Frankenstein's Bastard Child

Volume 7

Ok this is moving way too fast this is like this is like the third time I've passed out today. Now is this the afterlife cause I could not have survived that so now I should be peacefully sleeping in the afterlife free from care in a state of unending bliss. I took a long breath in through the nose. "Why do I have to smell like mold in the afterlife? Ugh Christ, the sun's too bright." I spoke to myself drowsily waking up. I began to access my surroundings, maybe for safety or maybe because of the fact that I was craving breakfast. At exactly 7:36 AM I had regained my ability to walk (all four limbs were asleep) after having the best stretch and piss break of my life. 7:46 I cunningly deduced that I was in the middle of a crater in the woods which I assumed was where the steel tower should have been. 7:49 I realized I was completely naked and a bloated corpse was wearing my clothes. Of course most of it didn't survive the explosion but I managed to salvage the black jeans I'd been wearing before and a dress shirt off someone hanging from a tree, their entire lower half had been blown clean off. Reminds me of shopping at Ross.

It felt almost like the calm before the storm because of how quiet it was. For the last few hours or so it seemed like everyone and their dog was screaming for their lives but now it was just deathly quiet. Wait something doesn't feel right, I should have been hung over right now but I can't remember the last time I'd felt this good. And I say "good" but good didn't exactly feel right like the moment before getting shot and the bliss of being alive before the trigger is pulled. The stunned silence was broken by the sound of snapping vines, somehow my grape vines had survived all the craziness and even seemed to be thriving as is. I plowed my way through grape vines strewn across the floor towards the sound.

Hunched over a pile of vines and torn off grapes was an extremely familiar figure. Black hair with solitary white streaks, cement gray skin, and eyes that didn't quite glow so brightly but still had that golden honey color. Despite the skin I wouldn't have batted an eye if I saw them on the street but upon further inspection their body became increasingly more odd. For one those honey eyes had horizontally slit pupils like that of a goat and on the left side of their face there was an absence of skin just enough to reveal where the top and bottom row of the teeth met. I took a step forward and their attention snapped to me, half eaten vines dangling from their mouth. When I was running I was fully ready to give up my life for this person when no one else would and it was weird to see someone who I only moments ago spilled my entire death speech to. It took a moment but they finally spoke.

"I'm sorry, I've never had these before, they're quite good. I hope you don't mind if I have some more." It caught me a bit off guard to hear how polite they were. But wow that hair is gorgeous. Unimportant moving on.

"You know you're eating those the wrong way. The little red berries are the best part." I explained to them while handing them one of the discarded berries. They were reluctant at first but eventually took it and happily began to gobble up the rest.

"Of course this meal doesn't come free. I'm going to need some answers for starters. What should I call you?"

They seemed to be thinking for a moment clearly enjoying the taste of the grapes as opposed to the vines.

"Muvere" a subtle pause ensued before fully committing to the statement "I wish to be called Muvere Crus."

Ok they're a bit of an oddball but I'll bite. "It's pretty. What's it mean?" I said while putting a shirt from another corpse over their shoulders. They seemed skeptical of it at first like they weren't really sure what to do but accepted it nonetheless.

"It's Latin. Roughly translated it means to move your legs." They wiped grape juice off their face with the back of their hand.

"Where did you learn Latin?" They pointed to the body next to us after I asked the question.

"I didn't but he did. He was an English major, he even tried to start his own publishing company. Obviously it never got off the ground but the attempts threw him into some rather nasty debt." Muvere pointed to the next corpse.

"She left home to become an architect but got super addicted to heroin. The young man next to her got thrown out of med school for cheating by sleeping with his professors to boost his grades. It goes on for miles really, cheated through college, had an affair, invested in bitcoin, I believe there's even a murderer among them." This was becoming harder to follow. What were they talking about?

"How do you know all this? Did they share this with you when you were locked up?"

"No. I just ate their consciousness. I needed their intelligence, otherwise I wouldn't even be able to speak. I'm sorry about before I didn't want to hurt you but the only thing I could think at the time was that I was starving. Are you mad?" They began to become more timid as they spoke, almost going into a pout. In truth I wasn't mad but even if I was it would be really hard to get mad at them.

"You must have been there for a long time. I can't imagine how maddening that can make a person" As I spoke I ruffled their hair lovingly. It was a bit greasy albeit but what would you expect? It's not like there was an outdoor shower in the middle of the woods. Muvere didn't need to be proper or perfect like I just knew they had to be before but right now they're fine just like this. "I understand lashing out and I do feel a bit bad for those people but they were hurting you just as much as we hurt them and it seems like I don't even know the half of what you've been through but that's a conversation for a bit later. Right now why don't we get you cleaned up?" They seemed to like that idea because well this is the first time I'd seen them smile. It was the kind of smile that would warm your heart on a bad day.

"Come on, I know a cozy little mansion near here that just became vacant." I chuckled and flipped the bird at a pile of rubble that I had assumed my father's corpse was buried under. I mean there was no evidence suggesting that but hey you never know. I made it about two steps forward before my legs gave out and I face planted on the floor.

"Oh I'm sorry I didn't warn you. I was able to fully restore your body from just your head but your conscious movements will take a little getting used to." Now I was starting to realize why the corpse from before was wearing my clothes. I know I keep making excuses but I was much too tired to realize how remarkable that was. Muvere had brought me back from what should've been 100% fatal injuries.

It took a while but I got the hang of walking a bit and forced Muvere to put on the rest of the clothing. On the way there Muvere told me how their, well let's just call it a "talent" works. Apparently they're able to consume the electrical signals from any living organism with a brain. Along with using the signals for sustenance they can also absorb the memories carried by said signals. When that happens it's somewhat dependent on how much of the organism they'd eaten which defines the quantity of memories absorbed from the brain. Along with that they have some sort of "evolutionary" talent which allows them to make others and themselves go through a sort of controlled evolution. In simpler terms it's like an amped up healing mechanism but it's able to transfer to other people through contact. Now this is where it gets interesting, it turns out that my blood had been flooded to the gills with toxic chemicals from the steel tower. The reason I mentioned this is because in order to regenerate the rest of my body it needed to be able to break down toxins so basically Muvere forced my body to evolve to obtain that trait. It felt invasive at first but they were like exact replicas from the shape to the random scars though the only lasting residual damage was a burn strewn across the right side of my face. It also gave me an unfortunate bald spot there. I'll have to do something with it later but for now it's time to crash the playboy mansion.