Divine Empress of Blood

“Subject 3. Healed a gunshot to her brain, assumed immortality.”

What? Who’s talking. Where am I?

“Subject is waking up, feed her the sedative so she doesn’t break the restraints again.”

Restraints? I try to move my body only to realize I’m held down on a surface by chains. My feet, arms and stomach all have chains holding me in place on a metallic table, like the ones surgeons operate on. I look around the room and see three people in white lab-coats and surgeon-masks. What happened? I, I can’t remember.

“So you’re awake?”

The voice from earlier belongs to a man with a clipboard, he’s looking at me, but I can’t read his expression due to the mask. I realize I’m not back with the military, but I have no idea where I am, who these people are or what they’re going to do to me.

“Subject is verbally non-responsive, possibly due to the sedatives. I’m assuming you have a lot of questions, and don’t worry, we’ll have a lot of time together. See you are currently dead, at least on paper. You’re currently in one of the laboratories belonging to the Providencia, we picked you up after your buddy in the military sold you out. First the information team were just going to extract whatever intel they could get from you, but you see, the guys who apprehended you figured out something incredible. You were shot in the head, and you died, but as you’ve probably noticed you’re very much alive. See whatever happened a few days ago changed the world, it gave people abilities like the ones you read in fantasy and sci-fi stories, and you my dear subject are the most precious of all. You came back from the dead. As far as we can tell you’re immortal, something the higher ups very much would like to uncover the secrets of. Imagine if we could have undying troops placed around and doing missions, the applications are endless.”

I died? I came back to life? Why can’t I remember anything. Last thing I remember was walking towards the safe house for an unscheduled report, and then, nothing. Blank. Zilch. Zero. Nothing. I look at the man who’s been talking to me.

“Well, it doesn't matter. You have a few other peculiarities. You broke through the restraints twice, while unconscious. You’re quite a lot stronger than what used to be the human standard, so we had to tie you down with thick high-grade steel chains, as not even regular steel could hold you down. This is quite fascinating, you and I will spend a lot of time together to discover your secrets. Anyways, put her under. We’ll start tomorrow.”

“Ah, subject 3. Are you ready for an exciting first day? Well I guess you don’t know what we’re going to do. See we’re going to poke around your body to see how your healing ability works, and then we’re going to extract some samples of your tissue, blood, and the likes to see if we can find anything on a cellular level. Science is amazing isn’t it? Now you might say this can be called torture, and well, you’re probably right, but it’s for a good cause, so you should be proud.”

The man readies a table full of instruments, scalpels, hunting knives, and different kinds of saws. Dread washes over me as I realize what’s going to happen. He said I’m officially dead. That means nobody knows where I am or that I’m even alive. He picks up one of the scalpels and walks over to me.

“Now we’re going to keep you sedated while we do our experiments, we can’t have you break out of the restraints again can we? Well lucky for you the sedatives also dulls pain to a certain level. Once we know what your strength level is at we can stop using the sedatives, we don’t want our precious samples to be contaminated by foregin chemicals, do we?”

He puts the scalpel to the skin of my arm, and drags it across. My brain takes a few seconds to process everything before the pain receptors kick in, and I feel the knife running across my entire forearm.

“Remarkable. It’s only been a few seconds but it’s already healing. It’s like your natural healing capabilities are sped up by the thousands, hm this might make things difficult. Next we’re going to bring in an assistant to help me. Then we’re going to cut up your arm again, and then we’re going to pull out your muscle tissue, and then break your bones. I’m curious as to how your body is going to fix the lack of tissue, is it going to grow new tissue as fast as you’re healing? Oh well, you should probably mentally prepare, this is going to hurt.”

His assistant, a woman, I’m assuming she’s around my age. She takes the scalpel from his hands, while the man picks up a pair of pliers and a meat hammer. I close my eyes and try to mentally prepare using the techniques the military instilled in me. We were prepared to endure torture under the assumption we’re left for dead, but nobody has ever lasted more than a week before they broke down.

I feel the cold knife to my skin, this woman isn’t as experienced as the man, as I can feel her hand unsteadily cut across my forearm, luckily this isn’t so bad, but what’s coming next is what I’m terrified of. AHHH. It hurts. Having your muscle tissue pulled from its place with a pair of pliers. This pain is like nothing I’ve ever felt.

Over the next, however long that was, my consciousness fades in and out. I vaguely remember being dragged towards the cell I’m currently finding myself in. I think I’ve only been in this facility for a day, but I don’t know. There’s no windows, no natural light, and I haven’t even been awake for all of it.

“Hey, here’s some food. You should eat, maybe regaining some strength will help with the pain.”

I shift my gaze to outside the cell, there’s a hand outstretched with a sandwich. I look up towards the owner of the hand and recognize the woman from earlier.

“Hi, my name is Milla. I’m sorry for what we’re doing to you, but all I can do is help you relieve the pain somewhat. I used to be a doctor specializing in chemicals. Not the one you go to when you’re sick, but the kind of doctor who’s doing research.”

Why is she telling me this? Why should I care? She’s holding me hostage and cutting up my body so they can try to figure out whatever the hell they want to? If I didn’t see my arm healing in front of my eyes, I probably would have thought they were all crazy. Maybe I’m the crazy one. My memories of being shot in the head have come back, maybe this is hell? Maybe I’m really dead and this is just cosmic karma for everyone I’ve killed so far.

I fumble my hand towards the gaps between the bars in the cell, and take the sandwich from her. Putting it to my mouth and willing myself to take a bite. As long as I don’t die I can find a way out of here over time, if I’m not already dead. Well according to Mr. Mad Scientist I can’t die, but I don’t know anymore. I take a bite out of the sandwich and it tastes, nothing. It’s like I can feel the grains of the bread grinding against my tongue and insides. I try to swallow, but it’s like I have no saliva left, so my throat muscles are trying to force it down my dry throat. It only takes a few seconds before I vomit it up again. There’s something weird about my vomit though, there’s nothing besides the chewed up pieces of the sandwich and its contents. No stomach fluids, no nothing. Ah, I really am dead aren’t I?

Over the next, what I assume are weeks, the experiments continue, but they’re getting worse and worse. I don’t think I even feel pain anymore. I just feel dead inside, disconnected, like it’s a dream, like it’s not reality.

“Hey there, do you want to try to eat something today?”

Milla is offering me food again. She does that everytime after the experiments. I heard them talking about giving me some sense of attachment and warmth, so I don’t completely lose it or become insane. They don’t want to risk my immortality or whatever stop working before they can achieve their results, so they do whatever they can to retain my sanity, haha jokes on them, I’m already insane.

“Hahaha” *cough* *cough*.

I haven’t spoken since I arrived here, so that involuntary fit of laughter came out as dry as it possibly could. Hm? What’s that smell? Oh it smells delicious. Where is it coming from? I can feel my blood boiling with anticipation for, something, and a craving screaming in my mind to eat. Eat what? I can’t eat food, I don’t know how I’ve survived so far, maybe they’re feeding me through IV’s? I’ve stopped thinking I’m already dead. I can’t imagine death being like this, I don’t know why, but something in my body is telling me I’m very much alive. Oh there’s that smell again, that craving, telling me to eat. It’s coming from Milla? Did I get an addiction to the sedatives and I’m smelling that from her? Haha what a joke.

“Hold on for a bit longer, I am almost through to you.”

“What *cough* did you *cough* say?”

Milla looks at me with a weird look, before scribbling something down on a notepad.

“I didn’t say anything.”

Oh, great. Now I’m hearing voices in my head. I’m truly going insane.