A small piece based off this that I just wrote:
The mission was intended to be simple, dangerous maybe sure but simple nonetheless. It was nothing more than a quiet extraction, get in, get the information, and get out. The only complications were to avoid detection and leave no trace. Something that would make most shy away but Cor knew the importance of this, knew what was at risk if they didn’t look into this strange lab that the Empire had cooked up. They needed to know as much about these MTs as they could, otherwise they were doomed to lose against them time and time again.
The problem had been that they’d all gravely underestimated the horrors of what the Empire were willing to do to win this ceaseless battle. They went in blind, willfully ignorant, expecting only to find stray parts and schematics. They were looking for a chink in the armor but what they found, what Cor found, shook the very foundation of the world their faith.
The reports he’d found as he traveled deeper and deeper into the Keep had grown more and more alarming, more and more confusing, until he was left absolutely shattered inside. It was a strange mix of rage and confusion. He didn’t want to believe it but what he’d read, it was starting to sound like they were breeding daemons. From living people.
But the harsh reality of it was somehow even worse.
As the heavy metal doors slid open, he was greeted with a rush of cold air, lights flickering on overhead, making little difference in the green tinted space. There was plenty enough of the green light emanating from the massive bubbling cylindrical tubes that lined the walls.
It was as if his brain needed a moment to take it all in, his feet dragging as his sheathed blade lowered until the tip hit the ground, the sound painfully loud in the otherwise quiet room.
His gaze slowly focused on the strange tubes, his thoughts trying desperately to play catch up and to make sense of the sight of a small hairless child floating in the green liquid that filled them.
Scanning from one to the next he took in the features of the being inside, noting that each one looked not unlike the next but only younger or older. Nothing more than varying stages of life of the same soft faced young man, floating listlessly. And all he could hope was that whoever it was inside was as blissfully unaware of his life, as they all had been of what Niflheim was doing in here.
Cor’s stomach churned in a way he’d never felt before, this wasn’t fear or the harsh grip of anxiety, but sheer agonizing disgust. They were cloning someone, these poor creatures were being denied their humanity from the very beginning, created solely to feed into this perfect machine of war they were building.
He wasn’t sure at what point that feeling translated into the need to grab one, he couldn’t rationalize it in the moment, and he certainly couldn’t after. But something drove him to rush to the closest tube, the ID he’d snagged to get inside dropped on the floor and his blade tucked away to free his hands. Fingers scrambled recklessly, desperately trying to open the vat, reaching in the moment it unsealed, the viscous green ooze draining down through a tube into the floor. Snatching the tiny baby up off of the floor, he wrapped him in his jacket and tucked him in close to his chest. He was driven then only by the need to get him far away from this building, from these monsters who’d created him.
There was a gnawing at the back of his mind, a voice telling him that one wasn’t enough, he was leaving so many behind to still face that wicked fate. But the soft gurgle of the baby’s voice and the twist of a tiny fist gripping his shirt silenced it. Perhaps it wasn’t enough for him, but it was everything to the little one in his arms, and that would have to be enough for now.
titsay
2087
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