PROJECT MORTUUS : Love's End

Chapter 11: Who Am I Now?

"Mr. Morris, this is a hazardous procedure. Are you sure you want to do it?" Mordecai asked with a clipboard in his hand. He knew he couldn't argue with someone like Michael, but after how many times the experiment had failed in the past, he was scared to test it on him. He scribbled "Subject E-4" on the top of the clipboard next to "Morris, Michael James." Michael's full name.

Mordecai had done the procedure before on a young man and had brought back his beloved wife. But she was never the same; his subjects usually weren't. They were alive but were just hollow shells of themselves, indulging in alcoholic drinks and painkillers.

Sometimes, Mordecai wondered what had become of Subject E-3. Last he heard, she was in jail, and rightly so. Who could blame Mordecai for being afraid of doing it again? Even if he had modified the machine, the thought of what it created was always in the back of his mind, like a ghost haunting him.

Michael nodded. His mind was decided. He didn't care about the risk. "Anything to see my wife again, Mordecai."

Michael was lying in a brass pod with satin lining and large tubes connecting it to a generator-looking thing. He hadn't a clue what any of it did, but he was willing to do anything if it meant that he could see his wife, even for a split second.

Tons of wires and tubes were stuck to his chest and forehead. He didn't have a shirt on because of the strange wires. That didn't bother him much, though, but what did was the cold lab air.

Mordecai clicked a key on his computer, and the machine whirred to life with a metallic breath. Its heavy gears churned and puffed out thick smoke. Each gear seemed large enough to power the Titanic, but not this machine, which was the size of a small bus at most.

A fuzzy image appeared on a screen beside Mordecai as Michael lay in the machine. It was a hazy image of a woman's face. The woman looked almost identical to Maria but had slightly shorter hair and thick round glasses.

It was clear that the woman was none other than Annabella Morris, Maria's mother. As Mordecai looked at the picture, he could feel a strange sense of cold hatred, almost like the woman from the picture was speaking to him from the grave.

For a split second, Mordecai felt a cold hand on his shoulder, unaware that Death was behind him. Mordecai was always being followed by Death, but like everyone, he was oblivious, yet this time, he felt as though he could hear him speaking.

The dark, raspy voice was barely noticeable, telling him it was a mistake. That he should stop this whole project and never resume it again. He lifted his finger to the CANCEL button, shook the hesitation from his head, and clicked ENTER, brushing the feeling off as nothing more than self-doubt.

Maybe if he had listened to it, things wouldn't have happened that led to love's end.

"Found her..." Mordecai whispered, hesitation still in his voice as he pulled a lever. The machine hissed and groaned as a thick liquid pumped out of Michael. The liquid crept up the tubes connected to his head and neck.

As the liquid pumped, Michael's eyes seemed to dim. His hazel eyes became blurs of black, surrounded by the red sclera. Thick red tears trickled from his eyes and ran down his cheeks.

The liquid slowly began pouring into a giant mold of what appeared to be a woman. As it filled the mold, lights flashed, and things sparked. The enormous gears made a ghastly grinding sound.

Mordecai ran to the machine and tried shutting it off. "Something's very wrong!"

On the other side, Michael's chest was heaving and convulsing. His eyes rolled into his head, and his hands dug into the machine's padding. The veins on his chest seemed alive with movement, pulsing and throbbing.

A computer behind Mordecai began shouting, the line in its center blinking red. It was clear that whatever had happened to the machine had stopped Michael's heart. Mordecai dashed to Michael. Ripping the wires and tubes from Michael, he started pushing on his chest, trying to start his heart again as the monitors around him screamed.

As he did the chest compressions, Michael slowly stopped convulsing. His eyes opened, and he stared blankly at Mordecai. His expression was unphased by the near-death experience he had just had.

"Mr. Morris, are you responsive? Can you hear me?" Mordecai asked him, out of breath from panic. Michael nodded, his eyes holding no emotion whatsoever, and sat up.

As the machines began blaring again, Michael walked away. Mordecai was too distracted to notice and tended to the mechanical mayhem around him. Whatever had happened while the machine was extracting the liquid from Michael had clearly messed him up.

The machines kept blasting, and sparks flew as the engine started crumbling. Gaint gears fell as bolts were thrown away but spouts of hot steam. Tubes the size of an oak popped out of the machine, some of them spraying boiling water while some hissed steam.

As it crumbled, a large screen groaned and fell. It crashed into Mordecai, crushing his leg. He cried out, the pain unbearable and causing him to pass out. Thick layers of smoke filled the room as things caught fire.

Just like that, years of research went up in smoke, and weeks of construction went to waste. He lay there in the wreckage of his machine, passed out and bleeding heavily from his leg. A small robot rolled into the room to aid him. The device had failed, and not only that, but it had caused what indeed seemed like the end for Mordecai. It would seem to anyone, especially Mordecai, that things couldn't have gone worse and surely couldn't get worse. A morbid thought that he'll feel comforted by when he knows the truth. Mordecai had just unknowingly brought an evil far more significant than any Ventura could pose.