Caine's body was carefully observed for any signs of transformation as the nanobots coursed through his undead form. His once lifeless flesh started to regain a semblance of vitality, resembling that of a living being, though it retained a noticeable pallor. His teeth, previously displaced from years of relentless biting, began to realign with a series of audible crunches, settling back into their original positions.
"WAAAHHHHH!"
Caine thrashed violently against his restraints, causing them to rattle and deform under the immense force he exerted. His crimson eyes darted frantically around the room, scanning his surroundings as their color gradually shifted to a vivid green, a clear effect of the nanobots repairing his necrotic optic nerves.
As his vision cleared from the haze of blood and rage, Caine's breathing began to slow, and he worked to steady himself.
In a final act, a massive needle loaded with a unique strain of nanobots designed to repair and enhance his internal organs was plunged into his newly reanimated heart by Dr. Ramirez. The doctor, his face marked by dark circles betraying severe exhaustion, wore a maddened expression as he carried out the procedure. A pungent stench emanated from him, evidence of several days without rest or hygiene.
"NOOOOOOOO.... AHHHHHHHHH!" Caine screamed as he felt a pain from within that was unlike anything he had ever even imagined. If he had to put words to it, it felt as if his organs were being dipped in molten lead and simultaneously electrified, and in his pain-filled state, a cold sweat permeated his entire body.
His body continued to thrash against his bonds, which at this point had begun to noticeably bend and warp.
Dr. Ramirez, seeing this, promptly left the room and sealed it behind him with thick metal sheets that, besides the air vents, completely covered the operating room, and the Doctor himself sat down in an observation room where he could watch the inside of the room without endangering himself.
On a screen in front of him was a live feed of Caine as he struggled madly against his bonds, the pain of his internal organs being reforged from an undead state into something more than human, causing him to use such great force that his bones cracked and his tendons snapped.
"Cmon... Cmon... Work, damnit!" Dr. Ramirez frantically tapped his feet as he watched the screen in front of him, his eyes remaining unblinking as he watched Caine thrash against his bonds and inevitably break out of them with surprising strength, falling to the floor as a result.
CRASH!
Pieces of metal slammed against some lab equipment, causing glass and random papers to fly everywhere before bouncing off the wall onto the floor.
Caine slowly stood back onto his two feet with unsteady and shaky steps, his glowing green eyes, which once he raised his head, appeared to no longer have regular pupils, only twin concentric rings of shifting blue and red code which appeared in Caine's perspective as a set of words.
Caine blinked rapidly, overwhelmed as alien data surged into his brain. Words, diagrams, and flickering lights cascaded behind his eyelids, too fast for his still-recovering mind to comprehend. He staggered backward, clutching his head as though he could tear the invasive code from his skull.
"What… what is this…?" His voice was rough, strained from the screams that had shredded his throat. The sound of his own words startled him, he hadn't spoken in months, perhaps years. His memories were fractured, fragmented by the twin traumas of death and reanimation.
Each line of data resonated like a divine whisper directly in his mind. He gasped, convulsing as nanites coursed through his bloodstream, mapping each neuron and reconstructing decayed pathways. The process was agonizing but strangely exhilarating. For the first time since his turning, he felt truly alive.
Caine's body convulsed violently, foam collecting at the corners of his mouth as black, tar-like blood oozed from his pores. The undead rot that had plagued him for so long was being consumed from within. His nanites, his blood, were devouring it.
The words scrolled through his mind's eye, accompanied by vivid flashes of cellular transformation, his muscles tearing, rebuilding, knitting themselves into something stronger and more resilient. His vision sharpened until every crack in the sterile white tiles beneath him came into focus. The air was thick with the scent of ozone, blood, disinfectant, and something else. Electricity. He could taste its metallic tang on his tongue.
Caine studied his hands. The skin, once pale and loose, now clung tightly to the bone, veins glowing faintly with green and gold luminescence beneath the surface. His nails had hardened into sharp, onyx-black points. As he flexed his fingers, tiny swarms of nanites shifted under his skin, moving with a synchronized precision that felt both alien and instinctive.
"What… have you done to me… Ramirez…" he murmured, his voice unsteady, trembling with equal parts wonder and rage.
From behind the reinforced observation glass, Dr. Ramirez leaned closer to the monitor, his voice barely above a whisper as he muttered, "It worked… my God, it actually worked."
The sound of Ramirez's voice ignited something deep within Caine's mind. The letters returned to his vision, rearranging themselves with purpose.
The words burned into his mind before fading, leaving an irreversible impression. Caine's breath caught, his pulse thundering in his ears, fast and relentless. He could feel the nanites synchronizing with his amplified emotions, the surge of fury radiating outward as intense waves of heat from his body.
Dr. Ramirez, startled by the rapid escalation, darted to the control panel and flipped a switch, releasing a cloud of sedative gas into the chamber. "No, no, no, not yet, he's unstable!"
Caine inhaled deeply, the gas flooding his lungs. The nanites instantly recognized the danger, dismantling the chemical compounds and neutralizing them before they could take effect.
The green glow in his eyes grew brighter, pulsing with a menacing intensity.
His gaze fixed on the observation window, locking onto Ramirez's terrified eyes through the glass.
"I remember you," Caine stated, his voice calm, deliberate, and unwavering, but soon after the multitudes of neurotoxins took their effects and rendered Caine unconscious.
When consciousness returned, it came cloaked in silence.
Caine's eyelids fluttered open, his vision distorted by static that swirled erratically. For what felt like an eternity, the only sound was the faint, persistent hum of machinery embedded deep within the walls, the labored, dying breath of failing power systems clinging to function. Yet, his mind was unnervingly clear. The cacophony of screams and the numbing haze of sedatives had dissipated, leaving behind an eerie stillness and sharp clarity.
As he blinked, faint lines of glowing text materialized across his vision.
"…Twenty-one days…?" His voice emerged as a hoarse rasp, scraping against the dryness of his throat. It sounded alien, layered with a subtle mechanical vibration that reverberated faintly in the quiet air.
He inhaled deeply, and the scent struck him.
Blood.
Stale and metallic, it lingered in the air like a dense fog of rust and iron dust.
Caine pushed himself upright within the shattered containment pod, its reinforced glass canopy broken into jagged fragments that glinted beneath the flickering red glow of emergency lights. He stepped out cautiously, his bare feet meeting a slick, sticky surface. Glancing down, he noticed dark, crusted smears streaked across the floor, trails of congealed gore leading ominously toward the far end of the laboratory.
The room was in shambles. Equipment lay scattered and overturned, bullet holes peppered the walls, and the acrid scent of scorched circuitry hung faintly in the air. The once-pristine viewing window that separated his chamber from the observation deck was shattered, its surface webbed with intricate cracks. Beyond it, the shadows loomed heavy and eerily still.
Caine's eyes moved to the control terminal adjacent to his pod. A streak of dried blood marked the interface, the smeared handprint partially flaked but unmistakable. Someone had been here. They had interacted with the controls, possibly to free him, or perhaps to trap him.
Caine extended a hand toward the control panel. The metal felt icy under his fingers, the display flickering weakly. From the overhead speakers came a crackling voice recording, distorted and fragmented, barely audible through the interference.
"…containment… breached… Level-3 lockdown… Ramirez? No... stop! Don't open—"
The static surged, consuming the rest.
He turned his head slowly toward the doorway at the far end of the room. The reinforced doors were torn open from within, the steel twisted outward as if it were paper. Whatever had occurred here was both swift and brutal. Caine's eyes tracked the streaks of blackened blood and the scattered remnants of discarded weapons in the hallway beyond.
His muscles twitched involuntarily, a reminder that the nanites within him were active, pulsing faintly beneath his skin, like a second heartbeat. He could feel their insatiable hunger.
Caine clenched his jaw as fragmented memories surged forth, the lab, Ramirez's voice, the excruciating pain of rebirth. His fists tightened, and the sound of creaking bone broke the silence.
"Ramirez…" he murmured, his eyes faintly glowing in the darkness.
He moved forward through the devastation, each step unnervingly smooth, his shadow stretching long against the bloodstained walls. The hum of his nanites grew louder as he stepped into the corridor, a long, crimson-smeared passage strewn with the remnants of a battle.
Shell casings. Torn armor. Shredded bodies.
And something unfamiliar.
A trail of dark, viscous residue, not quite blood, snaking deeper into the heart of the facility.
Caine pressed on.
As Caine advanced, the overwhelming stench of blood and decay assaulted his senses. Severed limbs were scattered carelessly along the corridor, leading to a horrifying scene at its end. A technician was crouched over the lifeless body of a secretary, voraciously tearing into her flesh. Blood and viscera pooled beneath them, leaving no doubt about the savagery of the attack.
The sound of Caine's breathing inadvertently alerted the technician to his presence. The figure froze momentarily before slowly turning to face him. Crimson eyes with clouded irises glared hungrily at Caine, unmistakable evidence of the man's transformation into the undead.
"RAAAHHHHHHH!"
With a guttural roar, the zombie launched itself at Caine, attacking with reckless abandon. Its clawed hands flailed wildly, showing no regard for its own safety. Reacting quickly, Caine ducked beneath the assault and pivoted sharply, channeling his strength into a forceful uppercut that struck the technician's jaw with precision.
POW!
The technician's lower jaw shattered under the impact, sending fragments of bone, teeth, and gum, along with bits of the secretary's flesh, flying in all directions. The debris splattered the hallway like a macabre Jackson Pollock painting. Caine initially thought this would end the fight, but the technician, now lacking the lower half of its face, lunged at him again, oblivious to its inability to bite.
This time, Caine refused to let the zombie gain the upper hand. He seized the undead technician's forehead with a firm grip and began applying pressure.
CRACK
The sound of the technician's skull fracturing echoed through the hallway. Before even a moment had passed—
POP
Its skull burst in a gruesome explosion of blood and brain matter, adding yet another layer of gore to the already grisly scene.
A prompt appeared before Caine, freezing him amidst the chaos, his boot planted firmly on the chest of the zombified technician, now reduced to a lifeless shell.
"What does it mean to assimilate? Is it dangerous, or should I embrace it?" he pondered aloud.
As if in answer to his thoughts, a new prompt illuminated with an explanation of Assimilate's function.
After reading the description, Caine made his decision without hesitation and confirmed the prompt.
Instantly, he felt the nanobots within his body stir, surging toward his foot pressed against the technician's corpse. He watched in awe as a dark gray substance oozed from beneath his toenails, spreading over the torso like a metallic shroud that quickly began to contract, compressing its contents into something unrecognizable.
The once-bulging metallic layer then retracted, flowing back into Caine's body through his feet.
Strength (STR) 13
Dexterity (DEX) 13
Constitution (CON) 12
Intelligence (INT) 11
Wisdom (WIS) 12
Charisma (CHA) 11