| abstract | - His body shuddered and convulsed as jolts of pain tore through his muscles. His legs buckled and he fell to his knees. The bare skin scraped raw against the cold floor; he threw his weight on his arms as he gagged back a wave of bile. The pain was all around him. He had nowhere to run, no place to escape the sheer agony that seemed to be ripping him apart from within. The bloody legs came back up, trembling, as he struggled to rise. His head swam from the pain. His left eye felt as if it were about to explode. A fit of coughing nearly knocked him back down, but he threw a hand out and caught himself against the wall. He leaned in place, gasping for breath in between pained whimpers. "You are not resisting the effects," someone said from somewhere above. He didn't have the strength to look up at the speaker. "You must fight this stage on your own, or the stimulants will consume you." Worms. It felt as if there were worms all throughout his body, crawling through his veins in place of blood. His arms couldn't take much more of this. They would burst open, he was sure of it, and then all the worms would come spilling out onto the floor. "You must fight," another voice, deeper than the first, commanded. "We will contain you until your body stabilizes. You are its master, not the other way around. Contain it!" He'd been through this before. He tried to think back, recalling a scratchy bed, tubes sticking in him, this same ripping sensation in his arms and legs. There had been others, people just like him lying all around. The walls had been white, no, blue. Or had they been grey? His stomach lurched, and this time he couldn't hold it down. A wave of half-digested rations splattered on the floor. Warm bile struck his bare feet, but he didn't even have the energy to shy away in disgust. Through blurry eyes in dim light he saw that the grey-tinged puke was laced with bright streaks of red. Blood, he realized distantly. I'm puking up my own blood. "Good, good," the first voice said. "Purge yourself of nutrients. They might get in the way of the stimulants you received. The faster the takeover, the better." "Give your body rest," the second voice advised. "You do not need to resist the stimulants. You need only survive." Survive. The word stirred a new wave of resolve within him. He could do that. He had to do that. I can survive. That's what I do. Survive. His legs failed him again, and this time he didn't even try to catch himself. He collapsed face-first onto the ground. A foul warmth spread up the side of his body where he'd landed in the vomit, but right now all he wanted to do was sleep. His eyelids drooped, fluttered... No! He forced them open. He had to stay awake. He had to fight back. He had to survive. He sucked in deep breaths. His lungs burned like everything else, but he had to keep breathing. His head was full of voices, each one clamoring to be heard over the others. His body spasmed again and he cried out feebly. There was no reply. The room was getting darker, or maybe that was just his eye. No, eyes. He had two of them again now, right? He tried to curl into a ball, but another wave of pain knocked his limbs back out. They splayed feebly out at all sides, unable to move even as fresh jolts ate their way through his body. Nothing to do but lie where he was and wait for it all to end. He just had to keep breathing. That was all there was to it. Just keep breathing. Survive... This pain was necessary. He needed it. It was his friend. His ally. He needed to get stronger. He needed to fight, to hunt. But it hurt so much... He rolled over and tried to slip away inside himself. A better time, a happier time... The dim light brightened, the floor softened, and there was a warmth that ran through his body and chased away the pain. Someone's arm was on his shoulders. A gentle touch caressed his cheek. His eyes fluttered weakly as he stared up into someone's face. The light was too bright; he couldn't make out who it was. "Simon." His name, that was his name. Right? The voice was as familiar to him as the sound of his own, but he just couldn't reach far enough to know who it belonged to. There was tenderness there, tenderness laced with regret and... pity? His lips moved in answer, but no sound came out. He still couldn't make out the face. It loomed over him amid the brightness, radiating with beauty and power that defied his imagination. Who are you? "Mordred." This voice was different, less confident. The face hadn't changed, but the warmth was beginning to fade. His muscles began to burn once more. Twin gunshots tore him back into reality. The warmth, the light, the gentle touch all faded, leaving him alone in the darkness. He groaned feebly, thrashing from left to right as the agony returned. His left hand smacked the ground, its prosthetic metal fingers leaving grooves in the polished floor. He could see a burning keep, its walls kept alight by the fires of his agony. Bodies were all around, warriors, females, children. He saw it all as if he had just seen it yesterday. A place of peace and tranquility burnt to ashes by the will of a single family. That was right. He had a job to do. The roars of furious animals rang in his ears as they tore into rebel flesh. That had felt wonderful then; to do the same to the Vadams now would be just as sweet. And then he could rest. Then he would be free of it all. A weak smile slid over his face as he curled into a ball and let the pain wash over him. Simon, once SPARTAN-G294, once Stray, and now Mordred, fell back into the pain as the darkness closed in around him. Soon he'd be free...
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