"Move it!"
One of the soldier barked, shoving Ren forward.
He wasn't bound with ropes or chains like the other slaves in the mine, but he knew that trying to run was useless. The mine was heavily guarded. His present condition made running a stupid option to even think of.
'I can't even feel my legs.'
They halted in front of a large rusted steel gate. It parted into two with a loud, annoying groan. Ren staggered through with his escorts.
The Cell wasn't as bad as one would think. In fact, calling it "bad" was an understatement. If a dungeon was a terrible place, this was a hellish upgrade.
The stench hit him first like a hard fist. He gagged, eyes watering, as he was welcomed by the most gut wrenching stench he'd ever inhaled.
'What the hell do they even keep here?'
He was soon going to find out.
Cylindrical cages were stacked over another, each crammed with the bodies of Rancid people like him. The highest stack would have been roughly five cages, if Ren's blurry eyes had let him count accurately.
Some of the Rancid stirred, most didn't. Their skin was blotched, blistered, or worse, entirely covered in black.
Ren's arms were black to the elbows by now. His fingers barely twitched. His eyes burned and his body shook as if the air itself was poisonous.
"Another one?" A squat man in a black top hat stepped in front of them. He adjusted his spectacles and looked Ren over.
"Yeah. From the mines."
The man sighed, already bored. "Cell 1940. Over there."
He pointed to his left.
Ren was dragged past rows of the damned, then shoved into the cage marked 1940. The metal slammed shut.
His skin reeked of sulphur. His eyes hurt like they were salted with fire.
'This place stings. Curse it! I never thought I'd die like this.'
From the next cage, a hollow voice rasped, "You're lucky. These days, the new ones are left to rot in the sun."
Ren groaned, twisting around to see the speaker. He was an older man, but unlike the other Rancid, he was well dressed in an elegant black coat with golden fasteners.
'What is a noble doing here?' Ren thought as he examined the man.
"Looks like you got the worst case."
Ren frowned.
"You don't need to remind me, old man."
"Pro-rancidity. It spreads faster," he pointed at Ren's neck.
Ren gasped as he stared down at his body. His legs were now a mold of black, even his neck wasn't spared.
The old man sighed, resting on the wall of his cage.
The man turned to Ren and smiled.
"The blonde hair boy that just got pulled out from here had pro-rancidity, just like you. He got turned in few hours."
Ren's eyes widened.
"What was his name?" He asked, hoping to hear "Mace".
"I never got to know."
"Do they take people who are not rancid?"
"These people take whatever or whoever they want. They are the Imperium."
'Maybe they didn't bring him here.'
Silence fell between them.
The man finally sighed, "There is a way to survive this."
Ren tilted his head to him.
"Can't believe I'm saying this," the man whispered to himself, shaking his head.
"It's not a sure cure per se, but if it works for you, you're free forever."
Ren could feel his heart thumping, his eyes already shifting with anxiousness.
"They say it cures you from the soul..."
He looked around.
"Just say it, old man."
The man coughed, spitting out black fluid. He wiped his mouth.
"I don't believe in those things. But they say at the verge of death, you can get lucky and would be taken into some sort of cleansing path."
He glanced around again, then continued. "If you survive it, you will be awakened here, healed of the rancidity. I was told that's how most of the Awakened are made."
"I have to be almost dead first? Can't I just find this path?"
"Impossible. It's not even real."
"Then why are you even telling me about it?"
Ren couldn't keep his eyes open anymore, but he heard something jingle.
"Take this," the man extended a necklace with a diamond-shaped pendant hanging from it.
"What?"
"If you make it, find Susan Botch at ZeCO. Give her this."
"What? How are you even sure I..."
The man grunted. "I don't think I've ever been wrong, kid. A strong will beats any amount of good luck."
The man forced a smile, tears streamed down his eyes as the dark pigment crawled close to his eyes.
"Tell her I—" he screamed, jerking back. The necklace fell off his hands.
Ren backed away from the metal bars that separated them.
"Tell her... I love her," he grunted, grabbing his head.
His entire body, including his face, was covered with the thick black pigment. His fingernails looked hellish and long enough to tear through skin. His spine arched back as if pulled by invisible strings. The veins under his skin blackened. The blood in them swam like black writhing worms trying to escape. His fingers clawed at his throat as he screamed.
Ren adjusted again, his eyes wide with horror and his breaths heavy.
Cracking sounds were heard as the man's bones popped out of his skin at joints. The man was screaming, writhing, and ripping his hair out.
'Shit.'
Ren pressed against the back wall of his cage. "Hey! Someone!"
No one came.
The man's body convulsed, swelled and tore. Dark, pulsing tendrils swam out of his body and spread around like they were looking for something to anchor on. His jaw cracked open, wider than it should, releasing a gurgling moan that didn't sound human anymore.
Ren's stomach turned. He banged on the metal bars of the cage again.
"Help!!"
The transformation ended as suddenly as it began. What was left of the man crouched in the corner of his cage, twitching. Its breathing was shallow and ragged.
Ren stayed still, watching to see what would happen next.
The man, or whatever he had become, slowly raised his head. His eyes glowed faintly red in the dark. There was some 'understandable silence' between them as they both stared at each other, as if trying to converse with their eyes. In a blink, the monstrosity lunged at Ren.
The impact rattled the iron bars between them, echoing through that section of The Cell. Ren stumbled back when the creature clawed at the bars with his teeth gnashing and black saliva dripping where it hit the metal.
The metal was melting slowly where the saliva touched and the monster kept struggling to reach past the barrier.
Whoosh!
Suddenly it stopped, as if some unseen hand had tugged it backward, with its mouth hanging open. The body twitched once, twice, and then went limp. The head of the monster slid off from the neck and rolled on the floor.
Ren stayed frozen until the body fell backwards with some pieces of the metal bar that was also sliced off.
"That is how I am going to behead you, scumbag," a familiar, yet annoying voice, said from outside the cage of the monster.
Torrent stood with a flaming sword, wearing a victorious smirk on his face.
Ren accessed the cage. The entrance was sliced in half, showing the path the sword must have followed before it sliced through the monster's neck.
'This jerk is an Awakened?!'
"Keep an eye on him," Torrent turned to the short man with spectacles, who had just walked up to him.
"When he turns, I want to be the first to know."
Torrent's sinister smirk rested on Ren before he left with Mr Spectacles.
Ren banged his head several times on the metal bars. A muffled cry escaped his mouth as he did.
He coughed, spitting out a dark thick fluid. Suddenly, Ren's eyes turned a fiery red just like the man's own did. His body trembled and he lost coordination.
"No! No, no. I'm not dying like this."
His words didn't stop the transformation, just like words could never stop fate from happening. He felt his bones shifting and restructuring itself with loud cracks.
"I'm sorry, Reena. I'm sorry, Mace," he whispered as he was slowly losing every strength and consciousness. He was gradually losing his humanity and changing into something that no encyclopedia in the world had a record of.
"No!" He yelled, pulling his hair.
He punched himself several times, beating the demons out of himself.
The transformation stopped halfway, and so did Ren. His body twitched and he fell, face first, to the floor. A thick dark fluid with a touch of crimson flowed from his nose. His legs and other parts of his body were still morphing in an anatomy that only a cursed monstrosity could ever have, yet his neck, up to his face, was still human, only coated with the black pigment.
'That path better be real... It better be freaking real!' He cried in his thought as he felt his vision blurring away with every slow breath he took.