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TW: senseless violence, death, cannibalism, references to abuse



Iɴ ᴀ sᴍᴀʟʟ ᴛᴏᴡɴ ᴏғ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ʀᴇᴍᴀʀᴋ ɪɴ Iʀᴋᴜᴛsᴋ Oʙʟᴀsᴛ, Rᴜssɪᴀ...

There is an Asylum, here, which was shut down in an official capacity in 1941. However, it continued to be in service by a highly secretive military organization, Deus Ex, until its true shutdown in 1958, following a fire of mysterious circumstances.

This base is highly prized due to its extensive basement, comprised of tunnels, vaults, and test chambers that the organization could-- and did-- expand upon. It is for that reason we've sent out a team of seven to put it back into working order, and if possible, map out its underground architecture.

You are doing nothing special. This is a routine check up-- one of many-- to ensure that their supply needs are met, and that they've remembered the code for this week-- "Melona".

If anything goes South, immediately pendant out. If anything goes South, send out a distress call immediately. If anything goes South, run.

Don't be foolish. You have a job to do.

Tʜᴇ Rᴏsᴛᴇʀ

• Joseph Mitchell - Sun - Male - 27
  
• Victoria Weaver - Moon - Female - 32
  
• Patti Jackson - Sun - Female - 24
  
• Carlos Lewis - Moon - Male - 20
  
• Kayla Robinson - Life - Female - 24
  
• Perry Neal - Death - Male - 30
  
• Ana Floyd - Mist - Female - 19

a**ɪɢɴᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ:

• Marianne Weber - Death - Female - 25
  
• Leslie Miller - Mist - Male - 17

i.

Leslie meets his partner at the portal, armed with a bag light on supplies but heavy on runics: a dagger and a trap gun both. Her name is Marianne, and she's pretty, tall, and blonde. A little on the skinny side, but the compact kind, not the unhealthy. It means that her tits are too small for most, but they're just the way he likes them. He looks her over twice.

If Leslie had to pin a style on her, it'd be 'dressed for success': hair up, heavy jeans, a utility belt. Prepared. Her coat is accented with a sky blue gradient, and the back's decorated with an elaborate pair of harvest scythes. He's seen enough people get promoted to know that she's a full hunter, and that she'd earned her stripes through assignment after assignment. Maybe even some that were just like this one.

It's his first mission of actual, real importance-- that isn't everyone and the kitchen sink-- but he gets the feeling that she knows. Leslie isn't stupid enough to think that there are any sort of stories about him: he hasn't ******** done anything of note, save for be one of the de facto handlers of America and Thompson when they get stuck in the infirmary.

So that means it's just him that she's looking at, with her pretty grey eyes that look down at him once, from his hair to his shoes, and that's it. That's all he's worth: a single glance.

Judged to be the sum of a few parts, and all of them lacking.

Marianne starts to pack her bag-- bandages and a trap gun for herself-- and slips a pendant around her neck, where it clinks next to a locket.

"You ready?" she asks, and her voice is pleasant in a projected sort of way, in a way that she doesn't mean.

That's fine.

She doesn't need to be nice. She just needs to help him finish the task.

"Have been." Leslie doesn't bother to keep the sulk out of his voice: after all, he doesn't need to be nice either.

viii.

"I can't do it," he whispers, fraught with tears. There's so much blood. So, so much. Leslie braces himself against the wall and retches for the second (third, fourth) time. He shakes like a chihuahua. "No. I can't do it. No. I can't, I c-can't, I can't."

At his feet is a corpse, half-gone. In his hand is a pendant. Spattered across his clothes is blood that is not his own.

We were so hungry, Aleria bemoans, wailing like a banshee in low, mournful tones, unconcerned with their host's fragility. We want more.

"No," he whispers, fraught with tears. The cycle begins anew.

(In the distance, he can hear them move. Termites in the walls.)

iii.

Kayla is gone. Well before Leslie found her with an unrestrained shout, her body askew hanging from the pipes above in chains. Does it count as a body, if there's almost nothing left besides the face? Her skeleton nearly picked clean, like a vulture got to it? A gallon of bleach is in the corner. Her bones have been treated.

Marianne is concerned, giving the corpse a hands on treatment.

They'll have heard that, she says, lightly, but the quiver in her hands give her away. Leslie's used to looking for that kind of thing, with Thompson. Just like with him, it's impossible to miss.

He takes out his phone, but the signal's dead. He takes out his pendant, but the words do nothing. Deus Ex Machina starts to sound like I do believe in fairies, I do, I do, but without the happy ending.

As they run-- her quietly and Leslie with no such finesse, slender fingers locked around his wrist-- she whispers that her guess was that Kayla had surely been alive.

The surface is very, very far away.

v.

Fury takes over and it ignites every vein, every synapse, and every cell in Leslie's body. It is a perfect and simultaneous release of adrenaline, testosterone, rage, hate. Within him is an infinite capability to do harm unto others, to pay back every misdeed ever done to him. To do so in tenfold.

The thought fills him with a giddy sort of glee, and it's the same glee Leslie sees in everyone else's eyes as Perry descends into the wrong room.

They are converging on him, and oh, how Perry runs. It makes his mouth water, and had he been a beast he would have been loping at full speed. Instead, there is only the slap of five pairs of shoes against the crumbling concrete. He is crying. He has pissed himself.

But he cannot run forever. Patti drops to one knee to notch an arrow that flies swift and true, right into the calf of the meat. The meat drops to one knee, and slavering jaws chatter and snap and dig him apart in a matter of seconds.

The job is done with equal parts weapon, equal parts hands.

He was other. Now he is nothing.

viii.

Oh, no, not again. Not again. Please, anything but this. He'd do anything. Begging on hands and knees to god, to the devil, to anything that'd listen. Whispered, half-forgotten prayers. Leslie had thought he was out of tears, but that thought was incorrect.

He wants to go home. He wants to take it all back. He scrubs at his mouth until the gums bleed, which makes him retch all, all, over again.

It doesn't matter. Fury does not listen to the weak-willed hopes of man. When it possesses him, it's stronger than before, and Aleria grows weighty in his hand, twisting and reforging anew.

We are ready, youngling, his weapon says, high off the terrible thirst for destruction. This is what we've always wanted.

A dream come true.

ix.

So much time has passed. Each day blends into the next, lost in the miles of sprawling underground. They are all hunters in a sense so much more literal than their occupations. Victory is so, so close.

Leslie stalks his prey-- the meat-- his club held lightly. Flecks of dried blood spatter him from head to toe, and his eyes are so, so red. He feels better than he ever has. With elation, he strikes.

But she is not so defenceless as she appears. She is other, but she is ready for him. Her weapons come to life with the force of a charge. As the force of Aleria bashes her skull in-- and the crunch is so, so satisfying-- her shotgun shells knock the rage right out of him.

Sprawled on the concrete, dazed, Leslie stares up at the ceiling for one moment, two. Three. Grey eyes flick to where Patti laid, askew.

He gets sick all down the side of him, and that's not the worst of what's there.

0.

Leslie sits on his bed, flipping through his folder. It's just one page of summary, a code word, and a roster.

It can't possibly be that hard. This mission was going to be a piece of cake.