Progenitor
Chapter 3
A/n: Warning, Body Horror
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Taylor was confused.
"You want me to what?"
"Be a good friend to Emma," Amy said around another mouthful of food.
Amy's plate was piled high with food, something she was able to do because Arcadia's cafeteria was designed more like a buffet. On the one hand Taylor found it odd that they would have to pay the same for their meals when Taylor usually got what her sister liked to call "Rabbit Food," while Amy would get enough food for a pack of wolves. Taylor figured, if anything, it was because Arcadia didn't actually
need the students to pay for their food at all. Not with how much the tuition was.
"She's gonna need a real friend for a while," Amy continued, dipping her steak into her fried rice, using it as some kind of edible spoon to shovel it into her mouth and consume the whole thing.
"Wasn't I already going to do that?" Taylor asked. It was what confused her after all. Well, that and the fact that her sister wasn't usually the type to forgive and forget.
"Mruphmglea-" Amy said with a stuffed mouth of food turning her words into nearly as big of a mess as her plate.
"Don't talk with your mouth full," Taylor chided with a frown, slapping her sister's hand as she went for a chicken tender.
Amy rolled her eyes. Taylor crossed her arms in response with an adamant frown. Amy smirked, then swallowed the swollen mass of ground food and mush in one revoltingly massive gulp. Taylor shivered at the disgusting large bulge traveling down Amy's throat and the pleased grin on her sister's face as she did it.
Taylor didn't think that could possibly be comfortable, she wasn't even sure how Amy did it without choking on it. Every time she saw her sister do it she got little nightmarish ideas of the bulge bursting out of her sister's throat or some kind of creature tearing it's way out.
"Happy?" Amy grinned.
"Why are you like this?" Taylor whined, feeling embarrassment enough for both of them. She glanced around nervously, hoping against hope that no one had seen her sister acting like...well...her sister.
Amelia just shrugged, as usual, not in the least bit interested in what others thought.
"Ugh." Taylor groaned. "Just...what were you trying to tell me?"
"Oh, right." Amy suddenly sobered up. "Look, Emma went through some bad shit-"
"Language," Taylor cut her off.
Amy gave her a look. Taylor held her ground.
"Emma went through some bad
poopoo," Amy said pointedly.
Taylor nodded in approval.
Amy just looked up in silent prayer.
"Continue," Taylor prompted her sister.
"Right," Amy said flatly, "as I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted-"
Taylor stuck out her tongue,
"Emma had a bad experience," Amy continued regardless, "and she needs friends to help pull herself together. Aunt Zoe will be taking Emma over to Sanctuary on the weekend, but I can already tell you that she'll need the support of you and Charlotte."
Taylor began to straighten up herself, taking the more important subject to heart.
"Now, since Dad's basically just gonna want to be in a coma all Saturday, I can probably drive you, Charlotte, and Emma around after service if you want." Amy shrugged. "You could hang out at one of their houses, or go out somewhere to take Emma's mind off it."
Taylor thought that sounded nice, but she wasn't sure how she felt about the idea of monopolizing her sister's time like that.
"What about you?" Taylor asked. "Don't you have anything you want to do Saturday?"
"Not really." Amy gave her a self-deprecating smile. "As you so helpfully pointed out yesterday, I kinda suck at making friends."
"It's never too late to start?" Taylor offered with a helpless expression.
Her sister gave Taylor a bitter chuckle. "Were it so eas-"
She was cut off by a sudden roar in the cafeteria. It wasn't one of fear, panic, or anger. It wasn't a monster nor a machine. It was the roar of a crowd.
"What the fu...dge" Amy asked, turning to see what the source of the chanting crowd was. It hadn't quite gotten out of hand yet, it wasn't really a mob. But instead a lot of students in one area, very clearly looking at something special.
And something...blue.
"Oh, hey, it's your boyfriend," Amy noted casually as if to say, 'Huh, look at that.'
Taylor's face erupted in a fiery blush, "Shut
up!" she hissed.
"Oh, he can't hear you," Amy waved her sister off, "He's far too busy inflating his own ego. Doing...something."
The blue haired boy was standing in the center of the crowd, in a small clearing they'd made from pushing aside some chairs and tables. In there with him was Victoria, the girl Amy'd mentioned to Taylor the other day. The boy looked like he was just eating up the attention. What it was about, they were too far away to really tell, but it looked like Victoria was enjoying it just as much.
"Huh," Taylor said, "I wonder what that's abou…"
And then the boy started dancing.
While floating in the air.
Surrounded by blue bubbles.
"What," Taylor whispered.
Victoria barked out a loud burst of laughter, drowning out the crowd for an instant, before she started matching the blue boy with her own mid-air tricks, joined by balls of golden light twirling around her. At the end of their little routine, they did a mid air high-five. Taylor managed to catch Victoria say something along the lines of, "That's my cousin!"
Taylor heard a bang and whipped her head around to see Amy having slammed her head down on the table with a groan.
"Oh god, there's two of them."
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Jack hadn't been having a good day.
All those months ago, things seemed like they were looking up. When Skidmark told them to push into ABB territory, to start making waves, it felt like ol' Skids had been sampling too much of the product.
But it'd worked out, they hadn't taken
much territory. Everyone knew if pushed too hard, they'd incite the dragon. Still – they'd made gains. They'd claimed ground, taken old ABB haunts, roughed up some of the locals to make a show of the fact that this was Merchant territory now.
Old buyers for ABB product now came to them, willing to accept a cheaper product for the same high. People from all walks of life had heard of the Merchants now. They had a brand, customers, and cred. All of this made Jack, a distribution manager, a very happy and wealthy man.
Then, of course, Lung had decided to shift his gaze in their direction.
It wasn't so obvious as a burning rage dragon strolling down the street, melting everything in his sight, but he had been sending in scouts. None of it was obvious, just a small uptick in the number of Asians in the area passing through. But sometimes they wore the colors. Sometimes a dealer caught a glimpse of that Oni Mask. Sometimes that dealer disappeared.
It was enough to ratchet up the tension. Jack never felt
explicitly in danger, but he always felt like something was looming just out of reach. Looking over his shoulder, jumping at shadows, and sleepless nights at thoughts of a blade with his name on it coming for him all left Jack drained and irritable.
The drugs helped, or at least Jack liked to think they did. Product was selling as good as ever, so he was never shy on cash these days. Good money and good weed went a long way to help relieve his stress.
That, of course, had been before one of his dealers turned up in the middle of his territory completely gutted from his head to his ass. Dwayne had turned up dead this morning, and by the end of the night the whole neighborhood had been filled with paranoia and fear.
Jack was only a distribution manager for the newly acquired territory for the Merchants, but that meant he was still responsible for turning a profit with the drugs he got. To turn a profit, he needed to make people want to buy his stuff. Something that was, put simply, hard to do when everyone thought a demon was going to come in the night and carve their guts out if they bought from them.
The fact that Jack would
also be on the list of targets for the psycho ninja wannabe certainly didn't help with his stress levels. What Jack needed was a break, something to breath new life into his operation.
Fortunately, he had people for that.
"
Jacky~" came an alluring voice from the other side of the door. "It's
Diane."
Jack sighed in relief, sagging in his chair. He'd been expecting her.
He got up from his seat and walked across their little "Distribution Center" for this area. It was the stash house where they collected and stored product and supplies for the Merchants in this area. It could also be considered the local base of operations. It's certainly where Jack was sleeping.
That said, it wasn't that large in it of itself, nor was the next nearest safehouse that far away. Merchant territory just wasn't that centralized. Instead of having a handful of large storehouses and bases, they had dozens of locations all over the place scattered wherever they could find a nice place to hole up and stash some goods.
Despite its lofty name as the Distribution Center, it was just one of dozens, if not hundreds, of abandoned buildings scattered all throughout the poorer streets of the city. In a previous life, it had been a repair shop for cars. The ABB had used it as a chop shop, and the Merchants would too, eventually, but right now they had more need for drugs. Drugs that could easily be moved in and out covertly through the large garage downstairs.
And now Diane was here with their latest delivery.
He opened the door to reveal a tanned skinned 20-something woman with long, half shaved, black hair with hot pink highlights running through them. She was wearing a white crop top with enough holes to give him a peek at her neon green bra underneath. On top of that, she wore a black vest that, from experience, he knew she hid a knife and gun in. Her pants for today were long jeans, surprisingly intact, and some black boots.
"Diane," Jack drawled, leaning on the door frame with an easy smile. "What can I do ya for? Come to take me up on my offer after all?"
Diane snorted, cocking a hand on her hip. "Cute, but no," she said with an amused smile.
She was a damn fine woman to look at, in Jack's opinion. Which made it a shame that her tastes ran much younger. She made up for it by running the product like no one else in his crew, especially with her SUV and her ability to "connect" with the kids. Jack tried not to think about the specifics of it too much. Something made easier by the amount of money it made him. .
"So," Jack inquired, "Delivery? I got word you were coming with good news. Left in the dark as to what it is."
"Yep." She smirked. "Got it in the truck downstairs. Looks like there was some nice loot in the raids when we pushed forward. Shit the ABB left behind. Good shit."
Jack raised a brow, now very interested. "What kind of 'good shit'?"
"Some premium grade product from overseas," Diane said with the grin of a cat who'd caught the canary. "No idea who the chinks got it from, but those bastards were sitting on the score of a lifetime. Skids reckons that it's tinkertech shit too."
"Tinkertech drugs?" Jack leaned back, a second brow joining the first. "He know it's safe?"
"I mean." Diane shrugged with a helpless smile. "It's tinkertech drugs. What about that sounds safe?"
Jack had to acknowledge her point there.
"And, like, when has that ever stopped us before? Remember when Clank injected some shit into his dick?"
Jack
did, in fact, remember that. He wished he didn't, especially the part where it turned green.
"I don't feel like that's a
great example of why we should do this," he pointed out. "That was a lot of blood."
"Maybe," Diane nodded, "But tell me he didn't have the greatest 8 hours of his life."
Jack had to admit that Clank didn't seem too broken up about it. Until the moment that they'd had to bust out a knife, the man had been a party animal in the best possible way. And hey, it still worked.
Mostly.
"Fair," he admitted, face scrunched up as he considered it.
"And why do you care?" She punched his shoulder playfully. "Not supposed to sample the product, eh? Not like we give a shit if it fucks up the customers."
"Cause repeat customers are the best customers," he pointed out almost distractedly as he rubbed his bearded chin, "And I've had a pretty shit week. I could do with a nice new high."
"We could throw a party?" Diane suggested, I mean, if we got the gang all together to throw a big ol' shindig that got the block jump'n even after that shit Oni Lee pulled, it'd really shove it in the face of the ABB fuckers. You know, the best revenge is a life well partied and all that."
"Yeah…" Jack nodded, coming around to the idea. "Plus, strength in numbers."
"It might could do…"
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"What the actual fuck."
A few hours later, Jack and Diane had gathered together their crew. It wasn't a large group, and none of them were exactly central to the power structure of the merchants, but they were all his friends, and they'd all gotten here together. Carlos and Jason had shown up first, with Clank just recently arriving to the garage from his day "job".
The garage had belonged to an older repair shop that was beneath the owner's home. They'd left at some point, and now Jack made use of it. The ground floor was mostly concrete, with a few pits and lifts for cars, and a lot of storage space. Daine's big purple SUV was sat in what they liked to call the loading bay, which was really just the more car-oriented part of the garage.
To the side was a lounge area. It had a couch pit, fridge, TV, sound system, bongs, and other amenities his crew had put in to make it their home. On the table in the middle of all the couches were the preliminary plans for the party they'd drawn up. Mostly time tables, loose logistics, and location specifics. Nothing concrete, not before they inspected and tried the product.
Which left them here. Staring at a vial of thick black liquid.
"I repeat," Jack said, dumbfounded and more than a little creeped out, "What the fuck."
"Tinkertech drugs." Diane shrugged. "Tinker tech fuckery."
The container they'd pulled out of Diane's car was a big sealed cylinder, like for gas, but fancier. While it looked like it'd be a bitch and a half to open, they did have a method by which it could safely dispense controlled amounts by providing it with the glass vials that came with it. If ominous thick metal drum wasn't enough, then the unnaturally black ooze that poured into the vial certainly was.
Especially the way it never seemed to sit still.
"Right," said a tall African American man with long dreadlocks pulled into a single thick braid wearing a heavy coat, white t-shirt, and jeans. The dark skinned man, with just the barest hints of a beard, nodded skeptically. "Yeah, naw, fuck that."
"Aw come on, Jason, don't be a pussy." Diane grinned. "Just think of it as some black tar heroin."
"Black tar heroin don't look like it wants to eat you from the inside out," Jason pointed out. "Black tar heroin don't but barely move. That shit ain't
stopped mov'n."
"Again, tinkertech fuckery," Diane pointed out, "It comes with the territory."
"How do we know it's tinker tech
drugs, huh?" he argued, "Maybe it's tinkertech bio-weapon shit. I seent aliens, I seent X Files."
"I've taken a lot of shit," Jack said. "But I'm not desperate enough to try this shit. Not yet, anyways." He added with a mutter.
"Skids and his crew tried it," Diane shrugged, "They thought it was straight fire, so they sent it out here."
Something about that tickled Jack's brain as wrong, though he couldn't yet put a finger on what.
"Oh, fuck all you pussy-footing bitchs," Clank said abrasively, the pale skinned man wiht a buzzcut in a blue-grey jumpsuit pushing his way through the small crowd. "We're Merchants, in case you fucks forgot. Not that fancy prancy Empire with their "purity", or the mustache-twirling ABB with their "heritage". Nah."
Clank snatched a bottle right out of Diane's hand.
"We're fucking
Merchants. The real American gangsters that ain't trying to play nothing to nobody." He tore the cap off the top, leaving the ooze exposed to the open air. "We're trailblazers, not
pussies. And it's high time ya'll remembered that."
With those fateful words, he pulled the vial to his mouth, threw back his head, and consumed every last drop of the ooze in one swig. When he was done, he threw the vial to the ground and let it shatter on the floor.
"
YEAH!" Clank belted out, thumping his chest in a primal ritual. "That's what I call
good shit!"
Jack blinked, dumbfounded. "...did you just..."
"I mean, you brought Clank," Jason pointed out, "what were you expecting to happen?"
"Yeah, yeah." Jack rubbed his face in exhaustion. "I got what I paid for, I get it."
"How does it taste?" Carlos asked.
Jack knew the hispanic as an adrenaline junky of the worst kind. Sure, Carlos was his friend, but the guy would chase after danger, and his next high, almost as much as Clank chased after drugs. It usually caused more headaches than it fixed for Jack, but the man's affinity for guns, and the implausible number he could hold in his vest and baggy cargo pants was helpful in a nasty pinch.
"Like wet shit rolled in piss and vinegar," Clank said unironically, wiping a few traces from his lips. Then he pointed a finger at Diane with a deadly serious expression on his face. "Never let me do that again."
"Not enjoying the old flavor?" Diane smirked.
"No, I'm fucking not," he responded with a smile that meant more annoyance than pleasure.
"I take it you're not having the high of your life?" Jack pressed. The drugs weren't going to be too useful if all they did was taste like shit and make you want to throw up. People would go through a lot of effort to chase their high, but they wouldn't do stupid shit just to do stupid shit.
...well they don't do it often enough to make a profit, Jack reconsidered.
"No I'm…" Clank trailed off with a frown.
Clank paused and stumbled back. He held out one hand to brace himself against the brick wall of the basement. He closed his eyes, bringing his free hand up to his face as he let out a groan.
"Clank?" Jack asked, hand on the handle of his knife as he approached his friend, "You okay bud?"
Clank's arm on the wall twitched, his hand clenching tightly as a something throbbed in the arm. His muscles bulged for a moment, his fingers digging into the wall, before it all settled back down again. Clank removed his hand from his face, letting out a breath as he blinked rapidly several times.
Jack thought he caught a glimpse of Clank's eyes turning into pitch black orbs the same color as the liquid vials, but is was gone as soon as it appeared.
"Clank?" Jack said, a warning in his tone as he slowly drew the knife.
"Yeah, yeah," Clank waved him off, "I'm here, just...damn."
Jack relaxed, if only fractionally, as Clank pushed himself off the wall. The man seemed slightly unsteady on his feet, taking long looks at everything across the room.
"Whoa…" Clank whispered.
"It hit you?" Jason asked.
"Ya damn fucking straight it hit me," Clank muttered, "Holy shit, this is amazing. It's like…"
"Like what?" Diane prodded.
"Like...like my world's exploded…" Clank described unhelpfully.
"That sounds bad," Jason pointed out.
"It sounds fucking amazing," Carlos countered.
"Nah, nah, it's like…" Clank tried again, "It's like everything's in hi-res, yeah? Like, I can see
everything. And it's all slowed down too, man. It's crazy."
"Huh?" Jack eloquently inquired.
"Sounds kinda lame," Jason added.
"No no, it's...it's…" Clank chuckled. "Man, I need to sit down."
Clank stumbled his way to the couch, more so falling into it than sitting down, and just laid there. He looked up at the ceiling with a dopey grin, "This is
amazing."
Carlos pointed at the now horizontal Clank. "
Now he looks high."
Jack had to admit, Clank did look like he was having the time of his life.
"I want what he's having."
Several minutes later, the crew was all sitting down on the couch pit near the stairs. Each one had a vial in their hand, save Clank, who was already giggling maniacally on his little corner of cushions.
"Alright, you boys ready to take the dive?" Diane said, her brow raised in challenge and her smirk daring them to back out.
"Sure." Carlos shrugged.
"Not really," Jason answered, "but I don't really have anything better to do today."
Jack just grunted. He swirled the vial dubiously.
"Then here we go!" Diane cheered, throwing her head back as she chugged the entire contents.
Carlos did the same, while Jason sighed before simply sipping it.
Jack gave his own vial one last look, before shrugging.
"Fuck it."
He drank the vial.
For a moment, he felt like spitting it back up. Clank had not been joking about the taste. Jack didn't quite know what wet shit tasted like, but the liquid was thick and had the kind of warmth that reminded him of a living being. The taste was pungent, odd because it had no scent before hand. It certainly smelled strongly of vinegar. He could see where Clank got the idea for the rest, but to Jack it smelled more like sulphur. All and all, unpleasant in the extreme, but he could choke it down.
When it was over and sitting in his gut, nothing happened. Jack felt fine, which was the problem. Jack didn't want to be high, he wanted to be stoned out of his mind. He glared at the bottle for a moment. "Well that's disappointi-"
He world exploded.
Every single sense was turned up to 11, no, 20, and set to pleasure. Not the erotic pleasure he'd thrown himself into many a time. No, this was a warm comfort. This was like wrapping yourself up in a toasty blanket on a cold winter's day.
His ears could pick up every sound. The rats scurrying around, the quiet breaths of his friends, the cars in the distance. He could even hear the sound of his own blood shifting in his veins. He could feel the texture of the couch, of his own clothing, brushing up against his skin. Resting on it, folding, stretching, and compressing it.
He could smell the faint whiffs of oil, sex, and kitchen grease that filled this room. He could detect the slight hints of each person, the differences in their habits. He could see every single grain of rock in the concrete. The individual hairs on Trevor's arm. The veins in the wings on each fly in the room. The worms writhing under Diane's skin. All of it slowed down to a tenth, or even a hundreth, the normal speed.
Every single data point trickled through his mind, one piece at a time. His mind processed it all with a precision and care that drowned everything else out. For what felt like an eternity, Jack wasn't Jack, distribution manager for the Merchants in their newest land grab. He didn't live in Brockton Bay, capital shit hole of America. He didn't have to experience the fear of being hunted by a gang of psychotic Asians still throwing a bitch fit about losing their home. He wasn't even human. He just...was.
And it was beautiful.
Wait, Jack paused, taking a few hours to parse through his own thoughts.
There was...something important in there. Jack's mind moved like molasses, slowly pouring over everything it'd seen.
The hair, the wings, the worms-
The worms! White hot searing fear poured into his veins. A cleansing fire that purged the mire from his mind.
He screamed, jumping off the couch in panic.
Diane's stomach, it was writhing. Like dozens of worms were wriggling just underneath the skin.
"Whoa whoa whoa, man," Jason stopped Jack, holding up his hands, "What's wrong, what's wrong?"
"There's worms!" he shouted, "they're inside her!"
Why are they so slow, Jack wondered,
I have to get the worms out out OUT!
"They're burrowing under your skin! Churning around inside you!" he yelled. He could see the worms in Jason too, now. The way they burrowed up his neck, crawling up to his skull.
"Jack!" Carlos shouted, getting up too, "You're just having a bad trip man, that's all it is!"
"No!" Jack roared, "No, it's-"
Diane
howled in agony. Jack whipped around to see her stomach
writhing. The once toned skin of her belly stretching and twisting, as if something was churning beneath the surface. Her stomach swelled, as if some bloated corpse filled with maggots ready to burst forth.
"Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck," Jack whispered, frozen as time slowed to a crawl.
"Oh god, what the fuck!" Carlos shouted.
"No no no no!" Diane whispered through clenched teeth to herself, desperately clinging to her undulating stomach in some hope of keeping it all inside her.
"Diane!" Jason shouted, running up to her, "You're gonna be okay, just hold still," he said, pulling out a knife.
"Whoa, Jason, what the fuck are you doing?" Carlos tried to stop Jason. "You're not doing what I think you're going to do, right?"
Diane latched onto Jason's arm with a vice grip, looking up at him with wild eyes, nearly frothing at the mouth. "Get them out of me!" she shouted.
When Jack looked at her, he could see something in her once green eyes. A flickering darkness. A worm, crawling just beneath the surface of her eyelid.
Diane pulled, and Jason's knife plunged into her bulging stomach. Her flesh split open like an overripe melon, and a torrent of black maggots, worms, and ooze spilled out. Infested innards covered the floor, and it never stopped coming out. There was no end, just more filth, more parasites to take them.
Jason stumbled back, slipping in the sludge and falling into the pool. Carlos cursed and pulled out a gun. Jack could only watch in growing horror, attempting to will his body to move, but everything was still moving so slowly. He felt stuck in amber, the whole world moving around him while he was stuck in time.
Jack was helpless to do anything more than watch as the worms descended on Jason, diving into his flesh. Jack wanted to scream as he saw the black maggots burrow into Jason's face, swimming into his eyes. He could hear Jason's panicked shouts as the worms took him. Then, a sharp blast of pain passed through him, and Jack could hear nothing but a dull ringing.
The bright flash of gunfire lit up the scene. The bullets from Carlos' gun ripped bloody holes in Diane's corrupted chest, popping maggot and woman alike. Jack blinked, stepping backwards as he slowly became himself again.
Carlos stopped firing, trying to do something with his gun with a trembling hand. Suddenly, Carlos collapsed to his knees, puking more of the infected sludge from his mouth. Jack could see the black maggots writhing in the vomit, in Carlos' skin, in his eyes. He could hear the muffled screams of his friends, he could feel the tingling in his own hands, the feeling pins and needles as the maggots tried to eat him.
He turned to Clank, and saw the man standing by the couch, watching them all with a disappointed eye. Jack could just barely hear him say something. "How unfortunate."
Clank blinked, and his eyes were filled with that same darkness again. "I'd been hoping more of you would be suitable hosts."
"W-what the fuck, Clank?" Jack stuttered, unable to believe his own senses. Was it the drugs? Was it all really just a bad trip?
Or was it real? Were they really all going to die here?
"Well," Clank smiled, ignoring Jack as he moved towards the pile of dark sick and parasites. He reached down and picked up one of the larger ones, a long black shape that looked like a snake made of dark slime and rot. "I suppose we can just do this the hard way. The children do need bodies, after all."
Clank turned to Jack, "You'd make fine hosts, don't you think Jack?"
Jack ran.
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Jack ran and ran and ran.
He ran until he finally reached the next Merchant safehouse. He pounded on the door, begging to be let in. After what felt like hours of being left alone in the dark, in the hungry hungry dark where those things lurked, he was finally let in.
"Whoa, Jack, you alright bud?" a man in Merchant colors said. Jack couldn't place his face at the moment.
"No. Worms. Clank. Black. Infected." Jack panted. He couldn't breathe, he was drowning in the air. His whole body felt like it was covered in pins and needles. Was it the infection? The drugs? Had there even been drugs?
"You're not making any sense, man." another one said.
Jack grabbed the man by the shirt, pulling him up to his face. "They're inside me!" Jack shouted.
The man pushed up off. Jack stumbled to the ground. He couldn't feel his legs anymore. "They're inside!" He rambled, unable to keep it all inside. He couldn't even put his own thoughts together, it all just came tumbling out. "They came from the ooze, the drugs. But it's not drugs, it's sickness. It's
infection. It took her!"
"Who?"
"Diane! It ate her from the inside out!"
The two men gave each other an odd look. Jack didn't care.
"It's...they're...they're all back there. I left them. I-" Jack stopped, feeling something coming up from his stomach.
He leaned over and retched all over the floor. That same black sick came spilling out of him. The black maggots writhing in his own filth. That same corruption was inside him.
"See, see!" he roared, pointing at the sludge, "It's inside me!"
The two men looked at each other again. They blinked, and their eyes became black orbs. "What do you think, Trev?"
"I think he's drugged out his damn mind, Manny." Trev replied with a nod. "Take'n too much of the product for his own good."
"Yep. Wonder what happened to Carlos and Jason?"
"Dunno, but that blood all over his knife ain't a great sign."
"You're….you're…" Jack's addled mind put the pieces together. "You're infected."
"Whoa, bro. Calm down, Jack."
"Yeah man, ain't no one gonna hurt you."
"Shut up." Jack seethed through grit teeth. He could barely feel his own body. Everything was either nausea or pain. But he still had a knife in his hand. And he would be damned if they took him ali-
He felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck, then a cool feeling traveling throughout his body. Pain was quickly replaced by numbness, and he lost all strength in his body. He collapsed to the ground, unable to hold himself up. From the corner of his eye saw Her walk from behind him.
"You alright boys?" she asked, twirling a syringe of black fluid in her hand.
"Yeah, thanks Diane," one of the black eyed boys responded with a nod, "Looks like Jack took a bad trip."
Diane looked down at Jack with a smirk. And through the drugs, through the pain, and through the fear, Jack could see something else. Her solid black eyes were dead and hollow, and yet they seemed to shine with an unearthly light. Her lips were pulled into what even a blind man couldn't rightly call a smile. Her teeth glimmering a bright white in the dark and her fingers twitching in the air. There was an itch in her form, like a spring wound tight just waiting to be let loose.
Diane chuckled.
"Oh, you have no idea."
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A/n: Well then...that's a tone shift.
Hopefully, it works as well as intended and I haven't pushed most of you guys away from this fic.
I am, however, now on schedule again. Next chapter coming out next week. So thank Christ for that.
Also, I pulled the name Jack completely out of my ass. It wasn't until about 3/4s of the way through the merchant bit that I remembered Jack Slash was a thing,and it might throw some people off. But by then I was too lazy to change it and my editors said it was fine. Shoutout to Zee and Trav, by the way, for all their help making this not shit. Couldn't have done it without them.
They also seemed to think the first part I showed yall a preview of was mostly fine, which is surprising.
Anyways, that's all I got. Hopefully this works out.
