Patient B-2

Chapter Twenty-Three: Avalyn

As I awaken, I find myself still strapped to the medical table. With a grunt, I wrench my head to the side, squinting against the piercing light. My gaze falls upon the metal table beside me, its surface gleaming like a beacon. There, amidst an array of gleaming medical instruments, sit the vials- only three, their contents swirling ominously within.

Weren't there more?

I push the unsettling thoughts aside, swallowing hard against the rawness of my dry throat. With a raspy exhale, I lick my parched lips, chastising myself for the chapped skin that betrays my neglect. If only I had heeded Aren's advice and refrained from incessantly chewing on them.

As my gaze sweeps across the room, it lands on the darkened figures strewn across the floor. My focus sharpens, and I fixate on them, blinking rapidly in a futile attempt to dispel the persistent blur that clouds my vision. Just as I resign myself to the futility of discerning the jumbled mess on the floor, a glimmer of recognition sparks within me. A shape emerges- a foot.

I trace its outline upward, my eyes struggling to piece together the disjointed puzzle of limbs and torso. And then, in a horrifying moment of clarity, the scene before me coalesces into a nightmarish vision. There, sprawled on the floor in a grotesque parody of humanity, lies a body- a person.

The sight wrenches a guttural cry from my throat, bile rising in my throat as I struggle to contain the overwhelming urge to vomit. The jumbled mess on the floor isn't just one person- it's multiple. What I had mistaken for a single body is, in fact, a collection of corpses, callously tossed together in a growing pile. The stench of death hangs heavy in the air, mingling with the antiseptic scent of the sterile surroundings, creating a suffocating atmosphere of horror and despair.

I try to count the bodies, but they blur together in a gory amalgamation of flesh and bone. There must be no more than five, yet their naked forms merge together, obscuring any semblance of individuality. It's not just the sight of the dead that turns my stomach- after all, I've witnessed death many times before- it's the haunting familiarity of their sunken, aged faces.

It doesn't take me long to figure out how they became like that. It was my blood, the so-called cure, that wrought this ghastly transformation upon these poor souls. A cure, by its very definition, should heal; it should offer relief and respite from suffering. But what I've unleashed upon the world is no cure at all; it's a monstrous perversion of everything good and pure.

My chest tightens as the full weight of responsibility settles upon me. These bodies, these twisted remnants of humanity, are the tragic consequences of my actions. It then dawns on me- the missing vials, the sinister machinations of the doctors. The doctors have been using my blood, not to cure, but to kill. Each vial is a harbinger of death, each drop a venomous cocktail of destruction.

The overwhelming horror threatens to suffocate me, leaving me gasping for breath, but even the energy to scream eludes me. All I can muster is a feeble cry, a lament for the unspeakable tragedy that has unfolded before my eyes. With trembling limbs, I attempt to survey the bodies, praying against all hope that among them, I won't find a trace of either Aren or Jeannette. But the disfigured forms offer no solace, their twisted features rendering them unrecognizable.

Just as despair threatens to consume me whole, a sudden voice pierces through the suffocating silence, drawing my attention to the other side of the room. Every nerve in my body jolts with a mixture of fear and anticipation as I strain to make out the source of the sound. "The auction is today; he'll be in town. We'll inform him of our discovery tomorrow once the event has concluded," Dr. Gaven's voice holds an air of unwavering certainty, each word laden with a chilling resolve.

"Good idea. Let's hold off until it concludes, then bring him in to witness it firsthand. It might not align with our initial expectations, but it's certainly a promising beginning. I believe the boss will be pleased," Dr. Hearty's voice resonates with satisfaction, laced with a touch of eager anticipation.