heretic

journal wips ( ignore ugliness)

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Entry 17

He didn't scream at first. That was the worst part. Dottore had him strapped to the slab, murmuring numbers under his breath as he adjusted the nouliths hovering above the man's chest. The patient was lucid, sweating, but calm. He still believed this was a treatment. Then the needles slid in. Not into veins, into the soul itself. The man's back arched like a bowstring, his mouth stretched in agony. His eyes — his eyes blackened, veins spreading like spilled ink. Dottore watched, fascinated, as the patient's aether began to unravel before him, siphoned into one of those damned glass vials. I asked, " Why not sedate him fully? " Dottore didn't look up. " Pain is a vital diagnostic tool. " Patient 24 screamed for three days before his voice gave out.

Entry 23

I've begun to notice … irregularities. He never sleeps. I've worked late into the night, returned at dawn, and found him exactly where I left him. Last week, he sliced his palm open on a broken vial. The blood was normal — at first. Then it twisted midair, curling back into the wound like a living thing. He didn’t react. Just kept working. I think something is inside him. No ... I think something is him.

Entry 23

I saw it today. Really saw it. His skin split. Not like a wound. Like a seam. Shadows poured out — no, feathers, black and glistening, unfolding from his sleeves, his collar, the bend of his spine. They weren't attached to anything. Just part of him. The subject he was working on froze and he silenced her with a touch. One feather-tendril pierced her forehead and that was enough. Her body went rigid, then collapsed inward, like a puppet with its strings cut. A moment later, Dottore exhaled, and the feathers slithered back beneath his skin. Then he turned to me and simply said, " Clean this up. "