Chapter Text
23 October 2016
"I have killed it. I have killed a Lycan."
Jenica watched the creature’s body with her fists clenching tightly at her father’s hunting shotgun, ignoring the pain from the laceration on her right leg. She had run through the snowy forest surrounding the village for what seemed like an eternity, fleeing her unexpected attacker. Returning home had always been safe, but lately horrendous monsters had begun to appear.
Lycans. That’s how they called them. Prayers to Mother Miranda and protection rituals had only served to create a false sense of confidence and security maintained as long as you didn’t go out at night or, apparently, now also during the day.
She dropped the shotgun on the ground and sat on the cold path floor, taking great care not to graze her wounds. The temperature had began to drop because of the sun’s fall, which would happen very soon, and she would have no protection to shelter herself from those aberrations that lurked in the night.
"Shit, I’ll never get home like this!" She snorted, outraged and ashamed of her mistake. She had seen them before, hidden during her nocturnal observations from the roof of her house just outside the village.
Jenica watched intently the wound on her leg and the ash tones that were beginning to appear on it.
It was quite bad looking.
The skin began to become gangrenous as some kind of contagion was evident. That thing that corrupted her neighbours and turned them into those terrible creatures was now spreading through her body, and she didn’t have much time until she began to feel the first symptoms.
Determined, she shouldered the old shotgun as try to lean on her healthy leg. Carefully, she stood up and regained her balance. If her calculations did not fail, the mill had to be less than a kilometre away. She had to get there, and make sure she didn’t become a danger to anyone else.
Jenica :
The improvised splint I had made with the materials abandoned in the mill had allowed me to walk long enough to acclimate the insides. I had closed all the windows and chained the security locks that still stood to the tower doors to prevent anything from entering... nor to leave.
I had been caught off guard, and that damned mistake was going to cost me my life.
Luiza always thought my worries were useless, that I was exaggerating. One of the few people in that disgusting village who had at least deigned to have a conversation with me without calling me "witch" or "monster".
"It is your own fears that hold you and lock you up, Jenica. Trust Mother Miranda, and everything will be granted." She always said. All right, well, now one of those fucking things had attacked me in broad daylight, almost ripped my leg off, and I was somehow infected.
Since my father’s death, I had found myself alone. More than the usual.. Everyone thought it was an unfortunate accident. The attack of a wild animal late at night that had pulled him out of bed, dragged along the path to the forest he used every day to go hunting and that had bled him without leaving even a body to cry on when buried.
Bullshit.
A few weeks later, it happened again. Despite it, those cowards from the village preferred to do nothing, limiting themselves to surviving and hiding.
The pain grew stronger and stronger, threatening to make me lose consciousness. I bit with even more force the piece of cloth I had pulled from my arm to use as a gag. I wasn’t going to let those damned beasts hear my cries.
I wasn’t going to give them that privilege.
All they’d hear was a shotgun shot, and when that happened, they might as well find me.
"You were right, tata. You cannot stop death when it comes, let alone run from it."
With my father’s words in my head, I let the fever carry me away and the pain sink the few barriers that my conscience had raised against sleep. The nightmares started.
A pack of Lycans had picked up a trail of fresh blood. There had been no hunting in the village that night. The trail began at the foot of a dead mutation of several shots in the path that connected the old dam with the mill. Following their instinct, they let the trail led them to such an appetizing prey.
Once they reached the mill, the beasts tried to enter, scratching and hitting the planks that served as a door to the ruined tower. Filled with rage, they began to call out to one another, howling frantically and throwing their sharp paws at the wood.
They could feel it.
The beating heart of their prey was in that tower, and they must have it.
Suddenly, the howling stopped. In the silence of the night, a breath barely perceptible to the fined ears of the creatures was replaced by a dark grunt, which was no longer human. There was something inside the mill, something dangerous enough to silence the starving howls of until that moment the biggest nocturnal predators in the area, and it was looking forward to getting out.
Jenica:
The pain was unbearable. Travelling from the leg wound to my head, it exploded and reached each of my cells. I could feel each of my nerve endings ache, change and change again, over, and over.
After what seemed like hours of suffering, I opened my eyes. I couldn’t see anything, just some red spots moving in my field of vision on a black background. Those red spots that howled and wouldn’t shut up, making me feel like my ears were going to explode.
I angrily tore out my gag and spat dark blood on the floor. The pain of the leg wound was insignificant compared to what I felt at the time. My bones seemed to struggle to come out of my flesh, the muscles tightened so tightly that my lungs did not have enough space to breathe. I was changing, and I had to do something quickly to avoid it.
The fever and the nightmares had caused me to drop the shotgun a few meters away. As I could, I tried to crawl down the damp mill floor to get to her. I needed to end all that pain and suffering. The pain suddenly increased exponentially making me scream, as if there was a part of me that prevented me from reaching the gun and ending my own life.
Without strength, I stopped trying. I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt my heart pumping in my ears, blood running through my veins and burning below my skin. I looked up, a great black and dark vastness in which I only saw those red spots moving from one side to the other. In my delirium, it looked like 15 or 20 and they were moving fast. They were lycans, and I didn’t know how, but I was able to see them through the walls of the mill, walls that would not protect me for much longer.
A new feeling came over me. Anger, despair, and sadness. The impotence of my father’s murder, the frightened faces of the people from the village, the sense of abandonment I felt when I noticed that for them, I was just another madwoman who saw monsters where there were none...
Tears started running down my cheeks. No, my life couldn’t end like this.
I had to kill them. Every single one of those damn bastards that were waiting for me out there.
I growled.
24 October 2016
Heisenberg:
"Well, well... Whatcha got here?”
Dismembered lycans were piling up on the floor. Scratches and bites left no doubt something big had finished with them. Easily, much to my regret. Most of them had limbs torn and scattered by what was once the entrance of the mill to a trail heading towards Moreau’s lair.
"Tsk, what a waste. Moisture only spoils smells. It certainly ain't the most appropriate place to enjoy a good hunt.”
I watched the scene a little more, not sure whether to be surprised or angry. It wasn’t exactly more trouble I needed at the time. I took another deep shot at my cigar while the few Vârcolacs - a little present I borrowed from Moreau - who accompanied me frolicked and dismembered the remains of their fellow beings.
Stupid brainless aberrations. One of them sniffed the bloody trail heading for the dam. The way forward was clear.
“Looks like our new family member ain't used to its hunting ground, huh?"
Obviously, whatever had killed the lycans wasn’t human. Well, at least not anymore. Would any of Miranda’s experiments have escaped the clutches of that psycho witch? I laughed softly and took another hit to my cigar as I imagined that bitch’s furious face at the prospect of losing one of her precious toys.
Truth was that were fewer and fewer unfortunates left in that village and it was difficult to find new subjects to experiment, but now that was irrelevant. The priority was to find it before its lack of control alerted someone.
"Aight, looks like it’s time to start the hunt."
I breathed as much air as I could without suppress a grimace of disgust. Shit, now I remembered why I hated leaving the Factory so much. I was used to the smothering heat, the sulfur saturating everything and hitting my lungs. Smelling the fresh air was like saturating your senses with a too cloying sweet.
Still, it wasn’t hard to identify its smell. It was a mixture of ash bark, honey, and wild roses, all linked in a single essence with blood and gunpowder. Dammit, too intense. I wouldn’t be surprised if that thing was able to attract all the Lycans from miles away using those fucking pheromones. Even I was struggling to stay sane.
I ordered the rest of the pack to go back to their nests. This situation deserved my special attention, and those smelly mutts would only distract me and keep me from enjoying the hunt.
"For your sake, I hope you don’t disappoint me, beast.”
"Shit, this is certainly unexpected.”
Of all the shitty things I had imagined I could find, had to admit that none passed by a naked woman, covered in blood and dirt tied with a chain to the pier that welcomed Moreau’s personal pool. I couldn’t understand how such a scrap of structure was still able to stand up, let alone support someone.
Young, early 20s. It was hard to identify her features, but her white hair was fucking impossible to ignore. An albino. I wasn’t aware of any in my records of the people from the village, but from her smell I knew she was a local. They smell different, and they all smell the same.
For a moment I thought that the poor wretch had been running away from the beast and tied herself up to prevent it from taking her. It was not my most logical thought, honestly. The trail was not impregnated in her.
It came from her.
I grunted. There was no doubt. Didn’t know how, but that girl was the magnificent beast that had killed two dozen of lycans the night before. And she was intact, without a scratch. All the blood appeared to be from her victims, ‘though I wouldn’t be completely sure until I examined her properly.
Her chest moved with an agitated breath, but at least the brat was breathing. If I wanted to do something, it had to be now. I didn’t know where the creepy leech that controlled that wet, smelly wasteland was, but I couldn’t risk making him share in my discovery.
"What are ya, pretty one? Aight, little girl. Lemme try something. I need to know how much of an aberration ya have inside that small body of yours.”
I knelt before her and used my ability to make the chains curl over her limbs, joining her hands and feet in an unbreakable bond. At least, as long as I wanted it to. It was impossible for her to do me considerable harm, yet I had no way of checking her abilities, much less risking her running away.
To my surprise, the girl opened her eyes.
Jenica:
I had heard him arrive.
I had heard everything since before he arrived at the pier.
I could feel the pungent smell of a cigar smoke and a deep aroma of sulphur entering my throat and burning me as it passed into my lungs. I heard the tinkling of metal accompanying his steps.
I had heard his voice.
It reached into my brain and forced my eyes to open. In front of me was a tall, scruffy man with gray hair, glasses that hid his eyes and held a huge hammer. At the time, I didn’t even notice that a normal person wouldn’t be able to lift that thing. His build seemed athletic, strong. His hair colour could deceive about his age, but the posture and defiant attitude he detached, did not.
"Go." I did not know exactly what or whom I had killed during the night, but I was fully aware of the beast within me. That man needed to leave. My conscience couldn’t take on another corpse.
"Wow, that’s a few manners. Anyone would expect a little more courtesy in a situation like this, little girl."
His voice was low, but soft. I was accustomed to the twangy raspy voice of my neighbours, but his was totally different. I could say that even seductive, although in those moments I was a little out of my mind.
"You won’t care so much about courtesy when I pull your arms out of your body and throw them into that swamp to feed whatever lives down there. I’m telling you for your own good. You better go."
I looked at him a little more. He certainly looked like a damned hobo in a scorched hat. The smoke of the cigar he was smoking prevented me from appreciating his facial features. I really felt the urge to take his cigar out of his scarred hands and throw it in the water.
No, not like that.
I kept telling myself I had to keep control, that I couldn’t let anger control my impulses so easily.
He noticed the struggle that seemed to be going on in my head, and out of the blue he grabbed firmly my chin and lifted it up so he could look me straight in the eye. A chill ran through my body. I wasn’t used to the presence of a man surpassing me like that.
"It’s touching that you care about me, child. We both know your instincts are screaming at ya that I’m not a mere mortal, and even if ya wanted to, I doubt my chains would allow ya to do anything in your present state.”
“I don’t care about you, freak. It’s my own conscience that keeps me up at night. I’ve got enough blood on my hands already.”
He gave me a loud laugh that ended up being more like a grunt.
“No shitty conscience in this place, woman. Just ya and me and believe me... my hands are far more stained than yours.”
I stood up slightly, leaning on my elbows. I stared at him, studying his every reaction to my words.
"Are you going to kill me?"
“Don’t be stupid, buttercup. Ya won’t be any fun if you are dead.”
That surprised me. He seemed sincere and now I was the one who couldn’t help but laugh.
“For what it's worth, I’m not going to kill you, too. You also seem to be fun to mess with.”
He raised his eyebrows and took another hit to his cigar. Pretty sure that man had to believe I was crazy.
“Such a spoiled brat, huh? Well, ya could always get the beast out, but I think your last... hunt is still pretty recent. In my opinion, ya only have two options. I can leave you here and hope that the rest of the monsters that populate this forgotten land finish ya and then take ya with me.”
"Take me with you? But what..."
"Or ya can accept the hand I so generously offer you right now. I can give ya a place to stay and maybe the best deal anyone can ever offer you. Ya decide, little girl.”
I looked at him for a few seconds. No one walked through this territory without fear of what might lurk in the shadows. If this man was able to offer me such an opportunity, he was a powerful one. But that also meant that maybe, and only maybe, I could use him to find out more about what was going on in the village and, of course, what was happening to me.
I looked into his eyes again through his dark glasses. Without realizing it, I sketched a mischievous smile.
"I hope you have an armoured room that can resist a monster, because otherwise you will have very serious problems."
The man laughed eagerly and held out his hand as the chains left my limbs. I looked at them curiously and then looked back at him. He shrugged and smiled. I knew he wouldn’t tell me anything else for the moment.
How had he done that without touching myself?
"I have the best room ya can imagine, buttercup."
I took his hand and got up. I noticed before, they were full of scars, like a hunter does when he accidentally cuts himself with his skinning knife.
"Here, cover yourself with this.” I could feel his eyes running through my body, analysing each of the still visible parts of my skin. His look was not obscene, it almost seemed as if he worshipped what he was seeing. I couldn’t help but blush.
“Do you like what you see?”
“Well, I can’t say I mind ya going naked, but I can understand that you ain't immune to frostbite. It would be shameful to survive a pack of Lycans and let the cold kill ya, wouldn’t you agree?”
"So, you know what they are. You know those beasts… What are you, exactly?"
I almost hissed my words. He had begun to walk towards the road while I put on the raincoat he had given me. Upon hearing my question, he stopped and turned around, with a predatory smile on his lips.
"Huh, lemme see. A naked, beautiful and lonely brat on the edge of a lake who has killed dozens of abominations without a scratch. A creature that can feel my power and yet does not tremble or hide. Instead, she dares to fucking question me and make demands.”
He opened one of his arms and with the other held his hat against his chest, making an exaggerated bow.
"I like ya, woman. Name is Heisenberg. Karl Heisenberg. And y'are my new project, buttercup.”
When he stood up again, I noticed he had taken off his glasses. A lightning just went through my heart making my pulse go crazy.
Those eyes.
I had seen them many times.
The eyes of a wild animal, a natural predator at the top of the food chain for which everything was an appetizing prey. They glowed in an intense yellow tone. Like the eyes of a wolf.
I swallowed. My blood was racing back through my body, and I could feel a nice tingling under my skin. I liked that feeling.
I shouldn’t.
I should be scared. I should turn around and run away without looking back.
I should be thinking about the monster that had been created inside myself instead of feeling fascination for the one right in front of me. I should have done a lot of things, and none of them was really what I did.
Staring deeply into his eyes, I repeated his exaggerated reverence.
"My name is Jenica. I hope the deal you’re planning on offering me doesn’t include being your experiment, because if it is, I swear I will take that huge hammer you carry and crush all your joints with it until you beg me to let you die.”
Heisenberg:
Damn, that creature was like anything I’d seen before.
The simple fact of not looking like a decrepit, disgusting aberration was enough. Her body was perfect, I could even say improved. Height similar to mine, porcelain skin, without scratches or scars... I had to test her blood as soon as I had the chance, but I knew that woman had mutated.
Couldn’t also deny that fucking little girl was attractive. I didn’t consider myself a picky one, but her albino features added to those red eyes were stirring emotions I thought I’d lost a long time ago. Oh, such a great detail that I think she hadn’t noticed herself. Her eyes were crimson, but they were changing tones slightly according to her emotions. I would have time to find out what each one meant.
Yeah, I thought to make a thorough study of that phenomenon.
Her physique was notorious, of course, but what had struck me most was her. That brat was not afraid of me. She had held a conversation with me, testing me and wanting me to bend to her will. She was very different from those fearful bastards from the village.
What would it be like to see her lose control? How would she contortion her expression when fear clouded her senses? What about pleasure? Too many variants, too many conditions... and I was looking forward to testing each of them.
As all those thoughts were spinning in my head, she had been watching me. Seeing that I was not following her, she stood right in front of me, took my cigar without saying anything and took a deep puff, returning it to me after a few seconds.
“Well, shall we go?” What the hell? That damned woman was either very brave, or very stupid.
"Damn, girl. It will be interesting to see if ya are able to do those things that ya so gloat about. Don’t you think?"
She smiled at me and bowed slightly, letting me show her the way.
Looks like I just finally found the weapon I’d been waiting for so long.