A Hunter's Blood: The Crimson Contracts
4

Silence, darkness, total deprivation of every sense. The true personification of nothingness. Drakx was immersed, swimming deep in nothingness. The most serene he had ever felt. Was he alive? What was the procedure for dying? If this was it, then he was alright with it. Just as he was beginning to accept the serenity of this eternal sleep, his senses were abruptly assaulted.

An ear piercing mechanical roar rumbled his entire core. Sparks were dancing across his legs, and chest. Some of them found a home on his body. Burning through his clothes, and stinging his skin. He realized that he was lying down, strapped to a conveyor belt. He smelled a sulfuric tinge as the hot air dried, and burned his nose.

He began to remember where he was. There was something different. Something very wrong about this memory. He remembered he was there, but not in that position. He began to realize in horror what was happening just as a figure walked towards him. That figure that slowly positioned himself across the way, leaning on a beam in this metal foundry was...he!

“I see you have awakened, fugitive,” the figure said.

Drakx wanted to tell him that he wasn’t the fugitive.

“I’m NOT Zannon, I’m you! Stand down! You’re going to make a horible mistake!” is what he thought. What he said was,

“You better kill me now, weakling! You bring me in and I will escape and replace you!” Just as Zannon said previously.

Drakx thought, NO! I didn’t say that! Stand down damn it!

“It seems as though we finally agree on something, fugitive,” the figure said. “We both think that I should Erad your ass, but not for the same reason.”

The figure reached for a control panel on the wall.

“Your hate must burn for me. It must hurt to hate that much. This must be the worst point of your life. Well, I don’t feel, anything that emotional towards you. You’re just a paycheck. Tomorrow, I’ll replace another pitiful fugitive that thinks just like you did. His result will be the same.” He began fingering the buttons on the panel.

Drakx knew what he was going to do. He remembered what happened. There was a vat of molten steel above him. He replaced a molding container on the conveyor belt. He was going to drown him in molten steel!

“Listen to me! I am you! Don’t do this!” Drakx yelled only in his mind.

“There are more of my species. We will destroy you,” Drakx said through Zannon’s lips.

“Your species is considered endangered now that I have the Erad contracts. They will all suffer your fate. You were the most powerful one. That’s why I hunted you first. The rest will be easy. Nothing will save your kind from extinction.”

Drakx thought, was I this much of an asshole? Hard to look at yourself from the other side.

“Goodbye, fugitive. You won’t be lonely for long. I’ll send more of your kind.”

The figure pressed a button on the panel. This was it. He remembered that he didn’t make this a quick death. The vat began to tilt towards Drakx/Zannon. The figure quickly tapped the stop button. The vat stopped tilting, but the steel didn’t. The momentum carried it to the brim of the vat. A few drops broke the brim, and fell on Drakx/Zannon’s arm, and chest.

The steel rested with a violent, heavy splat. Both drops slowly began to eat their way through the cloth of his shirt. A smoldering journey to his skin. The heat exploded across those two small spots of his body. He began to feel how angry the steel was. It began to eat away at his flesh. A distinct smell of burned steak found his nostrils. The smell was less than minor when the blinding pain registered in his helpless, trapped mind. He wanted to scream, but Zannon wasn’t going to give that type of release to his executioner. Drakx wanted to scream as loud as his lungs allowed him, but Zannon wouldn’t. He felt like as if he were going to vomit, but someone gagged him, and held his nose just as he was going to. Zannon wouldn’t scream.

The steel was relentless in its journey. As gravity took it, the steel was burning a hole through his arm, and chest. It felt like a slow, scathing bullet making its way through his body. He wouldn’t bleed to death because the molten liquid cauterized the wounds simultaneously, as they created them.

Drakx was desperately stuck, screaming in complete silence.

The figure pulled out a Vaypur Styk. A flavored cigarette like energy stick. He walked over to Drakx/Zannon, and said, “That must hurt more than anyone can imagine. I respect your toughness for not crying like a little bitch.”

The figure flipped the Styk into his mouth. He leaned over Drakx/Zannon, and lit the Styk off of the hole in his singed and burning chest. After he was lit, he stood up, and walked back to the control panel.

“I won’t grovel, beg, or cry for you,” Zannon said calmly as Drakx screamed hysterically trapped within his wounded, but stoic body. “Do what you will, Hunter, but know this. Karma is the unforgiving law of morality. Your cruelty will be repaid to you tenfold. I can withstand your vile actions, but can you?”

At that moment, Drakx became all too aware of those prophetic words Zannon spoke. He realized how darkly, and comically evil irony was. He wanted to cry out. He wanted to apologize to Zannon for the ungodly acts of wrong he had done.

“The figure puffed on the Styk, and looked across to Drakx/Zannon in silence. He leaned on the control panel.

“You done, fugitive?” the figure asked impatiently. “Anymore mystic bullshit you wanna spew at me?”

“Enjoy your Hell. My soul will rejoice when you are drowning in it,” Zannon said with a steady assuredness.

Being stuck inside Zannon’s body was the unbearable beginning to his personal Hell.

“Very powerful words,” the figure said through his puffs. “At least you won’t die like a sniveling little child.”

Zannon, with a silent strength, said, “Shut up and push the button.”

Drakx took a long drag off of his Styk. He placed his finger on the ‘tilt’ button.

“You’re a bad mishap. You shouldn’t have even existed,” the figure began with a somber finality. “You’re an anomaly. A glitch in the system. Well, I fix glitches like you. Time to correct the system.”

Zannon interrupted, “Are you going to talk me to death, or push the button? I am tired of this mundane soliloquy. Finish this!”

The figure became silent. He inhaled his last energy puff, and spoke.

“Very funny, fugitive. I’ll tell your kind how funny you were before I kill them. I hope all of them are this witty before they lose life. But you’re right. Too much talk, not enough of you dying and all.” He pushed the button. The vat began to tilt once more.

Being stuck in a body, feeling all of the pain, was already vicious. Not being able to scream when you so desperately need too is worse. Facing death is enough to tear your sanity apart. Drakx’ thought began to quickly unravel as he was seconds away from death.

It was worse than anyone could have imagined. A study back in the 21st century stated that a body would go into shock before the pain of death took over the mind. It was supposed to be the body’s last protective mechanisms. An E.L.C.A.R.R. condemned person’s brain worked differently. There was no physical damage. The protection didn’t work with a, mind death. They felt everything. There was no shock to lull them to their final rest.

The molten steel splashed across Zannon’s body. His breath froze. He became cold, and felt nothing. His shock protection kicked in. He was falling into a painless nothing. Drakx wasn’t so lucky.

He felt everything. The steel hit, and his breathing froze. He desperately tried to suck in another breath, as the steel began eating away at his skin, and muscle.

He screamed in his mind again, the rapidly charring body didn’t allow him that release. The steel ate away at his throat, lungs, teeth, and eyes. The eyes began to burn away. The body’s other senses became more acute because it lost sight. Feeling became more sensitive. Drakx was awake for all of this. Karmic justice has no favor.

The heart was finally losing the ability to pump blood. The body was burning away to a charred, singed heap of flesh, dying.

The mind was the last to cross. Drakx felt every cell of the body die. He was too strong in mind to escape this extreme event with insanity. He was trapped into feeling it all die around his mind.

The mind finally went. He was through the cycle of death. Drakx was dead.