Crusade ~ World from Ashes {Complete}

1

When had the voices started? I couldn't remember. All I could recall was the hard, cold floor against my cheek. Sprawled out across the cell's concrete floor, I couldn't move. My body was battered, bruised, and broken. Movement hurt. Breathing hurt. Everything hurt. The tests were the only thing I knew. Many of the others were worse than I was, though. Their moans of agony continuously filled the halls. Rows upon rows of cages that locked us up in a prison of hellfire.

The scientists cared little for our wellbeing. They cared only for the drugs that they were creating. Excalibur first, Holy Grail second and the latest one that they called Crusade. Just a few months ago they had refined Holy Grail, twisted it's make up and tested it on many others. Most of them died, so they refined it even more. Finally, they were satisfied.

My body still burned from having it injected into me a few days ago. The chilling feel that it was changing me still writhed at the back of my mind. I hated the way it felt. Like my body was being broken down and rebuilt into something else entirely. I wasn't even sure if I was human anymore. No, in fact I was pretty sure I wasn't what you would consider human.

I was a creature.

As I lay there, staring at the wall the voices came again. I was confused. They were voices that I had never heard before. I knew all the tones of the scientist's voices. After all, they were around me nearly all the time. Soft steps moved through the halls, their vibrations against the concrete told me they were in my section. I closed my eyes and breathed slowly, working to ease my pain and also to concentrate on the voices.

"This is fucked up."

"I know."

"Ryker, have you seen anything like this before?" a softer, sweeter voice.

Silence followed for a moment, "No. Nothing like this. What the hell is this?" the voice growled in rage.

"Jesus. They're not even human anymore," sharp tones, agitation in that voice.

"Some of them are dead," that one was accented, the words rolling slightly along some of the syllables.

"I wouldn't expect any of them to be alive."

The footsteps moved again, continuing on down the hall. These men that were in the facility... They didn't belong. How did they get in? I wanted to know, but I was also afraid to know. If they had gotten in, that meant they were dangerous. As the footsteps came closer to my prison cell, I couldn't help but to shift and turn my head just a little to see. I had never seen anyone other than a scientist in white coats and twisted, deformed human's that looked like they'd come from a different planet all together.

He was tall. Like a giant. Of course from my point of view on the floor all of them were rather tall. Long locks of light brown hair fell in his face. He had dark golden eyes that looked like honey, but they were so hard that I thought they looked more like amber than anything. He was watching me intently as I stared up at him half-dazed. Slowly, he knelt down to get a better look at me.

"Ryker?" one of them asked and stepped up behind him.

I didn't look to see who had addressed the man named Ryker. He stared at me for a long time, a deep frown on his lips. The burly man reached out to me, slipping his hand through the bars of my cell. I wasn't sure what he wanted to do, but I couldn't move very well anyway. His fingers brushed my throat, pressing down lightly and holding there for a while. A bit of surprise rose in his eyes.

"He's alive."

"What?"

"I thought I'd seen him move but I wasn't sure," Ryker answered the shocked question.