The sterile white walls of the Finnish medical facility felt like a fresh kind of prison. The air inside this place carried no scent of the ocean or the humid rot of the jungle.
It smelled of cold ozone and industrial grade antiseptic. Lifeless sat on a stool made of brushed aluminum, his heavy muscles feeling out of place in such a delicate environment. He had agreed to stay in this hospital to get his DNA checked, driven by a desperate hope that his unique biology could give electricity to people who needed it. He wanted his suffering to mean something. He wanted the current that had been tortured into his bones to become a gift for this new, beautiful world.
A lead scientist entered the room, clutching a tablet with a trembling hand. The man looked at Lifeless with a mixture of clinical fascination and deep seated fear. He cleared his throat, the sound echoing in the silent, high tech chamber.
"We have the results," the scientist began, his voice thin. "Your DNA is ninety nine percent human. We expected that. However, the other one percent is a massive anomaly. It is parrot DNA."
Lifeless felt the world tilt on its axis. He was shocked himself, his mind reeling as he tried to process the absurdity of the statement. He was so confused that he has a DNA of an animal. He thought of his strength, his speed, and the raw power of the white current. He searched his memories for any sign of bird like traits, but he found only the scars of his slavery and the weight of the mountain he had lifted.
"You are an alien," the scientist spoke, his tone becoming cold and distant. "This biological makeup is impossible by any earthly standard of evolution. We can't inject your blood to anyone. It would be like trying to fuel a car with liquid lightning and bird feathers. You are a biological hazard."
Lifeless walked out of the lab, his head spinning. He felt a profound sense of isolation that eclipsed even the lonely days on the ice floe. He had never known that he had DNA of a parrot. The word alien felt like a brand on his skin. He was suspicious that he is really an alien, wondering if the tormentors who raised him had stitched him together in a vat using the genes of colorful birds and cosmic energy. The thought made him feel like a freak, a mockery of the human form he had tried so hard to perfect.
He wandered through the glass corridors until he reached the high security recovery wing. He saw Jarvis waking up in a luxury suite, the boy propped up against pillows of Egyptian cotton. Lifeless felt a surge of relief and ran to him, his heavy boots thudding against the polished floor.
"Jarvis! You are awake. I was so worried about the shark," Lifeless started, but he stopped when he saw the look in the other boy's eyes.
Jarvis did not look relieved. He looked disgusted. He sat up, his movements sharp and controlled, showing none of the weakness he had displayed on the raft.
"How are you an alien?" Jarvis said, his voice dripping with an unexpected anger.
"What do you mean? I just found out myself. The scientists said my DNA is weird," Lifeless responded, his heart sinking.
"Trying to get the attention you have never had? Well, yeah, I think I know why you are not qualified," Jarvis snapped, his eyes narrowed into icy slits.
"Qualified for what? Jarvis, what are you talking about?" Lifeless said, his confusion turning into a cold dread.
"All those things we did together were in the script," Jarvis said, his voice devoid of any warmth. "The island. The anaconda. The building of the manor. It was a script that I made. I am the lead scientist here in Finland. You are strong enough, Lifeless, but you are not wise. You are a blunt instrument that I needed to calibrate."
The revelation hit Lifeless harder than the strike of the divine megalodon. The friendship, the shared labor, the nights of talking about their pasts, it had all been a lie. He had been a rat in a maze, and the person he trusted most was the one holding the stopwatch.
"I was never even raised good enough," Lifeless cried, the tears finally breaking through his stoic mask.
"Everyone hated me. How the hell do you think I will not lie to get some love and attention? Every person I ever loved dies. Even when I loved someone and he failed to die, it was you. If anyone I love has a fate of death, I will cleave that fate! I would have died for you, Jarvis!"
He fell to his knees, his sobs racking his hyper dense frame. He had cleaved his way through monsters and gods to save a boy who was actually his jailer. The injustice of it felt like a physical weight, a mountain of iron pressing down on his soul.
"Your parents are not dead," Jarvis said as he got out of his bed, his movements graceful and predatory.
"They are locked inside their own current. They are trapped in a dimensional pocket of their own making. You can break in, but you will have to find out yourself. We are done with the island phase. We will provide intense training and a luxury environment as hospitality while we observe your further evolution."
"We are the same age," Lifeless said, his voice a broken rasp. "We could have been friends. You have the same interests. We like the same music, the same style. Why did it have to be a test?"
"I am young but I am far from dumb," Jarvis replied, walking toward the door without looking back. "Friendship is a variable that complicates the data. You are a project, Lifeless. Nothing more."
The door clicked shut, leaving Lifeless alone in the luxury suite. He looked around at the expensive furniture and the high end technology. It all felt like trash. He hated the soft bed. He hated the clean air. He hated the people who were now recording him on their phones outside the window. He was a popular alien to them, a circus act for the masses to enjoy.
Depression settled over him like a thick, black shroud. He spent three days staring at the wall, refusing to eat the gourmet meals they brought him. He felt a hatred for humanity beginning to fester in his chest, a dark and oily current that was far more powerful than the red or white energy he had used before. He realized that love was a weakness that the world used to trap him. If he wanted to save his parents and survive this new prison, he had to become a monster.
He demanded the most intense training the facility could offer. He wanted to feel pain. He wanted to drown out the sound of his own heart.
They took him to a reinforced training hall deep underground. In the center of the room hung a four hundred kilogram metal punching bag, a solid cylinder of lead and steel suspended by chains as thick as his waist. Lifeless approached the bag with dead eyes. He wrapped his knuckles in heavy wire and began punching the metal bare handed. He did not use his current. He used only the raw, physical force of his hatred.
The sound of his fists hitting the metal echoed through the facility like a series of explosions. He struck the bag until the lead began to deform. He struck it until the skin on his knuckles was gone and the white of his bone was visible. He did not stop. He welcomed the agony. He punched until the chains snapped and the four hundred kilogram mass flew across the room, embedding itself in the reinforced concrete wall.
He fought people in a ring every afternoon. The military sent their elite hand to hand combat specialists, men who had spent decades mastering the arts of killing. Lifeless ignored his current and learned how to fight correctly. He learned the geometry of the human body. He learned how to snap a neck with a flick of his wrist and how to shatter a kneecap with a precision kick. He was brutal and efficient. He never smiled. He never showed mercy. He treated his opponents like the trees he had once destroyed on the island.
His physical training exceeded the boundaries of human possibility. He performed push ups with tanks on his back, the massive armored vehicles weighing dozens of tons. He felt the metal treads pressing into his spine, the weight threatening to crush his lungs. He pushed upward, his muscles screaming and his veins bulging like ropes. He did hundreds of repetitions, the floor beneath him cracking under the concentrated pressure. He ran through simulated environments where the gravity was increased by tenfold, his feet leaving craters in the floor as he reached speeds that blurred the vision of the cameras.
Lifeless devolved emotionally with every passing day. The boy who had cried for his friend was gone. In his place was a creature of cold calculation and silent rage. He stopped speaking to the staff. He ignored the news reports that called him the Alien King. He focused entirely on the sensation of his own power growing. He felt the dimension where his parents were trapped, a faint vibration in the air that only he could sense.
He knew that Jarvis was watching him from behind the one way glass. He knew that the scientists were measuring his every heartbeat. He let them watch. He wanted them to see what they had created. He was no longer a slave of divinity or a student of the ice. He was a force of nature that was learning how to cleave the very fabric of reality.
One night, as he sat in the center of the training hall surrounded by the wreckage of his labor, he looked at his scarred hands. The obsidian was gone, replaced by a layer of callous and scar tissue that was as hard as the metal he punched. He thought of the parrot DNA, the one percent of him that made him an alien. He realized that the parrot was a mimic. It learned the voices of others to survive. He had spent his life mimicking the strength of his tormentors and the kindness of Norris. Now, he would mimic the cold indifference of the world that had betrayed him.
He stood up, the air around him beginning to hum with a dark, violet current he had never felt before. The fate of death that followed him was no longer a curse. It was a weapon. He would find his parents, and he would burn the script that Jarvis had written. The training was over. The hunt for the truth was about to begin. Finland would be the first place to feel the weight of his new power, and he would not stop until the world understood that some fates were never meant to be cleaved, they were meant to be shattered.