Mount Mabu Rainforest, Africa.
Much of this region has remained left unexplored, and it is the dream of many researchers to visit, explore, and make a discovery here.
There is one youth in particular, only in his early twenties but his knowledge is ever so bountiful, and he has long entered into the scene of debates with a multitude of famous researchers.
On the topic of research, his specialties overlap, being: biology, chemistry, toxicology, pharmacology, medicine, botany, and so on. More specifically, there is a strange flower in which he seeks, one he has nicknamed—Coroner's Blood.
There is very little known about this flower, and as a matter of fact, many believe it to be nothing more than a mere fairy tale, or rumors that evolved from the ramblings of drunken men of olden times.
But he… he thinks much differently.
Just because it has yet to be recorded officially, doesn't mean it's a hoax!
Now, what is the 'Coroner's Blood,' you may ask?
Unbelievable as it sounds, it's a black flower, speckled with red blood-like splotches accompanied by the dispersing of green powders with sweet fumes. And according to the stories, devouring this flower will assimilate a poison into one's blood, mutating the entirety of their body's system.
This poisonous flower is of some sort of—extraterrestrial plant—one not native to this Solar System, or maybe even this Galaxy? It's said that this poison is stronger than any other on Earth, and assimilating it will grant one immunity to all poisons—one could even use their own blood as a treacherous venom.
Yeah, it sounds unbelievable, doesn't it? And perhaps its description is a bit far-fetched.
But… there are many things which sound unbelievable and yet… they exist.
Just wait as it is only a matter of time. This mere story will see its real life counterpart soon enough because that man searching for the Coroner's Blood… is me… and I will find it!
Signed, Toah Nurk
Click.
The sound of a pen clicking resounded as its ink cartridge retracted. Holding the pen was a youth rapidly scribbling down his thoughts in a notebook, signing his name: Toah Nurk.
Toah smiled with a set of sparkling white teeth, snapping his notebook shut before popping open his canvas backpack nearby, and storing it away briskly.
Currently, he stood under a large tree, its massive crown providing him with a spacious region of cool shade amidst the high levels of humidity.
All throughout his surroundings, the sound of nature cried out: be it the blowing of the wind through vegetation; the buzzing of mosquitoes; chirping of crickets and birds; and so on.
Considering his field of research, he was long used to all of this. And rather than bother him, he couldn't help but feel right at home.
Toah strapped his bag over his shoulders, ready to get on the move.
"Hmm. According to everything I've cross-referenced, the number of these flowers that exist can be counted on one hand after taking into consideration their inability to proliferate."
Toah continued his train of thought, "And what little records do exist, suggest that only a few seeds found their way onto Earth. Furthermore, they appear to thrive off the erosion and consumption of any organic materials."
He shook his head with a light sigh, feeling the number of records he had access to was pitifully low. Honestly speaking, the chances of this flower existing were low, and the chances of coming across one of them even lower.
Not to mention—extraterrestrial?
Any and all who listened to Toah's ramblings thought he was crazy; his desire to discover had certainly led him down a twisted road of fanaticism.
Regardless of others' thoughts, Toah was dead set on carrying out his search! No one could interrupt his grindset—absolutely no one! Toah looked down at his map, which was rather useless at the moment. He was already far off the chartered land, venturing dangerously into the unknown.
Who knows how many strange undiscovered species of plants and animals he walked past without a second thought; there was only one discovery worth his time and effort.
Looking ahead, he caught sight of a tree with various markings, eventually leading to what appeared to be a narrow man-made path. The blades of grass were shorter there, only reaching up to his waist, and they were cleanly cut with grass clippings strewn across the surface of the ground—the clippings were clearly fresh.
Taking a closer look, a few different footprints could be seen overlapping one another in the light brown colored soil; it was far too difficult to count how many unique shoe prints marked the ground.
'Others have been here… They still might be nearby.'
Toah's heart thumped loudly, and he couldn't help but worry, moving forward to investigate.
'Why are others here? Are they locals? Researchers?'
'Who could possibly be out here in the middle of nowhere?'
Despite his worry, Toah was always one to put his curiosity above his own safety, and thus he quickly entered onto the trail. Harsh thistles from a multitude of bushes occasionally scratched at his arms, even prickling him through his layered clothing.
'This path seems to go on for a good distance. I better pick up the pace!' Toah thought, ignoring the native creatures watching him in curiosity as they had not seen many humans in these lands.
Walking for about half-an-hour, several large holes came into view, seemingly intertwined with various paths. The holes led underground, leaving Toah stunned with gleeful surprise.
'Are these cave entrances? It seems luck is smiling upon me!'
A cave was his best bet on finding the Coroner's Blood, but he couldn't help but feel flabbergasted.
There were several entrances, each one more than large enough for a group of people to enter and still have the ability to move around with ease.
Looking at the eroded surface of the cave, Toah felt it was a bit… supernatural. For this many entrances to form, and in such close proximity to another, it seemed like they were specifically being carved out by something.
They didn't look natural nor did they look man-made.
He thought back to his research regarding the flower's ability to erode and consume, 'This might be my best find yet! Wait—'
A bad feeling suddenly hit him as he thought back to the traces of others being nearby. What if they were here for the same reason as him?
'I must be overthinking it. Heh. I can't let worries get in the way of my grind.' Toah smiled complacently when an alarming shout abruptly sounded behind him.
"INTRUDER! GET OVER HERE!"
Toah turned in shock to see a strout man charging at him with a machete in hand, loudly calling out repeatedly for others to hear.
Stunned, Toah made a split-second decision, pivoting towards the cave entrance as he with all the speed he could muster.
Still, the stout man followed after him like a beast chasing its prey as they entered the cave.
It was dark with a strong musty scent. Water droplets dripped from the stalactites on the ceiling, forming into tiny puddles all throughout the cold ground. Stalagmites marked all throughout on the cave's floor, some appearing to be near colorless, and others ranging in shades of orange, red, and black.
The walls were formed of various minerals, but considering that there were more than three hundred variations of cave minerals identified, and how many others were still unknown, it was far too difficult for Toah to properly make them out.
'What the hell is wrong with this dude?' Toah wanted to yell that it was a misunderstanding, but the man's machete wasn't going to give him time to talk things over—running was the only option.
Reaching into his pockets, he pulled out a small syringe labeled TTX, formally known as Tetrodotoxin. His TTX in particular was enhanced with various other drugs, and being a neurotoxin in and of itself, this syringe could induce death within mere moments of injection.
Of course, this was a last ditch effort; Toah had compounded such syringes as a contingency plan so to speak.
Behind, the stout man continued to roar out in an attempt to attract others; attention, chasing Toah down a left tunnel, then a right, as they continued to venture down a lost path, his hoarse echoes tormenting Toah's eardrums.
'Damn, he's gonna catch up to me at any moment now!'
Toah breathed heavily, understanding his athletic abilities paled in comparison to his pursuer's.
He started to slow down, gor for a Plan A, "Hey, friend, how about we talk things—"
Toah's eyes widened as a swishing sound entered into his ears, followed by the sound of a blade cutting into flesh like a butcher's cleaver.
Blood splattered as Toah's eyes nearly popped out in disbelief. He held his mouth closed, nearly shrieking out in pain as he witnessed the blade deeply impaled into his left arm.
Stumbling backwards, he grabbed onto the cave's rough wall to steady himself, scraping the skin off his hand in the process, 'Fuck! Fuck, it hurts!'
The man charged forward, not giving Toah even a second to regain his bearing, his eyes thirsting for brutality. With his large left hand like a claw, he snatched Toah up by the neck, his thumb pushing deeply into his left eye, rupturing it as it burst into pieces.
Toah screamed out desperately, his harrowing screams haunting like the cries of lost souls.
Amidst his screams of anguish, he could hardly think clearly. In despair, he went for his last ditch effort to initiate Plan B, lifting his right hand which held the TTX syringe. Ferociously, he stabbed the deadly neurotoxin into the man's neck, injecting all of it into his carotid artery.
The stout man immediately dropped Toah to the ground with a large thud, grabbing at his own throat in a futile struggle as he tried to breath, only to collapse onto the cold cave floor within a second's passing as his heart failed to beat, his body growing ever still.
Not in any mood to concern himself with the man's corpse, Toah clutched where his left eye should be, crying out in torment.
With painful sobs, he frantically scoured his bag, pulling out another syringe—this one a painkiller. He had many different painkillers of various strength levels, but his current trauma demanded the strongest, abbreviated as FEN, otherwise known as Fentanyl.
"I'm okay, I'm okay. Fuck, it's fine!"
Clenching his teeth, he struck the syringe into his arm, his breathing rapid as he pumped himself full of the drug, feeling the effects almost instantaneously and reaching its peak after five–ten minutes.
The pain gradually died down, but an intense drowsiness took action against his consciousness, prompting him to pull out a syringe of COC, or Cocaine. He injected himself once again for the "Speedball" effect, taking on the desired effects of pain relief from the opioid, and energy from the stimulant.
He touched fucked up eye and quietly muttered, "I should've used some stimulants from the start…"
Maybe then, he'd have been able to escape while also avoiding the gruesome loss of his eye,
Coughing heavily, Toah continued deeper into the cave, knowing he was yet to be in the clear. "I need to keep moving, or I might really die here if one of his friends finds me."
Struggling, he crawled his way across the cold floor, pushing his way ahead absentmindedly, his vision growing more and more unfocused and his hearing deafening.
His will to live was terrifying as the tiny possibility of the man's partners showing up and finishing the job was enough motivation to push him onwards, giving him the boost he needed to finally stand up.
Fifteen minutes passed as he recklessly ventured deeper into the tunnels of the unknown, constantly jotting down in his notebook every turn he made, mapping out his path to the best of his ability.
'Another cave chamber?' Toah staggered through its small entrance, several hissing sounds surrounding him.
"FOR FUCK'S SAKE!" he screamed out in frustration, watching as several poisonous snakes dropped behind him and crept out from the walls, but on the other side of the chamber was another opening.
'They're all around me, they're waiting for me!' Toah shuddered as even more snakes fell from the walls, their vision snapped onto his body as they coldly eyed his every move, blocking any existing escape routes.
With a bitter smile and left with no other choice, he came to one conclusion, 'They've already blocked the exit behind me… I have no choice but to push through them and reach the other side. If I'm fast enough, I might make it!'
Toah smirked, reaching in his pocket and pulling out a small bottle of pills, popping the cap, and quickly swallowing one pill. This bottle happened to be labeled… MDMA. Commonly, this drug is referred to as Ecstacy, or Molly.
He took another breath, his eyes dilated to a frightening degree in which they looked like a devil's; not to mention, any semblance of reason appeared to be absent from them.
With a crazed look on his face, Toah charged across the chamber, the serpents plunging towards him with their mouths wide open.
One by one, their bodies coiled around his arms, legs, the entirety of his body! And just as quickly, their fangs ferociously penetrated deeply into his body.
There was no point trying to pry them off; they were rooted directly onto his body. Dripping from their fangs, a venom, dark purple like the abyss itself, swiftly swam into his body.
But thankfully—with drugs to push him on—Toah dove into the opening, cluttered with stone and dirt, hoping it would lead to safety and not the snakes' nest.
To his surprise, his body immediately lost traction and fell onto what felt like a slip and slide, his body rapidly sliding down a sloping mass of rock and into a pit of darkness. Abruptly, the snakes quickly unclenched their bites, leaping from his body desperately as if they were in fear.
It felt like time continued forever until Toah hit an unforeseen bump, his body falling into a brutal tumbling, barely managing to hold himself along the rocky ground, a painful friction burning his entire body.
With a resounding thud, he finally fell flat on his face. His breathing was ragged, body haggard, and clothing tattered, But ultimately, he was in one piece, and that's what mattered most.
Accompanied by a low groan, he pushed himself off the ground. He felt a sharp jabbing sensation panging in his ribs while his left leg hung limp. As one could imagine, there were a handful of areas where his bones had shattered, and numerous others that had fractured.
Having said that, the "speedball" effect prevailed.
Toah limped forward looking more dead than alive, nearly resembling the undead, into a curtain of darkness.
Everything was black, and if not for the blinking of his swollen right eye, he'd be under the assumption that he had lost that eye as well. With the exception of his footsteps and rugged breathing, he couldn't hear anything.
And aside from the overwhelming scent and taste of his own blood, he couldn't smell anything—not even the mustiness of the cave.
'I'm… beyond fucked up.' he slurred, blood dribbling down his lips.
With each step, blood spilled from his wounds, leaving a crimson trail in his wake.
As each second passed, the spark of life in his eyes dimmed, like a candle on the verge of going out, and his feet grew increasingly unsteady, each step nearly overlapping one another.
Seven minutes passed, and Toah was just feeling at his wit's end, when suddenly a color, one darker than black, caught his attention in the near distance.
It was strange, even in this pitch-black atmosphere, there was a black color that was even darker; one that could only be compared to a void or black hole.
Toah fastened his pace as he used what little life he still had in him, and was instantly astonished!
Right in front of him was—
"The Coroner's Blood! It's real! I'm a fucking genius!" he yelled feverishly, falling into a coughing fit.
This darker than black color… it revealed itself to be a small black flower, speckled with blood-like splotches which appeared to reverberate like the beating of tiny hearts. Each beat seemed to puff out green specks of powder, puffing out more and more as he closed the distance between them.
Nearing the Coroner's BLood, Toah didn't realize that the flower had started to afflict its control on him, seizing control of his mind, and in turn, his body.
Now, like a zombie in terms of his battered body and loss of self-control, he slowly approached the flower under its orders.
With a couple of feet between the two, the center of the flower suddenly opened to reveal a huge maw interlined with tiny sharp teeth, totaling in the hundreds if not thousands. Following which, a tiny pink tongue coated in a purple slime-like substance slithered out from within, the slime secreting out of its maw as it salivated.
Toah took another step forward, and the flower couldn't hold back its urge to gorge any longer, its pink tongue piercing towards his forehead in hopes of instantly killing and devouring him—
With a split second to react, Toah bobbed his head to the side, just barely escaping his death.
The plant was fast, and its mind control was strong—but the combined "speedball" effect of Fentanly and Cocaine, as well as the added Ecstasy, put Toah in a strange state of enhancement beyond the plant's expectations.
After all, how do you hold control over a drugged up mind that can't even function?
Almost like The Matrix, Toah felt everything around him was moving at a much slower pace, when in reality his mind was just functioning at a much faster rate, and thus he easily evaded the plant during that split-second.
And with the absence of time to analyze the situation, Toah instinctively came to the conclusion that only one of them was going to make it out of there alive. What's more, there were still various venoms coursing throughout his body, leaving him with only one solution.
In the plant's moment of surprise, he shot forward, grasping the plant's stem in an attempt to tear its root from the ground.
It cried out loudly in anguish and some of its purple slime splashed onto Toah's clothing.
Immediately, his clothing was rapidly eaten apart by the corrosion. This acid—it was way stronger than the sulfuric acid that even the Cartel had been known to use.
Toah tightened his grip, knowing failure to take down this plant meant his death, and he crouched down to avoid its vicious teeth as he himself sunk his teeth into its stem.
Loud reverberations rang out as the plant cried even louder, and it loosened its roots for a single moment which was more than enough for Toah to rip it from the ground.
Frantically, it swung around repeatedly in an attempt to replant itself, even attempting to grasp its roots onto Toah's body—but it was futile.
The flower, which he nicknamed Coroner's Blood, continued to weaken before finally going limp.
Toah paused, mixed emotions fluttering with his heart, He dedicated all of his time and research into finding the Coroner's Blood, and he managed to find it… only to kill it.
He shook his head decisively, "Get a grip on yourself!"
But even after yelling out, his thoughts continued to jump all over the place in a mad frenzy, 'According to the stories, you just eat the flower to assimilate its poison… but how?'
With no ideas, he grabbed the plant, stuffing the roots down his mouth and forcefully chewing and swallowing it all down all the way up to its roots. As for the purple slime, it appeared to fall dormant after its body had died.
As the entirety of the flower's remains were devoured, a sudden burning sensation shot up his throat and all throughout his body.
The previously dormant purple substance seemed to reawaken upon entering a new body, rapidly tearing apart the cellular structure of Toah's body before merging itself into it, ultimately rebuilding it.
Dreadfully, the process continued for what felt like days, when in reality it had only been an hour. All throughout, Toah screamed out in agony until he could scream no more.
His body was drenched from his head to his toes in sweat and his blood, which was no longer red. It was now a strange merge of red and purple, like a magenta color.
As the venom rebuilt his body, his entire body was reformed, good-as-new, if not perfect. Even his physique was refined, taking on a much more muscular structure than his previous self.
There was one major error in his reconstruction. His left eye failed to restructure after having been fully ruptured. Its remaining cells had been taken over by the corrosion of the venom, and a small flower seed had taken its place in the otherwise empty eye socket.
That being said, the situation turned out far better than expected.
He survived, and his body now thrived with newfound abilities.
"The Coroner's Blood is gone just like that, but I still stand to continue its story." he smiled with a bitter solace.
Even if the Coroner's Blood was gone, and he lacked any photographic evidence of it, he could at the very least add more details to its biography—such as the mind control which was absent from the stories.
Perhaps any who had gotten a personal look at the flower, found themselves devoured by it. Hence, the lack of records.
"Well, I can always search for another of the Coroner's Blood flowers. Now that I've taken on its properties, maybe I can find a way to communicate with it?"
Toah wasn't entirely sure of what newfound characteristics and abilities he had gained from it, but he had plenty of time to experiment in the future.
And with this, Toah had one last thing on his mind.
"It's time to get out of this damned cave."