Vicarious ~ World from Ashes {Complete}

1

Damp.

Dirty.

Dark.

It was hell on earth. A small, concrete, cold cell. There was hardly any room to move. Three steps to the left. Three steps to the right. That was it. No window. No bed. Just stone and iron bars. How long had I been there? Too long. The pain. The torture. The humiliation. Fear and agony curdled together in a white wash room that was nothing but a strapped bed and neon lights over head. Men in lab coats floated nearby, the whir of machines were the only other sound aside from their constant muttering to one another.

It was enough to drive a man insane.

But then, maybe I already was.

The first drug, Excalibur, or so they called it. To me, it was just another fantasy brought on by science and high ambitions. Maybe not even that. No, they were delusional. All of them. So what, the earth had been torn asunder by the greed of man. In light of that they were after the 'perfect human'. A human that could out do the others. One that would survive in the fucked up apocalypse that we created ourselves. I hoped it didn't work. I hoped it killed them all.

It didn't.

Excalibur worked like a dream. Brought on new abilities, enhanced my body like I'd never felt before. Then the tests came. Constant drilling, putting Excalibur to its limits and training me on how to use it. I got good. Real good. Then the decay. My body suffered from the constant use of it. I coughed up blood daily, I was drowning in it. The tests stopped, I was put under medical care. Not because they were worried for me, no. They were worried about the drug. Figures.

A couple months passed. They had a new drug. Holy Grail. Guess who their test subject was? I'm sure you know. Lucky for them it saved my life. Turned Excalibur around. The abilities remained. The tests started up again. Word came that the drug had hit the streets. A lot of people died. They weren't compatible with Excalibur. Ironically enough, the bastards in white coats kept hold of Holy Grail for a little while longer as Excalibur was distributed out to the farthest reaches of the country. Then they sent it out next. The 'cure' for Excalibur as they called it.

Fuckers.

It wasn't even a cure at all. It was something else entirely. It took another few months before Holy Grail's true identity started to take shape. I don't think even they knew what it was they'd just created and unleashed upon those that still lingered in a wasteland we once called home. First came the nausea. Then came the pain. I thought my body was being ripped apart. I thought I was going to die. Something I welcomed at the time.

Instead, Holy Grail had given me something else entirely. Coupled with my increased speed, stamina and strength, my body had grown new limbs. Feathery wings to be exact. It was excruciating when Holy Grail first altered my body during one of the tests. True to their nature, the lab coats just watched as I dropped to the floor screaming in agony and clawing at my shoulders. Bones pulled from my shoulder blades, snapping and cracking as they were rearranged by Holy Grail.

They tore free from the skin, the bones shooting straight out into the air, bloody and gory. Both lengthened, thickened near the base and grew smaller out to the ends. More bones broke free from those, like limbs off a tree trunk. Following that the skin rebuilt itself, curling up along the limbs of the wings, and then filled in with feathers. White plumes of feathers that were velvety soft to the touch.

At some point, I lost consciousness. When I woke again, I was in my cell. The new addition to my body folded up against my back. They were flat against my shoulders, curled up as if they'd never sprouted in the first place. Of course with the new development there was more testing, more training and more torture. My anger grew, my resentment. I was going to tear them apart first chance I got. So I started turning their training into something I could use.