Chapter Text
To have a sensitive body.
A specific kind of ailment that leaves his skin feeling like print paper and his brain like molding clay. Simple things stab every nerve with different overwhelming sensations.
Unable to speak in a way that someone could understand, he chose to just become flesh. Growing in a neverending web of fiber as its own being got splattered against soil and carcass equally, grasping at things that at some point only brought confusing signals to his body.
Eyes and teeth, sinew and cartilage, mucus and saliva. All stuff that would cover his new entirety. He was now a cocoon and a bed, a resting place and a nest, a god and a memory.
…
He’s barely a spectre sitting down at one of the sides of the submarine, long fingers idly playing with the fabric of his suit, every tendril from his head floating in the air as if it were underwater, and even his tail stopped moving around as darkness engulfed him. Waiting in there for hours as nothing but sounds of his own mind and the bellowing sea surrounding everything kept him company. Dark and still, yet never completely silent.
Suddenly that was gone, with low red lights and the pained moaning of that metal carcass traveling through the ocean. Already there in the Let-Vand Zone, a place hidden from anything normal.
Just a couple of minutes before arriving at the Hadal Division, he could already feel himself excited about leaving the cramped space of the submarine. Barely able to keep himself still, the mutant stood up and started to pace around the place, even his tendrils and phantasmagoric veil of gelatinous flesh stimming around.
One last movement, and the ship’s hatch opened for him, working as a runway to get out of the submarine. And finally he could walk into the steady ground of their destination.
Before he could do anything else, the subacuatic vehicle dived back with a loud roar into the dark water. Right after that, the public announcement system let out a loud sound before the voice of headquarters could be heard through the speakers.
“Blah, blah, blah, the same breefing as always. Just do your job and recollect data on your way to retrieve the Crystal.” A masculine voice said with a clearly irritated tone.
But Bennett looked at the ceiling, weirded out by an announcement such as that for his first time doing this kind of mission. Well, he couldn’t remember much besides when he was working in Urbanshade as an investigator, before The Incident, a situation that left him looking like a weird mix of wet and mushy sea creatures in a generally human shape.
He took out a neatly folded note from a pocket of his suit.
…
Note from a known buddy.
Remember that if you find a file regarding anything related to “The Newman Project”, I need you to keep it with yourself and send it my way. Anything else you can retrieve as normal, but that particular one is something very interesting to me. Just do it as a favor.
Anyways, don’t forget that many important security systems were hijacked, so many experiments must be running around the facility.
From your dear buddy, doctor Freya Laplace.
…
Retrieve important stuff and not die; that was something he could probably do. He has been alive for many years already; what could possibly change that?
Yet he couldn’t help but tremble at the noise of sprinting footsteps and metal being hit. It was hard to convince oneself of any sense of isolation, a feeling that even if dreadful, it was better than the thought of being hunted down by something unseen.
It was better to work then, that could always take his mind away from anxious thinking and catastrophizing.
First checking some drawers in the few desks left behind, then some lockers, and finally wondering if he had been given a keycard at all to open that lone secured door. Then the murmur of the flare behind him finally seemed to reach his brain, as he stood for a couple of seconds analyzing the new yet wet white box besides the deck. He really did just miss that.
Bennett walked up to it and had to squat to reach the lid of that small container, in which he found a flashlight with a couple of batteries. There were no notes in or on the box, but he was thankful to whoever forgot that there.
While close to the floor, he saw more furniture behind a small wall of fallen boxes, so he tried squeezing himself through a gap, careful not to tear his body’s soft tissue. And then with a quick grab, he got a keycard from over a small cabinet and went back to the door, sliding it with what he thought was a familiar feeling, but it seemed to be too quick for the lock to read it. So he did it again.
Behind that first door there was a hallway with no windows, only filled with towering lockers and plain furniture. It would be hell if he didn’t like repetitive tasks, as it allows him to get lost.
The sound of drawers, doors, and his own footsteps were a hypnotic harmony that could only mean safety. Nothing weird pierced through that repetitive and plain sequence of searching and looting; if anything were to interrupt him, then it would be clearer than if he was bored in empty silence.
But then he needed to lay down on the floor and feel only coldness to his limbs. If anything else started to sprint down some godforsaken hallway miles away, he would have to crack his head against a wall. Maybe it was the jellyfish’s particular nervous system, or the axolotl’s skin, or even the mixed thresher shark of his tail, but something of his own senses is different, and just now he could get to experience such easy overstimulation.
Like a fish out of water, helpless.
“I’m going to be someone, someday.” Bennet said to himself, standing up and looking at the Navi-Path.
Next door would mark room number six. It feels too early to have his system crash from a place that should be familiar to him, yet there is something weird in the tingly feeling of his skin.
At least it was cool to have a ghostly face and many tendrils surrounding him. That was nice, to reach and play with his own oral arms—a sensation drier than the average jellyfish—there is something particularly fleshy about himself that he likes. His own head had become a plentiful source of different textures.
And as Bennett went to the next room, darkness is the only thing beyond the safety of the door. One and many steps after that first one, and he was surrounded by shadows. He is only a lightly shiny figure with pale eyes and sharp teeth as he smiles to his own bioluminescence, clicking his flashlight on.
I wonder how I look. He thought to himself with both arms up, to sense any upcoming wall on his path.
Next room welcomes him with blinding light, so he walks into it with an arm up as a shield. His original brown hair still on his head, a round face with no nose and four head ferns, a pair of glasses that had to be taped in place. A face old yet new.
The work goes on before there is something else to distract him.
More files on his hands as he rubs the paper folders, USB memories in the pockets, and even a sample of genetic material. It’s like a treasure hunting game; maybe he could even find a way to make it a competition and have more fun. Bennett thinks of a goal, but his mind is invaded by an impulsive thought as he goes into a trench tunnel, an open space with so many windows.
“Look out the…! You again?” An ominous and somewhat threatening voice calls out, so Bennett is quick to obey and look out the window.
A giant creature outside in the sea quickly swims around to turn its back to him, an annoyed grunt rumbling inside the smaller mutant’s head.
“Bennett! Damn you, stop looking out the window so easily!” That same animal said.
It's a shark, Bennett realizes as he gets a look at its back and fin distribution.
“Do you know me?”
“Yes, I do! Did it happen again?!”
“What do you mean?”
The shark just swims impatiently in circles outside the tunnel’s right side window.
“You have to get to Sebastian, the plan is still going.”
“What plan?”
“He’ll have to explain it to you!”
And the fish went away without putting his gaze at all on Bennett, like a conscious decision to do so.
Eyefestation, a mutant with great capacity to cause harm and a latent influence on those under his wrathful gaze. He can somewhat remember working on something relating to it, but that memory of past times and body feels too hazy. It is weird to see it again, after all those years and now swimming around like a free shark in this hellish sea. What more there is to do after being torn apart in such a way?
But shaking those thoughts away, Bennett continues on his path and crosses another door.
Sebastian is surely a name in his memory, but he can’t figure out in what way. Well, it is a name written in some file he read some time ago, but not something close or personal.
Another door and some hallways. His hands now mindlessly pick up files and he sometimes glances at the information inside, wondering about times before being inside a diving suit and wandering this gigantic construction. He remembers times of investigation and scientific research, the coldness of academic language something rather comforting to his mind.
There’s a sound somewhere. He doesn't feel safe reading right now. He takes another folder with him, so he can walk towards the closed door.
A river can be heard running nearby; Bennett assumes it is in the next room. He always liked to stay in those rooms when he would get overwhelmed. In a closed, dark, and cold space with a constant stream of sound. There’s something comforting in the cyclical behavior of a river, especially when so deep into the ocean.
And that white noise engulfs him as he crosses the door, walking through a metal pathway that seems to be floating in the void of such everpresent darkness. No lights, but he feels the steady ground of concrete under his feet as he steps into the middle of said room.
Just the sound of a river, whispering to him about nothing at all.
Bennett takes a hand to the metal railing, following it until he is facing the water that courses through this part of the building.
“I was someone before.” He said to nothing, expecting that as an answer. “A junior researcher would never be sent into this kind of mission, so… what am I now?”
His memories are like the static of a dead channel, something that you only know exists due to the ghost of its existence being reachable, yet you can never see a concrete image of it. There has to be something in between his life before and after, but there's nothing to do except to keep going.
Maybe I’m dying today. I wish I could remember if it is the first time. Bennett thought as he let go of the railing, away from the soothing noise.
There is nothing in the darkness but the sound of water, except for a wailing creeping from far away.
«God doesn’t love you…, not like I do…»
A wailing for blood. A cry demanding for something to be fed to the maw of a wretched creature, one of pure hunger.
That demand grows irrational; it turns into something in the back of his mind as a long, dragged-out screech slowly pierces into his ear. It’s getting closer, something or someone.
Like a beast or a person, a thing without a mind to ask.
It’s just shrieking violently with such an absence of desire to actually be natural.
Bennett can barely move a step back as he tries to find anything amongst the darkness of the river room. Something is coming. He tries to recognize that noise, but it’s getting louder and louder as it echoes against walls and floors equally, as a floating danger coming from somewhere he has a hard time pointing at.
He can barely see the gray face coming from where he came, with empty white eyes and darkness following it as every light dies under its presence. The Angler.
Eyes… It can’t see well.
Bennett runs for the wall, going along the path of the room with a hand to the wall until it hits heavy metal. Without much thought he hurries for a handle, and when one is found, he quickly hides inside a locker, his body hitting the wall as the door closes back again.
The scream echoes against everything in the room, rumbling metal as it bounces off of it. Every desk shakes slightly, and many objects fall to the ground. Bennett is barely able to see three white eyes looking at him as that shadow quickly passes through the room. That shriek is all over his skin, with the coldness of the locker embracing his entire body as he has to stop himself from gagging out of desperation.
The rumbling goes away, but Bennett has to drag himself out of the locker while crying out loud, pulling at his own gelatinous tissue. That bloodcurdling scream is still on his skin, like if every tiny tooth of that creature was stabbing it. His own limbs feel stiff and strange.
That sound was familiar to him, but his body doesn't seem to remember it.
He can only think of his own bed as he lays on the cold and hard floor of that place.
