The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead, their sickly glow painting the sterile lab in pale hues. Rows of glass partitions held men and women who were once human, now little more than broken shells confined in their plastic prisons. Some wept. Some laughed. Some simply stared, hollow-eyed, at the walls.
Near the center of the lab, three scientists huddled together over a clipboard. Their voices were hushed but carried across the room, sharp against the silence.
"It doesn't make sense," one muttered, tapping the clipboard. "The body should show degradation. Scarring, at least. But there's nothing. No physical evidence of trauma despite the repeated trials."
"Repeated trials," another echoed dryly, adjusting his glasses. "You mean mutilation. Flayed alive, dismembered, set on fire. And every time," He shook his head. "Not a single mark remains. He heals perfectly. Like time itself refuses to touch him."
The third, a woman with a smirk curving her lips, leaned in closer. "Perfectly," she repeated, voice almost wistful. "Even his face. Smooth, clean… unspoiled." She let her tongue trace her teeth before adding, with no shame, "The things I'd do to him… countless. Imagine what he could endure."
Her colleagues stared at her, unsettled, but neither spoke. They were used to this place corroding moral boundaries. Murkoff did that to people.
On the steel table before them lay the subject. Strapped down at wrists, ankles, and throat, his body was motionless, his chest rising and falling in a calm, mechanical rhythm. The name tag bolted to the table was simple, clinical.
ELIAS VEIL.
For a long moment, he didn't stir. He might have been a corpse if not for the steady breath. Then, slowly, deliberately, his head turned. His eyes opened dark, sharp, and aware, and drifted toward the glass cells that lined the room.
He saw them. The others. The forgotten.
One man sat slouched in a chair, trembling as a scientist hovered over him. Without warning, the scientist slapped him hard across the face. Blood trickled from the man's ear. The scientist's lips curved into something unholy. He bent down and dragged his tongue across the wound, savoring the taste before scurrying away as alarms suddenly blared through the complex.
The man in the chair twitched at the violation, but his eyes burned with the faint light of resistance.
Elias's gaze lingered on him. Something deep inside stirred, though his face remained blank, his rage contained, boiling silently beneath his skin.
Then everything went dark.
The alarms faded. The distant screams of guards and inmates rose, echoing through the labyrinth of steel and glass. Elias lay still, staring at the ceiling above him. In the darkness, a shape drifted into view.
A face. Pale, translucent, hovering.
The Wallrider.
Elias met its gaze without fear. "Billy," he whispered, the name rolling off his tongue like a weary acknowledgment. The entity hovered for a moment longer, tilting its head as if considering him. Then, almost with a strange respect, it severed his restraints with a pulse of unseen force before vanishing into the void.
The silence didn't last.
The lab doors slammed open, rattling against the walls. A figure stumbled inside—a deformed inmate, eyes wide and mouth split in a jagged grin. His voice came in a broken murmur, words tumbling over one another.
"Another one got away, but you won't. No, no… I'll make you purr. I'll show you… show you what I can do."
He shuffled closer, twitching with fevered anticipation. Spittle ran from his lips, his hands shaking as they reached for Elias's face.
Elias didn't move until the man was inches away, mumbling to himself. Then, in one swift, precise motion, Elias's hand shot out, clamping around his jaw. With a sickening crack, he twisted—snapping the inmate's neck like brittle wood. The body dropped to the floor in silence.
Elias sat up, the restraints falling away from his limbs. His expression was calm, unreadable, but in his eyes something burned hot and violent.
Rage.
He slid off the table, boots touching the cold tile. Around him, chaos tore through the facility. Screams, alarms, blood against the walls. Elias Veil walked forward slowly, calmly, the storm inside him simmering, patient.
He wasn't rushing. He didn't need to. Murkoff had given him eternity.
And eternity was enough time to burn it all down.