Victor pulls a pair of scissors from inside his coat and calmly cuts through the strings restraining him.
"You see, little girl, your first mistake was attacking me. Your second… was thinking there wouldn't be consequences," he says with a manic glint in his eye, stepping forward.
He grips the yo-yo still stabbed into his left shoulder and yanks it out without flinching. The blood trickles down his sleeve as he rolls it up, revealing a long, crudely sewn stitch—now torn.
"You just had to stab me right through one of my stitches. You realize I sew these myself every two weeks, right?"
"..."
"No answer? Oh, right—you're a bit preoccupied," Victor smirks.
Isabella is twitching on the floor, her limbs trembling as the flesh on her arms and legs slowly erodes, revealing bone beneath the shredded muscle.
"What the hell did you do to me?!" she screams in agony.
"Ohhh, I'm so glad you asked, little girl!" Victor exclaims, blushing with excitement. "What's gnawing your limbs into half-eaten chicken bones are my parasites."
He crouches beside her, eyes wide with twisted joy.
"In our squad, we've got this tech girl—antisocial freak, doesn't know the meaning of the word 'friend.' Her closest companions? Roaches. That inspired me. The way they live inside her bandages so naturally… it sparked an idea. An experiment I started 22 years ago!"
Isabella's teeth grit as tears welled in her eyes.
"Aww, don't cry yet—I haven't even gotten to the good part. I wanted to insert parasites into the body. Make them eat dead or defective cells before the body even has a chance to naturally get rid of them. Think of it—no scarring, no blemishes, not even wrinkles. Eternal purity."
He begins to pace, arms gesturing theatrically.
"First, I kidnapped some live victims—only the worst kinds, of course. Drug pushers, rapists, politicians—your typical trash. Sadly, none had the pizzazz required for such a refined experiment. So I moved on. I bred the parasites, spliced them, trained the newborns. Showed them exactly what I wanted: seek out bad cells, and eat them. Then their offspring did the same. And the next. And the next. Generations of perfection, all trained to recognize me as their parent."
Victor taps one of the stitches on his arm.
"Each of these marks a nest. I cut open different parts of my body and let them live inside—eating bad cells the moment they appear. It's a self-cleaning system. Revolutionary. And you, you dumb little girl, cut open one of the nests with your toy. Which means…"
He kneels, looking Isabella dead in the eye.
"You released every single parasite from my left arm all at once. And guess what? Tomorrow was the day I was supposed to flush out the old batch. That means the little bastards in you right now? They're overgrown, overdue, and very, very hungry."
Victor examines her body—her arms now reduced to bloodied bone, strips of meat dangling like wet paper.
"Hmm. Magnificent. The fact you're still conscious is... impressive. Maybe you do belong in the Echelon Four. Congratulations.
"Parasites—stop chewing. I want to finish this personally."
Isabella gasps for breath as the invisible chewing stops. She exhales in relief—then glares up at Victor with fury.
"Why?! Why the hell would you install parasites in your own body?! That's the most insane, unhealthy thing I've ever heard!"
"Yes! Yes! You're right! But you're not seeing the vision, girl!" Victor laughs as he raises the scissors. "I did it all for one simple reason."
"Wh—ahhh!"
Victor drives the scissors into her stomach and begins cutting.
"Ah, sorry! I just need to harvest your organs as I talk. Feel free to scream—it helps me focus."
Isabella wails in agony, thrashing the stumps of her limbs as Victor slices through her stomach.
"Hehehe. What a little worm. But thank you for listening.
So—my reason? It's simple: I'm chasing immortality."
He grips her large intestine and begins sawing it into chunks.
"AHHH!"
"Humanity has walked on the moon! Hunted the fiercest beasts! Cured cancer—well, mostly. But immortality? That's the one puzzle we've never solved. The feeling of death is something we still fear!"
Victor slams a bloody wrench into her liver.
"AHHH! PLEASE! PLEASE STOP!"
"Ohhh, you're begging already? Tsk tsk. Weak!" he snarls, twisting the wrench deeper.
Blood sprays across his face. He giggles.
"Doctor. Surgeon. Artist. Athlete. Doesn't matter who. Everyone thinks about immortality eventually. But nobody has the spine, the pride, the intellect to go this far!"
Victor cuts out a lung and holds it up like a prize, laughing.
"I, Victor Harrow, will do the impossible. And I don't give a damn how many freakish experiments I need to do to—oh."
He pauses, blinking.
"...You're dead."
He drops the lung.
Victor casually continues carving, dissecting her like a frog in a lab. Eventually, he stands.
"Alright, goody! Got some new organs to take home."
He looks around the room, considering hiding spots.
Pulling a hand to his ear, he taps his earpiece.
"Communications are still down… but if this girl was Echelon Four material? I'm sure the rest of the squad will deal with the others just fine. Hahaha."