Sometimes the worst things build up over time.
Never sudden, never present.
But always existing in the background. Always slowly accumulating and building themselves up to unfathomable crescendos.
This was how it was for Noah.
The first few weeks after Noah begun the trials were fine. He was still as energetic as he had ever been. And aside from a blurry vision that plagued his mornings and nights. Noah could have sworn the cream was actually yielding positive results for him.
So maybe that's why he didn't heed the first warning signs.
Despite Noah being fine, the same couldn't be said of the other volunteers.
The demons, beast-kin and dwarves all seemed to be in worse for wear states.
With some of the most unimaginable changes affecting their bodies and life spans.
It only took a few weeks for the cream to take its first victim.
And even though Noah and the human volunteers seemed fine, the sneaky suspicion that things wouldn't stay that way always stuck with him.
But he was too late, for at this point Noah had already given his body over to the tests.
Over, to the detereoxite.
As Noah's vision blurred, he wished upon a future.
An early future, an early reward for his mild blindness.
As his vision darkened, his sight was replaced with new visions.
Visions of a time when they all laughed and celebrated life's many joys in the upper echelons of society.
He was beginning to fade and he was aware of it.
"But vision, is that it?"
"If that's the case take it all, I can still hold my daughter in my arms after all."
Premature Noah, all too premature...
Time passed, and though most of the volunteers had already died, the human ones still seemed to be fine, "Alive, and kicking!" All simply with varying degrees of afflictions that attacked their sensory organs.
For Noah, the price of his eyes for his daughter was fine.
He was okay with losing his sight so long as those he loved, lived in the luxury he saw through his dimmed sight.
But therein lies the problem, they weren't.
Despite Noah and the other humans having survived as long as they did, he was starting to get antsy.
The reward was no where to be seen.
And when he asked his employers what the hold up was, the answer was always that the experiment time had not passed yet.
Whether this was right or not was beyond Noah, for all he knew, his employers could have just lied to them.
With only humans left, and numbness beginning to consume multiple parts of his body, Noah determined that he needed more guarantees.
That he needed more assurance that he would experience the bliss he dreams of with his family. So he went to his employers again, this time on a tirade, armed with signs in protest as he led the first ever rebellion against the Front Office with the other humans who were still on the cream and the families of the victims.
This proved to be Noah's undoing though.
The Vita Slums ecosystem has no need for a leader.
It has no need for an outlier.
The outlier known as Noah, like his father before him, had overstepped his role. And although his employers would at first sit down with him to save face. Noah's fate had already been decided.
Mere days after the rebellion and consequent meeting with the Front Office, word begun to spread of a new drug.
One that they called a preservative and was meant to boost the mana of anyone who took it.
Considerably lengthening such a persons lifespan.
It wasn't true of course, but on that very day Noah felt his legs give way for the very first time.
Panicked, Noah knew he had to gamble, he had to take a shot on the wonder drug that could potentially give you the lifespan of an elf.
...Noah wandered into the rabbit hole wondering how deep it went, and the answer to that question was that it wasn't a rabbit hole at all, he had simply just plunged himself into an abyss.
The older of the Pendleton siblings begun to put out feelers, circulate information that whosoever had access to the wonder drug he'd pay a fortune.
He could feel it this time.
His time was running out, the precious memories he coveted so much to create now had a timer attached.
As his body begun to deteriorate, his dreams grew. And his desperation for the wonder drug pushed him to even start taking from the family's saving to fund his searches.
It was this or nothing.
There was no rescuing old Noah anymore, he was going to see this through. He was going to make sure he didn't let his sister down any more. That his daughter had a taste of a life only a humble few can claim to have felt first hand.
...Replies were scarce to Noah's pleas until something popped up. An ad.
{Wonder Drug}
-Feeling tired, lethargic or spent?
-Then join the Front Office mages in welcoming the new long life drug Evanescet!
-Now taking applications for the price of free!!!
It was obvious, blatantly so.
The front office had created a problem and were now offering the cure.
At this point only a handful of humans remained. And though most had already left the slum to spend their final moments with those they left behind when they first moved here, the same couldn't be said for Noah.
Feeling trapped and against the world. Noah decided this would be his final wager against lady luck. Lord knows the demon-god of the demon-realm had already shown she does not favour humans...
And so it begun the final phase of Noah's life and the turning point of Renee's.
Noah bet his life against the effects of detereoxite. And his wager was that ingesting more of it would fight the ones already lodged and blocking his lungs now.
The next few months were just about you'd expect.
The drug was a lie. And Noah's condition was now way worse than it was before.
Not only had Old Noah's hair begun to fall off, but his body had as well lost all functionality. His bones were corroding themselves from the inside and burning away the tissue around them, all the while his nerves remained operational for a whole new meaning to the word excruciating to be found.
The corrosion of Noah's body wasn't limited to his interior either, the veins in his body soon begun to rapture, and since his sight was the first warning, I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that the veins in his eye socket were the first to give way.
Rapturing and dislodging his left eye to turn a part of the dreams he alone saw bloody.
It didn't take long for the parasites to gather either, and Noah's leg was the first victim of the demon-god's cruelty. With after his bones corrosion the acid in his body first severed his legs, allowing maggots to gather and eat him alive.
Worst of all, they seemed to only ever nibble but never rapture his nerves, like they were telling him they desired him to feel it all as it happened.
The pain was as excruciating as a one can imagine. And not just for Noah.
But also for Renee and his daughter.
Who were now forced to sit there, day by day, sob there, night by night when they heard his cries.
When Noah wailed the night away not because the pain was unimaginable, but because his dream was never going to come true.
The corrosion soon took his voice, and even breathing now was a pain for old Noah.
This was all predetermined, there's no way it couldn't have been. The events all seemed to line up after all.
But what would complaining about it do now.
It was over, he was going to die.
In his final months, Noah's family was forced to sit there and listen to his wails.
They were forced to sit there and clean up after him when he lost control of his bodily functions and fight off the maggots as they struggled to hold him for they knew not which part was still safe to hold. Still intact.
At his end, in his pursuit to give new memories, new dreams to Renee and his daughter.
Noah instead left nightmares, scars that would haunt Renee for the rest of her life... that would haunt Cindy...
Noah passed with his arms giving way as he held his daughter.
These scars will stay with them for a lifetime.
And instead of dreams all Noah was able to accomplish in the end was warn them from ever pursuing them.
Scarred off dreaming, for a lifetime over.
"..."
"..."
-To Be Continued-