The Corrupted Soul

Chapter 25

I could feel the acidic venom flowing through my blood, making it's way through each vein and across my body, the wounds started to numb, I knew this was not a courtesy, but instead paralysis creeping it's way through. I only had so much time before it took full effect and I was no better than Tank.

Victor was on his knees, holding his third degree burned face, his Crawler legs mounted around him like an armored cage, whilst he screamed in agony. Pitiful how the tough guy was cowering like a child after one good hit. Maybe if you had been wearing a shirt you wouldn't have as many burns on your chest too.

He couldn't even see me now, rising above him on my Crawler legs, though they shook slightly. Tank yelled for him to move, to avoid my incoming strike, but he either could not hear him over his own agony, or refused to listen like the fool he was.

My punch knocked his head to the side, he looked up at me dazed but afraid. He didn't have another second to do or say anything when I grabbed his head and twisted it, snapping his neck. Planting my foot on his chest, I pulled, tearing flesh and sending pungent smelling blood gushing into the air and splattering onto the snowy ground.

I tossed the head to the side as the body fell to the bloody snow, limp, as the Crawler legs curled up around its torso in death. I heard a terrified shriek behind me, and Tank screamed Victor's name, reaching out to his corpse fruitlessly.

I simply walked toward the crippled Crawler, who tried to move backwards, but was unable to force his body to respond, and couldn't pull the lead weight with him. He looked up at me, an expression of pure rage. He propped himself up on one shaking elbow.

"What are you doing?! You're...You're a murderer!"

"And you all intended to be." I kneeled down in front of him, he tried to slash at me, but I simply grappled his wrist tightly and refused to let go, steadily clenching my fist around his wrist. He grit his teeth at the pain, but his enraged glare did not falter.

"If you wanted to kill us, you would have yesterday. Something is happening to you, you're not a Crawler..."

I twisted his hand around, causing him to snarl out in pain. My vision doubled for a moment, and I could feel it getting tougher to breathe, my Crawler legs shook with the effort of simply not falling limp. I narrowed my eyes, "You're right. I am not a Crawler. I am a Lurker. Your first mistake was assuming I fought how you do, like a mindless predator."

His eyes widened, "Lurkers...we heard about those, but breathing fire...that was something the Crawler King did!!"

I felt a sharp sting in my chest as his words repeated in my mind, like a broken record. Crawler King...

Very faintly, in the back of my mind I could hear Olive's voice, quiet and pained. It was as if my own subconscious wanted me to remember just how much I hated those two words. 'You are just like the Crawler King'.

I slowly turned to look back at Victor's headless body, that is exactly what the King did to me. Shot fire into my eyes, then beheaded me. This man that killed hundreds of people and Crawlers, who willingly got infected to protect the man that created the virus in the first place, I was turning into him.

"Shut up." I snarled out at Tank, without looking at him. I was too angry for human words.

"Ril-"

"Shut up!" I screeched, before grabbing his chin and snapping his neck effortlessly. He slumped down against the ground. I stared at him. Several seconds ticked by, and I just stared at him.

I watched his lifeless body, as if I expected him to sit back up, he obviously didn't. I slowly looked down at my blood coated hands and arms. They shook, I couldn't tell for what reason, the fact my nerves were building, that I was suddenly afraid of myself and what I didn't know I could do, or that the venom was properly taking effect throughout my body.

My legs giving out from under me answered that question. I layed on my stomach in the bloody snow, my vision doubling and blurred from the pain of the sun. A twig snapping made my head jerk up, to see Sketch frozen in place just past the treeline. He saw my gaze and bolted the other direction. I snarled breathlessly.

He got away.

"Shut up." This time, I whispered it to my own mind. I hadn't been challenged by Crawlers for two years, and the first time such a thing occurred, these traits came out as if they had been waiting patiently for the day they could. Now I had no idea how to suppress them to keep them from growing stronger, in turn, turning me back into a Lurker.

I stared at my hands, I hadn't really killed them...had I? Sure Cap and Tank definitely died, but they were Crawlers, they would heal and revive. I had told them how I was still alive three hundred years later, so they knew they could bring Victor back by keeping his head and neck touching. It didn't really count, did it?

Did it?

I could actually feel the venom seeping into my brain, it felt like acid flooding my senses, followed immediately by nothingness. I knew there was no hope in fighting it, but the fact I was still conscious hopefully showed that I wasn't going to die from this, or if I did, that I would wake up once it had more or less passed.

I reached up with a shaking hand and pulled my hood up over my head, covering my face. I simply lay there, barely able to move, and waiting for my mind to go blank, and hoping I would wake up before Cap or Tank did.