Branch’s coliseum was grandiose, as magnificent as anything could be in a world that was overrun by the walking dead and ground to ashes from nuclear weapons could be. Demoreo stood in the arena that first time, feeling as naked and vulnerable as he was, only a stranger in his own skin. The crowd gasped, gawked, and marveled at Demoreo, at what he had become through Branch’s experiments. He was unlike anything that they had ever seen; a true ghast among a cornucopia of horrors.
Fear. Was this what he had become? Loathing.
Demoreo was special. Branch had made that clear to him. All his other projects had been failures, insults not worthy of a god. Branch believed himself to be a hair away from learning the key to immortality, to being superhuman, and Demoreo was the missing link. Before it was either death or death and reanimation, but never sustained life, added strength or abilities. That all changed with Demoreo, Branch’s great breakthrough, or, as they introduced him to the arena spectators, the Crusher. The changes gripped him more with each passing day, his body alien, uncomfortable, and his mind foggy. His mind was slipping. Details that came naturally were slipping from his grasp until they dissipated, forcing him to repeat his name to himself ad nauseam, just so he wouldn’t forget.
The constructed images in his head of Shar, Tyler and Marie were fading with each passing day, which made him weep every night when the guards had all stopped paying attention. He stood out in the sunlight again, after what felt an eternity in darkness, or barricaded away in the depths of Branch’s laboratory, being tested on night and day without pause. Sunlight pierced through him like millions of tiny needles. The once-familiar sight was now alien and painful where it was once soothing and invigorating. Tonight’s crowd was hungry, bloodthirsty, and impatient. Rage. There it was, bubbling up and creeping through his subconsciousness. He had been fighting, remembering, which only made the rage come on harder. He glanced around, hoping to glance at Shar and Tyler’s faces in the crowd, but there were so many faces, all of them unfamiliar and distorted, crying for violence.
A thundering clang cut through the buzz of the crowd as two armored guards peeled the mighty iron doors across the arena from him open. A hush washed over the crowd, but from this distance Demoreo saw nothing, just a dark hallway across the massive arena. What was coming next was beyond his power. The rage would overtake him, it would drown out his consciousness and force him to feed on the flesh of the living and undead. All of it would unfold in front of a crowd, no longer in a darkened cell in private. The guards had ensured that he had eaten nothing in days, and the hunger was growing with every passing moment. Whatever had taken over his body and mind was a good parasite, and it did what it had to do to survive, even if it meant overtaking the host.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” an announcer’s voice boomed over the arena. “Tonight Jordan Branch presents to you, the disgusting cannibal of the Wasteland, the Crusher!”
The crowd roared while the guard poked him in the back with the muzzle of his rifle. “C’mon, Crusher, Branch wants you to play to the crowd.” Demoreo turned around to face the guard, only for three others to swarm in, guns pointed at him, motioning for him to turn around. They feared him, knowing what he was capable of.
“My god, he’s a lively one, isn’t he?” the announcer boomed again. “Tonight we will see the Crusher against an entire horde of the undead. Can the terror of the Wasteland outlast them? Only time will tell!” He boomed. “It’s feeding time!”
The crowd fell silent while the groaning emerged from the tunnel across the arena. The sounds of the approaching undead had triggered something inside of him, and the dark cloud rolled in over his mind. Fists clenched, he advanced towards the tunnel. If he was to live as a monster for the rest of his life, how bad would it be to just have it all end here? To fight, to not let the monster take hold and to die while he could still remember the face of his children? Death would be the only thing that he was in control of because it was his and his alone. Not Jordan Branch’s.
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The only thing standing in the way of this noble death was the boiling rage flowing through his veins. Rage was bubbling up inside of him, overtaking his personality and clouding whatever logical thoughts were left inside of his mind. A few of the undead emerged from the blackness, moaning and shuffling towards him, the guards with stun batons to herd them. The crowd roared and all that Demoreo could think about was ripping them all—undead and the alive—limb from limb. His senses were dulling, the fog inside of his brain solidifying to the point of blocking everything else out, the rage overtaking him. He stumbled, falling down to one knee while the pain inside of his head grew. That pain, that blackness had overtaken him before and the only way that he knew to stop it was to let go, let it encompass his being, to let the monster take charge.
There was a dual-residency inside of his head; a struggle for dominance as to which personality would exist and eventually only one would remain. Demoreo, he whispered. Demoreo, your name is Demoreo. The pain inside of his mind intensified while the horde closed in on him. Demoreo, your name is Demoreo. A sudden jolt filled his body, a set of rotten teeth digging into his shoulder. He let out a mighty roar, exploding to his feet, flinging the few undead that had clutched onto him off to the ground.
In one swift motion, his foot came down like a piston, crushing the skull of the one who had bits of his flesh still in its maw. He grabbed another around its decaying throat, its menacing tongue lashing out, a hiss emanating from inside of it. He hoisted the monster into the air before its skull came crashing down onto the packed dirt, exploding upon impact. Crusher let out a mighty roar while another two hobbled toward him.
He reached down and grabbed a hold of a leg, using his might to fling it aside, taking the whole body with it. The body flew, but the leg remained in his hand, finding its way into his jaws. He tore a sizeable chunk of meat off from the leg before tossing it aside, another clawing at him. This one he grabbed by the top of the head, leaning down and sinking his oversized teeth into the monster’s stomach. With one tug there were entrails spilling onto the ground, the monster still hissing at him before he tore the head from the body, tossing it into the crowd, forcing a panic among the first two rows.
He was at least three times the size of them surrounding him, meaning that they stood no chance. There were no human thoughts left, just rage, just hunger, just destruction. The crowd was under control again, screaming in joy while he ripped through each one that stood before him, taking pieces into his jaw when he saw fit, other times tearing them limb-from-limb much to the delight of the crowd.
A commotion came from his right, him turning to see that a member of the crowd had fallen in. A woman in the front row was screaming, crying out, reaching for a man that had tumbled from the stands who lay flat on the ground trying to regain his senses. Crusher dropped the twitching body from his hands and stomped over towards the man, who was attempting to scramble to his feet. The guards stood silent, watching. Their orders weren’t to save anyone, their orders were to clean up.
“No, please! Someone help him!” The woman shrieked, a few guards surrounding her, taking her by the arms and restraining her. “Jonah no! Please!”
It was only a matter of a few steps before the Crusher stood before the man, blood and guts dripping from his maw and streaking down his muscled chest like a primitive beast on the hunt. Demoreo, he heard in his mind. Your name is Demoreo. A sharp pang traveled through his head, causing him to pull back, before the cloud washed back over him, the man’s torso in his grasp having the life squeezed out of him.
Rage.
“No, ple—” The man was pleading, but the Crusher was hungry. Always hungry. Restraining himself only amplified the pain in his mind, making the choice a simple one.
The head popped inside of his mouth like a water balloon against a warm summer’s day sidewalk, squishing and crunching while the body fell limp in his hand. He tore off an arm like he was munching on a game hen, a natural and effortless thing for him to do, when out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the guards approaching him in defensive postures. The body flew towards two of the guards, knocking them to the ground before he felt the sharp pain of the taser throughout his body, falling to his knees, blackness flooding through his mind. Demoreo, he heard his voice say inside of his head. Demoreo.