The room glowed with the dim computer screen light. A bottle of bourbon in fancy crystal sat on the desk. Red emergency lights glowed at the corners of the wall. The tile floor allowed the wheels of the chair to roll unimpeded across the room. Edward Delant took a great huff of oxygen through the plastic mask attached to the tank on the back of his motorized wheelchair, arched his back, and drove toward the liquor. He’d been sitting unattended for too long. He’d defecated. He’d wet himself.

It had been hours since anyone had even bothered to check on him. The needle on the oxygen tank ticked down to the orange bar. His body listed as the chair hit the desk. His wrinkled hand grabbed the bottle with all his might. He took the cork and left it bounce on the tile. Fingers tremble has he held the bottle with both hands. It pressed against his lips. He gulped over and over as liquor ran down into the collar of his shirt and soaked the fancy blazer. Glistening specks spread over the tile floor.

The lights flickered as black slime ran down the corner pipe. Edward glanced toward the screen as he finished the bottle and tossed it aside toward the pipe. The bottle didn’t break. A tendril caught it. It coiled and pushed through the neck of the discarded glass to absorb the final drops.

The chair buzzed as it rolled toward liquor cabinet. Edward took the last bottle of rum. The big porcelain jug proved a bit too heavy. He huffed as it rested over his lap. Fingers slithered over the corked cap but failed to get it open. The joystick was pushed forward. The chair bumped into the desk. He pounded the call button on a communication device. Nobody answered. His body limply curled over the jug of rum while hugging it.

Another body with a barely perceptible shadow curled over him. His felt her chest on the back of his neck, small yet warm and inviting. Edward smiled.

“I thought nobody cared anymore. Could you open this for me?”

A slithering black inky mass stretched outward, then curved inward to the tip of the bottle and wrapped around the cork, which pounded the ceiling after it popped. Edward hugged the bottle and tried to lift it to his lips, though it proved too heavy. Something gave the bottle a little tug, let it lean to his direction. Rum teased at the edge of the opening with its heady scent as it the liquid gold shimmered in the light.

The bottle lifted over his head and swung away into the hands of the woman in black leather. She wasn’t his nurse. The liquor poured from the bottle, between her lips, and down her throat with no pretense of gulping or swallowing. It ran with unnatural directness into her stomach until the empty jug slammed the desk. A long satisfied, “Ahhhhhhh!” escaped her lips as she exhaled.

“You drank all my rum.”

“I’m sorry, we’re you the one who wanted to drink it? Considering your health, you should lay off the booze anyway old man.”

She sat on the desk and crossed her legs with the sound of tight leather crinkling.

“You drank all my rum.”

She put fingers to her lips, “Oh my, this human is senile. I don’t know why I expected something formidable considering your reputation for keeping this base operational for over fifty years. It certainly helps, or should help, that you’re infused with MER. So, what happened to you Mr. Edward Delant?”

“You drank all my rum? Who are you? Where did you come from? I need my pants changed. Are you my nurse?”

Nyx kicked her legs as she sat on the desk and stared at the chairbound man, “They really are devoting scarce resource to keeping you alive? You must have had one heck of a legacy. I ate your son by the way, how do you feel about that? I ate little Jimmy.”

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“Can you get me some rum? Wait, you witch, you drank all my rum. I’m going to call security and you’ll be fired. I’ll have you sent to scrubbing. I’ll slap you silly.”

Nyx laughed.

“How dare you!” Edward huffed, out of breath. He took a huge blast of oxygen from the mask attached to the tank on the back of his chair, “I’ll slap you silly.”

With a little bounce, Nyx hopped off the desk. She grabbed the green and silver oxygen tank by the nozzle and ripped it from the bolt housings. Pieces of the assembly clattered across the tile floor. The piping slipped away from the mask. The huge canister shook the desk. A crater formed when she slammed it upon the writing surface. Edward took deep breaths, blinked, and watched her as his head listed slightly. Drool dripped down his shirt and over his lap. Nyx took the tube between her fingers and guided it between her lips while turning the nozzle fully open.

The pure oxygen that hissed through the tube went inside her, yet not to any specific place. It just went inside her. Little bursts of flame opened from geysers throughout her leather outfit as she finished off the entire tank. The indicator mark went to full red. Then she sealed the tube with her lips. The tank dented inward slightly, then further, until she closed the nozzle. A fiery burp escaped her lips as she let the tube drop.

“Jim! Jim! Where are you lad!? That good for nothing boy only thinks with his little Jimmy. He’ll be the death of me and this entire company. Are you his latest conquest? I can’t imagine you are. You’re not very cute. That’s why you’re here. You’re my nurse. Did you see that other nurse who drank all my rum? I’m going to slap her silly and send her to scrubbing. She’ll learn what happens to those who filch my booze!”

Edward started to get out of breath, severely out of breath from so much rambling. He put the mask to his face. It felt easier to pull. He took several deep breathes through the mask that didn’t help his condition much. Nyx burped fire.

“That pure stuff burns rather nicely old man, thanks for that. It’s too bad the MER Helen gave you scrambled your brain instead of giving you powers. I feel bad for you being stuck with a naturally formed body grown via stem cell mitosis with only millions upon millions of years of trial and error to determine your form and function. The level of sup-optimal consistency in your overabundance of models… it’s just gross.”

Edward gasped, his hands returned to the mask and pressed it to his face as he took deep gulps of air through it, “You’re welcome. B-b-b-but… ehhhhh... I… new air tank… please.”

“Oh right, your lungs are defective. I wonder why that is? Ah, that thing you humans do where all your cells become increasingly defective until parts of you sag and then shut down? What’s that called again?”

“Help me!”

“Ah, that’s right! Aging! You’re smarter than you look old man. And here I thought you were all dried up and senile like Alfred. Maybe I’ll eat your eyes too. Where do you keep the spare tanks?”

“Can’t… heeeeeee… breaaaathe!”

He pointed to a small metal cabinet door in the wall. Nyx flicked the switch and the door squeaked open, but there were no tanks inside.

“Awwww, sorry old man, I really wanted to drink down another one in front of you but it seems nobody cares about you anymore. They have more important things to worry about than a useless, senile, old, former leader.”

Edward looked heartbroken, and pale as bleached bed sheets. The cabinet door slammed shut and relatched. Pale hot hands went over his withered, pale, cool hands as she leaned over the chair. Her face came closer until the tip of her nose touched his. Warm labored breathes fogged her fair skin as he heaved air. Saliva splattered her forehead with his coughs. Fingers gripped his hands ever tighter as she gave him the most subtle of smiles.

“I was hoping for maybe an exciting challenge, seeing as you’re infused with some of my older sister’s MER. But stupid, foolish, Helen thinks she’s oh so clever for leaving this carefully crafted bait for me to devour. Did she honestly think that would work?”

A humanoid silhouette rose from the muck puddling at the base of the corner pipe. The featureless creature of hot tar with a skeletal structure of rocks and carbon chunks stepped out of the shadows. A gloopy limb raised over Edward’s head. A drop of thick liquid fell on his nose; the bubbling of searing skin followed. Then it smacked down wetly over the dyed black hair with light gray roots and formed rivulets down the old man’s face, the largest forked into two paths as it ran over the old man’s nose. The searing tar blistered skin. It revealed bone as the old man violently coughed and gurgled.

“Does Helen not know that I can quarantine, assess, and incorporate trojan MER? In what world did she ever think such a pathetic strategy would work on me? You’ve been sacrificed by your sweety for nothing!”

Nyx broke into a chuckle, then a cackle. A fit of maniacal laughter filled the room as lumps of hot tar burst from the old man’s body.

The wheel chair groaned and collapsed into itself from the increasing weight of a newly formed silhouette.