Secret Healing facility, Location unknown.
Wilhelmina stood before the sealed door, her slender fingers tracing the intricate runes etched into its surface. A testament to the countless spells woven into its very core, designed to keep whatever lay beyond as contained as possible. She hesitated for a moment, her heart racing in her chest. If she could, she would never set foot inside the isolated facility again. But the weight of her responsibility bore down on her shoulders like an unyielding force.
“Here we go again,” she murmured to herself, her voice hardly audible. With a wave of her hand, the magical lock clicked open, and the door swung inward with a groan.
As Wilhelmina stepped over the threshold, the thick smell of herbs reached her–a scent that had been deeply ingrained in her memory throughout years of experimentation and research. Yet despite the familiarity, the sight before her stirred a sense of unease within her.
The place resembled more of a prison than a medical facility meant for treating people. Magical chains shackled row upon row of beings, their eyes reflecting the hopelessness of their situation.
“Focus,” she chastised herself internally, banishing any stray thoughts that threatened to undermine her resolve. “There’s work to be done.”
Moving deeper, the oppressive atmosphere seemed to grow heavier with each step. Wilhelmina’s sapphire eyes flickered briefly to the imprisoned beings, lingering on one particularly haggard figure who stared back with silent pleading.
“Pl-ease-,” the woman whispered, her voice cracked from disuse. “Hel-p m-e.”
Swallowing hard, she struggled to maintain composure. Her voice was monotone as she replied, “I’m doing everything I can.”
Tearing her gaze away from the woman, she continued down the corridor, her footsteps echoing through the dimly lit space. The pleas of people turned into echoing roars like that of beasts filled the air as Wilhelmina strode forward, their grotesque forms visible in the falling light.
These beings were once similar to her, Humans. Some were mages, while others were valiant knights filled with happy lives and hopes of better futures ahead of their careers. But now they are not called humans for reasons. Instead, they are called by many names, beasts, monsters, demons and what she liked to call them, The Crimson Wretches with bloated heads and rotting skin were an all-too-familiar sight to her.
“Keep moving,” she muttered to herself.
As she passed each cell, the sickles extending from the Wretches’ tattered backs scraped against the magical chains that bound them. The sound was akin to nails on a chalkboard. But Wilhelmina’s weary eyes remained unflinching. She knew these people became monsters, as happens to anyone who becomes victims of the insidious Rotmaw Soulgorger parasite.
“Help... me...” One wretch rasped, its voice barely recognisable as human.
Her heart clenched painfully, but she forced herself to ignore the plea. The experiments she conducted were their only hope for salvation. “I’m trying,” though she doubted the creature could hear her over the cacophony of desperate cries. They all came-no lured here with a promise of cure, like a path to their salvation, with the end being here, to her. She remembered how they all looked at her and said “ We trust you.”
What did she do with that trust? Put heavy chains on their neck and placed them under a container, to slow their change, not because she wanted to buy more time for them but because she wanted to watch how they slowly screamed in horror and cursed her in despair and finally became the monsters who roared at her sight, just like today.
Those who turned wholly are nothing but crazed beasts, like the one in front of her. Despite being nailed by sharp pins, it still tried to move its hideous mouth towards her. They eat almost anything with mana, metals of artefacts, raw hard stones of mana, or the soft flesh of beasts, as well as humans. Their rotten skin was like a sheet of the strongest metal that the swords of knights can’t pierce, or be destroyed by the spells of weak mages.
Amidst the eerie echoes of screeches and roars, Wilhelmina observes the sickles’ almost snake-like movement, defying magic suppression. Wilhelmina wonders how a bone could move with such flexibility. It’s almost a whip with deadly poison.
Moving on from the cells, she reached the last room, feeling as if she had been walking through the endless corridor for an eternity. Pulling a stone with a strange rune, the gigantic door glowed with soft light and opened the path ahead. Revealing a stark, sterile, clocked-in silence, a complete contrast to the horrors she’d just passed.
Her assistants—a male mage with fiery red hair and a female with ash-blond tresses—busied themselves with preparing for their next experiment. They measured and mixed potions with trembling hands to avoid meeting her gaze.
“Have there been any new mutations that have appeared on the bodies of the hosts while I was absent?” Wilhelmina asked, her voice low and devoid of emotion.
“N-no, ma’am,” stammered the Red-haired assistant, handing her a report. “I have not observed any such thing in your absence.” The tension in the room was palpable, but Wilhelmina was long accustomed to the atmosphere her presence created and read through the report as usual.
“Good.” she nodded, her eyes scanning the room. She knows they don’t see her methods as born out of necessity but her personality. They viewed her as a lunatic, a madwoman driven by her sadistic nature. Someone who would use them as her next experiment if they offended her. But she couldn’t afford to care about their opinions—she had a purpose that went beyond their understanding or judgment.
“Have you checked for outside information?” Wilhelmina inquired, directing her question to the ash-blond woman. “Is there anything new that we should know?”
“Y-yes,” she replied, clutching a small bag tightly in her quivering hands. “Everything is as normal as some days before. There is no new information. Just…”
“Say…”
“L-Lord Henrik might be coming in the late evening.”
“Why?” She raised her eyebrows at her assistant’s words. “Didn’t he not like coming to this place?”
“I-I tried to ask, but there was no reply from the other side.” The female assistant lowers her head with a slight shaking of her body.
“Very well.” Wilhelmina turned her attention back to her work, determined to maintain her stoic facade.
“Remember, if he comes in the middle of research, don’t let him enter the room.” She reminded them, her tone unwavering. “We cannot afford any mistakes. I will talk to him at the end, so don’t worry about him blaming you.”
“Understood, ma’am,” they both responded in unison, their voices barely above a whisper.
“Jame, is everything prepared?” Wilhelmina asked, her voice steady but tired. “Did you record the readings for today’s test subject?”
“Yes, ma’am,” He stammered out a response, and as he spoke, a single bead of sweat inched down his forehead, pausing briefly at the bridge of his nose before continuing its descent. “Everything is ready.”
“Let’s start the test,” she commanded, her gaze shifting to the ash-blond female assistant. “Mina, fetch me the parasite sample.”
Mina scurried away as if chased by shadows; her fear was palpable. Meanwhile, under Wilhelmina’s watchful eyes, James wheeled into a cylindrical glass chamber filled with an eerie, luminescent liquid. Within it floated the body of a young boy, his eyes closed as if in peaceful slumber.
“Place it in the predetermined location,” she instructed. Although her heart ached, she knew what she was about to do was necessary and steeled herself for it. “Double check to ensure the proper connection of tendrils.”
“Of course, ma’am.” He carefully positioned the cylinder, expertly attaching the pointed tendrils to its surface.
As the last tendril locked into place, the female assistant returned. The ice ball containing the parasite quivered fiercely in her gloved hands, betraying the fear that clenched her heart.
“Easy,” Wilhelmina cautioned, her eyes locked onto the trembling sphere. She reached out with her gloved hand, feeling its cold weight as she carefully took it from the assistant’s grasp. She hesitated momentarily but soon continued.
With a sigh, she placed the ice ball into the designated slot on the side of the cylinder. The opening closed as soon as she took back her hand, leaving no trace of the dangerous contents now inside.
“Everything’s set,” James said, his gaze flickering between Wilhelmina and the cylinder.
“Leave,” she commanded, her tone soft yet resolute. “I’ll handle the rest.”
Without hesitation, the two assistants scurried from the room, eager to distance themselves from the chilling scene.
Alone, Wilhelmina’s shoulders slumped under the weight of her burden. Her thoughts raced as she stared at the boy. The knowledge of what was about to happen gnawed at her conscience.
Her voice was barely audible as she placed the ice ball into the cylinder. “I wish there was another way.”
With the heavy door sealing shut behind her assistants, Wilhelmina turned back to face the cylindrical cell. The temperature of the room dropped as she took a step back, her body shivering from the sudden chill. A platform rose from the floor, its surface alive with neon screens that displayed the sleeping body of a teenager and another its vital signs.
“Everything appears normal,” She started talking to herself in the quiet lab to avoid looking directly at the boy. She quickly assessed the data, confirming it was safe to proceed. Satisfied, she glanced at the unconscious boy. “I’m sorry,” she murmured again.
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Mocking Wilhelmina’s apology, the ice ball housing the parasite split apart. The Rotmaw Soulgorger emerged. The creature was small and unassuming - but Wilhelmina knew the terror it could cause. Even if the boy had been aware, he would not have known of the intruder entering his body. The act was sly with no indication of pain, sound or visibility.
Her eyes stayed glued to the projection as she witnessed the parasite swimming rapidly through the liquid until it made contact with the boy’s skin. With one quick movement, it disappeared into him, leaving only a few bubbles in its wake.
“It was necessary. I am doing the right thing.” Wilhelmina clenched her fists. But despite her conviction, she kept saying “forgive me” under her breath, struggling to take her mind off what she was doing. She focused instead on the numbers appearing on the screen, hoping that this would be the breakthrough she needed to make her test a success.
A bead of sweat slowly trickled down Wilhelmina’s forehead as she fixed her gaze on the screen before her, every second feeling like a massive burden. The image it displayed depicted a young boy in a cylindrical container filled with shimmering fluid, sleeping peacefully under the effects of a drug.
“I should accelerate the growth,” she muttered quietly, her voice barely detectable in the oppressive stillness. Her eyes were transfixed as her slender, mana-laden fingers touched the runes, activating the unique properties of the liquid that surrounded him.
As if responding to her command, the parasite appeared—working its way through the boy’s body like a maleficent shadow and then disappeared completely.
Wilhelmina took an unsteady breath. She flicked the screen and there it loomed once more, bigger than its previous size. Its tentacles were multiplying and stretching until they filled the landscape called consciousness.
With narrowed eyes, as she watched the parasite’s tentacles trying to push beyond the boy’s consciousness boundaries; she knew this was only the beginning of the nightmares those struck by the parasite would suffer.
The image of the boy’s consciousness showed what looked like a dense mass of writhing tendrils spread across it; what had been empty moments ago now resembled an impenetrable forest of insidious tentacles.
Her countless nights in the lab had resulted in a solution capable of preventing the physical symptoms plaguing the parasite’s host. Their skin rotted or their muscles would no longer tighten, their heads ballooning grotesquely while sickle-like protrusions erupted from their backs. The liquid-filled container saved the boy from all of this. But even so, Wilhelmina’s accomplishments halted on the precipice of something far more insidious: the pain.
Her strongest sleeping potion had rendered his nerves insensitive to pain, yet it failed to shield him from the agony of the parasite’s relentless expansion within his consciousness.
“Damn it all.” Frustration laced her words as she clutched a fistful of her hair.
She studied the shimmering projection before her. The parasite’s tentacles writhed like a living thicket within the boy’s consciousness. Their movements were both predatory and ravenous. The creature was expanding and consuming its territory.
“Is the pain from consciousness really that different from normal pain to persist?” she murmured, her voice barely audible even to herself. “The solution did provide sustenance for the parasite, preventing it from driving its host into a man-fuelled frenzy, but is it still not enough?”
A sudden scratching sound pulled her attention back to the container. The boy’s fingers clawed at the glass, his silent struggle betraying the intensity of his torment. Despite the silencing magic imbued within the liquid, Wilhelmina could almost hear his desperate screams; echoes of past failures that haunted her every waking moment.
“Enough,” her hands trembling with a mix of frustration and determination. With a heavy heart, Wilhelmina tore her gaze away from the boy’s futile attempts to escape and focused on the experiment at hand. She reached for the projection, her fingers grazing the surface as she adjusted the concentration of the potion coursing through the container, her mind racing with calculations and possibilities.
“Stabilise,” Weaving a spell to restrain the boy’s arms, gently but firmly pulling them away from the glass. As time ticked by, the parasite’s presence within the boy’s consciousness grew, multiplying until it had increased four hundredfold.
Soon the parasite thrashed violently, emitting a strange energy that she recognised as a soul force.
“How can there be such a parasite in this world,” That’s the question she always asks herself “It consumes not only its host’s consciousness, but their very soul as well.”
“Is this really what a higher form of sustenance looks like?” she pondered the rumours she heard from outside, but as her eyes locked on the writhing mass of tentacles that filled the projection, she thought otherwise. “I doubt those cultists know about it better than what I do.”
Wilhelmina’s heart raced, but she refused to let fear hold her back. This was the moment of truth. She manipulated the metal tendrils surrounding the cylinder, unleashing a sequence of strange waves that altered the hue of the liquid inside. The boy, still restrained by a magical force, jolted violently, his body contorting as though trying to flee from some unseen tormentor.
The parasite within the boy’s consciousness also writhed in response to the waves, its tentacles flailing wildly as it released an ever-increasing surge of soul power. A cold sweat beaded on her brow as she forced herself to remain focused, to stay in control despite the unsettling scene before her.
“Come on... come on...” she muttered, her pulse pounding in her ears. She could feel the weight of every second passing, the pressure mounting as the struggle intensified. The boy’s thrashing started to grow even more desperate.
As time wore on, the soul energy emitted by the parasite began to wane, the once-vibrant luminescence gradually dimming. Through the projections, the dense tangle of tentacles that had consumed the boy’s consciousness started to slow their frenetic dance. They wilted, disintegrating into nothingness like leaves consumed by flames.
The boy’s struggles started to weaken and then ceased altogether, his body returning to the deep slumber from which it had been so rudely awakened.
Wilhelmina’s pale fingers trembled as she waved a sign of slight relief. The flickering glow from the arcane symbols etched into the unyielding stone walls illuminated the unconscious boy’s lifeless form, suspended within a glass cylinder before her.
“It’s finally gone,” her chest heaving.
Though she had managed to vanquish the monstrous contagion, Wilhelmina’s heart sank with each rapid beep from the projections monitoring the boy’s vitals. The once-steady rhythm now resembled a frantic wave. Every ounce of knowledge she possessed screamed that the boy would soon perish.
Clenching her fists, she tried to suppress the guilt gnawing at her insides. The next person she could save might physically weaken but spared the cruel fate awaiting the boy. Eventually, she might find a way to eradicate the pain. Yet for the child before her, there was no hope.
Her long raven hair fell forward, concealing the anguish in her eyes as she contemplated the only mercy left for the boy ending his suffering faster. She began gathering her energy, preparing to deliver the final blow.
Wilhelmina’s heart pounded in her chest as she steeled herself to end the boy’s life, her hands trembling with the weight of her decision. Her fingers were a hair’s breadth from emitting the lethal energy when the door to the lab swung open.
A bald man with piercing steel-grey eyes made his way inside.
“Henrik? How did you enter here? Where are James and Mina?”
Henrik strode into the room. His steel-grey eyes searched her face as he entered. Close behind him, her two assistants followed, their faces twisted into expressions of displeasure. A group of black-robed mages trailed behind them, their presence causing Wilhelmina’s frown to deepen.
“Wilhelmina,” Henrik said in a measured voice, “I think you should stop with your work now. Your tireless work since this outbreak began is commendable. But you need rest.”
“Rest?” she snapped; her voice strained. Her eyes locked onto Henrik’s. “I don’t remember the parasite ending its rampage.”
“That was before. I bring news that not only can stop you but may grant you some respite. The Healing Circles have devised a method to halt the spread of the parasite.”
Surprise flashed across Wilhelmina’s face, her sapphire eyes momentarily brightening.
“How?”
“It is classified,” Henrik began, his eyes holding against her gaze, “But I can tell you because of your contributions so far. The Healing Circles have developed a potion that makes human blood too poisonous for the parasite to infect, killing it before it reaches one’s consciousness.”
Wilhelmina’s heart clenched at the thought of such a potion, but she held her tongue as Henrik continued.
“ Rest assured, it’s perfectly safe for humans. However, the method must remain secret to prevent panic among the populace and encourage acceptance.”
Wilhelmina studied Henrik, her mind racing with questions and concerns. Could this be true? Was there a way to save their people without resorting to her terrible experiments?
“Your silence betrays your doubt, Wilhelmina,” Henrik said, his voice sharp and impatient.
“Forgive me,” she lowered her eyes, hesitant to meet his gaze. Her voice shook slightly as she spoke. “It’s just... I fear the potion may not suffice for long. In my research, I’ve observed great evolutionary traits within the parasite. It would undoubtedly adhere to the survival of the fittest law and evolve to counteract this method. Look at the new mutations that kept appearing when we tried to use poison to slow their numbers. The entire cities upon cities were filled with gas clouds and they are still here.”
“That’s because we are not quick enough. This time, we will start only with sufficient supplies.”
“Are you confident you can mass produce the potion in enough numbers to avoid the mutation?”
“Shut up,” Henrik’s face darkened, his thin lips twitched as he spoke, eyes narrowing to icy slits. The air seemed to crackle around him with the intensity of his accusation. “You’re becoming disillusioned, finding excuses to keep clinging to your inhuman experiments to satiate some sadistic thirst,” he said, each word weighted with contempt.
Wilhelmina flinched at his words, her mouth opening, and closing without a sound. She desperately wanted to defend herself, but the truth of her actions weighed on her heart. The painful memories of countless failed attempts and lives lost threatened to suffocate her.
“Our people can finally breathe in peace, but you just want to have your perverted fun. I am no longer willing to tolerate you or your sadist nature anymore,” Henrik continued, his gaze never leaving her defeated form. “I am closing this lab, effective immediately.”
Wilhelmina’s haunted eyes flickered towards the cylinder containing the unconscious boy, her thoughts swirling with a mixture of relief and despair.
‘Maybe this was how it all supposed to end.’ Wilhelmina, thinking it would finally end for her, remained unaware of the motives driving Henrik’s decision. His concern was not for the moral implications of her research but for the preservation of his reputation. Initially, he dismissed the parasite’s existence, allowing it to spread unchecked among their people.
When he finally acknowledged the threat, he secretly authorised Wilhelmina’s horrifying experiments in desperation. Now, with the Healing Circles offering a potential solution, he feared blame would fall upon him for the atrocities committed in the name of progress.
“Very well,” Wilhelmina’s voice became barely audible. Her hands trembled at her sides, feeling the weight of her sins pressing down upon her.
“Pack your belongings and leave the premises,” Henrik ordered, his tone sharp as ice. As he turned away from her, she glimpsed his clenched jaw and the tension that rippled beneath his ornate robes. He was a man driven by fear and ambition, desperate to bury his misdeeds beneath the veneer of righteous authority.
Wilhelmina’s were downed with resignation as she glanced between the black-robed mages and Henrik. “And those who are already hosts of the parasite?”
“We will increase resources for the Healing Circles,” Henrik replied, his tone dismissive. “They’ll find a way soon.”
At this, the black-clothed mages moved into action. They first detained Wilhelmina’s assistants, whose faces bore expressions of confusion and betrayal. Wilhelmina accepted her fate without resistance as they approached her, allowing them to bind her hands.
As they secured her, the mages began manipulating the projection above the cylinder containing the unconscious boy. The space morphed, shifting like liquid mercury. Wilhelmina’s heart clenched at the sight.
“Stop!” Her voice rose in panic, desperate for her plea to be heard. “He’s still breathing,” she tried to lunge forward, but her arms were gripped by the black-clothed mages.
“I am saving him from you.” Henrik’s cold eyes met hers, his voice devoid of empathy. “Who knows what you will do to him otherwise.” He motioned for his men to proceed, and they prepared the container for disposal.
“At least give him a proper cremation,” Wilhelmina was unable to bear the thought of the boy suffering such an unceremonious end. But her plea fell on deaf ears.
The black mages hurled the container into the space scrapper, a void between dimensions capable of tearing anything asunder. The container disappeared, swallowed by the abyss, leaving only Wilhelmina’s silent grief in its wake.
“Place them under house arrest. Make sure they don’t get into contact with any outsider,” Henrik ordered, gesturing towards Wilhelmina and her assistants. “And ensure this site is thoroughly gone, I don’t want to see anyone ever find out what happened here. “
As the mages led her away, Wilhelmina’s eyes passed the place where the container was and thought one last time.‘He at least deserved a proper end ’.
****