Lightning coursed through every fibre of Seth's being, each and every one of his nerves sending constant, overwhelming signals into his brain. He lay on the floor, writhing in uncontrollable agony as his muscles contracted and spasmed. He wanted to scream, he needed to scream more than any other time in his life, but his throat just wouldn't let out more than a choked whimper. Although he could hear plenty of screams and cries for help echoing throughout the building, so one less wouldn't change much.
Just as he thought it couldn't get any worse, his fingers straightened as a whole new wave of torture began. It was as if someone was drilling through his finger tips, deep into the bones. But they didn't stop there. Like a worm burrowing its way through the earth, the agony moved from his fingers into his wrist and then made its way up to his forearm. Constantly boring its way through the bones, hollowing them out and shoving the recesses to the side to make way for who knows what.
Of course, that wasn't the end. That would have been far too kind. As his bones were being forcibly broken open and restructured, or at least that's how it felt, the pulsating pain in his chest grew in intensity. First it picked up in pace, thundering so quickly and with such power that he mistook it for his heart about to explode. When it seemed to hit a plateau of speed and power, the churning mass in his chest began to heat up.
As if he had guzzled a gallon of gasoline followed quickly by a burning match, a roaring fireball was blazing in his chest. The intense heat, combined with the excruciating amount of pain he was being forced to endure, meant that he was covered in visible beads of sweat which quickly began pooling underneath him.
He couldn't take it anymore, his vision swimming about the room as it shifted between clear and blurry. His mind desperately trying to find something else to focus on other than the pain as the blazing inferno within his chest started to spread throughout the rest of his body.
Unfortunately, there was only one other thing in the room he could possibly focus on. The Office Drone.
The portly man wasn't faring any better than Seth. In fact, if Seth had his senses about him currently or could even form a coherent thought without being interrupted with torrents of unbearable pain, he would have guessed that this man was unfortunately suffering from one of the 'Aberrations' which the voice had previously mentioned. Because what was happening to the poor fellow… was definitely not healthy.
Seth watched as black blood oozed out of every one of his face's orifices, the poor man constantly coughing it up and choking as if he was drowning on it. Although with how congealed and viscous it was, it was hard for Seth to even think of it as blood anymore. It was more similar to thick tar that had been injected into him until he was ready to pop.
But that wasn't all. His eyes lost their colour, becoming milky and lifeless. His flesh peeling, melting and rotting at a visible rate as if 60 years were condensed into 60 seconds. Some of his extremities even rotted to the point that they schlopped to the floor, looking more like a liquid than flesh by the time it hit the floor, leaving only the visible bones of his fingers.
Seeing him fall apart like this, it made Seth regret never learning the man's name. It made him lament about all the things he had thought about him, even the fact that he still referred to him mentally as a drone. Unfortunately there was nothing he could do about that now, and as Seth was still wallowing in his self pity to keep his mind off of the torture… It stopped.
It was like a light being switched off, a simple flick of the switch and all the pain had disappeared from his body as if it had never existed. The man across from him stopped convulsing, the rotten and disassembled corpse left behind remained utterly still, as corpses often do. The screaming from the rest of the building cut out in the snap of one's fingers, being replaced with a silence so heavy that it made it difficult to breathe. That was the sound of progress.
***
For what felt like an eternity, although in actuality it was only a few minutes at the most, Seth lay there on the floor, panting heavily. The weight of the silence having faded away, being replaced by idle shuffling outside the door. While it seemed like Seth was simply staring at the ceiling, he was in fact assessing the words that were hovering in front of him, the words that only he could see.
[Congratulations Subject, You have achieved successful Spiritual Mutation]
[User Sephtis has acquired the mutation 'Puppeteers Thread']
'...Puppeteers Thread? Strange name, but rather fitting I guess. That must be what these are then.' He pondered to himself, the words fading away once he stopped concentrating on them and being replaced by the sight of his left hand held in front of his face.
When he looked hard enough, he could just barely see ghostly strings floating in the air, dancing and swaying from his moments, as they connected to the ends of his fingers. One string from each finger.
The strings themselves were so difficult to see that if he didn't know they were there, they would basically be invisible since even with that knowledge he struggled. In fact, he had no idea how he knew they were there. He just did… it was like a limb that had always been there, feeling as natural as the hand they were attached to.
The length of the threads was only a few inches, but he found that if he willed it then their length would extend. He didn't even have to move his hand to move them, simply by concentrating on them they would move like snakes through the air, extending seemingly endlessly.
They were utterly fascinating. Unfortunately they captured his attention too well, because if not for him toying around with his new extremities, Seth would have noticed one thing by now. One dreadfully important thing.
That instead of laying on the floor, completely still and unmoving as corpses ought to be, the rotten, half collapsed body of the Office worker that had melted before Seth's eyes, was in fact staggering to his feet. Not only was he standing up, but he was slowly shuffling his way towards Seth.
The only thing that tipped Seth off and finally made him realise, was the low guttural groan that the zombified Office drone made before it lunged. Hungry for its first meal in its undeath. Definitely not what corpses should be doing.