Evisceration Plague

Day 1
It felt like his mind was underwater, like he was pushing slowly through thick mud to reach outside of himself

His vision hazy, he clutched the only thing that kept him grounded, the hand of his best friend who still sat besides him on the ground.

The squeeze he received back was reassuring, but still he lay, gasping and staring, waiting for the moment to pass.

But it wasn’t so simple for him,a test subject injected with a strange green liquid.

Finally, his head cleared and his muscles stopped spasming as he pushed himself into an upright position, his sweat-soaked hair sticking to his equally soaked chest.

The scientist stood behind a glass partition, watching them closely.

She swept his hair out of his face, resting a hand on his shoulder and staring into the deep pools of his brown eyes with her own green ones.

“Talk to me Nathan.”

He slowly brought a hand to his head, squeezing his eyes tight.

“Unmph,” was all he could manage.

She looked sadly towards him.

“Nathan,” she whispered. “What have they done?”

It took him a moment, but he managed to answer.

“I have no idea...Soph...I just think I’m...not going to be here much longer…”

She gasped. “Nathan! Don’t talk like that!”

He smiled sadly and opened his eyes, eliciting another gasp from her.

“What?” He asked, almost afraid to know.

“Your eyes…” She whispered. “They’re so...dead.”

He looked down. “Oh…”

The pair sat in silence for a while, but He still seemed restless, his fingers tapping and eyes flickering all around the room.

“Nathan,” She said.

“What?”

“I won’t leave your side no matter what happens.” He met her gaze again, and silently thanked her.

Day 2
“Please eat, Nathan!” She pleaded.

He shook his head. “I’m not hungry.” He paced in a circle, as he had continuously for two days now.

“Nathan, you haven’t eaten since they…” her voice dropped to a whisper. “Injected you. I can see your bones starting to show...and it’s only been a few days!”

He whirled towards her, teeth bared. “I’m not hungry, Sophie!” He yelled, hands curling into fists.

Her eyes widened in fear. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. His face was torn between remorse and rage, as he turned away.

Day 3
He really looked bad now. His dead eyes had sunken, skin on his face stretched so tight his cheekbones almost ripped through. His ribs stuck out more than his stomach, his joints jutting through his elbows and knees.

He muttered constantly to himself now, pacing frantically as she tried to calm him down.

“Nathan, come sit by me.”

“Seventy seven times seven...No, Soph, I’m not doing that. Like blades of grass…”

“We can sing together like we used to.”

“Sevendusters, busting in on the devil,” He mumbled.

She sighed, finding her eyes tearing up again. “Okay, okay, I’ll just sing,” She whispered.

“Bathtubs of blood, sadness, decay and sunlight.”

Taking a deep breath, she began to sing in her hauntingly beautiful voice.

His mutterings ceased, his pacing slowed. As she continued to sing, he slowly walked over to her and lay down, resting his head in her lap.

She smiled sadly down at her friend, stroking his hair softly.

“I’m sorry,” He whispered.

“It’s not your fault,” She replied, matching his tone. The scientist watched silently.

Day 4
f he was bad before, he was absolute hell now. There was no way to describe the test subject other than a skeleton with a little skin. He twirled a piece of his now almost waist length hair around a finger.

“I’m very...hungry,” He said suddenly.

She smiled blasely and handed him one of the two sandwiches they each were allotted daily.

Tentatively, he took a bite, but almost instantly spit it out again.

She looked at him, worry again clouding her eyes.

“Not for that...vile mess,” he muttered savagely.

“What then?” She asked.

He was staring into the distance, a strange smile playing at his lips.

“Nathan please,” she said.

He shrugged. “Not sure,” he said. He traced over a dark spot on the wall, over and over, chanting “Cats, cats, cats,” under his breath.

His deteriorating mental and physical state had worried her for a while.

Day 5
She awoke to see him looming over her, holding something in his hand.

“Nathan!” She gasped, skidding away. It was a piece of sharpened metal.

He looked at her.

“Put that down,” she added.

He set it on the floor between them and smiled placidly.

“You scared the hell out of me,” she chided mother-like.

He had stopped talking five days prior, and just shrugged.

“Aw, come on,” She tried to urge. “Tell me something.”

He stared at her silently.

“Grunt?”

Silence.

“Sign language?”

No movement.

“Oh, Nathan,” She sighed.

She turned away for a second. A second, to see if the scientist was still there, to shoot him a venomous glare.

The next thing she knew a skeletal arm pinned her arms to her sides with surprising strength, and a hand held the metal to her throat.

She choked, unable to say a thing when her friend spun her around.

He grinned. “Gharrrghhhh!” He growled, clearly trying to form words and failing.

“N-Nathan...what’re you…” She froze as he pulled the metal piece away, then promptly plunged it deep into her stomach.

“Auuuughhh!” She screamed, tears flowing down her face. “N-Nath...an!” Her hands automatically wrapped around the blade, but he pulled it out and her fingers were also sliced to the bone. She screamed again as the blood flowed and she slumped onto her side in pain.

He examined the blade, brought it to his lips and sucked off every drop of blood.

His smile now more of a grimace with bloodstained teeth, he sliced straight down her torso, revealing many of her internal organs.

Too much pain for words, she gasped sharply, as her vision sparked and popped.

Tossing the blade aside, he helped himself to her stomach as she screamed, eating it with the ferocity of an animal, blood dripping down his arms and out of his mouth.

Slowly her screams faded to whimpers as he feasted on her insides, then were silenced altogether as her heart was ripped free, and hastily devoured.

A slight smile appeared on the scientist’s face.

Day 6
The blood hunger had returned, so much so he was clawing and pounding at the glass wall, trying to reach the immovable scientist.

Finally, an almost invisible door opened in another wall, and a man was shoved through, and the door closed.

In another life, he had been an army man, unafraid of anything.

Now, however, he froze in fear as the murderous gaze of the being once called Nathan landed on him, and a smile crept across his face.

The killer leapt onto the soldier, plunging his shiv into the soldier’s spine. Tearing open the man’s side, he shove one hand in, ripping out a handful of guts which he crammed into his mouth eagerly.

The soldier screamed and arched his back, trying, willing, hoping death to come. He kept at the soldier, slashing him with many small cuts until the blood loss was great, and the man was but a limp rag doll in his bloody arms, slowly torn from limb to limb, and devoured.

Day 7
He sat in the middle of the room, tapping the ground with stained fingers.

The scientist still stood there, surrounded now, however, by colleagues.

He stuck a hand in his mouth, hoping some of the blood left from the soldier may still be there, accidentally tearing open a fingertip on his incisor.

He stared at the wound for a moment, then stuck the finger to his lips and licked his own blood off.

Suddenly, he felt absolutely ravenous, as he hadn’t even  touched  before.

Recklessly rushing at the glass, he harmlessly bounced off and fell back, breathing ragged and loud.

“Here we go, gentlemen, “ the scientist rubbed his hands together. “It ends today.”

Nathan growled, pounding a palm on the glass. He froze, and then picked up his knife at the last minute.

Looking at the sharp blade, he turned it on himself, stabbing and pulling out one of his own eyes.

The blood ran out of the torn eye socket, and over his lip, which he licked off before popping the eyeball into his mouth like candy.

Apparently he liked what he tasted, as he grinned widely, disturbingly, and plunged the knife down his own stomach.

“Ahagrrrahhh!” he yelled, throwing the blade so hard it slammed into the plaster ceiling and stuck there.

Ripping out a long strand of intestines, he sank to his knees and stuffed his mouth full of his own bloody entrails.

The blood loss took it’s toll slowly, the loss of important organs however seemed to do even less as he ravaged himself.

Blood smeared his hands, face and chest as he tore at the edge of the cavernous hole he had cut into himself, ripping the skin open further.

To the end, he only thought of his blood hunger, only to be satisfied by flesh as his fingers closed around his visible, still beating heart, and everything went black as he pulled.

Day 7- Aftermath
“Wonderful,” the scientist muttered, hardly noticing the sickened faces of his colleagues. “Gentlemen, I do believe the newly developed Evisceration Plague is a success.”