Chapter Text
It had started as a day unlike any other.
Upon waking, your head emerged from your makeshift cocoon of scraps while your sunken (e/c) orbs slowly adapted to your darkened surroundings. You pawed around in the confined space, hands grasping around for the familiar packet of cigarettes you always kept close. You knew it as your good luck charm, though, you couldn’t recall when you had picked them up. Upon finding it, your nerves settled somewhat as you pocketed your trinket. Reluctantly, you kicked open the entrance to your makeshift home and scowled as you adjusted to the light flooding in. There was no point in delaying what was likely to be a long fruitless day of searching for scraps. You clambered out of the makeshift dumpster you called your home, carefully adjusting the filthy backpack on your shoulders, before setting out while cautiously keeping to the shadows.
Some time had passed before an unknown noise caught your ears attention. Mechanical in origin, creaking and groaning… as it got closer, you started to hear distant yells of malice and desperation. Curious, you ventured up the ruins of a long disused building to get a better vantage point to look at whatever was causing carnage in your neighbourhood. On first inspection, it seemed to be some kind of bizarre Bus/Train hybrid and it was tearing through the Backstreets with little concern for the crazed bystanders it mulched through on its way.
ThE hAuNtInG sHrIeK oF sTeAm EcHoEd ThRoUgH tHe FaCiLiTy-
A younger version of yourself turned to look at their colleague in horror down a non-descript corridor.
If YoU hAd BlInKeD yOu WoUlD hAvE mIsSeD iT.
A crimson eye, glowing with artificial light stared with glee as it morphed through the wall next to him.
CHOO CHOO… and then a sickening crunch.
He DiDn’T hAvE tImE tO sCrEam.
You clutched at your head, fighting the urge to retch from the image in your head. Your heartbeat raced as you tried to shake the panic from your mind, trying to pull yourself back from whatever sickness plagued your mind. You had been cursed for as long as you could remember with images and flashes of another time and place. A strange facility filled with nightmares and macabre horrors where death was commonplace. A part of you wondered if you were descending into madness like the rest of the crazed psychopaths that called the Backstreets home. When your heartbeat slowed, and your wits returned, you took another look and sure enough, the bus still existed. Seeing it as a bad omen, you clambered down from the broken concrete and ran in the opposite direction from the strange vehicle. Your self-preservation instincts had kept you alive so far and right now, they were screaming trouble.
It was much later you returned to your usual haunt. You had waited until all sounds of the weird mechanical kind had stopped before retracing your steps back home. Just as you were rounding the last corner, some weird figures came into view and brought your musing to a complete standstill. The nearest one had a lanky, but muscled build… shirt and tie, with a nasty looking baseball bat resting casually on one shoulder. He didn’t look like he was from this neighbourhood, but something about him screamed danger. He didn’t seem at all phased by his surroundings and most people avoided the Backstreets like the Plague. You got ready to slowly back out the way you came when you let out a surprised hiccup, and you found the group’s collective gaze on your form.
“Oy, trash lady,” the man with short messy brown hair called out and your eye twitched with annoyance at the nickname. “Where’d you find this, eh?” You saw him gesture to the warped plastic of your old work ID that was held in his hand and you bristled with anger at the thought of strangers rifling through your things.
“That’s mine,” you hissed, eyes darting around to the other figures in the opening. There was a heavily built man with plain black combed back hair, in a similar suit to the first man who was watching you with complete indifference. You noted the metal gauntlets on both arms, trying to figure out of these people were some kind of fixer group you hadn’t heard about. The brunette took one look at your ID, and then back at you before laughing cruelly.
“Hahaha, you? Ya must think I’m a right twat to believe that.” You see the tension in his frame as the metal bat rolls back and forth on his shoulder. He gives off the vibe of a predator, waiting for the right moment to strike and you feel your legs tense, ready to launch yourself away from this eerie situation.
“Her height and eye colour match the description,” the black-haired man says stoically. The rude one looks absolutely gobsmacked at the revelation while you held your ground.
“Eh, this little rat is supposed to be-”
“WHO ARE YOU CALLING VERMIN YOU LITTLE SHIT?!” you hollered back at the asshole who kept dissing your appearance. You didn’t know who he was, but you were about to throw down. Fuck this guy.
“Call me that again,” he growled in a low threatening manner while pointing his barbed wire bat towards your face. “I dare you.” His colleague made no move to do anything other than observe the tense situation unfolding. Good, one on one. You could handle that. You reached for the butterfly knife you kept on your belt before you heard another voice break the tension.
“Hey, hey… let’s keep things civil, yeah?” you flinched when you heard the familiar voice while simultaneously feeling a hand rest on your shoulder. “Believe me, you don’t want to make this guy mad…” he lamely joked. You felt your arm drop lifeless from where you were about to pull your weapon, as cigarette smoke tickled your sinuses. A weird sense of nostalgia brought tears to your (e/c) eyes as you dropped to your knees. What… was… happening to you? Who…?
“W-Woah, no need to cry!” The man quickly scurried down in front of you, and it was then you got a look at the stranger. Messy brown hair, pulled back with a hair tie, 5 o’clock shadow, the man’s chocolate brown eyes peered through his glasses to look at you in concern. You caught a glance of a dark shape at the edge of your vision… a carapace where there should be-
You felt a wetness on your cheek as you turned to find a pool of red, a metal gauntlet and broken glasses on the ground next to you. Just where he-
Your head pain from earlier returned a thousand-fold and you only had a split-second warning before you hurled chunks onto the man’s feet.
A deep mustard yellow had forced its way up and out of your throat, as you choked and hacked out the acid liquid onto the scuffed shoes in front of you. Stomach bile, your brain helpfully interjected, as you remembered you hadn’t eaten today yet. You heard the resigned groan of the shoes’ occupant. You realised your body was still shaking, tensed up in fear, expecting some kind of retaliation or the horrible image to return.
“S-Sorry… I’m so sorry…” you babbled incoherently keeping your (e/c) eyes on the ground, unsure if you were apologizing for the shoes or something else entirely. Subconsciously, you rubbed at the side of your face you felt the splash, confused when it came away completely dry. What was wrong with you?
“Ugh… it’s fine, no big deal,” the man replied noncommittally while you heard an insectile twitch come from your right side. Confused, you lifted your head up from your kneeling position on the ground and stared straight at the strange carapace claw that was at your head height. “Just… just stop staring at it, okay?” he asked exasperatedly before muttering to himself. “…I thought you Backstreet types would have seen everything by now…” You would’ve asked the man what he meant but you didn’t get a chance to before you were pulled up to your feet, roughly by the hair by the angry one.
“Fuckin’ disgusting vermin,” he hissed into your ear and your temper flared in response. “Stop being fucking weird and just explain why the fuck you live like this if you’re an L-Corp Remnant.” Remnant? You weren’t some kind of discarded scrap that was cast aside. No, you needed a better word, one that fit with your own image of yourself.
“Survivor,” you ground out proudly. You could practically feel the man’s eye twitch from your words just from your proximity to him. He was just a punk, a deadly punk, but not the worst thing you’d encountered in your lifetime.
“Ya got a death wish?” he said in a low tone that was filled to the brim with venom and violence. You’d felt a presence like that before-
WhAt’S rEaLlY pItIfUl Is PeOpLe LiKe YoU dYiNg To ThE lIkEs Of Me
Ashen complexion, with an empty stare with his neck at an unnatural angle. Belts upon belts trapping the violence within. Serial killer, they called this one. Used to be human before the experiments.
iT fEeLs LiKe My HeAd Is TuRnInG iNtO mEtAl.
An alarm blared through the rest area, jolting you awake from your impromptu nap. A quick look at the nearest terminal confirmed a Level 1 incident had started in your department with T-01-54. Without thinking, you grabbed your cobalt blue rifle from your locker and bolted out of your quarters towards the likely empty containment unit.
It wasn’t the fastest abnormality so it couldn’t have gotten very far.
I sOmEtImEs HeAr MeTaLlIc CrEaKs iN mY hEaD…
The metallic doors opened with an automatic whoosh, and your immediately rested the rifle stock on your shoulder and looked down the sight, ready for what came next. A loud thud and a sickening squelch echoed down the corridor, before you saw the abnormality raise its massive metallic head before slamming it into the mulch of what appeared to be one of clerks.
You took a sharp inhale, aiming the barrel for the chest of the Forsaken Murderer before you pulled the trigger.
My HeAd... TuRnInG iNtO mEtAl... FoLdS iN mY bRaIn, BeInG fLaTtEnEd...
You saw the thing lurch backwards, off-balance by the force of the bullet but it quickly righted itself and continued crushing what little remained of the body. You cursed, moved to reload your gun before firing another shot.
BANG.
Again, another round loaded, and aim trained on the shoulder this time.
BANG.
The abnormality staggers, visibly slowing and you reload your rifle again and aim for its metallic head.
EnDs, BeGiNs, EnDs, BeGiNs, EnD.
BANG.
You came to from whatever weird dream had possessed you to hear the three men arguing presumably with what to do with you. The bat wielding asshole hadn’t released his grip on your greasy (h/c) locks so running didn’t seem like an option for you right now.
“Our orders are to recruit her, not kill her,” The stocky dark-haired man said plainly. Oh, good; they weren’t hired assassins, your brain optimistically interjected. “If she is who we are looking for.”
“I’m telling the truth,” You muttered bitterly. “I’ve always had that badge…” Bat punk’s dark indigo eyes flickered down to your face before glaring at his colleague. Clearly, he was still dubious about your origins. ‘Well, make that both of us you giant prick,’ you thought angrily.
“I’m tellin’ ya, the bird is batshit.” You were used to being called crazy but to be completely ignored like this was downright humiliating. “There’s loads of fuckers in the Backstreet who are saner than she is!”
“Fuck you!” you spat as you flailed around, trying to elbow the man in the ribs but he kept you held out of arms reach. Just how did he have such inhumanly long arms anyways? The guy with glasses made a thoughtful noise which drew you attention to in front of you.
“Maybe you can tell us something about L-Corp?” he offered diplomatically, acknowledging your presence. You flushed and immediately dropped your gaze to the ground. There was something about this man that made you feel uneasy apart from triggering your breakdown earlier.
“I-I can’t remember… I get like, these weird flashes sometimes and I see… things.” You said, not sure how else to explain your predicament. It was possible the weird visions that entered your head were something to do with that place but the only solid thing you had from your past was the badge and packet of cigarettes. You ignored the aggressive man repeat the phrase ‘Batshit’ behind you.
“Oh? Did you get one earlier?” The man seemed genuinely curious, and it caught you off guard. Despite this, you still glanced at him suspiciously briefly holding his golden-brown eyes captive with your own.
“Three today… it’s not been a great day. It’s kinda why I threw up on you… still sorry about that.”
Something about your statement made the man’s temperament soften and he chuckled and sheepishly rubbed the back of his head with his human hand. “Hey… it’s fine. Do you mind if we clean your face up a bit, yeah? Then maybe Heathcliff here might ease up with the trash lady talk.”
“Uh… sure? I guess? I’m not a trash lady though…”
“You fuckin’ smell like it.” The man, Heathcliff, snapped irately and immediately you started swinging for the man again even though you couldn’t reach.
“Let go of my hair and say that again! I’ll destroy you!” you hollered before the stocky man intervened and held your arms to the side of your body with little effort.
The man with glasses let out a heavy, drawn-out sigh before dexterously pulling a handkerchief out of his vest pocket. “And I’d just calmed her down as well…” You clenched your (e/c) eyes closed, expecting more rough treatment but were surprised at the gentleness that the man was wiping the grime off your face. You felt the stinging of tears forming… you couldn’t remember a single time you were ever treated with such care.
“Stop… being nice…” you murmured brokenly. “I don’t… deserve it…” You felt the hand pause before it finished cleaning your face as best it could. You felt so exposed and vulnerable like this, even forgetting the other two men for a moment until you heard the clink of a metal chain dangling next to your face.
You reluctantly opened your eyes to find the man with a ponytail checking your badge and face with an almost endearing amount of scrutiny. It was almost as if he was teasing you with how long you were waiting.
“Ah, yeah, it’s you all right... Well… uh, nice to meet ‘cha [Name],” he said, offering his now free hand in a handshake awkwardly while the aggressive one looked at your face with complete disbelief. You even felt his death grip on your hair release. “I’m Gregor, looking forward to working with you,” the spectacled man added.
You beamed and shook Gregor’s hand before flipping the bird at the one called Heathcliff. You blanched when you realised you had forgotten something very important in this exchange.
“Wait... don’t I get a say in whether I accept whatever job you guys are offering?”
“No,” all three of them echoed humourlessly and you let out a resigned sigh.
Just what had you gotten yourself into?
You warily followed behind Heathcliff and Gregor, noting that the only unnamed member of the team was bringing up the rear. You knew it was absolute insanity that you were going with these men voluntarily, but it wasn’t like you had many options. Your memory was shot, and you’d been reduced to scavenging to survive. Any info you’d been able to gather on your own had been threadbare at most and… well, they were looking for you. Surely that means something.
“Um,” you turned around nervously to the eerily silent man behind you. “What’s your name?”
“Mersault,” he replied in his usual low, deadpan voice. Realising he wasn’t going to say anymore, you gave him an awkward smile and went back to your musings.
“Don’t take it personally [Name], he’s er… really not the talkative type.” Gregor offered as a brief explanation for the stoic man’s behaviour as he dropped back to walk in step with you.
“I talk when required.” Simple. You liked him much better than the bat wielding psychopath. When were you going to get an apology for his behaviour?! You shot a glare at the back of Heathcliff’s head.
“He’s a lot more pleasant than your other companion.” Your jibe had the desired effect, you saw a twitch in the lanky man’s shoulder before he let out a short growl and stormed ahead. A click of a lighter alerted you to the fact that had slowed down to walk alongside you. Your nose twitched as a familiar scent of cigarette smoke wafted by.
“Ehh…” The man blew some smoke out in contemplation. “You two just got off on the wrong foot, I think.” You snorted in disbelief. That was the understatement of the century. He called you trash, vermin and who knows what else when you weren’t paying attention!
“I fuckin’ hate her guts,” Heathcliff shouted back, confirming every nasty thought you had of the man to be true.
“Likewise, asshole!”
Gregor let out a huge sigh of resignation before rubbing at his temple with his human hand, cigarette still between his lips. “Hoo boy… can the two of you play nice until we’re back on the bus?” Your temper deflated a bit when you realised you had a bit more information than you had before.
“Bus? Don’t tell me that death machine from before was-”
“Yeah, our ride. Should’ve come out and said hi, rather than get us to send out search parties for you.” Search parties? As in multiple? You shook your head in utter disbelief. You had given up long ago on anyone out there giving a damn about your existence.
“…Why so much effort to find me now?” you asked, genuinely confused.
Gregor shrugged. “Beats me. Your I.D. said you were a Section Commander, though. Not many high-ranking employees made it out of L-Corp supposedly…” You took out the badge, and idly glanced at the back of it.
“…Huh, so it does.”
Your musings were cut short when you walked straight into a firm, muscled back. You were about to kick off at Heathcliff when you noticed the figures standing in front of him. Degenerate looking thugs, clad in all kinds of chains and spikes with leather to finish off their cliché appearance. You would’ve found the look laughable if you hadn’t clocked the large guns in their hands. Oh fuck.
“The girl,” a man with sunglasses with one lens missing and some weird, jagged tattoo on his face, gestured his shotgun towards you. “Hand her over.” You heard Heathcliff take in a short, irritated breath through his teeth but not say a word as he stared down the thugs before him in some kind of alpha, bullshit display of dominance. Heathcliff then barked out a laugh that had some of the thugs visibly flinch at his open hostility.
“Haha, trash lady here? You could fuckin’ rob us blind for literally anything… and you want her?!” You could practically feel the incredulity rolling off your nemesis in waves. Still, he made no move to hand you over which was a relief for the moment. Gregor was silent beside you, a quick glance over your shoulder and you saw the visible unease in his expression… but then, something was off. You realised Mersault was nowhere to be seen. Had he abandoned his co-workers…?
“A girl will get ya a lot in these parts,” the man said with a lecherous grin and laughter echoed behind him. This… this was why you stayed in your dumpster and avoided people. The only way people survived out here was by sacrificing their humanity for scraps to survive. They were monsters wearing human skin. You felt yourself recoil in disgust while your instincts were screaming at you to flee but then you felt the sharp point of something on your back.
“Mate, ya don’t wanna fuck with our boss. He’s got a mean temper.”
“I think we’ll take our chances, if ya don’t mind.”
“Tch,” Heathcliff turned around, ignoring you entirely, and grimaced at Gregor. “We ain’t got many options, have we?”
“No… no, we don’t.”
They were going to hand you over to save their own skins.
All the colour drained from your face at the realisation and the fact the two men were deliberately avoiding making eye contact with you. It hurt. Were you just a helpless bystander now? After whatever you had survived and endured at L-Corp… this was to be your fate? After all the nightmarish visions and the crushing solitude… No.
Your (e/c) gaze hardened, and, in a flash, you reached down and grabbed the butterfly knife from your belt and held it to your own throat. You slowly started stepping backwards, away from the thugs and the two men who looked at you with confused horror.
“I don’t belong to ANY of you assholes,” you yelled, unshed tears welling up in your eyes. “Any one of you gets a step closer and no one gets what they want!” You put pressure on your skin enough to cause a drop of red to slip onto the blade.
“[Name]…” Gregor looked forlorn, his body language stilted as if he was torn between comforting or betraying you. “Please… don’t do anything rash.”
“I’m not going with them.”
“I know.”
“Fuck you,” you spat. “You were going to hand me over.”
“…”
“See, this is why Abnormalities are better than people,” you cried hysterically, words coming out of your mouth before you even realised what you were saying. “They don’t have a concept of right or wrong… they just follow their instincts.”
You felt a strange sensation burn in your chest through to your back as you dropped to your knees, struggling to breathe. The knife at your throat wavered as you saw butterflies float down from the sky around your form. A mixture of black and white filled your vision, before they swirled like a vortex around you. You screamed as you felt an additional pair of arms break through the skin of your back, each hand wielding opposing pistols as the butterflies continued to swirl around you. The ones that landed on your body, merged into a black suit that covered your entire frame.
A voice that was you and not you at the same time, spoke using your mouth.
“I’lL fReE yOuR tRoUbLeD sOuLs… ThErE iS nOtHiNg BuT tHe VoId AfTeR dEaTh.”
Your fingers curled into the shape of a mock gun, which you pointed at the head thug with a manic grin on your face.
Then… you pulled the trigger.
~*~
“I heard another employee died right in front of her.”
“She’s cursed. She must be.”
You tried to keep a neutral stare as you ate whatever slop you had been served in the canteen, wordlessly. You tried to ignore the voices murmuring behind you while you dined alone, but it was so hard to stop listening once your ears had picked up the mention of your name.
“Do… do you think she might be an-”
“Shhh!!” The person didn’t even need to finish what they were saying. You picked it up loud and clear.
Abnormality.
Monster.
That’s what they thought you were.
You abruptly stood up, ignoring your remaining food, and strolled as calmly as you could out the canteen. You didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing how their words affected you. It was only when you reached your personal quarters and locked the mechanical door behind you, you slid your back down the door and broke out into sobs. You pulled out a small glowing pebble from your trouser pocket and stared at it longingly as you remembered your life before the child had chosen you.
Please don't lose it, and don't give it to anyone else.
The child gave you the pebble… he, too, was sad. You had hated the management’s decision to pair you with the child Abnormality at first. Their reasoning was sound; your health screening upon initial employment had revealed that you were infertile, so surely that meant you lacked a maternal instinct. You wouldn’t become overly attached to the Abnormality.
It was true in the beginning, you approached your work stoically and methodically, and ignored the sad child’s questions.
Until one day, you had entered the containment unit and the boy’s face lit up with innocent glee.
I understand now. I know why you won’t be my friend.
‘And why is that?’ The question had slipped out of your lips unbidden.
I am what you can’t have.
The silence in the room had been deafening as the boy’s eyes had stared straight into your soul. You had no idea how the Abnormality had found out. Had he been asking questions about you with the other employees, and someone had let it slip? How had your medical information even have leaked?
“…Yes.”
Be my mummy! The child of the galaxy had begged, and you had felt like you had been punched in the gut.
“N-No!”
Please-! I know how much you hurt! I want to make you happy, mummy!
You had heard the clatter of your clipboard hit the ground, before you had run out of the containment unit and locked the door behind you.
MuMmY .
That word had haunted you ever since.
~*~
There was an agonising pain bursting from your skull as you felt your eyes readjust to your surroundings. You found yourself standing alone in a clearing, still in the Backstreets, but the place was littered with butterflies in either black or white. Loads of bullet casings littered the ground, along with dead butterflies with only one wing… and then, piles. Piles and piles of white butterflies fluttering their wings, bodies with vacant stares and terrified expressions.
“T-01-68… Funeral of the Dead Butterflies,” you murmured to yourself before staring down at your empty hands. Had you done this…? You tried jogging your memory, only to feel pain tug at your heartstrings. You had been upset, a feeling of betrayal… and then, nothing.
“You good?” you heard a familiar voice call out from a nearby hidden spot and you turned around to see a man with a bat, Heathcliff, and Gregor, the owner of the voice, gingerly approach you with extremely wary expressions.
“No!” you yelled in distress, already feeling like you were about to hyperventilate. “Butterflies, Gregor. BUTTERFLIES. I killed people with Butterflies.” Oddly enough, the two of them relaxed as you screeched in horror pointing at all the corpses. “That’s not something people do.”
“You corroded and lost control of… of… Verdammt.” Gregor cursed as he absentmindedly scratched the top of his head with his insect appendage. “What was it that Frau Faust called it in orientation?” You wanted to pay attention, you really did but his voice was starting to sound far away, as if you were sinking underwater, being pulled deeper and deeper into the depths of your mind. …Corroded?
“Fuck knows,” Heathcliff muttered grimly, poking at the nearby corpse with his baseball bat, seemingly unsatisfied that these men were dead. “Ya think I was paying attention to all that shit?” Gregor sighed, resigned, and took a long drag of his cigarette.
“…You’re right. What was I thinking…?” Gregor replied deadpan while you felt the world spin inside your skull. Unable to stave off your weird mental exhaustion any further, you collapsed face first into the dirt.
“H-Hey [Name]!” You felt a hand on your arm, flipping you around so you didn’t suffocate and a panicked look on his weathered face. You wanted terribly to keep your (e/c) eyes open and tell him you were okay, but your body wasn’t responding. Your eyelids felt like anvils, heavy and uncooperative, and not even hearing Gregor’s calling your name a second time, you fell unconscious.
~*~
Scheiße!
Gregor shook your body once more, but you were completely unresponsive. He lent down to rest an ear on your chest and calmed upon hearing your shallow breathing and slow heartbeat. Giving your appearance another once over, he noticed how gaunt your face looked, and wondered how you’d managed to cause so much destruction in such a delicate state. He immediately looked away in shame when his golden-brown eyes registered the dried blood on your neck.
They needed to get you out of here before more goons showed up and they were really fucked.
“Heathcliff… you mind giving me a-” Gregor called out to the other man as he went to hoist you up with his human arm only to see the man glaring, almost an inch away from his face.
“Fuck. no.” The bat wielding psychopath hissed with excessive venom in each syllable. Gregor sighed and wondered how he got the short straw for the search party, before carefully looping his insectile claw around your ankles.
“Come on [Name]… let’s get you back onto the bus.” He said with a resigned gloom, frowning even more when he realised how light and frail you felt in his arms after he had lifted you up. Gregor took one look back at the scene of butterflies, now flying up into the night sky, leaving the death and mud behind. It almost felt like a surreal painting he was a part of, but, somehow in that moment… he felt a sense of peace.
“…Wunderschön…” he said with slight awe before joining Heathcliff on his trek back to the bus.