Beyond the Horizon

56. Pursued

He pursued the group in their dark green jumpsuits. Vulnerable human shapes that sprinted through the pristine white hallway. Scampering animals that moved much quicker than he could ever hope to move with his failing, imperfect body.

          The faint stench of smoke and burnt flesh trickled up the gaping holes where his nose once sat. A necessary sacrifice for the pursuit of science. His ears burned as he staggered through the hallway, his trembling hands reaching out and brushing against the marble. Pain trickled through the frayed nerve endings in every inch of his body, his throat stinging as his vocal cords burned together.

          His lips cracked apart into a vicious smile, liquid dribbling down the expanse of where his throat had once been. Pieces of him were falling to the floor, singed and blackened and cracked apart.

          He moved slower than the group sprinting away from him, but he tracked their movements. His eyes darted after the dark green, or rather, the orbs where his eyes should have been. The edges of his vision were blurring and melding in the middle of the smoke that pumped through the hallway.

          He stumbled forward, and the smoke emanating from the fires the smaller VC had set kissed the sprinklers. The piercing fire alarm chimed around him, mingling with the whining bells that echoed from the ceiling. Someone hadn't turned it off? He supposed that made sense. Had anyone in the control rooms stayed behind? Doubtful. The sounds of the evacuation alarms and the fire alert melded together until it was difficult to discern one from the other.

          The sprinkler system activated as the smoke brushed against it. Rain splattered against the man's cracked skin, but the cooling sensation did little to quench the flames prickling across his body. Pain had blended into a single entity until his nerve endings stopped receiving signals.

          He staggered forward, his feet slipping on the tiles, the smoke making the surface slippery and the water from the sprinklers formed puddles on the floor. The fire doors at the end of the hallway were beginning to swing closed.

          The man's heart pounded as he realized that the closing fire doors meant the fleeing group would have no way to escape from him. He grinned, his lower lip splitting in half.

          Excellent.

⁂

Shion sprinted down the hallway, his mind a terrified whirl, his heart pounding in his chest like a jackhammer. Lab Coat advanced behind them, moving slowly but still in active pursuit.

           The prickles of anxiety leaping beneath Shion's skin made his stomach tighten. His eyes burned from the smoke radiating around him. The sprinklers rained water, and Shion couldn't find the strength to be surprised by the freezing droplets splattering against his hair.

          For a moment, it seemed that a wind had rustled through the hall. Shion stole a glance over his shoulder—and past Nezumi's blank, terrified expression and Aki's cold horror, he could see the burning man-shaped mass that had once been Lab Coat staggering after them. He steadied himself against the wall, pursuing them at a distance.

          Flames rippled across his broken, blackened skin, his clothes fluttering to the ground and leaving ashy piles in his wake. Rin's fires seemed to have been reduced to a simmer on his burning body, the flesh itself rippling with each movement. Shion could barely see him through the thick columns of black smoke rising off his body, the thick liquid splattering on the ground around him in a gory mess.

          There was a soundless sizzle as the flames continued to crackle across his arms. Shion's body felt cold and uncertain, his fingers trembling and numb.