper-thin skin spreading through her head like a virus. The woman suddenly began skittering around the room, running on all four broken, warped limbs, and barking like a dog. I couldn't believe I would see a person’s head imploded like hers did, as her whole head popped like a squished grape, sending brain matter and gushes of blood in every direction just in some random decided moment. Shards of bone flew like glass and pierced through a few people as they held their faces from the injury. No one knew what was going to happen next, and that’s when chaos broke out.
The ones around me went ballistic as they ran for the doors begging for help, trying to escape this horrible scene that had just unfolded before them. I, however, looked at the headless corpse, and I thought about all the shit I have seen on the streets, and going through this was much better than dying in the cold on a street corner from an overdose on fentanyl or heroin. If I were going to die here, I would be warm and well-fed while also getting the proper health care that I need. Staying here was the best for me, but from the others' reactions, they didn't really know what they were in for. They didn't ask questions about the paradise laid out like a fashion show before them. All of the volunteers were ignorant and hadn't accepted what was coming, accepted what I had already known in my heart to be true, and found some kind of peace in the situation.
I looked up at the glass, at the ones who were watching us, and I met eyes with one of them in the suits. He had no expression on his flawless face, and there wasn't a speck of indignity located anywhere near his aura. He was a true man of power with a force of reckoning that he was commanding to come down upon us. He was our onslaught, there to watch us all die and then take notes on the process. Who knows what they were looking for or trying to manifest in their labs, but whatever it was must have been some sort of bio weapon if it causes these reactions.
I snuggled into my padded mattress and wrapped myself around the furry, soft blankets, and I did not fall asleep to thoughts of death or nightmares of torture. I went to bed thinking this was the first time in almost ten years that I felt this warm in bed. The next morning, I was awoken to the sweet fragrance of cinnamon frosting and sizzled cooked bacon, along with the most beautiful aroma of freshly ground coffee beans. I was truly in heaven. I got up and put on the drab grey, basic attire provided by the company. I slid on the cotton t-shirt, covering all the scars I had collected over the years on my torso, and put on the hoodie to cover my track marks on the inside of my elbow and between my fingers. I couldn't believe how soft the sweat pants were when they were put on next, and the fibers that stitched it all together were coarse on the outside but like woolen pelt within. I slipped on a pair of grey slippers before heading out of my sliding open door, which moved automatically open and shut by the determination of how close I was to the entrance.
I followed the redolence to the dining hall where an entire spread was laid out on the table in a very empty room. No one seemed to have an appetite after going through such a grotesque murder firsthand with no mental preparation. At least my mind was a stone now, made that way by the string of deaths I had followed throughout my life. I was desensitized by bloodshed and murder because that is what I was raised knowing. I didn't know any of these other people, and I sure didn't know what they did or where they were from, but I understood that none of them had experienced death firsthand before, and seeing it presented like that was the most horrific thing they would ever witness. I sat down, glee in my eyes, and enjoyed the bounty before me, eating until my stomach bulged and my body felt warm.
I found the coach and tucked myself between the pillows before finding a sweet sleep that I had never had the chance to fall into willingly in my life. I was awoken to a voice over the intercom telling everyone to gather in the observatory. I let out a huff at the intrusion on such a slumberous nap, but followed my directions and witnessed the others emerge from their rooms for the first time all day. We all stood idle in the room of no color, no emotion, nothing but waiting for death, and we complied to the needle of different colored serums entering our bodies to be tested on our human form. The color I got today was a bubbly yellow, and it felt like a jab into my bone as the needle was inserted into my neck once again. I shivered after being struck and found somewhere in the room to sit, to wait, to see what was going to happen today.
Almost everyone in the room was crying, but there were a few like me who were just dull with acceptance, and we were waiting for our fate to unravel in whatever way it did. Today, it was another woman who got the infection, and her death was the most painful one of all so far, as I watched her body become more and more bloated with liquid and goo. Her clothes ripped off as she blew up like a wrinkled balloon, and her flesh sagged in curtains which only grew wider and wider. The woman could no longer scream or talk as her throat became so swollen it stretched wide, and the skin was droopy as it sagged further and fell to her chest. Her torso looked like it had a set of utters, and you couldn't distinguish her breasts from the rest of her upper body. She was too heavy to stand as she landed backward on her ass, barely able to sit upright.
An effluvium of spoiled milk and deep musk escaped the woman’s flabs like vapor, and the fumes swallowed the entire room whole as everyone tried to stay as far away as possible, as she still continued to bloat. The woman couldn't move her thousand-pound body in any kind of way, but she found a way of flailing her chubby, melted arms around. Four men came into the room with a lift, and the driver scooped the woman up and took her out to a place I knew I didn't want to go to. We left the observatory, and it was time to eat, and of course, I ravaged my meal as the others poked and prodded at their meat. I couldn't understand how they could all waste so much food that I could be eating, because I didn't leave leftovers or let my food spoil. I ate everything.
That night, I slept in a cold sweat as the side effects of the injection began to hit my nervous system. I was locked inside my body, desperately yelling at my limbs to move, and I cried out from cramps in every twisted muscle. It felt like I had been dehydrated for years, and now I was receiving the results. But I was not dehydrated; this was not due to negligence but to the bubbly, yellow liquid swimming freely through my veins. Suddenly, I unlocked, and everything stopped for a moment. Then I ran fast to the metal toilet in my room and spewed out yellow bile like it was exploding from a fire hydrant. After that, I passed out and didn't wake until a voice on the intercom told us to meet in the observatory.
I knew I looked like hell from my night of torture, but everyone else just looked depressed but well rested. I found a corner to sit in away from everyone else and spat out my spit until the taste of vomit was void from my mouth. A man fought the injection this time today and tried to fight the man in the hazmat suit who was struggling to keep his suit from being damaged, and in this attempt of mutiny, security came in and subdued the volunteer long enough to get the injection through his neck, while the company men also had time to leave without any more assaults. The man got up and began screaming vulgar things at the men in the window, and not only did I know he was wasting his breath, but he knew it, too, and decided to continue with the dramatics anyway.
My injection today was like thick grey sludge, and it was injected into my vein like bloating slime with its sloppy substance and then slowly dissolving as it ran through my bloodstream. It felt just like it acted, like someone was filling my veins up with something gooey, and then the feeling just melted away with my body. I wondered if today was the day I was going to die when a frail man, probably in his sixties, started to blast blood from his mouth as he had no time to heave or breathe, and his back was hunched over as far as it could go. As soon as the old man took a breath, the waterfall of blood came back with a reckoning. This happened until the man fell limp on the floor with blood still trickling from his mouth and collecting with the pond of crimson he left behind. A hazmat team came in and took samples of the body before the others came in to actually dispose of the cadaver. Everyone was weeping, and they were just as desensitized to all this as I was, and that was good for them in this situation, but if they end up living through this hell, they will never see life the same way again.
That night, I had continuous nightmares that rocked my entity and twisted fantasy into things that were reality. I gasped for breath every time the demons let go of their hold on me, only to fall back into the desperate grasp once more, making it a maddening cycle of torment. It didn't matter how I felt in the morning; I still went to the dining hall and ate breakfast, as the three that were still with me were not eating at all at this point in the project, and I'm sure the company was taking down notes about their melancholy behavior, and of course, the nonexistent mania that has not affected me thus far. So many notes I wanted to read to see how these doctors saw and evaluated us, not as people but as subjects. I could see the glory of not being the subject of this experience, and I wondered what kind of response they really wanted from us. So far, we have witnessed horrifying deaths that seem to happen to one of us at a time. Is it random how we are dying, or is it already planned, and is the reaction what is being evaluated? Which would mean the company is using murder to see the mind’s reaction to the first-hand experience of torture.
I wondered what else they were looking for as we all went into the observatory, the others walking in like zombies, animated only by pure will. Today, my injection was a metallic liquid that shimmered silver on the way into my vein. Needles were not a big thing for me in any way, considering the addictive abuse I have already put on my body. Maybe that is what makes me different from everyone else: the profound infection I already might have manifested itself differently in my body than in theirs, and to prove this theory, I was the only one who was going to live through this. What I saw took me out of my thoughts and focused me on the man and woman facing each other, their heads as far back as they could go. Their jaws were gaping open as if they were silently screaming the sound that erupted around us, one we couldn't hear, and their eyes rolled back, leaving only thin red and blue vines in a white pool of blindness.
I watched with only one other healthy person as these two bodies fell back onto the floor with a skull-breaking shatter, and we witnessed their bodies being mummified right in front of our faces. It was like every organ inside their carcass had just disappeared. A group of four in hazmat suits came in to take samples of the deceased before the pallbearers came forth and took away two more lost souls that were destined to die like this, the moment their pens hit the paper. It was all of us who signed up for what was happening. I wondered if I was the only one they told about what was really happening down here. I was prepared for all of this because Mr. Joe filled me in, as the others seemed to be blindsided by a mirage of glamor and riches.
The only other person left with me stared at me while I ate my dinner with a sense of solace in my heart for still experiencing such a glorious way of living. I was a queen in a palace, and I was given everything I could ever want. Why would I refuse my meal as this man did, and why must he judge me so harshly for knowing the truth that he was only now witnessing? It wasn’t my fault. I demanded answers and the truth before stepping into this bullshit, and apparently, the others were so blinded by the offers and promises that they didn't read the fine print. The man and I stayed in the commons that night, each of us being awake as we knew what was coming as soon as the sun came up. The man stared at me all night until the intercom called for us.
I wondered how they kept the bloodstains from staining the interior of this room, which was so white. And yet, stepping into this room every day, it was flawless, spotless and smelled sterile and clean. The man and I stood together as we were both injected with our shots, mine being a slimy green and his being a metallic blue. The hazmat team left, and then the two of us waited to see who was going to die next. It was me, and I could feel it in my body as my organs became rearranged, and I started to vomit blood. I wasn't alone; however, the guy next to me was seizing on the ground with his limbs curled in like a dead spider. My mouth was filled with the taste of copper and super glue, and I felt like my throat was getting sewn together from the inside. I felt like I was suffocating, and I wondered if one of us would live or if both of us would die. The reactions are still what they are looking for, and seeing two people fight death at the same time for different reasons was apparently fun to explore.
Every bone in my body felt like it was shattering into a million shards, and the pressure in my head was becoming more and more dire. I fell back onto the ground. I could feel that, but after the fall, there was nothing. Only darkness. The darkness didn't stay for long, however, and I woke up to see a hazmat team leaning down in front of me. One of the guys was helping me up, and I saw my. Joe standing over me. I was pushed onto my feet, disoriented and in a daze, as I tried to collect my bearings and see the world around me clearly. Then I saw the other volunteer, and his face was so distorted in a way that it looked like he had died from experiencing something so terrifying that it left a mark even in death.
I was taken to the shower before putting on fresh clothes as a few doctors led me back into mr. Joe’s office. He was sitting at his desk with his two-hundred-dollar loafers resting on his fine maple wood. He did not adjust his position as I entered the room.
“Come on in and take a seat.” His charismatic smile was back, and those dimples made my heart beat quickly. “What you have done is just finished the project successfully.” He pulled a cigarillo out of his pocket and lit it, making the room smell of spicy tobacco, with a woody sweetness on my tongue.
“What does that mean?” I wanted to know how far into the experiment I was allowed to fall before they probably were going to kill me for knowing about any of this in the first place, but at least my curiosity would be satisfied.
“You have two choices now.” The man sat up straight now and let out a puff of smoke before looking me dead in the eye. “You can work for the company, or you can go back to the streets where you were digging for heroin and hoping not to die from an accidental fentanyl overdose.” The guy in the suit laughed like he already knew my answer, and I really considered both options.
“Tell me what this project was about,” I spoke firmly, wanting to be let in on the light instead of staying in the shadows, staying ignorant of any ongoing experiments.
“We are testing a weapon of sorts.” He bobbled his head and let out a sigh as he let me in on all the secrets. “Doctors are hired here to make a an injectable drug and this serum will specifically affect the subject in the way that the doctor’s intended it to react.” He cleared his throat and thought hard on something while he smoked for a bit before going on with his explanation. “Imagine the worst thing someone can go through physically, and our doctors and professors we hire make that happen for us.” I watched as he let the ash of his small cigar settle in a glass ashtray that was as clean as this entire office.
“You want me to work for the company. What does that mean?” I wanted to know what kind of clearance I would receive if I accepted this offer, or if I would continue to be a lab rat in their maze of different venoms.
“It means you help the doctors come up with specific ideas for a bio weapon, and they make it.” It was that simple; all I had to do was tell someone how I wanted another human being to die, and they were going to make it happen.
“What do I get out of all this?” Was there payment involved, and was it enough for me to finally survive on?
“The company will give you a house on the compound, and you will be financially secure for the rest of your life in the company.” He was giving me everything on a silver platter, and my mouth was watering for all of it.
“Will I ever know what company I will be working for?” I wondered if this company was well known in the underground, surfaced every now and again to grab its victims, and then just disappear.
“No. You will work with the professors and the doctors.” That was all of an answer he was going to give me, and I really didn't think I needed more of an explanation.
“What do I have to do to work for the company if I were to agree?” My morality was teetering at this point, and I wanted to see just how much I could get to have that teeter-totter fall in one direction.
“All you have to do is follow me.” That was it; there was no paperwork or signatures, it was just as simple as walking down the road.
“Alright. I'll work for the company.” How could I not agree to a life of grandeur?
“You understand we will be testing your work on other subjects like yourself.” He wanted to make this clear before I made my decision to become a god, an act only a few could handle.
“I understand.” I was just as stoic as the man in the suit, and the firm break in morality felt like a rubber band snapping my skin.
I was going to be god in a world that I had control of, and all my desires would bloom into reality, and never again would I feel the cold streets beneath my feet, nor feel the biting wind of winter coming. There wouldn't be newspapers to help me keep my warmth, and there would be no dumpsters outside nice restaurants throwing away scraps that I could have for dinner. None of that. I was done with that. Now I could be someone. Now I could control my own reality and others'. This was it for me; I now worked for the company.