Chapter d Betrayal

The pain. And it demanded to be felt. It began in his core, in the very deepest pit of his stomach. He felt nauseous. Curling his limbs tight around himself and squeezing harder into a ball, a growl rumbled out from the back of his throat. "Ahhh…" he groaned, but the pain refused him the ability to speak. The hot stinging flowed through his entire body, into every cell and every muscle fiber, as if it were molten lava and he was an indestructible form. The excruciating wear on his muscles was torturous, torn strand by strand, then hardened stiff.

The thing wrong with the word pain is that it is used to speak generally about discomfort, but this pain was something completely off the books. Soreness, ache, pinch, pressure- none of these pains could truly describe what it felt like to have each and every cell in the entire body demoed and remodeled. There were no words for it, except for pain.

Feverish, sweat poured out of his pores, so much so, that the hot tears dripping from his eyes were cold in comparison. His hair fell out follicle by follicle until dark loose hairs stuck along his sticky skin or fell across his pillow and he balded. Halfway through, he lost control of his bladder and colon sphincters, and urinated and defecated on himself.

Soon enough he was surrounded in damp filth from all around. A cocoon that he couldn't get out of, yet.

Agonizing hours passed and Iggy had no faith that he could go on. There was no way. He begged through his dry burning throat in a voice that was nothing more than a raspy whisper, "kill me… now. I want to die. P-P-Please."

Nansen leaned over the bed. Yes, he was still there. He placed his right hand on top of Iggy's and pressed them down together into the cot. The pressure hurt, but then what didn't? "I refused to let you die for fifteen years," he answered. "There's no way in hell I am going to waste all of that effort now."

Iggy wept, "let me go… please."

"You've already made it through ten hours." Nansen squeezed Iggy's solidified fingers. "You're almost done. And then, you'll only have to worry about a few small things. That's all." He let go and sat back in the chair beside the cot, still like a statue, watching the progress of Iggy's ugly transformation. The transformations were ugly for everyone. Iggy was not an exception.

Time kept moving, but Iggy had absolutely no perception of it. He became so exhausted that regardless of the filth that he laid in and the pain that he endured, he could feel his eyelids drooping. "Hey Iggy…" Nansen leant in, just as Iggy's eyes shut, "make sure that you wake up. Don't die on me."

Sometime later, Baine came back, brand new, bathed, dressed in new clothes, refreshed and healed. He took one glance at Iggy who was tucked away in the soiled blankets with his eyes shut, and turned his cheek away. The smell of human waste saturated the air. A horrid stench. As long as Iggy was still breathing, Baine wouldn't look at him in this situation if he didn't absolutely need to.

Baine approached Emi and knelt down at her side with one hand planted on the armrest of her chair. Tightly wound into a knot, she shielded her eyes from the agony before her with her trembling hands. She wished all along that she hadn't stayed to bear witness, but then again, she wasn't quite sure if she even had the choice to begin with.

Baine looked up at her and asked in a calm, quiet voice that resembled soft velvet, "are you ready, Emi?"

She pinched her lips. "No," she forced the reply through her tight throat. "No, I can't do this. I was wrong. I was so wrong. Nope. Nope."

Baine looked back over his shoulder at Iggy, then met her gaze, again. "It looks worse than what it is," he lied. "Also, you are much more developed than he is. It won't be nearly as hard for you," he lied, again. Then, he held out his hand. "Come."

She didn't quite take his hand, but she didn't pull back when he held hers, either. Laying on her back upon her cot and peering up at him nervously, panting, she kissed her life good bye. In the thick of the moment, there was no going back. Baine was mammoth in size compared to little frail her. She dreamed of escaping around him, but the subtle stare in his gaze assured her that he was expecting that and doing so would only bring upon her fate faster.

Although big and bad, Baine could touch with a gentleness that tamed all wild spirits. He held her wrist in one hand and caressed her eyelids shut with the other. Then, he brought his mouth over the inner side of her elbow and bit into her. As usual, she was struck with the immense tickle throughout her body and she fell into gravity.

He drank with less enthusiasm. Slower. Steady. He didn't hold her. He didn't squeeze her. He didn't exaggerate the moment. When she weakened, he removed himself from her arm.

The acid burned her flesh and traveled through her veins. Her arm tightened in on itself and amongst the injury, she panicked. She threw herself up against all odds and reached for the door with her other fighting hand. Her scream was fierce enough that it nearly woke Iggy, but he was deep asleep, drowning in his own physical suffering.

Baine bit his own wrist. He clotheslined her back onto the cot with his wound tight over her mouth and his other hand planted against the back of her neck. Although the blood did not pump into her with such force as the jugular had, when her mouth filled with it she had no choice but to consume it.

She swallowed easily, as if it were a bottle and she were an infant, until his wound closed even before her stomach filled. Stunned, with blood smeared around her lips, Baine held her down by the chest and crisscrossed the blanket over her and under. Once contained in place, he laid a gentle kiss on her forehead, lovingly and slow. He didn't really love her, but he would. It was a side effect of infecting others. He stood upright and looked at Nansen. They gave each other a nod, and then he left the room, again.