The silence hung heavy in his ears, a haunting echo of his decade of torment. When they had first taken him, a bewildered teenager of no more than fifteen, he recalled how days had melted into nights and months had blurred into what felt like lifetimes. But now, he had lost all sense of time, it had become an abstract concept, a single unending nightmare.
Glimpses of his former self, a bright-eyed teenager with dreams of becoming a doctor like his adopted parents, were fragile remnants of a distant past. He could still recall his initial encounter with the captors, the scientists who had promised salvation but delivered only cruelty. The scientists who had imprisoned him, the ones he had once begged for mercy.
He could still feel the dread that gripped his heart, as the paralyzing serum coursed through his veins, and he felt the cold metal restraints, and saw the blinding light above him as he lay strapped to an operating table—subjecting him to excruciating experiments.
He also remembered once, he had been whole, a boy of exceptional intelligence who excelled in school and enjoyed the warmth of friendship; his body had been free of the grotesque scars that now covered him, and he had possessed two working eyes. Now, all that remained of his once-promising life were scars and deformities.
His left leg was gone, and his left arm was a festering, pus-ridden mess, marred by inky black veins that throbbed with pain. The arbitrary notion of hope had long been crushed by the relentless cruelty of his captors and the inescapable grasp of mortality. His cries had blended over the years into a wailing symphony of despair.
Virgil, a name that once defined him, had been replaced by a label—test subject 2b-56, an abomination created for their experiments. As he gazed upon his ravaged body, he couldn't help but painfully acknowledge the unspeakable horrors they had wrought upon him.
After what felt like eternities, though in his best estimate had been fifteen plus years since he became captive, he had long given up on freedom and sought solace in the embrace of death. Yet, death remained an elusive friend; even when he had attempted to achieve it many times himself.
The scientists couldn't afford to let him go, and so, he languished in his steel prison, shackled and forgotten. Like now in his current state, starving and dehydrated, as he presumed, they had finally abandoned him to his inevitable demise.
And he, too, had grown weary of his existence, possessing nothing of value except distant memories of the books he had once cherished of magical adventures, and the knowledge he had accumulated during his teenage years.
In the suffocating darkness, he leaned his emaciated body against the unforgiving metal bars, thoughts warped by years of isolation, beyond the limits of human endurance. His mind drifted, barely registering the distant rumble from above.
With his solitary working eye squinting open, he discerned a group of soldiers in uniforms, armed to the teeth, advancing towards him in, distant, panicked shouts. Their faces contorted with disgust, pity, and shock as they took in his wretched form.
He knew he was a grotesque sight—skin and bones, hollowed cheeks, bubbles of vile puss, and unhealed wounds. The scientists had often forced him to confront his own monstrous reflection for hours on end, a relentless psychological torment.
He knew what they saw: a monster.
"My god," one of the soldiers whispered, breaking the lock of his cage. Their gazes bore into him, filled with apprehension, no doubt wondering what had transpired in this forsaken place and if he was still among the living… but he knew he wouldn't be for long.
Thus, Virgil—subject 2b-56—feeble and with death looming, did something he hadn't done in decades; he laughed. It started as a soft chuckle and morphed into a maddening wheeze. He looked at them through tear-filled eyes, his parched, and long unused, throat rasping out two words that would forever haunt those present.
"Too late…"
His vision blurred, and in his final moments, a flood of childhood memories washed over him. With a faint smile, he drifted into death, hoping that he would finally find peace, which he had long yearned for.
He was tired, weary beyond measure, and wished for nothing more than to think no more.
In those fleeting moments, it seemed his wish had been granted.
Or so he thought…
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His consciousness slipped away, and he felt a strange prickling sensation. It was as though he was being torn from the clutches of oblivion. In that brief second of panic, he watched as a sudden tunnel of light emerged in the clouded darkness that he had spent who knows how long in. An ominous voice followed, resonating within the void—chilling and genderless, and filled with power, and yet not unkind, at least not to him, he felt.
"MY PRECIOUS AVATAR.... FINALLY...."
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THE START OF VOL.1