// Nine //

// Prologue //

Oliver flicked the glass of the clear vial, stirring it twice before setting it back down on it's stand over a flame. It's yellow contents bubbled and foamed, steaming from under the secure lid in normally disturbing rates.

But Oliver paid no attention to the acidic liquid pouring onto the counter. Instead, he turned his attention to the men behind him, each holding a different variation of the same serum in his vial. They looked nervous, excited even, shifting from one foot to the other in silence as they watched Oliver bounce from table to table, preparing and rearranging god knows what.

Their only job was to watch, listen, and do what they were told. Its how they were getting paid, its how they were reaching prosperity. And soon enough, all of it would pay off. All the tears and blood put into the yellow liquids in their hands, all the pain and suffering they were forced through in order to get to this point, it would all be worth it.

Oliver promised it.

He himself believed it with all his heart, and if a man such as him believed something, you best know it to be true.

He placed another candle on the ground, lighting it to illuminate the ground before him. It's soft beams contourted his hardened facial features expressively, rounding out his eyes and smoothing out his stress-induced wrinkles. He suddenly looked young again, gazing ahead with a child like joy.

The men were quite, looking onward in inspiration and admiration, watching the scene play out in unbridled fear and hope. They clutched their bottles closer to their chests, cradling it as one would a child.

Oliver cracked a smile, tearing his eyes away from the beautiful candle lit scene only a foot in front of him. He grinned at the men, speaking in what now felt like thousands of years.

"Are you ready? "

His oddly rough voice echoed through the lab, shaking the men to their core. They grinned back, nodding frantically with their mouths bound tightly shut.

They stepped forward, snagging needles from the ground and pressing their vials inside, quivering at the harsh 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬 it made upon fixation. Oliver had his prepared, holding an arm in one hand and the needle in the other, watching the men come closer in glee.

It was finally all coming together, his dreams were 𝘴𝘰 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦. All they had to do was inject the golden serum, the golden 𝘱𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 dare he say.

Gathered at the edge of the stacked rank, rotting corpses, the four men each held a limb in their hand up in a faux toast, clinking them together as one would do with wine glasses, before stabbing the needle inside, injecting the whole of the flesh-eating serum inside dead bloodstreams.

Every last drop was drained, leaving the needles on the ground.

The men stood back, watching the scene before them in hope. The limbs they had picked up were set back randomly in the pile, lost to the ocean of body parts with nothing to set them apart.

Nothing had changed. Nothing was happening. Nothing was as promised.

The three men turned their heads slowly to face Oliver, their mouths shaking.

Surely he wouldn't lie.

Oliver stared back, his auburn hair disheveled. The men couldn't see it, but blood was pooling in his mouth, drowning his senses in its metallic stench. His clear, diamond-like vision was clouded.

The men stepped back, dread vomiting up from their stomachs. He wasn't going to move. He wasn't coming any closer. But they knew in that very moment that they were deemed to die from the start. The very second Oliver had sewed their mouths shut with promised glory, they were becoming silenced lambs.

How could they not have seen that?

Their screams were only internal when they felt the knife pierce the soft, wet layer over their eyes. Blood spattered across the floor with only the ripping sounds of thread and skin to fill in the empty air.

The overwhelming musk of decomposing bodies dragged over them, pulling them all into a heavenly sort of hell that only a man such as Oliver could enjoy being trapped in.

This wouldn't be the first time he'd dealt with 𝘤𝘰𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘴 this way. His movements were trained, practiced, as he lifted the hollow but still twitching bodies of the mutilated men onto the ever growing landfill.

A hand convulsed midst the pile, melting and morphing painfully slow.

// Nine ///

Coming soon.