Rei stood frozen.
Anyone would, after hearing something like that.
...
"You're kidding," He repeated, not because he believed it -- but because the truth felt too sudden, too absurd to process.
"No, Dr. Isamu." Patricia replied, her hands clasped tightly together -- she doesn't seem to be the type of person who'd be cracking cold, cruel jokes like this.
"You are required to come with us. If you don't comply we will use force -- don't make this harder than it needs to be."
Her voice was cold and precise -- like someone who'd done this before and learned not to flinch.
Her face was a cold blank stare into Rei's eyes. It made his skin crawl.
Then again, forget the stare -- He's currently being forced to partake in human experimentation -- a blank stare was the least of his worries.
"That's not fair! medical malpractice, my ass -- I was defending myself!" Rei yelled, the injustice of it made his voice crack.
Patricia didn't flinch. The blank expression remained on her face like a statue. But something flickered in her eyes -- disapproval, maybe. Or guilt.
"I'm not gonna repeat myself -- you have no say in this and you're going to submit whether you consent to or not."
Before Rei could say another word, the two men behind Patricia moved. One grabbed his left arm, the other his right. Their grip was insanely tight, an unnatural strength that made Rei gasp. He felt his arm groan at the socket.
"Hey! Let go of me!" Rei shouted, struggling against their grip.
He was causing a scene now. Staff and patients had turned to look -- watching him as he was restrained by two men, one on each arm.
Staff knew who those two men were. Or at least, who sent them. None dared to come and mediate the situation, they all just stood there, frozen, staring -- as if they were watching something inevitable unfold. Rei cried out, twisting and kicking, but the two men were unyielding. The clinic staff, who were staring in awe and fear just a few minutes ago, now averted their eyes with some even retreating into the shadows.
"Dr. Isamu. You have the choices of being compliant, or we will drag you out and it won't be a fun experience for you." Patricia spoke to Rei. Her voice a low, chilling promise.
Rei stopped resisting. He understood he had no leverage here, no power, and provoking them further would only invite more pain to him.
Compliance, for now, was the only logical choice.
Rei trailed behind Patricia and the two men guarding her to the outdoors of the clinic, feeling like an animal on a leash.
Each step felt heavier than the last. The morning air was thick--humid, still a pale gray light filtered through low clouds. the clinic's lot was empty, except for his motorcycle, two ambulances, and a single black car parked beneath a streetlamp.
Rei's feet scraped across the pavement, sounding louder than it should in the heavy silence.
The black car waited patiently, it's glossy body gleaming -- reflecting off the gray morning light.
Rei took a deep breath.
It barely did much.
He wasn't boarding a car. Not really.
It felt more like climbing into a coffin -- just one lined with leather padded seats, and tinted windows.
And a part of him knew: whatever came next, he wouldn't come out the same.
Rei slid into the car's back seat, the door closing behind him with thunk. The tinted windows blocked out the gray morning light, turning the interior into a dim cage.
His hands rested on his lap, trembling -- not from cold, but from the weight of the unknown pressing down on his chest.
The engine started with a soft growl, vibrating through the leather seats and into his bones. Outside, he could see the city's familiar buildings blur as the car was moving.
Rei felt hurt.
The world he knew was still there -- just now out of his reach and separated from him by the car window he was looking out of. He wishes to escape from this nightmare that he is currently in, about to be in. But he knows there's nothing he could do, one mistake and it's fatal for him.
Rei sighed.
Hopeless.
All he can do now was wait -- wait to be strapped down, injected with drugs, mutated.
A human lab rat.
To be tested until his body eventually gave out. Until he transformed.
Rei counted, and counted, and counted, trying to pass the time.
Streetscapes.
Intersections.
The dull sound of the car wheels rolling along the street.
One... Two... Three...
Every number was a lifeline. A distraction from the harsh reality he is facing.
Four... Five...
He wasn't sure where they were going, but he's sure it didn't matter where he's going -- it's not gonna be a place any better than hell.
Ten... Eleven...
Is it going to hurt?
Fourty-three... Fourty-four...
...
Four thousand, seven hundred fifty-two seconds.
The car stops.
An armored guard opens the car doors for Patricia, then the two bodyguards, then him.
Rei stepped out of the car. His legs trembled as he stepped onto the cold pavement.
The facility loomed ahead: A gigantic brutal monolith of glass and concrete, no soul, only the dull hums of machinery from inside.
Rei swallowed hard. much to his consternation, this is his new 'life' now -- no freedom, happiness, and no more of his rights. Whatever time he had left will be spent inside of a petri dish.
No longer man.
Nothing.
Guards moved in silently, herding him towards the entrance of the facility like cattle. Rei didn't show any signs of revolt, nor was he sad. He felt crying was useless and that he'll just end up horribly at the end no matter what. Being sad was only going to deepen the wound; better for him to bury it and brace for whatever hell they were going to put him through.
He walks between the two guards flanking him from both sides, trailing behind Patricia as she led them through the halls.
The smell of the facility was similar to the clinic he works in, the lights above him occasionally flicker every five to seven seconds.
Rei kept his head down, his feet syncing with the guards beside him. Not resisting, not reacting.
Just moving forward.
They stopped at a door -- thick, sealed tightly, and marked only by a number etched into the steel door.
Patricia taps her access card onto the panel beside the door. A beep echoed, and Patricia pulls the door open and steps aside, granting entry.
The guards entered first.
Then Rei followed, the heavy door closed behind him with a loud metallic thud.
Inside was what he saw: A chamber. Bright lights that blinded him as they reflected off of the white padded walls. A single chair bolted to the center of the floor, it's armrests and front legs fitted with metal restraints like a throne for the damned.
Facing the chair was a large observation window. It didn't lead to the outside, but a room. One filled with men in white lab coats, standing behind the glass.
They weren't taking notes yet, nor were they speaking.
Just observing.
"Would you please get on the chair, Dr. Isamu." A guard spoke, his voice slightly muffled by the helmet covering his mouth.
Rei paused for a moment.
He looked at the chair, it looked too calm to be there. Like it had just been waiting for him.
His feet felt cold as he took steps towards the chair, his heart thumping loud within his chest.
He sat down.
The guards moved swiftly behind him, putting the restraints onto him.
One by one, each restraints clicked -- wrists, ankles, chest.
He felt the cold from the metal cuffs wrapping around him, making sure he doesn't move an inch.
Tight. Unmoving.
Cornered.
Rei swallowed and tried to hold back the tears stinging at the corner of his eyes.
He couldn't cry. Not now. Not in front of them.
Rei couldn't hold it in though. He faced down as tears rained onto his thighs -- The thought of being in here until his death was now getting to him.
Not yet the excruciating pain he is about to be put through.
"Please lift your head up, Dr. Isamu"
A new voice cut through the air from the speakers above echoing inside the chamber.
"Good morning, Dr. Isamu. My name is Dr. Eric Thorne." The voice was softer, almost empathetic, yet utterly devoid of true warmth.
Rei's gaze snapped facing to the observation window. There stands in the center between two men in white coats, was Dr. Thorne. One hand resting on the microphone, the other in the left pocket of his coat.
He looked composed, neat and gentle.
But his eyes said otherwise.
"I understand this is... less than ideal, but i assure you our work here is vital. You, Rei Isamu are about to become a pivotal part of it." Thorne's voice echoed through the microphone. Still soothing and charming, yet it hummed with a chilling malice like the serpent's whisper in the Garden.
"Pivotal part..?" Rei stammers, but bold.
"You call framing me for Medical malpractice and using that as an excuse to kidnap me and force me into an experiment 'Vital'? What the fuck is wrong with you!" Rei barked, as cold tears streamed down from his eyes.
Rei was scared, but more than that -- he was pissed.
If he's being put through human experimentation for a new drug, that meant countless others had been before him. Forced to endure horrifying pain and permanent body mutations all for the sake of marketable superpowered drugs.
"Wrong? Quite the contrary i must say, Dr. Isamu. From what i see, the people are begging for it, for our product. Desperate." Dr. Thorne leaned in closer to the microphone, the soft, gentle voice he had was fading, his true colors now began to bleed out. "We're just giving the people what they want."
Rei was about to speak his mind, but his words died in his throat. He was utterly stunned by what he'd just heard. He couldn't believe a man could casually display his cruelty. A wave of squeamish disgust washed over him. He felt deeply disturbed.
"Well. let's get to business, why don't we?" Thorne said with a chilling voice, almost mechanical and devoid of any humanity. "I'm sure Patricia has told you why you're here. You're to be tested. What kind of testing, you may ask?"
A sudden hum of hydraulics sounded from the ceiling. Rei looked up to find a long, yet thin mechanical arm with a needle attached to it slowly descend from above.
"Two decades, Dr. Isamu." Thorne leaned forward to his microphone, his voice a low insidious hum echoing and bouncing off the chambers padded walls. "we've been making attempts to perfect this compound, designed to make a man to what you might call "Living polymer".
Rei's whole body felt light.
His breath caught in his throat.
He desperately tried to break off the steel clamps that held him fast to his chair, but it was a futile, desperate attempt at escape.
"Fuck... get me out of here now, you sick bastard!" Rei plead desperately, rattling against the unyielding metal bolted onto his chair.
"Of course," Thorne continued, oblivious to Rei's cries. "There has been shall we say, a few complications. Trial and error over, and over, and over. The previous subject before you ended up as what we described as 'Human-Puddle'. "
Rei's mind snagged on the words "Human-Puddle". The phrase echoed, grotesque, and horrifying, all hope was drained out of Rei. The disturbing images of a melting, dissolving form of the man who was brought into his clinic just the day before, what had looked like an extremely bad Morphazyme overdose now made sense.
The needle was now right next to his right shoulder, inches away from piercing.
Then it happened.
The needle pierced clean, fast.
At first, he felt the sting.
Then, fire.
It coursed through his veins like molten metal. Burning, painful.
He could feel every fiber of his muscles, every cell, nerves, bones -- drooping, melting, twisting beyond their limits.
"STOP! -- MAKE IT STOP!!" but his voice blurred midway through his cries -- slurred, bubbling, as if he was drowning in a lake of flesh.
His vision blurred -- then to black.
...
Silence.
Not peace. Not stillness.
The kind of silence that follows trouble.
...
Rei's eyes blinked open.
The overhead lights of the chamber flickered, some shattered, others dangling by exposed wires.
The glass observation window was shattered, broken.
The metal door that he went in, was bent as if someone had punched it with extreme force.
But out of all of those, what truly locked his gaze was the pool of blood, the bodies of the lifeless guards and doctors, all dead in a grotesque manner. Some impaled, some had their necks snapped, some even got ripped apart, others twisted in shapes that can't be named.
But in front of him, was the lifeless, limbless body of Dr. Eric Thorne. Blood pooled around him, his arms and legs were nowhere to be found.
"Holy shit..."