Calligan drifted in and out of consciousness, confronted with a continuous blur of confused images and emotions. He saw Doc, Mac, even the low-life banker, blending and melding in a kaleidoscope of incomprehensible sequences. Calligan had no grasp of how long it went or even exactly what was going on. Everything was muddled, with the only consistency being the continuous ache that swamped him inside.

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the images settled, congealing into the form of a beautiful woman with long golden hair. She knelt over Calligan with tears streaming down her face.

“I’m sorry Cal. None of this was supposed to happen.” She whispered, pain dripping from every word.

Calligan nodded slowly, but said nothing. The pain inside him was too overwhelming, and he could feel it crescendo as he gazed at Crystal’s beautiful face. He wanted to embrace her, to hold her and tell her he understood. But he couldn’t. She had betrayed him, shot him in the back, and killed his best friend. Instead, he just let her cry, pleading pitifully for forgiveness that would not come.

This went on for what felt like hours, her sobs echoing off into the distance. After a while, it seemed that Crystal realized her pleas would never be answered.

“I should’ve known you never cared for me.” She growled in rage.

A gun was in her hand, the hammer already pulled back, and it was pointed directly at Calligan’s heart. Crystal smiled, a thin, wicked smile, as she slowly squeezed the trigger.

Calligan braced himself, ready for the worst, but it never came. Instead, a pair of firm hands had grabbed her, wrenching her away. One hand gripped her arm, squeezing out the circulation while the other firmly grasped her throat.

Calligan watched with satisfaction as she choked and gasped for breath, her free hand reaching desperately for him to save her. He didn’t move, instead just watching her struggle.

She thrashed and fought desperately, kicking and clawing at her assailant. But try as she might, she couldn’t free herself. Her protests became more and more feeble with every passing moment, until it seemed like she would finally give out. Her body slumped as her consciousness slowly left her. It was almost over.

Just before her eyes could fully close, the hands squeezed tighter and wrenched, eliciting the loud popping of sinew and the crunch of breaking bone as Crystal was torn apart.

Calligan awoke to waves of pain crashing over his entire body. Every breath was a labor and he had to strain to keep from crying out. It felt like everything in his body was broken.

Still, he tried to sit up, but found he was restrained by several straps arching across his legs, wrists, and chest. Irritated, Calligan pulled at the straps, probing them. The straps were made of old worn leather, there was bound to be a weakness. If he could find it, he could get himself free.

Calligan worked silently for several minutes, until a faint scratching sound made him pause. He silently berated himself for not checking his surroundings before acting and quickly began scanning the area. It was difficult. His neck hurt so badly he could barely move it, and the straps limited his mobility, but Calligan was able to get a decent picture of the room.

Everything was dim, the only source of light being a small, flickering oil lamp in the center of the room. Still, Calligan could make out the drab paint that peeled off the walls, and the haphazard instruments and tables that cluttered the space. Everything was so tightly packed that it seemed impossible to him that anyone would be able to actually move around the room. Still, someone must have been able to, as every inch of the room screamed that someone had been there. Every surface that was covered with half-filled vials and broken beakers, or strewn with papers, etched with a handwritten scrawl.

To Calligan, strapped the way he was and unable to get a closer look, they were illegible scribblings, but he had little doubt they were the work of the man who had captured him. A man, who he could just barely catch in the corner of his sight, huddled against the dim light of the lantern.

Calligan couldn’t see what the man looked like or what he was doing. He could only catch the faint scratching of a pen on paper.

“Oh, you’re awake.” The figure suddenly said, his voice high and thin but unmistakably male. He moved from his position in the center and approached where Calligan lay, coming into full view. He was a thin, short man, clad in a bloodstained lab coat. His hair was long and wiry, carpeting his narrow forehead.

“For a while I thought I’d lost you.” He said, smiling softly. “It took every trick I knew to keep you alive, and some I learned in the process. Those guys really did a number on you. It’s a good thing my subject came, or you would’ve been dead.”

“Subject?” Calligan asked, tilting his head.

“Yes.” The man replied happily. “Without him, you’d be dead for sure. Too bad about him, though. Massive internal hemorrhaging. He never stood a chance. For some reason that seems to happen to all of them. I guess the human body just can’t seem to take the strain, but I’m so close now. I can feel it.”

Calligan sat still, processing what he’d just heard. None of it seemed sane, nor did the person who said it. He seemed twitchy and distracted, having muttered half of what he just said almost to himself.

“Close to what?” Calligan croaked. His throat felt like sandpaper, and he winced as the words escaped his mangled lips.

“And he can speak!” The man exclaimed, delightedly. He drew even closer to Calligan, examining him intently. “I think you’ll make a fine recipient for the latest dose. No, you’ll make a magnificent one. You’ve shown a lot of resilience, and that might be just what I need. I haven’t been very picky up to this point, and that may have been the problem. But now, I think I’ve found just the one I need.”

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He whirled around excitedly, busying himself with various instruments on one of the tables. He hummed a tune as he worked, seemingly oblivious to Calligan staring confusedly behind him.

“Need for what? What are you doing? Who are you?” Calligan inquired, a distinct note of worry in his voice. There was something very disturbing about this man.

“Me?” He responded, his back still turned. “I’m just an ordinary person, trying to make the world a better place.”

“Really?” Calligan responded. “Do you usually tie people up to do that?” He asked. As he spoke, he slowly flexed his hands, probing his restraints for a weakness once again.

“No,” The man responded. “But I don’t normally have my subjects in my lab like this. I usually have to seek them out. Your condition when I found you was quite beneficial to me, an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”

“So you put all that effort into saving my life, to what, use me as a lab rat?”

The man looked up from his tinkering for a moment, slowly scanning the room before responding. “Well, seeing as I used up my rats quite some time ago, I suppose that is my intention. Though it does sound a little sinister now that I think about it.”

“Yeah, it does.” Calligan responded, sweat beading down his face. He began quietly wrenching at his bonds, trying to somehow work his hands free.

“There’s no reason for you to worry, this shouldn’t turn out like the last few.” The man continued, so absorbed in his work that he was oblivious to Calligan’s struggles. “I’m close. I know I am. I may have failed Marie, but my efforts won’t be in vain. No one will have to suffer like her again.”

“Marie?” Calligan asked curiously, pausing his efforts for a moment.

“My daughter.” The man replied somberly, though he didn’t look up from his work. “My wife died in childbirth and she was all I had left. She’s the reason for all of this.”

“All of what exactly?”

“My experiments. Marie was such a beautiful girl, a sweet and gentle girl, but so frail. She was so young when she got sick. I tried so hard to help, but she only grew weaker and weaker. Then, she was gone.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Calligan replied, sincerely. “But I can't see how that has anything to do with me being tied to a table and used as your guinea pig.”

“If I’d just been able to make her stronger, I could have saved her.” The man returned. He shook his head slowly at what he was doing for a moment, before looking up again, a gleam in his eye. “I’m so close. You saw the power of the last subject as he tore those men apart limb from limb, but his body just couldn’t handle the strain. He died just like the others.”

Calligan nodded, now barely listening. The straps on the table were old, and he’d almost worked one of his hands free; he could feel it.

“What do you mean, others?” Calligan inquired, intent on keeping the man distracted.

“I find them on the streets at night. Thugs, thieves, low-lifes, and others. It doesn’t really matter. As long as they’re alone, it only takes a rag and a little chloroform, but it means that the subjects are often suboptimal. There’s progress, a change in the body’s chemistry, or something greater, but it always ends the same way…”

“By bleeding from every orifice?” Calligan interjected.

“Yes,” The man replied, seemingly unphased by Calligan’s knowledge. “Sometimes very quickly.”

“And what do you do with them after you kill them?” Calligan inquired, anger edging into his voice.

“At first I just threw them out. I couldn’t have them cluttering my workspace after all. But I soon found that to be inappropriate. It’s less suspicious if you stage them, then it looks more like an accident.”

“And what happens if you kill someone with connections? Connections that might lead to someone getting killed or a lot of people getting killed.” Calligan asked, practically shouting the words. His blood was boiling now, and his face was a bright rouge.

“It doesn’t matter. If I can help a single child, like I couldn’t help Marie, then it will be worth it.” The man responded resolutely. “And you’re going to have the honor of helping me with that.”

The man stood up suddenly from his work and approached Calligan. In one hand he firmly clasped a syringe, that he tapped lightly as he came near.

“This shouldn’t hurt too much, at least not compared to what you’ve already gone through.” He said as he reached for Calligan’s arm.

Before the man could touch him, Calligan’s other hand sprang up, grasping the man by the throat. He screamed in agony as he held him, pain searing from the bullet wound in his shoulder.

“You’re a monster.” Calligan spat through the pain, slowly compressing his fingers around the man’s windpipe.

Instead of gasping for breath, the man only stood there smiling as his face began to slowly redden from lack of oxygen. Then suddenly, he plunged the syringe downward into Calligan’s arm.

Howling with pain and rage, Calligan shoved, launching the man backwards, crashing onto a nearby table with a satisfying crunch. He was slow to rise, brushing off broken bits of glass as he went, which gave Calligan ample time to work at the remaining straps that bound him.

Still, he moved rapidly, loosening the leather straps and hauling himself off the table. He was in a significant amount of pain and every move hurt. Still, he lurched toward the man, who was now firmly on his feet. Calligan swung a fist with all his strength, knowing a prolonged fight wouldn’t be in his favor, but his opponent was too nimble and dodged quickly out of the way.

The man stepped in, clutching another syringe he’d retrieved from the table, intent on finishing what he’d started. He moved to jab it into Calligan, but Calligan unsteadily grasped his arm; holding it away from him. The man dug his nails into Calligan’s arm, and Calligan winced but refused to let go. Instead, he pushed once more, forcing the man back onto the table he’d just risen from.

The man let out a hiss of irritation, glancing around for something to help him as Calligan bore down on him. Desperately, he grabbed the lone lamp nearby and hurled it at Calligan. The man’s aim was wild and it completely missed Calligan, instead exploding on the aged wood of the floor.

The room swiftly started filling with smoke, and Calligan breathed in a deep sigh of frustration as he continued to approach the man, who was still sprawled on the glass covered table. This turned out to be a mistake, as he inhaled the noxious fumes of burning wood and was forced to his knees; racked by a torrent of retching coughs.

Seeing his opportunity, the man charged Calligan, his hand outstretched toward the plunger of the syringe still embedded in Calligan’s arm. But Calligan ducked low and the man crashed into him, before being carried over the top, straight into the rapidly growing flames.

His screams filled the room as he burned, begging for mercy from Calligan. Calligan didn’t turn, refusing to even look at the man in his anguish. Instead, he casually pulled the syringe out of his arm, examining it for a moment. Then, he calmly tossed it over his shoulder and into the flame, before slowly hobbling out of the room.