HorrorFighter
Member
((Perhaps this is in the wrong forum. I couldn't find an area for individual stories. I hope I didn't break any rules by adding here. I wrote this in September 0f 2012. Ian was a younger character. A work in progress. This was two cabals ago. It was one fiancee ago. I hope the context is obvious enough. Enjoy.))
The battered man lay, stripped, on warm mud. Biting insects crawled on his steaming, naked body -- their mandibles and proboscises raising angry red welts as they burrowed for blood beneath his bruised skin.
The steady stinging pain woke him.
Ian tried to stand, but his equilibrium failed. Although he had regained consciousness, he had not yet regained his balance. Luna's injection had left him weak and disoriented.
Ian scratched slowly, his nails dragging away the insects in squirming clumps. He itched all over. It hurt to breathe. The baking temperatures and humidity gave the air the consistency of soup. The heat quickly vaporized his sweat.
He coughed harshly and struggled to sit up, smearing his legs with wet earth as he moved clumsily from his prone position.
As his vision grew less blurry, Ian saw an impenetrable greenness surrounding him. Lush vegetation, vines, and trees stretched to the heavens, outside a perimeter of wards designed to hold him. He sat on bare, damp ground within the center of a circular prison: a magical cage without bars. Nearby, also within the circle, an anima well burned brightly. With the dense forest blotting out pockets of sky, sunshine fell in ragged rays, leaving the well to provide illumination in the semi-darkness of day.
Above him, in the random streaks of light and shadow, stood Luna. Dressed in camouflage clothing caked in blood, she regarded Ian with a cold, satisfied smirk.
Ian wanted to pull that smug expression off her face with a vegetable peeler.
Through cracked lips, he said: "I hate to break the news to you, boss, but this isn't the first time I've woken up naked in the jungle with a bloody woman in front of me.
"Come to think of it…it isn't the second time either."
"Ian," Luna said, unable to disguise the disgust in her voice, "I want you to listen to me."
He did.
Luna explained the situation. As Ian had already guessed, it wasn't good.
His earlier Prometheus analogy had proved oddly prophetic.
For his punishment, Prometheus had been chained to a rock, and there he lay, for eternity, so a giant eagle could swoop down daily to dig with sharpened beak and pluck out the titan's liver. After the monstrous bird of prey finished its meal, the liver would promptly regenerate, to give the eagle something to devour the next day.
For his punishment, Ian would be stuck in this jungle forever. Each day, the local inhabitants would come stalking out of the rainforest to bring Ian, their quarry, down with poison darts. After, the violent violation: his liver and more torn away, as the tribesmen would butcher him and drag him back in pieces to their village.
The wards would prevent Ian's escape; the anima well would prevent his permanent death.
Ian would become a perpetual feast. He would suffer eternal cannibalistic justice.
Somewhere out there, the hunters waited patiently for their first taste of Ian's flesh. Ian couldn't see them, but he knew they were there. Watching.
Ian nodded to the woods beyond the wards. "Friends of yours?" he asked.
Luna laughed. "The cannibals? Hardly. They call me the 'Red-Haired Devil.'"
"Red-haired devil," Ian repeated. "I can think of several better descriptions."
Then he did, none of which cheered him much.
Luna shook her head. "Goodbye, Ian," she said. "I'll never see you again."
As she turned to go, to leave him there forever, Ian sighed. "Luna…," he said. "Isn't it customary to give the dying man a last request?"
Luna scoffed. "Oh, you won't die, Ian. You're going to live a very, very long time."
"A favor then for the condemned man," Ian said, somewhat angry at himself for betraying a sense of urgency when he spoke.
Luna raised an eyebrow. "What do you want?"
Ian sighed again and told her.
Luna didn't hesitate before answering.
"Naw. Ta!"
She walked into the thickets. Ian watched the jungle engulf her in green and shadow. As she disappeared from sight, Ian suspected he was already becoming a distant memory as Luna turned her mind to more pressing matters.
"I can't believe I once played spin the bottle with that woman," Ian thought.
He pondered.
"I can't believe I once played spin the bottle."
Hundreds of species, unknown to Ian, cawed and gibbered and roared and hissed and barked and clicked behind the trees and from the branches and in the weeds beyond the wards. Their calls and cries created a mocking cacophony that echoed in his ears.
Ian felt completely surrounded, yet utterly alone.
It was then, on that first day, that it hit him…
Realization.
He had lost. Vault Six had separated him from his life and the one thing that mattered most. He had been powerless to stop them. He had taken on an organization he hardly understood, challenged people he barely knew, and he would pay for that arrogant misjudgment forever.
Ian hugged his knees to his chest.
And, uncharacteristically, he cried.
His tears burned his face. His weeping blended with the sounds of the rainforest. In a matter of minutes, he had quickly become just another jungle animal, his wailing just another bestial call.
Ian forced himself to stand. His legs shook, his upper body rocked unsteadily, but he didn't fall.
He tested the wards and discovered that Luna was quite correct: He could not pass them.
He was completely cut off from the world. Luna had erased him. No one knew where he was. No one would ever find him.
In that moment of despair, he felt the first dart strike.
The jolt slammed his brain. The pain raked across his nerve endings, leaving a lingering numbness in their wake. His muscles seized and his joints locked. His lungs deflated and sagged. He could feel himself suffocating -- an agonizingly aware death.
He fell face-first into the mud -- flat, straight, and undignified -- splattering filth.
Almost instant paralysis.
"Not unlike a scorpion sting…," Ian thought bitterly.
When he stepped out of the anima well, he caught glimpses of shadowy shapes stealing back into the wilderness.
His murderers, skulking off with their spoils:
Him.
Now whole, thanks to bees and anima, Ian saw remnants of his former self scattered across the mud. The cannibals had left precious little behind: a few odd bone chips, hair, and congealing pools of blood.
Ian looked at what he once was and fought back fresh tears.
The sun was setting. Beneath the canopies of trees, Ian had never experienced such utter darkness. Even the light from the anima well seemed to wane in the absolute absence of heavenly light.
Fear, ice cold even in the jungle heat, gripped Ian.
He collapsed and curled up against the coming night.
A blanket of bugs covered him. The soft padded whispers of nocturnal predators lulled him to sleep.
On the second day…
Resignation.
Ian woke but kept his eyes shut. He knew his situation and saw no point in reminding himself through sight. He accepted that he was trapped. Nobody was coming to rescue him.
He closed his eyes tighter to stave off the tears.
When the moment of weakness passed, Ian opened his eyes and saw that the hunters had left food and water near the anima well. He crawled closer to examine the crude wooden bowls and their contents.
The water seemed fresh enough, as one might expect in a rainforest. But Ian didn't recognize the food. It resembled some sort of cold grayish stew, a mixture of unidentifiable meat and starchy roots.
Could the cannibals be serving him…him?
Ian jumped up and kicked the bowls away.
Naturally, the natives needed to keep him well nourished. But they couldn't force him to eat or drink. In a few days, he would die of dehydration. Not permanently, of course. But he could die over and over from lack of liquid. Over time, he would emaciate. He would leave the cannibals nothing but tasteless skin and gristle -- a few meager bones for their blackened pots.
Ian could starve himself to starve the villagers, but that wouldn't pass the time. Two days into an eternal sentence, he knew he needed to preoccupy himself.
With no one to speak to, Ian thought it best to exercise his voice and keep his conversational skills sharp. And since he would never talk to a volleyball, even if he could find one, he decided that he should perform a play in its entirety, including all parts and stage directions, to the best of his memory.
He chose the Bard's final play, The Tempest: the tale of rightful royalty exiled on an island, where he took steps to exact revenge.
Ian thought it appropriate, under the circumstances.
In a neighborly gesture, Ian called out to the jungle and invited the tribesmen to join the troupe.
"I don't know if you savages have ever read Shakespeare, but any one of you would be perfect for the part of Caliban," he yelled. "Anyone interested?"
When no reply came, Ian staged the production, playing Caliban and every other role. He had a knack for iambic pentameter, and he could relate to Prospero's plight, making his performance particularly inspired.
After four hours, his mouth parched, Ian brought down the curtain with the closing couplet:
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.
Ian didn't know whether the natives spoke English, but his performance may have impressed them.
They allowed him three bows before letting the blow darts fly.
He heard no applause as he died.
The anima well spit him out to another empty crime scene.
He fell asleep with a grumbling stomach and a dry throat.
On the third day…
Rage.
The cannibals had left fresh offerings of food and water. Dizzy from hunger and thirst, Ian still managed to toss the bowls beyond the wards to crack against the wet trees.
"I don't deserve this!" he shrieked.
Ian spent the day pacing and ranting within the confines of his cage. He called out to his unseen assailants, daring them to enter the circle. He cursed his enemies. He demanded that someone bring him Sabra.
He was losing his mind, and he had very little left to lose.
All semblance of civility was now gone, stripped away as his clothes had been, leaving behind the raw, naked beast that Ian had always hid behind composure, politeness, and intense etiquette. His true self found purchase in the wilderness, dug in deep with tooth and claw, and settled savagely into its new green home.
Ian howled. The guttural sound contained so much unchecked, primal fury, flocks of jungle birds jumped skyward from the tree branches, screeching in fear as they rose flapping from the thick mists to block out the sun.
Instinctively, they knew an unknown, dangerous animal had entered their midst, and their survival mechanisms thrust them far, far away from the deadly newcomer.
Ian's chest heaved, rising and falling violently as he sucked in cleansing bursts of hot jungle air. His eyes widened, the whites turned to blood, as he called out to his hunters, raising his voice to the point where his lungs came close to bursting.
"The bitch who left me here -- you call her the 'Red-Haired Devil'?" Ian cried. "Let me tell you: You haven't seen the devil. Not yet.
"You can't keep me here. Not forever. I'll get out. Not today. Not tomorrow. Maybe not even this year or decade or century. But one day, yes. I'll march out of this circle and straight into your putrid village. And it won't matter if you have been dead for ages. Your ancestors will be there, and they will atone for the sins of their fathers, as well as for their own.
"I'll bring genocide against generations. Your great-grandchildren will curse you for imprisoning me. Their parents will regret ever carrying on the tradition of hunting and killing me. All you know and all you love and all you hoped and prepared for will disappear, fade from history, collapse in fire and blood and pleas for mercy, and I will still remain.
Ian screamed a favorite quote: "'My revenge has just begun! I spread it over centuries and time is on my side!'"
He fell down, panting. On all fours, hands and knees, he snapped and snarled. His vocal chords and abdomen ached from the explosive effort of spewing his venom at such high volume. But he had more yet to say.
"I'll enslave your daughters and teach them to be women," he spat. "I'll build a throne from the skulls of your sons. I'll hang your elderly from the trees and beat them like piñatas until their stomachs split, spilling guts instead of sweets. And that's just on the first day.
"I'm not sure what I'll do on the second, but it will be much, much worse."
He would have kept going, but an unseen hunter buried a blow dart into his scalp.
On the fourth day…
Relaxation.
Ian awoke to more food and drink from the natives. Rather than throw the gifts away angrily, he simply chose to ignore them. He refused to concentrate on the growing hunger and thirst that ravaged his body.
His enemies back at Vault Six said he lacked focus.
His enemies were wrong.
He would not rampage today. He would show his foes he was better, stronger, smarter than they gave him credit for.
Ian sat in full lotus, breathing just as Sabra had taught him.
He inhaled through his nose for a count of ten, pulling the air down deep below his navel into his dan tien, holding the breath there, an invisible ball of energy.
One.
He exhaled for a count of ten, releasing all tension, all negativity.
Two.
He continued the breathing, the inhalation and exhalation, until he reached ten.
Then he started over.
He spent the morning and afternoon that way, in perfect peace. Yet, in that peace, he was deadly prepared as well. If any cannibal stupidly wandered into the circle, Ian would sink his expertly polished teeth into the savage's neck and plunge his thumbs through his enemy's eyes.
Ian -- the ideally conditioned killing machine that Vault Six never appreciated -- practiced tranquil violence, at ease with what he must do.
As Ian meditated, he felt his spirit lift, float, and arrive in his New York penthouse. Only -- not quite his penthouse. He didn't recognize the mess it had become. Random papers and scribblings littered every available surface. He saw a bridal gown tossed over his favorite chair.
Sabra.
He tried to say the name, but his dream self -- for surely it must have been a dream -- had no voice. His lips moved, but he had no breath to push out the sound.
He floated down the main hallway, an apparition in his own home, and arrived before his bedroom door. He grabbed for the doorknob, but, lacking substance, his hand could not grip anything solid.
He dissolved through the door and saw a lone figure lying on his bed. He drifted quickly bedside and gazed down at the most beautiful woman in the world.
Sabra, wearing a pair of his pajamas.
His heart broke to see her -- so close yet still thousands of miles away. She looked so sad, her face scrunched up in her sleep, as though she had so much on her mind unsolved.
Resting, but not rested.
Ian wanted to comfort the only person he had ever honestly loved. He reached down to stroke her right cheek and felt utterly hopeless as his ghostly fingers passed through her face.
Sabra stirred ever so slightly.
"I want to stay here," Ian thought. "Please just let me stay here. Please."
Panicked, Ian sensed himself fading. But he couldn't go yet. He wouldn't. He had something to tell Sabra -- the favor that Luna had refused.
Ian bent close to Sabra's left ear. He gave no warmth, and she provided none in return. They were shades in each other's worlds, incapable of contact, memories of what might have been.
He tried hard, so hard, to speak. He mustered. He managed. In his mind, he screamed, but, in the end, only the slightest whisper carried his words.
Softly and quietly as a cotton ball across a polished floor, he said the thing that Luna would not say on his behalf:
"I'm sorry."
Sabra opened her eyes.
Ian opened his.
Sabra and his penthouse were gone. Ian was back in the jungle, twisted into the lotus position.
For the briefest moment, Ian thought he saw Sabra's huge mongrel outside the wards, practically invisible, barking noiselessly.
Then it, too, was gone.
Ian hated animals, but the dog made Sabra so happy. When she came to live with Ian, she brought the dog with her, and, over time, the pet had made Ian happy too.
Anything that brought Sabra joy brought Ian joy as well.
Sabra had named her dog Mutt.
Ian loved that woman so much.
He smiled and kept smiling, even after the poison darts sent shockwaves of pain and paralysis through his nervous system.
On the fifth day…
Rebirth.
Dream or not, the visions struck Ian as a sign. He knew now, unquestionably, that Sabra still loved him and would never rest until she found him.
The least he could do was give her something worth finding.
The man she loved would not sulk sadly in a jungle.
The man she loved would be waiting, sculpted in muscle and iron, and when she finally arrived -- even a million years from now -- he would ask: "What took you so long?"
They would laugh as though they had never been apart. And then they would go lay waste to the village behind the trees.
His opponents had criticized his lack of direction, saw him as some worthless anomaly dedicated only to executing random violence.
But Ian had purpose they failed to see. He had patience. He was the spider that spun the most beautiful, delicate web and sat in its center for as long as possible, until the sticky strands finally snagged struggling prey.
Ian had all of the time in the world for his Sabra. He would be here when she arrived. And when that day came, tomorrow or aeons from now, he would hold her tightly and never release her again.
Then they would hurt something.
Ian slowly sipped at the water the natives had left behind, ate the gruel they had prepared. If it contained bits of himself, he rationalized, then the meal would only make him more whole.
When he licked both bowls cleaned, he ran around the inner perimeter of his prison. When his lungs and legs burned, he dropped to his hands and did push-ups. When exhaustion got the better of him, he rolled over on his back and went through multiple sets of every abdominal exercise he knew. After that, he leapt up and did squats. He shadowboxed.
Throughout the entire day, he never stopped using his body. It was Sabra's too, and she deserved a good one -- one she would want to look at.
One he wanted to look at too.
And one with the strength to do terrible, terrible things.
Ian was in the middle of crunches when several darts sank into his right shoulder.
He died feeling the burn.
On the sixth day…
Redemption.
Ian awoke refreshed. He relished his gift of water and mystery meat. After he ate and drank, he pushed his body to the point of breaking, and then pushed some more.
He laughed as he ran in circles. Gloated as the lactic acid seared his muscles.
Vault Six had thought they could break him.
Vault Six had failed.
They said he lacked aim. They said he lacked drive.
His aim was laser-tight now. His drive was accelerating.
Their myopic outlook had clouded their opinion; they could not see how valuable he truly was.
In Ian, they had gained a special weapon: a cunning killer without remorse, yet happy to take direction. All they had to do was point him -- and leave him alone with Sabra and a fine bottle of pinot noir and the occasional dark diversion.
They had squandered him over petty squabbles. They had abandoned him when he could have been groomed for greater things.
They had caged something best set free and encouraged to cultivate its bloodlust.
Without conscience to rein him in, Ian could achieve anything. Free of restraint, nothing could stop him.
Some might call him evil, but was a hurricane wicked? Was rain in a time of drought a sign of kindness?
No, they just were. Not right or wrong. Natural. As things were destined.
In a cold, uncaring universe, Ian had stepped out of the primordial ooze, stomped on the first fish that crawled out of the murky depths ahead of him, and declared himself top of the food chain.
And he was right.
Vault Six had wanted him to deny his true self, to mold himself into something that was more palatable to their organization. He knew better. He knew he was as he was meant to be. Vault Six members could come back after a billion years, and they would discover the same Ian whom they had left behind.
And, for that, they should be grateful.
The tides of evil had turned against humanity, and genetics had dealt Ian the winning hand. He possessed the tools to win by any means necessary. Sure, a few innocents might die along the way, but in the end, even more would survive.
Unless Ian remained angry. Then…all bets were off. If Ian went down, he was prepared to drag all he could with him.
He was mean like that.
Ian sensed movement outside the wards. The diners had arrived for their daily feast.
He walked toward them -- naked, glistening, perfect, unrepentant.
"Something around here looks delicious!" he yelled at his invisible enemies.
The first dart struck his chest.
Vault Six said he had no willpower.
Ian willed himself to stand.
He would not allow his body to tighten. He demanded that his heart keep beating.
And it did.
He walked closer to the wards.
A second dart hit his neck.
"You'll never change me!" he grunted.
Ian flushed the poison from his body -- pushing it from his pores in a scalding, stinking mist -- and kept walking.
"You'll never beat me!" he screamed defiantly.
A third dart punctured his left eye. Viscous liquid spurted across his face.
In response to the attack, Ian laughed long, loudly, and deeply, his voice giving birth to an inhuman timbre that rumbled past the wards and caused the trees to tremble.
"Never! Never! Never!"
He spat the word out each time, every syllable rising in intensity. He rejected the cannibals. He rejected those who tried to reshape him. And, at the same time, within the refusals, he cried a triumphant affirmation, rejoicing all he was and would remain. The repeated denials served as acknowledgement, to praise the universe for creating something so pure of purpose, to assure the master designer that the gifts given would not be tossed away.
Ian raised his voice to the heavens to proclaim the simplest of truths: He would love Sabra. He would seek out only the finest things in life. And he would kill and kill and kill.
Forever.
Because that was what he was made to do.
Ian stopped at the edge of the circle, as close as the wards would allow. He removed the darts from his body. He tugged the last one from his face and dropped it. His eye pulsated as it refilled with intraocular fluid.
He celebrated silently as he sensed the confusion outside his prison. His hunters, unsure what to do, were retreating deeper into the shadows. Ian couldn't see them, but he knew they were scared.
As they should be.
"There are going to be some changes around here!" Ian called after them.
The predator, no longer prey.
"No more free meals," Ian said softly as he turned away.
Perhaps the tribesmen would return in the morning, carrying their women in tribute for their new dark god. Not that Ian would have any interest.
"I'm sorry, ladies," he would say, "but I'm afraid my heart belongs to another. Of course, that never stopped you from eating it, so, since you're here, I'm going to cause you some discomfort in kind."
Ian would stay faithful to Sabra.
He would wait for her, for as long as it took.
And he'd murder any enemy who stumbled into his new home.
The sun was setting as Ian settled back into the center of his perfect circle, the dusk bringing the total darkness that Ian no longer feared. He embraced it wholly and grinned wickedly, his white teeth flashing in the black nothingness.
On the seventh day…
Rest.
The battered man lay, stripped, on warm mud. Biting insects crawled on his steaming, naked body -- their mandibles and proboscises raising angry red welts as they burrowed for blood beneath his bruised skin.
The steady stinging pain woke him.
Ian tried to stand, but his equilibrium failed. Although he had regained consciousness, he had not yet regained his balance. Luna's injection had left him weak and disoriented.
Ian scratched slowly, his nails dragging away the insects in squirming clumps. He itched all over. It hurt to breathe. The baking temperatures and humidity gave the air the consistency of soup. The heat quickly vaporized his sweat.
He coughed harshly and struggled to sit up, smearing his legs with wet earth as he moved clumsily from his prone position.
As his vision grew less blurry, Ian saw an impenetrable greenness surrounding him. Lush vegetation, vines, and trees stretched to the heavens, outside a perimeter of wards designed to hold him. He sat on bare, damp ground within the center of a circular prison: a magical cage without bars. Nearby, also within the circle, an anima well burned brightly. With the dense forest blotting out pockets of sky, sunshine fell in ragged rays, leaving the well to provide illumination in the semi-darkness of day.
Above him, in the random streaks of light and shadow, stood Luna. Dressed in camouflage clothing caked in blood, she regarded Ian with a cold, satisfied smirk.
Ian wanted to pull that smug expression off her face with a vegetable peeler.
Through cracked lips, he said: "I hate to break the news to you, boss, but this isn't the first time I've woken up naked in the jungle with a bloody woman in front of me.
"Come to think of it…it isn't the second time either."
"Ian," Luna said, unable to disguise the disgust in her voice, "I want you to listen to me."
He did.
Luna explained the situation. As Ian had already guessed, it wasn't good.
His earlier Prometheus analogy had proved oddly prophetic.
For his punishment, Prometheus had been chained to a rock, and there he lay, for eternity, so a giant eagle could swoop down daily to dig with sharpened beak and pluck out the titan's liver. After the monstrous bird of prey finished its meal, the liver would promptly regenerate, to give the eagle something to devour the next day.
For his punishment, Ian would be stuck in this jungle forever. Each day, the local inhabitants would come stalking out of the rainforest to bring Ian, their quarry, down with poison darts. After, the violent violation: his liver and more torn away, as the tribesmen would butcher him and drag him back in pieces to their village.
The wards would prevent Ian's escape; the anima well would prevent his permanent death.
Ian would become a perpetual feast. He would suffer eternal cannibalistic justice.
Somewhere out there, the hunters waited patiently for their first taste of Ian's flesh. Ian couldn't see them, but he knew they were there. Watching.
Ian nodded to the woods beyond the wards. "Friends of yours?" he asked.
Luna laughed. "The cannibals? Hardly. They call me the 'Red-Haired Devil.'"
"Red-haired devil," Ian repeated. "I can think of several better descriptions."
Then he did, none of which cheered him much.
Luna shook her head. "Goodbye, Ian," she said. "I'll never see you again."
As she turned to go, to leave him there forever, Ian sighed. "Luna…," he said. "Isn't it customary to give the dying man a last request?"
Luna scoffed. "Oh, you won't die, Ian. You're going to live a very, very long time."
"A favor then for the condemned man," Ian said, somewhat angry at himself for betraying a sense of urgency when he spoke.
Luna raised an eyebrow. "What do you want?"
Ian sighed again and told her.
Luna didn't hesitate before answering.
"Naw. Ta!"
She walked into the thickets. Ian watched the jungle engulf her in green and shadow. As she disappeared from sight, Ian suspected he was already becoming a distant memory as Luna turned her mind to more pressing matters.
"I can't believe I once played spin the bottle with that woman," Ian thought.
He pondered.
"I can't believe I once played spin the bottle."
Hundreds of species, unknown to Ian, cawed and gibbered and roared and hissed and barked and clicked behind the trees and from the branches and in the weeds beyond the wards. Their calls and cries created a mocking cacophony that echoed in his ears.
Ian felt completely surrounded, yet utterly alone.
It was then, on that first day, that it hit him…
Realization.
He had lost. Vault Six had separated him from his life and the one thing that mattered most. He had been powerless to stop them. He had taken on an organization he hardly understood, challenged people he barely knew, and he would pay for that arrogant misjudgment forever.
Ian hugged his knees to his chest.
And, uncharacteristically, he cried.
His tears burned his face. His weeping blended with the sounds of the rainforest. In a matter of minutes, he had quickly become just another jungle animal, his wailing just another bestial call.
Ian forced himself to stand. His legs shook, his upper body rocked unsteadily, but he didn't fall.
He tested the wards and discovered that Luna was quite correct: He could not pass them.
He was completely cut off from the world. Luna had erased him. No one knew where he was. No one would ever find him.
In that moment of despair, he felt the first dart strike.
The jolt slammed his brain. The pain raked across his nerve endings, leaving a lingering numbness in their wake. His muscles seized and his joints locked. His lungs deflated and sagged. He could feel himself suffocating -- an agonizingly aware death.
He fell face-first into the mud -- flat, straight, and undignified -- splattering filth.
Almost instant paralysis.
"Not unlike a scorpion sting…," Ian thought bitterly.
When he stepped out of the anima well, he caught glimpses of shadowy shapes stealing back into the wilderness.
His murderers, skulking off with their spoils:
Him.
Now whole, thanks to bees and anima, Ian saw remnants of his former self scattered across the mud. The cannibals had left precious little behind: a few odd bone chips, hair, and congealing pools of blood.
Ian looked at what he once was and fought back fresh tears.
The sun was setting. Beneath the canopies of trees, Ian had never experienced such utter darkness. Even the light from the anima well seemed to wane in the absolute absence of heavenly light.
Fear, ice cold even in the jungle heat, gripped Ian.
He collapsed and curled up against the coming night.
A blanket of bugs covered him. The soft padded whispers of nocturnal predators lulled him to sleep.
On the second day…
Resignation.
Ian woke but kept his eyes shut. He knew his situation and saw no point in reminding himself through sight. He accepted that he was trapped. Nobody was coming to rescue him.
He closed his eyes tighter to stave off the tears.
When the moment of weakness passed, Ian opened his eyes and saw that the hunters had left food and water near the anima well. He crawled closer to examine the crude wooden bowls and their contents.
The water seemed fresh enough, as one might expect in a rainforest. But Ian didn't recognize the food. It resembled some sort of cold grayish stew, a mixture of unidentifiable meat and starchy roots.
Could the cannibals be serving him…him?
Ian jumped up and kicked the bowls away.
Naturally, the natives needed to keep him well nourished. But they couldn't force him to eat or drink. In a few days, he would die of dehydration. Not permanently, of course. But he could die over and over from lack of liquid. Over time, he would emaciate. He would leave the cannibals nothing but tasteless skin and gristle -- a few meager bones for their blackened pots.
Ian could starve himself to starve the villagers, but that wouldn't pass the time. Two days into an eternal sentence, he knew he needed to preoccupy himself.
With no one to speak to, Ian thought it best to exercise his voice and keep his conversational skills sharp. And since he would never talk to a volleyball, even if he could find one, he decided that he should perform a play in its entirety, including all parts and stage directions, to the best of his memory.
He chose the Bard's final play, The Tempest: the tale of rightful royalty exiled on an island, where he took steps to exact revenge.
Ian thought it appropriate, under the circumstances.
In a neighborly gesture, Ian called out to the jungle and invited the tribesmen to join the troupe.
"I don't know if you savages have ever read Shakespeare, but any one of you would be perfect for the part of Caliban," he yelled. "Anyone interested?"
When no reply came, Ian staged the production, playing Caliban and every other role. He had a knack for iambic pentameter, and he could relate to Prospero's plight, making his performance particularly inspired.
After four hours, his mouth parched, Ian brought down the curtain with the closing couplet:
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.
Ian didn't know whether the natives spoke English, but his performance may have impressed them.
They allowed him three bows before letting the blow darts fly.
He heard no applause as he died.
The anima well spit him out to another empty crime scene.
He fell asleep with a grumbling stomach and a dry throat.
On the third day…
Rage.
The cannibals had left fresh offerings of food and water. Dizzy from hunger and thirst, Ian still managed to toss the bowls beyond the wards to crack against the wet trees.
"I don't deserve this!" he shrieked.
Ian spent the day pacing and ranting within the confines of his cage. He called out to his unseen assailants, daring them to enter the circle. He cursed his enemies. He demanded that someone bring him Sabra.
He was losing his mind, and he had very little left to lose.
All semblance of civility was now gone, stripped away as his clothes had been, leaving behind the raw, naked beast that Ian had always hid behind composure, politeness, and intense etiquette. His true self found purchase in the wilderness, dug in deep with tooth and claw, and settled savagely into its new green home.
Ian howled. The guttural sound contained so much unchecked, primal fury, flocks of jungle birds jumped skyward from the tree branches, screeching in fear as they rose flapping from the thick mists to block out the sun.
Instinctively, they knew an unknown, dangerous animal had entered their midst, and their survival mechanisms thrust them far, far away from the deadly newcomer.
Ian's chest heaved, rising and falling violently as he sucked in cleansing bursts of hot jungle air. His eyes widened, the whites turned to blood, as he called out to his hunters, raising his voice to the point where his lungs came close to bursting.
"The bitch who left me here -- you call her the 'Red-Haired Devil'?" Ian cried. "Let me tell you: You haven't seen the devil. Not yet.
"You can't keep me here. Not forever. I'll get out. Not today. Not tomorrow. Maybe not even this year or decade or century. But one day, yes. I'll march out of this circle and straight into your putrid village. And it won't matter if you have been dead for ages. Your ancestors will be there, and they will atone for the sins of their fathers, as well as for their own.
"I'll bring genocide against generations. Your great-grandchildren will curse you for imprisoning me. Their parents will regret ever carrying on the tradition of hunting and killing me. All you know and all you love and all you hoped and prepared for will disappear, fade from history, collapse in fire and blood and pleas for mercy, and I will still remain.
Ian screamed a favorite quote: "'My revenge has just begun! I spread it over centuries and time is on my side!'"
He fell down, panting. On all fours, hands and knees, he snapped and snarled. His vocal chords and abdomen ached from the explosive effort of spewing his venom at such high volume. But he had more yet to say.
"I'll enslave your daughters and teach them to be women," he spat. "I'll build a throne from the skulls of your sons. I'll hang your elderly from the trees and beat them like piñatas until their stomachs split, spilling guts instead of sweets. And that's just on the first day.
"I'm not sure what I'll do on the second, but it will be much, much worse."
He would have kept going, but an unseen hunter buried a blow dart into his scalp.
On the fourth day…
Relaxation.
Ian awoke to more food and drink from the natives. Rather than throw the gifts away angrily, he simply chose to ignore them. He refused to concentrate on the growing hunger and thirst that ravaged his body.
His enemies back at Vault Six said he lacked focus.
His enemies were wrong.
He would not rampage today. He would show his foes he was better, stronger, smarter than they gave him credit for.
Ian sat in full lotus, breathing just as Sabra had taught him.
He inhaled through his nose for a count of ten, pulling the air down deep below his navel into his dan tien, holding the breath there, an invisible ball of energy.
One.
He exhaled for a count of ten, releasing all tension, all negativity.
Two.
He continued the breathing, the inhalation and exhalation, until he reached ten.
Then he started over.
He spent the morning and afternoon that way, in perfect peace. Yet, in that peace, he was deadly prepared as well. If any cannibal stupidly wandered into the circle, Ian would sink his expertly polished teeth into the savage's neck and plunge his thumbs through his enemy's eyes.
Ian -- the ideally conditioned killing machine that Vault Six never appreciated -- practiced tranquil violence, at ease with what he must do.
As Ian meditated, he felt his spirit lift, float, and arrive in his New York penthouse. Only -- not quite his penthouse. He didn't recognize the mess it had become. Random papers and scribblings littered every available surface. He saw a bridal gown tossed over his favorite chair.
Sabra.
He tried to say the name, but his dream self -- for surely it must have been a dream -- had no voice. His lips moved, but he had no breath to push out the sound.
He floated down the main hallway, an apparition in his own home, and arrived before his bedroom door. He grabbed for the doorknob, but, lacking substance, his hand could not grip anything solid.
He dissolved through the door and saw a lone figure lying on his bed. He drifted quickly bedside and gazed down at the most beautiful woman in the world.
Sabra, wearing a pair of his pajamas.
His heart broke to see her -- so close yet still thousands of miles away. She looked so sad, her face scrunched up in her sleep, as though she had so much on her mind unsolved.
Resting, but not rested.
Ian wanted to comfort the only person he had ever honestly loved. He reached down to stroke her right cheek and felt utterly hopeless as his ghostly fingers passed through her face.
Sabra stirred ever so slightly.
"I want to stay here," Ian thought. "Please just let me stay here. Please."
Panicked, Ian sensed himself fading. But he couldn't go yet. He wouldn't. He had something to tell Sabra -- the favor that Luna had refused.
Ian bent close to Sabra's left ear. He gave no warmth, and she provided none in return. They were shades in each other's worlds, incapable of contact, memories of what might have been.
He tried hard, so hard, to speak. He mustered. He managed. In his mind, he screamed, but, in the end, only the slightest whisper carried his words.
Softly and quietly as a cotton ball across a polished floor, he said the thing that Luna would not say on his behalf:
"I'm sorry."
Sabra opened her eyes.
Ian opened his.
Sabra and his penthouse were gone. Ian was back in the jungle, twisted into the lotus position.
For the briefest moment, Ian thought he saw Sabra's huge mongrel outside the wards, practically invisible, barking noiselessly.
Then it, too, was gone.
Ian hated animals, but the dog made Sabra so happy. When she came to live with Ian, she brought the dog with her, and, over time, the pet had made Ian happy too.
Anything that brought Sabra joy brought Ian joy as well.
Sabra had named her dog Mutt.
Ian loved that woman so much.
He smiled and kept smiling, even after the poison darts sent shockwaves of pain and paralysis through his nervous system.
On the fifth day…
Rebirth.
Dream or not, the visions struck Ian as a sign. He knew now, unquestionably, that Sabra still loved him and would never rest until she found him.
The least he could do was give her something worth finding.
The man she loved would not sulk sadly in a jungle.
The man she loved would be waiting, sculpted in muscle and iron, and when she finally arrived -- even a million years from now -- he would ask: "What took you so long?"
They would laugh as though they had never been apart. And then they would go lay waste to the village behind the trees.
His opponents had criticized his lack of direction, saw him as some worthless anomaly dedicated only to executing random violence.
But Ian had purpose they failed to see. He had patience. He was the spider that spun the most beautiful, delicate web and sat in its center for as long as possible, until the sticky strands finally snagged struggling prey.
Ian had all of the time in the world for his Sabra. He would be here when she arrived. And when that day came, tomorrow or aeons from now, he would hold her tightly and never release her again.
Then they would hurt something.
Ian slowly sipped at the water the natives had left behind, ate the gruel they had prepared. If it contained bits of himself, he rationalized, then the meal would only make him more whole.
When he licked both bowls cleaned, he ran around the inner perimeter of his prison. When his lungs and legs burned, he dropped to his hands and did push-ups. When exhaustion got the better of him, he rolled over on his back and went through multiple sets of every abdominal exercise he knew. After that, he leapt up and did squats. He shadowboxed.
Throughout the entire day, he never stopped using his body. It was Sabra's too, and she deserved a good one -- one she would want to look at.
One he wanted to look at too.
And one with the strength to do terrible, terrible things.
Ian was in the middle of crunches when several darts sank into his right shoulder.
He died feeling the burn.
On the sixth day…
Redemption.
Ian awoke refreshed. He relished his gift of water and mystery meat. After he ate and drank, he pushed his body to the point of breaking, and then pushed some more.
He laughed as he ran in circles. Gloated as the lactic acid seared his muscles.
Vault Six had thought they could break him.
Vault Six had failed.
They said he lacked aim. They said he lacked drive.
His aim was laser-tight now. His drive was accelerating.
Their myopic outlook had clouded their opinion; they could not see how valuable he truly was.
In Ian, they had gained a special weapon: a cunning killer without remorse, yet happy to take direction. All they had to do was point him -- and leave him alone with Sabra and a fine bottle of pinot noir and the occasional dark diversion.
They had squandered him over petty squabbles. They had abandoned him when he could have been groomed for greater things.
They had caged something best set free and encouraged to cultivate its bloodlust.
Without conscience to rein him in, Ian could achieve anything. Free of restraint, nothing could stop him.
Some might call him evil, but was a hurricane wicked? Was rain in a time of drought a sign of kindness?
No, they just were. Not right or wrong. Natural. As things were destined.
In a cold, uncaring universe, Ian had stepped out of the primordial ooze, stomped on the first fish that crawled out of the murky depths ahead of him, and declared himself top of the food chain.
And he was right.
Vault Six had wanted him to deny his true self, to mold himself into something that was more palatable to their organization. He knew better. He knew he was as he was meant to be. Vault Six members could come back after a billion years, and they would discover the same Ian whom they had left behind.
And, for that, they should be grateful.
The tides of evil had turned against humanity, and genetics had dealt Ian the winning hand. He possessed the tools to win by any means necessary. Sure, a few innocents might die along the way, but in the end, even more would survive.
Unless Ian remained angry. Then…all bets were off. If Ian went down, he was prepared to drag all he could with him.
He was mean like that.
Ian sensed movement outside the wards. The diners had arrived for their daily feast.
He walked toward them -- naked, glistening, perfect, unrepentant.
"Something around here looks delicious!" he yelled at his invisible enemies.
The first dart struck his chest.
Vault Six said he had no willpower.
Ian willed himself to stand.
He would not allow his body to tighten. He demanded that his heart keep beating.
And it did.
He walked closer to the wards.
A second dart hit his neck.
"You'll never change me!" he grunted.
Ian flushed the poison from his body -- pushing it from his pores in a scalding, stinking mist -- and kept walking.
"You'll never beat me!" he screamed defiantly.
A third dart punctured his left eye. Viscous liquid spurted across his face.
In response to the attack, Ian laughed long, loudly, and deeply, his voice giving birth to an inhuman timbre that rumbled past the wards and caused the trees to tremble.
"Never! Never! Never!"
He spat the word out each time, every syllable rising in intensity. He rejected the cannibals. He rejected those who tried to reshape him. And, at the same time, within the refusals, he cried a triumphant affirmation, rejoicing all he was and would remain. The repeated denials served as acknowledgement, to praise the universe for creating something so pure of purpose, to assure the master designer that the gifts given would not be tossed away.
Ian raised his voice to the heavens to proclaim the simplest of truths: He would love Sabra. He would seek out only the finest things in life. And he would kill and kill and kill.
Forever.
Because that was what he was made to do.
Ian stopped at the edge of the circle, as close as the wards would allow. He removed the darts from his body. He tugged the last one from his face and dropped it. His eye pulsated as it refilled with intraocular fluid.
He celebrated silently as he sensed the confusion outside his prison. His hunters, unsure what to do, were retreating deeper into the shadows. Ian couldn't see them, but he knew they were scared.
As they should be.
"There are going to be some changes around here!" Ian called after them.
The predator, no longer prey.
"No more free meals," Ian said softly as he turned away.
Perhaps the tribesmen would return in the morning, carrying their women in tribute for their new dark god. Not that Ian would have any interest.
"I'm sorry, ladies," he would say, "but I'm afraid my heart belongs to another. Of course, that never stopped you from eating it, so, since you're here, I'm going to cause you some discomfort in kind."
Ian would stay faithful to Sabra.
He would wait for her, for as long as it took.
And he'd murder any enemy who stumbled into his new home.
The sun was setting as Ian settled back into the center of his perfect circle, the dusk bringing the total darkness that Ian no longer feared. He embraced it wholly and grinned wickedly, his white teeth flashing in the black nothingness.
On the seventh day…
Rest.