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balls fish
He woke up groggily. The room he was in smelled like death, but so did he. A poorly-groomed faceling was there too, looking down on him with a grin from a spinny desk chair. He was on some sort of operating table — white matte plastic with a rough texture. The crossed metal bars propping it up creaked and wobbled slightly as he shifted. He saw no surgical equipment, felt no pain, and was still dressed in his regular clothes… though there was some half-clotted blood about.
"Awake at last! Hello, old friend," beamed out the Alchemist.
"Who are you calling old friend?" Dr Bierre replied, incredulous.
"You. And you can get up now… if you want to, I suppose."
After some effort, he managed to slouch his way up without knocking the grimy desk over, working against a sickly stickiness all the while. His posture wasn't so great, but the Alchemist's was far worse yet. The Alchemist now looked up at him.
“I'm not quite sure we're acquainted. Who are you, exactly?”
"Likewise! It's alright, though. Do you want anything to drink?"
"Could I have a—"
"—ah, before you say anything, it's only tea or coffee I'm offering. Anything else I have isn't safe for human consumption."
"Okay then, coffee."
He didn't exactly see where the Alchemist produced the coffee from, but he must have had it on hand. He took a few sips, but the two sat in silence otherwise for the next minute. The Alchemist took a sickle to the ice:
"You have no idea what just happened to you, eh?"
"You'd have to give me a minute to think about it…"
Click.
"Guess."
Click.
"No, just tell me."
Boom!
"Ah, you're no fun. You died, Bierre — dead as a dodo bird. You were actually quite lucky I found you in time, or the smiler wouldn't have left me enough of you to build you back up again."
Bierre didn't flinch. His brain buffered for a moment before speaking up again:
"…are you sure you rebuilt me correctly?"
"Sure I am! Best in the business. Why do you ask?"
"It's foggy. Everything is, really… I couldn't put my finger on it, but I'm sure you know what I mean."
"I do. Well, I'll be back to check on you in a bit, just… rest here. Don't go farther down the hall, you'll probably find something there to kill you."
Despite valiant efforts, Dr Bierre was still awake.
He had some wild notions of getting up and looking around, but his legs were crushed under the weight of his head. His spark had gone, and the curiosity that had previously steered him moved to the back seat.
Indeed, Something had certainly changed, but he couldn't solve it.
Some of the skin on his head felt raw and he could feel a neatly sewn suture streaking across his forehead. Luckily, there wasn't a single mirror about — but he felt it running down and around the back of his cranium. It cleanly sectioned off an entire quarter of his head like a screw-top jar for a brain-hungry zombie.
His skin was paler than usual, but it was dark enough to be excused as a trick of light. He did feel somewhat sickly ever since his revival, so it certainly lined up. Something else lined up, too…
He didn't seem to have a pulse.
…Typical.
The Alchemist opened the door.
"You called?"
He had a glass of some concoction in his hand. It smelled like detergent, but smokier.
"Yes. Three hours ago, in fact."
"Like you can keep time in here! It was only ten minutes ago, and I was doing something very important.
"Oh? And what's that?"
The Alchemist took a sip of his drink.
"Television. Now what is it you were after?"
Bierre scoffed.
"I knew something was wrong about this botched necromancy! My heart – it isn't beating! Your operation was far from a success in my book."
The Alchemist went to drink again, but his cup was empty.
"Let me tell you about the human soul."
Dr Bierre found himself spilt among gray-green grass, wet like after rain. The sky was overcast, and no sun shined through. Downhill, a river of colourless water meandered into some bleak and featureless city.
Behind him was a vast river with no ripples or waves to crash into the dense forest on the other side. Two cliffs encircled a sword.
Surely it wasn't that sword, was it?
"Do you have any phobias, Bierre?"
He did, in fact, have some phobias. As a child, he would avoid turning up rocks because of the woodlice he'd find underneath. And millipedes. And centipedes. Outdoor spiders too, worst of all; they were skittish — far too skittish — and rattled his lizard brain in a way little came close to. He wouldn't have lasted a day in the outback, that's for sure. He thought they'd skitter on up his arm, through his sleeves, and up into his ears. In fairness, they'd certainly fit — and in further fairness, if one daring bug tried, there would have been no stopping it.
"Arachnophobia, yes."
"Classic. Ever tried exposure therapy? It's fun!"
"No, absolutely not."
Alfred walked down the hall, but Bierre stayed put. Sitting in his chair, he knew what was coming, and felt a creeping dread in his chest… but not because he was scared of spiders. Before he knew it, Alfred returned with what he'd been looking for.
A jar of some viscous clear liquid was smacked down on the table in front of Bierre, who didn't flinch. He merely stared. He was staring at a large arachnid in the jar, one he'd seen before. Twitching and shifting around in the transparent slime, a live picture on display as if in a museum. His expression betrayed nothing.
Inside, dread was engulphing him. It really wasn't because he was scared of spiders. It was because he wasn't.
"What, nothing?"
"What were you expecting?"
"You said you were an Arachnophobe, Bierre. Yet here you are, face to face with Daddy Longlegs. Thicklegs, too, and he's massive. Checks all the boxes. But how do you feel?"
"I'm not sure what it is about it, but I'm just not scared. I'm never this composed around a nguithr'xurh."
"Well you aren't full of surprises, that's for sure. My hypothesis was right."
End of Part 1.