Episode: 3.8

--- Rai ---

He vomited.

(Yep, called it…)

He chuckled bitterly, trying to ignore the bitter taste of his near black blood, left in his mouth after the vile substance decided to tear its way out of his system, in reaction to his decision to forcibly ejected his Malice out of his system.

“This was bad idea…” he told himself, before vomiting once more.

Normally he’d just let his Malice concentrate to fall on its own, but given how rapidly his concentrate had spiked after less than ten minutes of use, he was pretty sure it would be a few hours before his Malice calmed enough for him to naturally reign in his other-self, and if he was still spiked when Chess caught up she’d go into a fit of worry.

(She’ll probably be able to feel the residual Malice in the air, but I can just convince her it’s coming off the brewing vat…)

His eyes drifted to the corpse currently being drained of blood by the various pieces of makeshift medical equipment they kept around their ‘safe-place.’

(Then again, she’ll probably see through that…)

He sighed, before popping his neck as he felt his Malice once more fall into a more manageable range.

(Hell, she’ll probably smell it on my breath…)

He spat, trying to remove the disgusting taste that always came when someone was stupid enough to mix blood, Malice, and vomit.

Taking a step back he away from the corner he’d been vomiting into, as he wiped away whatever residual bile was clinging to his lips, before watching as his black blood began to boil into a black mist, somehow taking the rest of his vomit with it as the more than toxic concoction dispersed into the air.

(Well there’s an unadvertised perk of Malice use: helps get out those pesky bloodstains in your clothes, just as long as it’s your own blood of course!)

He gave himself another bitter chuckle, before turning back to the pale corpse in the room.

(Looks like it’s almost drained dry…) he noted glancing at the nearly full bucket of blood, attached to the various IVs he’d connected to the corpse earlier.

(Since Chess’s dropping that woman off at the hospital I can probably go ahead and get started without her…) he told himself, reminded once more just how slow other people were at getting around.

(Have to keep moving…)

He shook his head clear, before placing a finger to his wrist.

His fingertip began to burn as his bone extended through his flesh before merging with his darkened nail to form a twisted white claw with a reinforced black top.

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He paused for a moment, watching as a drop of crimson began to form where his claw met his skin.

(Think this is starting to get a little too easy these days…)

Quickly, he wrenched his claw down his forearm, tearing a vicious gash in his arm, before holding the bleeding wound over the blood-filled bucket.

He couldn’t help but watch, more than a little mesmerized by the sight of the bucket full of crimson, slowly darkened as his own blood spread out in a misting pattern, a garden of shadowy flowers slowly consuming the red, turning the whole bucket black save a few glowing lines that seemed to pulse like veins pumping something through the heartless crimson.

(That should be enough…)

He wiped his already healed cut clean, using a red cloth he always carried around in case of accidents with any bloodshed.

(Are they really accidents if you crave it?)

He let out a shuddering sigh.

“Let’s see here…” he told himself more to fill the silence, that was gnawing on his sanity than anything else.

Reaching under a table he pulled out a few bottles of household chemicals and poured their contents into the bucket.

“A few drops of these to help speed up the reaction…”

The red veins began to blaze green as the contents of the bucket began to boil and steam, something that only seemed to happen with his strain of Malice for some reason neither he nor Chess, had been able to figure out.

“Okay…” he nodded, after dipping a thermometer into the toxic sludge to make sure it was burning hot enough.

“Now comes the messy part…” he sighed to himself, before pulling out a blade and making his way to the corpse in the corner, “regardless though, it’s probably better I do this bit rather than Chess…”

“After all she may not act like it but this whole having to kill to live thing does bother her,” he continued talking to himself, trying to keep his mind off what he was actually doing, especially since it was easier for him to control the flow of a one sided conversation, than to curb his own train of thought.

“I mean the killing murderers and rapists thing definitely makes it easier to live with, but she’d much rather live and let live, and despite her seeming apathy to killing, which is just her flooding her brain with Malice to numb the emotions while she does it, and then keeping her base Malice just high enough to keep from feeling any residual guilt over it.”

That made him pause, blade half-way through.

(I wonder if that’s why she wants me to up my Malice concentration?)

He shook his head, before continuing with both his actions and this new line of thought, “That would make sense since, she thinks I’m depressed, which I might be if I’m being completely honest with myself…”

He paused again to toss the… thing in his hands in the bucket, an action that resulted in an equally violent reaction as more steam erupted from the sludge.

“Thing is the focus of my depression are the parts of me that Malice amplifies… Like my psycho-sociopathic tendencies, it makes me more manipulative, limits my empathy to how my relationships benefit me in the long run, or how it makes me want to eliminate any threat to my objectives, no matter how small…”

He paused, before laughing.

“And that’s not including the tendency to talk to myself.”

He looked at the corpse, or rather what was left of it.

“You know, I don’t feel any guilt about killing this guy…” he confessed to himself before plunging the blade back into the man he’d killed.

“Chess thinks my panic attacks are because I feel bad about killing, but really it’s the opposite isn’t it? But, as cliché as it sounds, I panic because I don’t feel guilty. I mean, given what they’ve done or are trying to do, the people I kill don’t really deserve my sympathy.”

He paused once more, before tossing the blade to the side, “But is that just me rationalizing or am I overthinking things?”

“Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that I can disturbingly enough, do this,” he gestured to the now limbless corpse, “or this,” he shoved the corpse into the solution causing it to bubble and boil as the flesh slowly melted down, “without guilt or fear.”

He sighed running a hand through his, before taking a seat in the now empty chair, unphased by the blood spatter that was now staining his clothes.

(Eh, their stolen either way…)

He glanced around the dark room, his eyes drifting between the various chemicals, the solution that used to be a human body, as well as the bloody blade and the stains it left behind, all the while a single question seemed to run through his mind.

“Heh, wonder what my parents would think if they saw me now?”