The Highest watched impassively from its control room as one of the mutated gru’ul ate a loaf purple bread similar to the one the human was fed. It too was alone and isolated in a cell for safety and containment purposes. The failure of a gru’ul acting as a test subject would serve its purpose by testing the Highest’s different theories.
The mutated gru’ul stuffed the last of the bread in its mouth and swallowed. Almost immediately, it seized up and let loose a screech of abject pain. The poor thing flailed around helplessly for several seconds before toppling over, unmoving.
Equipped with a vitals monitoring device, the Highest had no need to send in one of its brethren to confirm the failure’s death. It clicked in annoyance and turned its attention towards the data gathered from the subject.
It was a frustrating puzzle that annoyed the Highest to no end. The human experiment was a success yet attempting to recreate the same steps in another being resulted in failure every single time. While how long the gru’ul test subject lasted varied greatly, the result nevertheless always ended in death.
It was vexing. The Highest changed the formula in the bread time and again to more closely resemble to original loaves the human had been fed at the beginning of its time with its predecessor. The closer the bread resembled the original, the faster the subject died. It made no sense. The Highest ultimately determined that the recipe needed to be adapted to gru’ul physiology, which was fundamentally different than a human’s.
And so, it go to work developing a new formula that would allow the introduction of nanites into a gru’ul host without its immediate expiry. Strangely enough, the pain differed in the human when it was fed the modified loaves intended for a gru’ul and somehow only served to enhance it further. Despite being adapted to gru’ul physiology, the new nanites seamlessly integrated into the human host.
The Highest paused. The new nanites should not be so easily integrated. Checking the vitals monitoring device attached to the human’s wrists in the form of sleek silver cuffs, it noticed an anomaly. None of the new nanites were present in the human’s blood.
Given that the human had ingested many loaves of bread, this confused the Highest. Perhaps the monitoring equipment was faulty. It ordered one of its lessers to take a blood and tissue sample from the human for detailed analysis.
The Highest patiently waited for the results and once they were in, set about analyzing them. What it found was utterly baffling. None of the new nanites existed in the human’s blood or body. Instead, different, modified nanites were in their place, clearly adapted from the newly introduced ones.
The Highest fetched one of the loaves fed to the human and carefully removed a small piece. Preparing a blood sample under a powerful microscope, it introduced the piece of bread to the sample.
The nanites in the blood immediately attacked the ones in the bread, as though they were having an immune response to them. Rather than break down just the new nanites, the blood’s nanites broke themselves down alongside the new ones and rebuilt themselves into something perfectly adapted for the human host, transforming into something better and more efficient than both originals.
The Highest repeated the experiment several times with different nanites, only to have the same phenomenon occur. The monitoring devices hadn’t been wrong. The new nanites weren’t detected because they no longer existed.
It decided to perform an experiment directly on the human to better observe what it was studying. After ordering for the subject to be paralyzed, it made its way to the lab where the experiment would take place.
By the time the Highest arrived, the human was fully restrained. An added precaution should the paralytic wear off before they were done. The Highest was keenly aware of how strong the human had become and did not desire to be its next victim should it rampage.
Not that it would for long, as the Highest had contingencies prepared to subdue it in the event of rebellion and anything less than complete obedience. “Human,” the Highest screeched into the translator orb in its hand, “you prove to be an elusive mystery. Why do you survive where others perish?” Under the effect of the paralytic, the human was naturally unable to respond. The Highest continued, paying the test subject no mind. “I will find what makes you so special,” it said before ordering an assistant to commence the injections.
The human was mercifully silent, a welcome reprieve from its disgusting cries. Its eyes watered and leaked fluid in a wasteful manner throughout the duration of the experiment. The Highest paid the biological reaction no heed and observed its physiological reactions with great interest.
The Highest repeated the process injection after injection, leaving the human no reprieve between the experiments. It was forced to administer two more doses of the paralytic when the human started twitching.
It took hours until the Highest was satisfied with the amount of data it had collected. After so many experiments, it would have a lot of work to do analyzing the results and changes over time. It ordered the human to be brought back to its cell and returned to the control room, eager to solve the mystery.
Adrian studied the silver manacles upon his wrists, a stark reminder that he was once again a prisoner. An involuntary shudder passed through him at the recollection of the previous day’s experiment involving so many injections.
Mercifully, the gru’ul hadn’t come for him since then and he’d been granted an entire sleep cycle of reprieve. The pain had been unbearable, triggering unpleasant memories from his first time in captivity. Adrian curled up on the hard, cold floor and tried his best to avoid thinking about what else might be in store for him.
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He failed spectacularly at his self-imposed task. With nothing to do and nothing in his cell to distract him, he inevitably returned back to the potential horrors waiting for him. Shaking his head, he stood for the first time in hours and wandered around the edges of his cell, looking for a way out. But like his previous one, there were no seams anywhere to be found. He even went back to the food slot to see if there was a flaw he could cut himself on to decorate his walls.
Escape was impossible from within the cell, but perhaps the gru’ul would make a mistake and leave him unparalyzed. A simmering, burning hatred grew from deep within his soul. He despised his tormentors. Despised everything the represented. They all deserved to be eradicated. No good would ever come from their continued existence.
His mind spun furiously as he relished in an imaginary world where he could at least kill a few before finally dying. Unbidden tears spilled from his eyes. He knew he would never see Reya again before he died, for he had no doubt that the operating table they strapped him to would be where he drew his last breath. He laughed bitterly before his tears turned to sobs.
Adrian wept freely over what he’d lost. To have everything he’d worked so hard to build after so much suffering, only to be cruelly torn away from the happiest moment of his life was gut-wrenching. His lack of privacy meant nothing to him anymore — he no longer cared if the gru’ul saw him break down.
The familiar sound of the walls opening caught his attention. From the ceiling, three floating balls descended and the colour drained from Adrian’s face. He knew what they meant. They floated down towards him at a leisurely pace without a care in the world.
When they closed in, Adrian lifted a hand for one to land one. He didn’t flinch at the sudden prick, for that level of pain was so irrelevant to him that he couldn’t bring himself to care about something so trivial. A numbness spread from his palm up his arm and throughout the rest of his body.
His arm fell limply to his side and his heart rate steadied. A wall opened up and a gru’ul entered with a floating slab of metal. Adrian was roughly transferred onto it. By that point, he doubted any gru’ul was capable of basic empathy. Not that he’d expect anything less, given the horrors they’d subjected him to for so long.
Adrian was towed out of his cell and brought along the familiar route towards the lab he would be experimented on in. The harsh lights overhead blinded him, but he refused to close his eyes. Instead, he welcomed his discomfort, knowing full-well it would be the least painful thing that would happen to him that day. Unfortunately, the paralytic they used on him wasn’t the same pain-numbing one from the previous facility. All the new one did was ensure he couldn’t move. He was still acutely aware of his pain.
When they arrived at their destination, Adrian was picked up and transferred to the operating table. In his brief moments upright, his eyes scanned the room and saw three hideously deformed gru’ul waiting in a line on the far wall being addressed by the Highest. With no translator in its hands that time, the meaning of its words were lost to Adrian.
Once fully restrained, the Highest brought over a tray of tools. On it were wicked syringes, with one in particular having a long, thin needle attached to it. The Highest picked up the first syringe and plunged it into Adrian’s arm. A generous amount of his sliver-pink blood was taken out and set aside. Mercifully, the procedure hadn’t hurt that much.
The Highest then repeated the process with another syringe, also setting it aside. It screeched in its harsh, grating language and Adrian understood that word. Come, it ordered. Immediately, one of the deformed gru’ul walked over towards the operating table, stopping several meters away.
It had sickly growths growing out of its chest leaking yellow puss and three of its arms were far too small. The shrunken appendages were bent and unnaturally twisted the wrong way. The brain inside one of the two bulbs on its head looked sick and its back was arched bizarrely.
Adrian managed to just barely turn his head enough to witness the Highest inject the mutated monstrosity with his blood. For several minutes, the gru’ul stood there with no visible change in its behaviour.
For a moment, the Highest believed its experiment to have been a success, until without warning the gru’ul test subject seized up and loosed an unholy wail. Its too-short limbs twitched and spasmed and it wasn’t long until the gru’ul was violently thrashing.
The Highest ordered several of the other researchers in the lab to hold down the screaming gru’ul. It took two of them to keep it from moving, but didn’t pin down its arms fast enough. One of the claws on its deformed arm latched onto one of their heads and gouged out two eyes. The injured researcher cried out and let go, prompting a third gru’ul to rush over and take its place.
Finally, after several minutes, the mutated gru’ul stop moving. It drew no breath and was very much utterly dead. The Highest clicked in annoyance and turned back to Adrian. It picked up the syringe with the long needle. It carefully pierced Adrian’s skin and reached his bone, going further still.
Adrian scrunched his eyes in pain as the Highest withdrew a bone marrow sample from him. It then called over the second mutated gru’ul, who reluctantly abided by the Highest’s demand. The Highest ordered the gru’ul be restrained as a precaution and proceeded to transplant Adrian’s bone marrow into it.
An hour passed with no change and so the Highest ordered the test subject to be released from its restraints. The mutated gru’ul immediately began scratching itself on the arm the injection had been in, growing more frantic by the second. It soon sported long, deep gashes and still it tried to find relief. It screamed out before tearing off the offending appendage. It seized up and fell to the ground, whimpering in pain. When at last it stilled, the monitoring device attached to it informed the Highest that it too had expired.
The Highest shrieked in anger. Both of its experiments had been failures. It turned to the remaining gru’ul and commanded it attend it. The remaining gru’ul test subject adamantly refused to approach, prompting the Highest to order it to be restrained.
The mutated gru’ul fought for its life, injuring the four other researchers it took to properly restrain it. The Highest then injected it with both Adrian’s blood and bone marrow. The screams it loosed were somehow worse than the previous test subjects. Seconds turned into minutes as it shrieked without stopping.
Adrian breathed a soft, imperceptible sigh of relief when the crying stopped, for his sensitive hearing couldn’t handle the noise any longer.
The Highest was apoplectic in its continued failures. It turned towards Adrian and studied him for a moment, before grabbing a vial out of a cool storage cabinet and injecting the brilliant yellow substance into Adrian’s bloodstream.
One last experiment. For good measure.
It was a small oversight. A glaring fault the gru’ul would never admit to. Adrian sat in his cell once more and fiddled with the useless comm upon his breast. While no longer fully functioning after having undergone stasis alongside him, it still sent an emergency distress signal back to Verilia. Neither the gru’ul nor Adrian were none the wiser.
