Alter (UDG x OC)

Prologue 0̶: Just a Feeling

A man and a woman were thrown into a room, bound and gagged, clenching their eyes shut in fear. As they touched the ground, the door was immediately slammed behind them.

Eventually, a deafening silence was created.

They opened their eyes and stared at their surroundings, taking in the clean, bright white walls of...

A laboratory.

Before they could react, the cloth strips covering their mouths were yanked off. They looked up. Someone was standing there.

"K-Katsumi?!" the woman spoke up, her expression suddenly hopeful. "Y-You're alive! No way... We... We thought we'd never see you again!"

The man's expression was also that of relief. "Katsumi...! I'm so glad... you're safe..." He quickly narrowed his eyes. "But were you thrown in here too?"

She remained silent, hoisting both onto the large table in the middle of the room.

"Huh? Katsumi, what are you doing?"

She had started cutting the rope wrapped around them before immediately restraining each of their limbs against the table. Their hopeful expressions suddenly changed into confused ones, a slight anxiousness spreading across their faces.

"Katsumi? Wh-What is this?"

"Hey... What do you think you're doing?!"

She slowly walked over to a table against the wall, tying her hair up and casually pulling out a drawer, putting on a pair of safety glasses and gloves.

"...What do I think I'm doing?" she finally spoke up, turning around to face them. "Some research, wasn't that obvious? It's just another day of testing."

"Wh-What are you saying?!"

"I'm working. That's all. And let's just say... I wasn't kidnapped. I'm with those people who just brought you here."

The woman's face went stern. "If this a joke, Katsumi, it isn't funny—"

She was suddenly cut off by her own ear-piercing scream.

A scalpel had found itself stabbed into her arm.

The man stared in shock, wide-eyed. K̶a̶t̶s̶u̶m̴i̷ pulled out the scalpel, leaving a deep gash in the woman's forearm. Blood started trickling out, pooling a little on the table.

Her expression was still stone-cold, heavily contrasting the scene in front of her. She looked at them as she cocked her head dangerously. "There you go... Now you know I'm not joking."

The man started to look furious. "Katsumi... you...!"

She grabbed the strips of cloth from earlier and aggressively tied them back on their mouths, muffling the screams of the woman and cutting the man off from speaking.

"You're being awfully noisy, it's getting a bit irritating." She sighed. "Maybe letting you speak was a mistake." Her gaze from above cast shadows over her face. "I worked pretty hard on this and I can already tell I'm not getting any praise for this. It makes me sad, you know? Ignoring everything around you, you haven't changed at all. Just like when Matsu died."

They tensed up at the last remark.

"I can't believe you two got over it so quickly," she spat, mocking them. "It's like you never cared about him in the first place... Too busy to care, huh? I bet if I died, you wouldn't even bat an eye, either." Her voice suddenly went calm, "Don't get the wrong idea though. That doesn't mean I hate you. After all, we're family, so at least that much I'm appreciative of."

In fact, it's the reason why I'm even doing this.

She grabbed two containers from a fridge, holding them up. Her tone was still awfully casual as she spoke her next words, "So... which one do you want me to release first? If I did this right, this one causes rashes when inhaled while this one makes you cough blood. They both kill, though, in the end."

Of course, they couldn't answer, a horrified look spreading across their faces. Seeing that, an unsettling smile suddenly appeared on K̶a̶t̶s̶u̶m̴i̷ face. Their eyes widened in fear.

"Hehe..." she giggled a little, clutching her cheek with a hand, lifting her head up at the ceiling. "Ahahahaha... ahaha..."

...

"Ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!"

Her insane laugh echoed through the room. Her grin seemed so out of place. Everything seemed so out of place.

She took a deep breath, her eyes crazy, "That's it... That's the face I love seeing so much... Ah... it looks amazing." She looked down at them. "Anyways, I'm sorry about that... forgot you couldn't answer. Not that it matters, though, I'll be trying both of them. That's all..."

If they were trying to say anything, it was completely muffled.

Her shadow loomed over them. "I'm truly grateful for everything you've done for me..."

...

"Mom, Dad..."

—

Bloody gloves littered the ground and a pair of safety glasses had been snapped, its remains scattered on the floor.

K̶a̶t̶s̶u̶m̴i̷'s hair was loose and her hands were drenched in blood, messy red splotches now staining the white walls. She was clawing at her face as several tears streamed down, her heavy breaths unsteady.

I'll never forgive you.

She couldn't even hear that thought of hers.

I killed them.

You killed them.

Yet somehow, through all that mental anguish, she started laughing. An entire minute passed and that deranged laughter was the only sound present in the room. She was still laughing even when she was the one feeling despair. Her eyes were wide, a look of ecstasy plastered across her face.

"Amazing... amazing, amazing, amazing amazingamazing... AMAZING!"

That last word was a scream as she kicked their corpses, more blood spraying onto her. The self-loathing was seeping into her veins and it somehow made her feel an immense exhilaration at the same time.

The laughs slowly stopped, a smile still present.

"It's for my sake... and yours... I've had a real taste now, don't you think?"

...

She put a hand up to her lips. "Upupu..."

...

...

Her expression suddenly went blank.

"...It's... the taste of true despair... right?"