Life Rewritten

The night for this moment was peaceful. The experiment had been hard at work trying to keep herself away from everyone. Keeping herself at a manageable mindset to not harm anyone, or set anything off.

Yet. This night in particular felt different. As though someone had been watching. Following. Then she saw it. Some kind of limousine. Why it approached her, she had no idea.

“...?”

The mutant does not respond, instead holding his sagging smile as his head tilts, inch by inch until it rests against his swollen shoulder. Images of war drift in and out of his clouded mind, with bursts of gunfire lifted from a movie playing on a shop’s flickering tv screen and fire cascading down debris-drowned streets. Something in the back of his head stirs, but he can’t figure out if it is excitement or dread. He fishes through his memory for his destination’s name and nothing comes out but an compulsion forward onto an unseen path. Maybe a detour would not be so bad. 

He takes a step toward the standing stranger, his knuckles dragging against the floor. Up close there’s no escaping the smell of sickly sweat wafting off him, or the wet rustling coming from under the shawl. 

[ “ Try anything, ” ] he wheezes, [ “ And you’ll die. Horrifically. ” ] His smile is meant to seal the statement as a promise.   

[ “ If this is a trap, and you’ve got friends lurking around the corner. I’ll smash their skulls. And I’ll save you for last- ” ]  His speech slurs, devolving into gurgling mutters, but he goes on. 

The sound of a ding could be heard as the subway reached it’s destination. She stands up, beginning to make her way out, gesturing for him to follow. She raised her hood to conceal her appearance as she led him through the war-torn streets.

After a few moments, the two reached their destination. Behind a fence was a series of items, a small fridge, a portable stove, a table and a sleeping bag, all kept under a tarp held up by a few poles.

She placed her bag next to the sleeping bag, walking towards a nearby chair.

For a good while, it might seem that K9999 does not register a single word out of her mouth, preoccupied instead with staring into the distance behind her. Nodes of flesh roll down his neck into the veiny furrows of his shoulder. Then he blinks, fixing his gaze back on the stranger. He grins.

[ “ I’m beyond human. ” ] His attention drifts, much too slowly, to the indicated camera. Its presence inspires a quiet chuckle out of him. A device like that would be rubble in his palm with just a clench of his fist.

[ “ Who’s they? They can’t hurt me. No one can. ” ] The answer to the woman’s question is no. All K9999 can register is that he’s on a subway train with too many eyes leering at him, and somehow, this will get him closer to something he must do. The suggestion of danger hardly registers, instead fueling a fantasy of rage and retribution in the confused mutant’s head- More enemies meant more for him to crush. His fingers curl in the folds of his shawl, hiccuping out a laugh. 

[ “ And who are you? One of ‘them?’ ” ]

[”No. But they made me.”] Naomi overheard his laughter, she was unsure of what happened to this being in front of her, but from the looks of it, he didn’t have much time. At least it looked like it. [”There is a war. Areas of the cities are blocked off due to it and it isn’t proper to get stuck in it.”]

The train stops, reaching a station in the location of Shinjuku. Naomi stands up, grabbing a hold of her bag, looking towards him. She couldn’t just leave him there.

crucial muse development questions.

2. what was the best thing in your character’s life?

Naomi cannot seem to remember everything, but she does always find herself feeling content when she plays games at the arcade, the most calming game being Galaga.

5. does your character work so they can support their hobbies or use their hobbies as a way of filling up the time they aren’t working?

Naomi’s hobbies are a coping mechanism and that seems to be it.

11. for what would your character give their life?

𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬 !

FULL NAME. G-Corporation Experiment No. 401 Naomi NICKNAME. N/A GENDER.  Female HEIGHT. 5′3″ AGE. 20 ZODIAC. Unknown SPOKEN LANGUAGES. Japanese, English 𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 !

HAIR COLOR. Black EYE COLOR. Blue SKIN TONE. Pale BODY TYPE. Athletic, slim VOICE.  Monotone and blank, however the pitch seems higher when she speaks in Japanese. DOMINANT HAND. Right. POSTURE. Straight backed SCARS. Multiple scars from syringes and scalpels TATTOOS. The black claw marks on her left shoulder (Devil Gene Mark) BIRTHMARKS. N/A. MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S). Bright blue eyes

𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐝 !

PLACE OF BIRTH. G-Corporation Laboratory, Japan HOMETOWN. N/A SIBLINGS. N/A.  PARENTS. N/A.  𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 !

OCCUPATION.  None.  CURRENT RESIDENCE. Constantly traveling CLOSE FRIENDS. Doesn’t recall RELATIONSHIP STATUS. Single FINANCIAL STATUS.  Doesn’t care DRIVER’S LICENSE. N/A CRIMINAL RECORD. N/A VICES. Mentally broken

𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐬 !

The concoction in his mouth oozes out from the corner of his lips, a pale mess of patchy pink fluid with the consistency of curdled milk. He hacks, coughing until he can spit most of it out onto the stained floor. It was a public subway, trash and sticky stains already carpeted the place. Through his migraine he strains to piece together what the woman had said, first failing to understand she’d spoken Japanese. Stray pieces of vocabulary floated around in his head before he could pick out what words he needed. God, he hadn’t spoken Japanese since he was in… wait, where was he now? His attention jerks to the signs plastered over the car’s walls, but the letters blend together in his blurring vision. He snaps his head back to the girl so fast that something in his shoulder lets out an audible crack.

[ “ Yeah? Does it bother you? Disgust you? Then look away! “ ]

For all he knew, he WAS dying. All the effort he’d put into finding a solution to the problem- didn’t matter. NESTS didn’t leave behind any vaccine or a new glove that could stop this infection or even slow its path. Whether his death came when it hit his brain or swallowed him whole? He had no idea. He didn’t care to think about it- he just knew he had a ticking clock to beat. Before he went, there were some people he needed to put in their graves, some scores to settle, those kinds of things. And… getting where this subway was going would put him one step closer.

He doesn’t realize he’s been staring back at the woman with a snarl on his face. She’s a smear of color in the left half of his vision. Does she look familiar? No. She’s too tall. She’s too tall to be her. Much too tall. The hair isn’t even right. But that look in her eye… dead-on. The strands growing from his arm bristle. He could kill her. Easily- just one swipe and it’d be over. But he doesn’t need to. Because she’s not- who? She’s not…  She’s no one to him.

[”...you aren’t human...are you...?”]

So he did hear her, at least it seemed so, and that appearance was enough to get her to ask. She could relate in a sense, as she too wasn’t as human as she appeared. Unfortunately, she appeared healthy, at least physically, thus she couldn’t seem to relate to his current ailment. However, she did know that if nothing were done by the time they reached the station, there would be even more issues.

[”Do you know where you are...? Because it would be dangerous for you if you were found at the station.”]

Naomi keeps her head lowered, but her eyes glance towards the cameras held within the train, a basic security system for many, but few knew that there were some that used these cameras for more darker methods, some in particular to find people that needed to be found.

The subway car kicks for every notch in its path, jerking its passengers just enough to keep anyone from reading their phones in peace. It didn’t stop anyone from using them, though, and K9999 had become an expert in plucking raised phone-cameras out of his peripherals. A man with a groomed beard and a pin on his scarf tried to put him into frame, ‘subtly’ parking his phone on his thigh. Were he any less tired than he was now, K9999 would’ve swatted that stupid thing up and crushed it in his hand before tossing the remains in the man’s face. But his breaths aren’t coming in smoothly, and the buzz of the fluorescent lights flickering overhead is drilling into his brain. 

So he pulls his ragged shawl tight over his frothing arm and hurries into the next car, stealing stale air between clenched teeth. Fatty heaps of skin leak from each crack in the busted blue glove he tries, unsuccessfully, to hide from the murmuring passengers of this late night subway. It hurts. It burns and sweats as if ravaged by fever, throbbing like a fresh bruise, all while metal scrapes and crushes it back into place. But after the past few years, he’s become accustomed to most of it.

There’s a single occupant in the next car. A young woman with black hair. When he confirms that she hasn’t reached for a phone, K9999 staggers to the nearest strap and clutches it with his free hand. He hasn’t realized that his right eye has gone bloodshot, or that thick cords of irritated flesh have sprouted from the corner and web out to his jaw, to his neck, to his shoulder, but at the moment he doesn’t care. The brisk air in the cart gives him some relief from the searing heat in his shoulder and that’s enough.

Until, of course, he notices the blue eyes lingering on him and his misshapen form. Any trip out in public, even in the dead of night, led to this same exchange- him, a horrific abomination, and them, wide-eyed audiences to the surreal spectacle. For fuck’s sake, he just wanted to get out of this city. Move on. Find them– whichever of them his roaming led to first.

“ Got a problem? ” He tries to growl, but the sores in his mouth drown it out with a mix of pus and drool. 

“...” She grows concerned by the sight of what comes out of his mouth. It’s disturbing, bringing back painful memories of those defective units from her time in captivity. He looked as though he were going to fall apart right here and now, unsure if he would just die if she left him alone.

He...doesn’t need help...he doesn’t have long anyhow, she thinks. However...

“[It looks as though...you’re dying...]” She spoke faintly, believing he wouldn’t hear her at all.