Delias stirred awake with a deep-seated headache. Nauseous and dizzy, he could not help but squint as a bright, white light shone from above. But just as he reached to shade it from his eyes, his hand jerked to a stop.
Looking down, he found himself bound by iron shackes to a metal table. What the hell? He wondered, the pain in his head increasing. He could not tell where he was or recall how he got there, but looking at his situation, and the complete darkness that existed past the space that light illuminated, he knew things were not good. As he jerked his right hand against the shackle to test it, he thought and thought, but all he could remember was agreeing to the green-robed man’s proposal back at his apartment.
The clanging iron chain echoed as he pulled, but the shackles were too tight. After the fifth pull, he stopped. Even if he got his hands free, his legs were mangled. How would he leave? Crawl? It was then that he noticed his other arm. The entire stump was tightly cased in metal and chained down. What the-?
“So you’re finally awake,” came a whisper.
Delias’s head jerked up, only, no one was there, or at least, he could not peer through the darkness. He could not even tell what direction the voice had come from, and the budding anxiety he had been trying to keep down grew.
“Who’s there?” he asked somberly, but there was no reply. With his mouth dry and throat raw, he called again. “I said, who’s there!”
Delias’s heart rate sped, and even with the room being cold, sweat beaded at his back. He shuddered.
Out of the darkness, a figure emerged; like an apparition, smokey tendrils glittered away as if they were made of millions of tiny black crystals. They twisted and congealed until they formed the stature and features of a man. His hair was white-pink, his pupils shaped in a three pointed star, and his hands, protruding from a long grey robe, were tattooed in black ink. The man, or what looked like a man, glided towards Delias’s side and loomed over him, his figure easily blotting out the light. Delias jerked back, trying to keep at least some distance, but his movements were tightly constrained by the chains.
“There’s nowhere to go,” the man said as he began to run his fingers through Delias‘s hair. “You made an agreement, and now it’s time for you to deliver.”
Delias’s dizziness suddenly increased. To him, everything rocked; everything warped. “What the hell is going on and who the hell are you?” Delias growled, but his words came out more like a whimper. There was a part of him that was relieved this had to deal with the green-robed man, but that slight relief vanished as the hand came to a stop. “You’re wondering if it’s going to be painful, aren’t you? What ‘he’ will take from you?” the man asked, and as he did —his face darkened by the contrasting light from above— he smiled as he continued, his voice with a tinge of glee. “It will be; and it will take your everything.”
Delias could not see the smile very well, but he could feel the sadistic air. He trembled. Just what had he agreed to? He was not brave by any means and took life one step at a time. Furthermore, he was severely scared of pain. When you lived with it for so many years as he did, the thought of more was enough to break any man. And he knew he would not be the exception.
Clang! Delias pulled hard against his chains once more, this time with all his might. The move left him gasping as what felt like lightning flashed from his thighs and up his back. Even now my body acts against me!
“Malkovich, stop patronizing the man,” another voice came.
And with that slightly familiar voice, Delias’s eyes shifted. Dressed in a green robe, another man came out into the light. It was the same man back at his apartment, but this time he had clearly aged. His hair was streaked with white, and his face had deep seated lines; liverspots spotted his hands and neck now, and those pupils of his were more circular, more human.
“Surprised?” the green-robed man asked as he looked down at Delias with a solemn look. “Don’t be. When you go into my world, you will realize that such things are but minor details. My world is much, much bigger than yours…” Gradually, the man’s eyes narrowed, and Delias’s gut squirmed.
“This will be hard,” he continued after a moment, but the words were obviously not for Delias.
“What are you planning to do? I didn’t agree to this s***!” Delias yelled, but again his voice just sounded soft to his ears. Just what rights did I sign away? All I remember is him handing me something, but why can’t I remember the details of the agreement! “I take it back. I don’t want to go through with this!”
“Shh.” The man called Malkovich hushed him. “It’s too late. Contract has been written. Permission has been granted, and only until there is death will it be void.”
Death?! It was then that Delias’s anxiety jumped through the roof. His mind blanked. “Stop! Don’t do this,” he pleaded. He had no clue what they were planning, but at this point, it did not matter! He had a sinking feeling that maybe there was some loop-hole that would cost him everything, including what he was promised!
The green-robed man just looked at Malkovich as if he had never heard Delias. Taking it as a note, the pinkish-haired man left, only to come back seconds later with a glass jar in his hand. Thousands of deep, red crystals glittered from inside that jar, and they were such a dark shade of red it would not be impossible to think them black.
“Do you know what these are?” Malkovich asked Delias. “Of course you don’t,” he continued, not waiting for a reply. “These are Kaplas. Over two thousand of them are in this jar, and these things have a peculiar ability to reform a body.” The pinkish-haired man smiled again. “Aren’t you extatic?”
Delias frowned.
“Of course, as you have figured, it comes at a price. But don’t worry, I am sure for someone in your position, it will all be worth it.” And as he said that, he headed towards a long black granite stele 10 meters away, seemingly to have appeared out of nowhere. On that stele, a red button —made of a translucent crystal— dimly pulsed on its surface. Malkovich pushed it, and the floor shook.
Streams of metallic liquid sprung up from the ground, pooling themselves around Delias. It was at that moment, a deep coldness pervaded his body. The liquid had stripped him of warmth before it even touched him. Delias shivered. His teeth began to chatter, and bumps popped up all over his flesh. It was then the glass jar within Malkovich’s hand shook; the tiny red crystals hummed; and a dull red light seeped out of the jar. Delias’s gut churned, and he took deep breaths, trying to calm himself. Isn’t this what I wanted? If I survive, I get a new body. And if I doesn’t…wasn’t I going to die anyways? These thoughts were meant to convince himself, but deep down he’d take it back.
Seconds went. The light from the crystals dimmed and vanished…What? I knew this was just an experiment, but for it to fail like this? But it did not fail, and he quickly realized this when the liquid hovering all around him began to rotate. It circled around him, moving faster and faster until it became a roaring flood. The jar in Malkovich’s hand shattered, but Malkovich did not flinch. He let his hand fall, leaving the red crystals to hover in the air.
The crystals flew up over the metallic liquid and went directly to hover over Delias. Suddenly, Delias’s eyes widened and his heart pounded within his chest. He felt as if there was a lump in his throat, and he could not say anything. Delias had told himself over and over that this was just the process in obtaining a new body. That it would be alright. But as time went on, that voice in his head, the voice he tried to keep going, to keep encouraging him to keep calm, waned to nothing. After all, he was held down in an unknown room within an unknown place. This was the backstory of every experiment gone wrong.
A crack and pop sound like glass shattering across the floor, reverberated thoughout the room. Delias stared at the crystals above his head, and as that sound kept popping in his ears, it was then that his racing heart momentarily stopped. It was like a stillness, a weight upon him. From each crystal, a soft red head popped out. It first started out as one, but within seconds there were tens, and then hundreds. The heads were blank except for a small black crevice. And in seconds that crevice opened wide, as wide as half their tiny heads, revealing tinier, sharp black pearl teeth. They wailed. A wail like tiny infants yammered from their mouths. It rammed into Delias, pressuring him on the platform like a giant rock.
Delias was in shock. Those things were the size of giant ants, so how could they be so loud? And with the Kaplas’s roar, tiny drops from the roaring metallic flood floated inwards towards them. It looked like a whirlpool of silver droplets. The droplets entered the mouths of the Kaplas. One after another, until the several gallons of liquid disappeared, and all that remained were those creatures’ open mouths.
The mouths shut. And in that moment, the Kaplas fully emerged from their crystal shells. Their body was white with silver veins wiggling under their hardened flesh. They looked down on Delias, and Delias’s trembled. A dark stain grew in his pants, and a dark yellow liquid seeped out onto the platform.
Malkovich looked down in disgust, but did not say anything. Delias did not see the green-robed man anywhere, but he knew the man was there.
The creatures pounced.
Hundreds of insect-like crawlers fell down on him, and Delias screamed. They used their six legs to creep over his skin. They swarmed up and down, and then one of them bit down, hard. Delias’s scream of disgust and fear turned to one of extream pain. The pain was so much, it nearly knocked him out. But he did not faint. Another one had bitten him. The pain kept his mind from going dark and in shock as a third and fourth came after. More and more bit him, until there were hundreds. And it was not just each having one bite, it seemed like they were biting deeper into him. Delias looked down and thrashed as the crawlers went into his flesh, squirming and eating him from the inside. They crawled up his neck and through his nose. They went into his ears. He thrashed and jerked. He could not bear the pain. They bit at his lips and went in his mouth. Squirmed down his throat. Crunch! Delias bit down, trying to stop them. The copper taste was blood. His blood. But it was not enough. When they approached his eyes, he shut them tight. But how could eyelids stop those dark pincers? He imagined his eyes were popped like cherries.
He could feel them in him. His mind buzzed. And the pain went on. They went through every hole… every hole. When they went through his pants, and to his other areas, he felt every bit of it.
A few meters away, off the platform, Malkovich stood there. He was calm, his face expressionless, but his eyes gleamed with a strange light.
