He didn't know when or why he was there. He had long given up on counting his days. Years, decades, lifetimes such numbers meant nothing here. They never did. In this place, time is none existence.
Same goes for shapes or forms.
He could see, but can you still considered it as such if what you can perceived was only darkness, layered upon itself without depth or edge. Just an endless black that swallowed meaning. He wondered whether sight still mattered when there was nothing to define, nothing to compare against.
Stripped of his body and reduced to nothing but consciousness, he was left to drift through a literal void. He prayed again and again, repeating the same words. He clung to them.
But nothing answered.
He cried. He begged. Yet not a single tear came, no body to shed them. Left alone with his misery, hatred began to fester, slowly gnawing at what was left of his mind. The void made no distinctions. It does not differentiate between good and evil, or what's one's status is.
It was there before anything.
And the moment one fell into it, there was no way back out.
At least, that was how it should have been.
Driven by hatred, he deceived his own mind into believing the void was nothing more than an illusion. That it could be torn apart. He imagined it, his thoughts digging in, shredding the black prison surrounding him.
It worked.
Light seeped through the blackness as he tore it open, thin at first, then widening. It poured in, devouring the darkness until the void could no longer hold him.
Then he fell.
Thousands of colors, red, yellow, blue rushed past him in violent streaks, twisting together in a dizzying blur. His mind throbbed as it began to fracture. Pain unlike anything he had ever known surged through what remained of him, tearing it apart, piece by piece.
It felt as though he would explode at any moment. The throbbing intensified, swelling beyond endurance, he screamed within himself as the pain becoming more unbearable.
And Snap!
A single, low click echoed.
His consciousness faded, and everything returned to dark.
For the first time in a very long while, what he saw upon waking up was not darkness, but an unfamiliar ceiling.
His vision was hazy, the world distorted and unfocused. Slowly, it adjusted. The strange shapes he had been trying to piece together revealed themselves as hospital equipment.
He lay there in silence, taking his time. His body was unbearably weak, so weak that even the simple act of lifting it felt impossible.
His heartbeat spiked as nurses and doctors suddenly rushed into the room. He couldn't fully understand what they were saying but the urgency in their tone made it clear, it was important.
"Where am i?"
He tried to speak but only incoherent mumblings came out, drawing worried looks from the nurses and doctors.
"What do we do?" one nurse asked the doctor in a strained voice. "What if he goes on a rampage too? We should call th-"
Before she could finish speaking, another figure entered the room. The individual was clad in full hazmat gear, the suit resembling more of a battle armor. Without warning, they seized his right arm.
He wanted to resist, but he had no strength to do so. All he could manage were weak mumblings as the figure injected an unknown substance into his veins.
Drowsiness washed over him without warning. He struggled against it, desperate to stay awake, but his eyelids grew heavier with each passing second.
He fell asleep.
•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•
Gunshots echoed through the abandoned quarry as figures in hazmat suits fed piles of black bags into roaring flames, white numbers stark against the soot-dark fabric.
Another body was just tossed into the burning pit.
The next one in line bore the number 514-734.
"Fuck, look at this, This one's listed as unknown. Almost all the new arrivals are marked 'possibly corrupted' They don't even bother testing anymore, just dump them here without investigation. Poor bastards." Another suited figure immediately shushed him, glancing around cautiously.
The two exchanged a brief look, then bowed their heads. One of them starting a short prayer, asking for forgiveness and peace, before ending it with a quiet amen.
Afterward, he drew a pistol from his holster and pressed the muzzle near the top of the bag.
Click.
The figure squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened. He tried again. Still nothing. Frustrated, the pair decided to drag the body to the pit, throwing it in and let the flames finish the job.
•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•
He didn't know how long he'd been out, but when he woke up, he found himself wrapped in some kind of plastic fabric, tight around his body.
Panic set in as he struggled to free himself. Thrashing desperately, trying to tear a hole through the material but it held firm.
Unfortunately, his frantic movements only made things worse. The bag slipped, causing him to roll straight into the fire.
Almost instantly, flames swallowed him whole. The plastic melted, clinging to his body as it burned, the pain so overwhelming it made him wish for a quicker death.
He screamed in agony, but the sound was smothered by the molten material sealing his mouth. He thrashed wildly, trying to put out the fire, but he was already way too deep in the pit.
Within a minute, his whole body turned black.
By some cruel miracle, death did not come. He lived, forced to endure what might be the most unbearable pain a person could ever be subjected to.
He remained standing, engulfed in flames.
The hazmat workers began to gather around the pit where chilling screams rose from within.
What they saw made them freeze. A charred figure was clawing its way out. Once a man, now barely recognizable, hauling himself from that pit of hell through sheer, impossible will.
The stench of burned flesh hung thick in the air, nearly suffocating even through their protective gear.
He dragged himself forward, ruined flesh sloughing as exposed bone scraped against the ground, leaving a dark trail behind him. Panic erupted among the hazmat workers. Fear overtook them, and they scattered, shouting as they ran to alert the guards.
Moments later, armed forces swarmed the area. The instant they laid eyes on his hideous form, they opened fire without hesitation.
By the next day, the news was dominated by reports of a massacre. Thirty-two government workers were confirmed dead, none surviving the incident. Their melted remains lay fused to the ground alongside their gear.
As details emerged, so did an uglier truth. The incident exposed the shadowed operations they had kept from the public, thousands of suspected infected individuals executed without proper investigation, erased before they were ever truly examined.
Officials have yet to release a statement but that isn't what matters.
it's who did it.