Tainted Blood (Lovecraft inspired superpowers in a authoritarian state)

[Z75]

This is, in fact, a story written by me without commissioner prompting. That means I am allowed to meander towards and poke around with whatever random thing I want to. That means lots of worldbuilding, story, and the espionage/action blend I'm addicted to.

Broad warning here, and never again because if I put warnings before every time something happens, then there's no surprise. There is lots of violence and body horror shit here- mainly from a big "realistic" think about what shapeshifting powers would look like.

Also no smut. Well. Maybe a little. Not yet at least. It- You know, it really depends on what the audience wants later on. But you don't know what you want yet, you don't know because you're not the audience yet, because you haven't even read chapter one!

-Tainted Blood-

-Arc Start: Drowning on Land-

-Drowning on Land: Ch1-
​

Dear loyal citizen.

You have proven that you're hungry for more in life, that you have the drive to improve yourself, and the will to contribute to society's Progress.

You have proven that you are proud to be a member of the Federation, and the Federation is proud to give you the opportunity you have fought for.

Attached to this letter is your very own C03 citizenship ID. Be aware, this pass is temporary in nature and dependent on your attendance to Alavon University. It will expire if not renewed within one year's time, and can only be renewed four times.

Full C-class citizenship will be granted upon graduation, along with a generous one time payment to help you get on your feet. We have high hopes for you.

Pro Progressus!

The handwritten letter came on a finely pressed piece of paper, and attached on the back was something worth far more than its weight in gold.

A crisp, clean, and freshly minted C03 ID. While it wasn't technically a real C-class citizen ID, the only difference between a C03 and a C01, was that a C03 didn't give the right to buy land, and could be revoked by law enforcement rather than exclusively just the court system.

Other than that, it was the same legal protections, same district access permissions, same healthcare and insurance benefits…

Chloe held the slim metal card up, the light gleaming as it reflected off the picture of her face and the golden electronic chip embedded under the photo.

"Heheh." Chloe giggled dumbly, in a disbelieving sort of way. "Heheheheh."

She kept giggling as she flopped back on her sheetless mattress, and rolled around like an idiot with her new ID clutched tightly to her chest. This moment was a lot less dramatic than it had always been in her dreams, but she couldn't really bring herself to care.

She had it! She was a citizen! A real citizen! All those years of stupid qualifying tests, morality screenings, and mental assessments had finally finally paid off! And thank God for it, she honestly wasn't sure what she would have done if this plan had fallen through. It would have made all the years she's spent studying and reading textbooks, instead of getting a second job, a complete waste of time.

Speaking of jobs, she had a very condescending and smug resignation email to send to her boss after she packed.

But that could wait for later. This was her special moment, for herself and no one else.

With a big goofy grin she held her new ID up above her face, and just took a moment to stare at it.

Name: Chloe Smithson

Age: 21

Height: 5 feet 10 inches

BirthID: GF-482342-568

A picture of herself stared back, with long unkept brown hair, an ill fitting dress, and deep circles under her green eyes that stood out like a sore thumb against her pale skin.

The her in the photo looked so drained, and miserable. It was her back when she hadn't been certain that the countless all nighters, and all the stress, and all the effort would actually amount to anything.

But it had amounted to something, and just the realization of that had tears welling in her eyes. With a squeal of glee, Chloe jumped up off her mattress on the floor, and to her feet.

Her room was small, really more of a large closet than a room, with only enough space for a small dresser, a plastic storage box, her mattress on the floor, and some posters pinned to the walls. This size was what allowed her to go from on her mattress to the hallway in a single leap.

She ran down a hallway so short it barely qualified as a hallway, threw open the bent door at the end of it, and rushed out into the main room of her home, which had been repurposed to act as the front of a small shop.

The front room was full of hanging racks of ruined clothes that had been patched back together, and boxes of string and thread. A sign was propped up on the wall, an older version of the one hanging outside, that said:

JIM'S SECONDHAND CLOTHES AND CLOTHING REPAIRS

Jim was a massive hulking man with arms the size of tree trunks and a body muscle mass that was more muscle than mass.

He was wearing a sleeveless shirt that showed off his enormous biceps, the snake tattoos that ran all the way from his shoulders to his wrists, and his scars. So many scars. You would be hard pressed to find a spot where you could draw a straight line without hitting an old knife wound, a burn, or a bullet entry/exit point.

His hands were as massive as he was. They could wrap around a man's entire head. They were calloused, and covered with the same scars as his arms- His left hand specifically was half discolored from a horrendous burn in the past, and was missing his pinky finger.

They were old hands, well worn from lots of use.

They were hands that had hurt people. A lot of people.

He was hunched over the desk with the tiniest of needles pinched between his meaty fingers, as he carefully stitched a damaged shirt back together.

But when he heard Chloe run down the hall he looked up at her with thick bushy eyebrows and soft blue eyes.

"Dad! Dad! I did it! I really did it! Look, look!" She said as she skidded to a stop in front of him in her socks, with a giddy look on her face. She held up her ID to him, almost bouncing on her feet as she did so.

"That's amazing, Sunshine. You deserve it."

Because what else was he supposed to say? How was he supposed to express the tangle of emotions in his chest, for his daughter to reclaim something so important that his own arrogance had stripped from her before she was even born.

"I'm proud of you." He said with a small smile, and a sad look of pride in his eyes.

"I'm proud of myself too! Eeek! I'm so happy!"

"I guess that means you got accepted into that university then? No more small town slums for my daughter."

"Yup! I got in! The letter says it starts in a week, so I have to get packing before I leave the district…" Chloe trailed off as she realized something. "Ohmygosh! I have an ID! I can leave the district!"

She turned to rush off, but yelped as a meaty hand grabbed her by the collar and gently tugged her backwards into a bear hug.

"Daaad." She whined. "C'mon, I gotta go."

"Let your old man have a moment with his daughter before she leaves him."

"I still have a week with you, you old lug." She mumbled into his shoulder as she returned the hug. "And you're acting like I won't ever come back to see you."

"You shouldn't." He said softly.

"I will."

"It's safer over there."

"I'm always safe with you, dummy."

-Tainted Blood-
​

The dumping grounds turned into a special type of unpleasant place as the sun set, which was to be expected of an entire district full of D-class citizens.

Chloe made her way through the dirty, trash filled, back roads and alleyways of the D-class district. Shacks leaned into one another like drunkards trying to stay upright. Some had walls patched together from mismatched sheet metal, old rotting wood, or whatever else the owners managed to salvage. Others looked as if a strong wind might send them collapsing over like rusty dominoes.

She kept her head down, and the hood of her jacket low as she made her way towards the one and only sign of REAL civilization in this trash heap- the roads.

The four massive roads that crossed the D-district were the only piece of infrastructure that the government put the effort into maintaining. Six lanes across of smooth asphalt, with large sidewalks on either side, all well lit with tall symmetrical metal street lights.

They were so large that they were practically impossible for any protest to barricade, and they were perfectly maintained because-

WEEEOUP!

The D-class civilians that were walking along the sidewalks flinched back at the loud sound of the siren, and ducked away as a patrol of four armored vehicles drove down the street.

-everything that the police used was kept in perfect working order.

They were eight-wheeled armored vehicles with chunky, almost boxy silhouettes. They sat relatively high off the ground, supported by four large wheels on each side. Their hulls were angular and thickly armored, painted a dull gray, with sloped panels designed to help deflect small-arms fire.

The back of the vehicles had a hatch with a soldier's upper half poking out. Two of the vehicles had men operating spotlights, the other two had machinegun turrets.

Unlike the other D-Class citizens, Chloe didn't cower as the convoy drove past, instead she pulled her hood off, held her head high, and smiled. She wasn't set to be a D-Class much longer.

Chloe followed the wide open sidewalk, walking past open aired shops and carts that were trying to pawn off salvaged goods and recycled scrap, and headed towards the north end of the district.

A towering concrete wall slowly came into view, 25 feet tall, seven feet thick, with spotlights, cameras, and lookout posts dotted in measured intervals along its length.

The wall circled all the way around the entire D-Class district, separating it from the rest of the word, not entirely unlike a prison. Which, it kind of was.

The D-Class citizens might have served their sentence for whatever got them demoted to that rank, but, well, if a man murdered someone once before, why would you ever take the risk of putting him back with the rest of society?

No, it was better for the chaff to be separated from the good grain, so that the bread does not get ruined.

That's what she had been taught in school, from a very young age, and she didn't see anything wrong with that logic. Don't let the rot spread.

And sure, a lot of people were born as D-class because that's what their parents were, but considering that they were being raised by the types of criminals bad enough to be stripped of most of their civil rights in the first place, most of them weren't that much better.

If someone didn't deserve to be here then they would rise above expectations and earn their way out- like she had.

The type of people who said otherwise and complained about it were the ones that deserved to be here, that's what her teachers told her, that's what the guards around her school told her, and that's what her father told her.

Her speed picked up and her smile widened as she approached the police checkpoint at the bottom of the wall.

This wall had been the edge of her world since the day she had been born. She knew about the world beyond it, obviously, from school, books, media, and government broadcasts, but she had never seen it herself.

That changed today.

She skipped past the vehicles from the few companies that were willing to lower themselves to business with D-class, that were waiting in line to be inspected, and stepped into the line for people which was completely empty.

"Halt!"

Two men wearing the gray and white kevlar uniforms of the security forces stepped into her way, their hands hovering on their belts above the holster for their pistol and stun baton.

"Not a step further. Show an ID now or get lost."

"Of course, sir." Chloe fished her ratty excuse of a wallet out of her pocket, and handed over her card with a smile. She was practically beaming at the opportunity to use her sparkling new ID.

The guard took it, gave it a look over to make sure it wasn't an obvious fraud, then turned to walk back towards the checkpoint. He stepped up to the booth, and bent slightly to slide the ID through a narrow slot beneath the plastic screen.

Inside, the uniformed woman looked up from her monitor, grabbed it with a gloved hand, scanned the metal chip embedded in the card, then handed it back with a small nod. "She checks out."

"But we've already accounted for everyone who entered today, 34 in and 35 out? That doesn't make any sense. And she doesn't look like an aid worker to me."

"C03." The woman said bluntly.

The guard scowled and handed the ID back to Chloe with a disgusted sneer.

"You can go through, but at least wipe your feet before you leave, so that you don't drag anymore of your filth through than what's absolutely necessary."

"Of course, sir! Thank you sir!"

The guards watched her go with narrowed eyes, but let her pass without issue. They could manually check all the info on her card; everything they could ever want was on it, from birth date to blood type and birth number, but the system said she could go, and the system was never wrong.

"They're giving out way too many C03s this year." She heard one of the guards say behind her.

"They solved 80% of all violent crime across the commonwealths, and it's like they want to undo all of that!"

"Guys, come on, the program only gives those out to kids. And only to kids who have gone through a rigorous process to prove they have good moral values, and a sense of patriotism."

"Kids who were born and raised by criminals, you mean. I don't see how anyone feels safe sending their children to that university."

-Tainted Blood-
​

Beyond the wall was… strange. There was a different feeling to it that took her a moment to place. Everything was so wide open, and completely different to the claustrophobic walkways she'd grown up in. It was like the main roads, but everywhere.

It was chilly, with a strong wind blowing through.

She felt exposed.

The immediate area past the gate was a massive compound for the guards, with garages for patrol vehicles, a firing range, and a number of barracks for anyone who wanted to sleep on site.

Beyond that was some kind of industrial district, with a sea of machinery stretching as far as her eyes could see, lazily billowing out the stacks of black and white smog that had been a part of her skyline for her entire life. Seeing them in action was like finding the point a rainbow touched down on the ground- it just didn't feel real.

Not really knowing what to do, Chloe followed some factory workers (presumably fresh off their shift) down a wide flight of concrete stairs and into a subway.

She looked around in awe at just how clean the place was for something entirely underground. The tiles on the floor were white- and not the grimy piss yellow "white" that white things tended to become in the D-district, but actual proper white. And more than that, they stretched out in every direction without a single crack or stain on them.

A digital sign glowed above her: Track 47-Maglev to North Spire-Departing in 00:07:27

And when the sign counted down to zero, the train sighed in a few seconds early, and popped its doors open with a gentle hiss. No graffiti, no knife scars, no piss in the corners, or empty needles. When she stepped on, it was just rows of empty, well cleaned seats.

She barked out a short bewildered laugh of near disbelief at it all. In the slums they had two trams that barely worked, and they came when the driver felt like it, usually an hour late and leaking oil.

Chloe picked a window seat, and sank down into the seat made out of real leather- not splintered plastic. The train eased forward without a jolt, so smoothly that it took Chloe a few seconds to realize they were moving, even though she was looking out the window. Outside tunnels lit with soft amber bulbs raced by, and she realized that there wasn't a single bulb out or flickering.

She pressed her forehead to the cool glass and felt something inside her chest crack open- something between terror, excitement, and disbelief.

All her life she'd been told by people jealous of her that that this would never happen, that she wasn't good enough, that the world ended at the barricades for anyone born in the dumping grounds.

She'd fought her whole life for this, and now that it was happening, she didn't know what to expect.

…

Ding~

"Our next stop is [North Spire Station]. We will be arriving in T Minus [23 minutes]. Please don't forget to take your personal belongings with you when you exit. And remember, littering or defacing public property is a crime."

An artificial female voice announced over the speaker.

Chloe smiled until her face hurt, then smiled some more, because no one here would beat her for it.

-Tainted Blood-
​

As she was walking up the steps out of the subway, it was the air that hit her first. Before she even saw the capital city of Commonwealth 1, her expectations had already been met and then some.

It was clean.

There was no diesel haze, or faint sulfuric sting, or sour reek of overflowing sewers. No it was just cool, clean nothing.

And when she finally crested the last stair, her jaw dropped.

As the sun sank toward the horizon, its warm orange glow reflected off towering skyscrapers that stretched so high they vanished into the clouds above. Their glass and steel sides caught the sunset's colors, scattering it across the skyline. Raised walkways connected between the largest of the buildings like spiderwebs.

Crowds pushed along every street and pathway, more humans than she'd ever known existed moving in such volume that they seemed to flow like a liquid.

Holographic advertisements illuminated the air as the daylight faded. Some were small, such as a stylized cat that chased a can of fish around a lamppost. Others were much larger, with the biggest one being a woman in a tight officer uniform that leaned up against the side of a building.

On the ground level there were smooth asphalt roads for cars, a raised bike lane on either side, and a railed sidewalk to prevent any sports balls from bouncing out into the street with a child chasing after it.

There were fewer cars on the roads than you would expect of such a large city, but that was the result of the train lines and frequent bus stops taking a lot of the strain of mass transport. The bike infrastructure helped as well, but to a lesser extent, as it was really only good for short distances and mainly used for exercise.

Ahead of her, a large bus pulled into a side stop to let off passengers, and it took a few seconds for Chloe to remember that she could get on herself if she wanted. She had an ID, and public transport was free for all citizens of C rank and up.

She debated it for a few seconds before deciding not to- she might not get a window seat, and she didn't want to miss anything.

She passed the sign for the public bus network, giving it a passing read as she went:

"Ride with purpose. Ride with pride. Ride for Progress! The Unified Transport Line: One direction. One people."

It was all so amazing- and just like the air it was all clean.

No litter, no gum under the benches, no beggars on the corners.

She was amazed that they managed it without having guards on every corner. There were guards, don't get her wrong, she could see one patrol out and about already, but you would need an army of enforcers to get the D-district to even begin to act this organized.

I mean, just look at the storefronts! Dozens of businesses, and restaurants had their doors open all up and down the street. They had glass windows, those would have been shattered in hours if not in minutes back home. And the stores just had items… out on shelves! The few that would open locations in the D-district had everything locked behind screens, or in little plastic lock boxes, to prevent shoplifting.

It was (she was going to overuse this word to the point it stopped meaning anything) amazing!

In her mind it was just confirmation for the line that had been hammered into her head since she was a kid. D-class citizens are inherently more violent, more prone to crime, and less civilized than the rest of society. They made the dumping grounds into what it was today, without any assistance from anyone else, and they deserve what they have brought upon themselves.

She passed a wall of digital screens that fed her more advertisements as she passed by.

"Struggling to afford enough elbow room to build the house of your dreams? Want to own land, but everything is just too expensive to buy? The Ministry of Expansion has good news for you! There's plenty of space out in space!" The screen blurred upwards to show an endless expanse of stars. "Earth is the beating heart of Humanity, but she's not alone. Land on the colonies is orders of magnitude cheaper than land on Earth. Still not enough for you? Sign up for frontier colonization, and not only will we give you a plot of land for free- we'll pay you to do it."

"Hungry for progress? Try the new RegulaBar, now fortified with all the vitamins you need to help push Humanity forward. RegulaBar- Eat. Work. Advance."

"Tired of job hunting? Sick of endless interviews? Let the Ministry of Resources help! Apply to the Workforce Optimization Program today and receive your state approved career within 48 hours!"

If she was at all confused why there were just as many ads for government ministries as there were private companies, Chloe didn't show it. She just kept walking with an oblivious smile on her face.

She was going to use the money she got with her ID to buy some new clothes, and get a nice bag, that way she wouldn't stand out when she got to the university.

And most importantly, she was going to eat some good fucking food!

-Tainted Blood-
​

An hour later, Chloe was chowing down on the best hamburger she'd ever tasted while she walked down the street in a new pair of jeans, running shoes, and a shirt that stretched taught over her chest with the most adorable print of a dog's face on it.

"I'm going to be able to eat real meat everyday." She sobbed tears of joy as she took another bite. "Hish bis ha beshd fing to efer habbenm to me."

She greedily polished off the rest of her burger, even going as far as to lick the melted cheese off the wrapper, before hunting down a trashcan to throw away her trash- as was her civic duty as a citizen of the federation!

But as she turned the corner, something caught her attention.

It was a nightclub- and not the "nightclub" that the Johnson brothers ran in the dumping grounds, which was just a bar with loud music that all the hookers sold themselves out at. No it was a nightclub, with flashing lights, and a DJ, and a line of people waiting outside, like the ones from the movies.

She hesitated for a few seconds, it was getting late and she should probably head back home to get packing… Buuuuut this was her big night! How could she possibly say no?

Her feet made the decision before her mind did, and carried her into the line for the club.

She was momentarily blinded when she stepped inside. The lights flashed brightly, cutting through the dark in concentrated multicolor beams. There was a beat from the speakers that she could feel travel through the floor and up into her chest.

She let her feet carry her into the party, but she was torn between jumping onto the dancefloor and joining the drunken mosh, or following her stomach and getting a plate of chicken wings at the bar, because she could smell the plate that one guy was eating and it was making her mouth water like nothing else.

After a few seconds of very heavy internal debate, she decided on the wings first. Oh, but what flavor? The sign had so many! Honey BBQ, lemon pepper, ponzu, garlic parmesan, salt & vining-

SMACK!

"EEEK!" Chloe yelped as she grabbed her ass and jumped a good foot into the air. She came back down with a flushed face and murder in her eyes. "What in the world do you think you're doing!?"

Slapping someone's ass in public was highly indecent, and really only a few steps short of sexual assault, but alas, it had the same problem that most things in life did.

Anything will be seen as a lot less problematic when it's a hot woman doing it.

"You look a little lost, hotstuff." A fully authentic goth girl, with glossy black lipstick, eyeliner, and deep red eyes (presumably from contacts) smiled at her. "Need someone to show you how to handle the ropes of this place?" She lowered her eyelids and wiggled her eyebrows. "I'd hate for you to get tied up without me~"

"I- You slapped- wh-what-" Chloe sputtered like a broken record.

"Bwahaha! The look on your face is golden!"

The woman stood only five and a half feet tall even in her platform boots. Her hair was segregated into thick, stripes of black and bone white, like a skunk's warning markings, that fell all the way down her back.

Chloe's attention was gravitationally pulled towards a pair of full, heavy breasts on the Goth's chest that strained against the front of a far-too-small black corset, like they were about to forcefully rip it in half. Chloe could swear she heard the fabric creaking faintly whenever the girl took a breath.

Below the corset, was a torn fishnet top which matched her leggings that crawled up her sinfully plump thighs and disappeared under a short pleated skirt.

"Like what you see?" The girl teased.

"M-maybe." Chloe blushed. "But don't change the subject! You can't slap a girl's ass like that without permission."

"Oh I'm sorry." She said in a tone that said she wasn't sorry at all. "Can I get your permission then? It was just my way of showing I was interested, and I can tell you're interested in me." She winked and used her arm to prop up her tits.

Okay, now, Chloe this is where you take command of the situation. You man up and make her understand that you have boundaries.

"J-just not in public."

"Ohh? So I can touch your ass as much as I want if I take you somewhere private?"

"...yes." She whispered shamefully.

Weak willed woman! Where is your spine! Chloe shouted at herself in her head. She was getting bent over the knee of a girl half a foot shorter than her!

"B-But you're going way too fast." She pushed away, trying to sound like she wasn't a virgin turning into a puddle under the focus of the first attractive female to give her any attention. "At least, like, take me on a date first." She blushed.

"Oh I'm sorry, where are my manners? My name's Ashley." She purred. "It fits in your mouth perfectly for you to scream it when I make you see stars."

Chloe whimpered.

Clean streets, clean air, no gangs, no skanky prostitutes, no thugs waiting around to mug you, free public transportation- and on her first night out a bombshell knockout of a girl was aggressively flirting with her?

C-class citizenship fucking rocked!

"Dinner first, at least." She objected, trying to maintain what little of her dignity was left.

"Oh, don't worry, I have something a lot better than dinner."

Ashley licked her lips as she pulled a small vial out of her skirt, tipped with a syringe needle. It was full of a thick crimson tar, which looked like someone had somehow managed to make blood sour and thicken, curdling like milk.

There was something deeply wrong about the color of the liquid that caused the hair on Chloe's neck to stand on end. She stepped back, cringing like she had just smelt rotten eggs.

"Nono, wait a second, I, uh, I really can't afford for anything to show up on my drug test next week."

"Oh, don't worry, it's nothing like that~ Just a little pick me up." Ashley purred as she slid closer, and Chloe's objections died in her mouth as Ashley pressed her fat heavy tits up against her with enough force to pin her against a wall.

"C'mon baby~" The serpent of temptation hissed. "Don't you want to have a little…" She used a finger to tug down the front of her dress, giving Chloe a direct view down the open maw of her sweaty cleavage. "Fun~"

"Uhhhhhh…" Chloe replied dumbly.

Road to full citizenship and a better life, or the fat and steamy massive mommy milkers of an authentic goth girl?

Such a choice was a war between mankind's relentless ambition to rise and seize his place in the world, and the animalistic ravenous hunger to conquer and claim for yourself.

But before Chloe could pull herself together and 'reject the drug no matter the kind' like Commander Patriot would want her to, Ashley made the choice for her. The goth dug her fingers into the back of Chloe's scalp and dragged her head down into a kiss.

"Mmmnph!"

Chloe was melting, that was the best way to describe what was happening to her. Her brain sputtered and error signs popped up, as her eyes rolled back, and her first kiss was forcefully taken from her by a tongue that had no qualms with violating her mouth.

She had five seconds of pure bliss before, like all who had flown too close to the sun, she was violently dragged back down to earth.

"OW! FUCK!" Chloe stumbled back, clutching the bloody puncture wound in her arm where the needle had just been forcefully stabbed into her.

"What the Hell was that for!?" She snapped, ready to slap the bitch, but when she looked up Ashley was gone.

Frantically she looked around the bobbing heads of the rave, but she couldn't see any sign of black and white hair.

The only trace that the woman had ever existed was the empty syringe rolling away lazily on the dance floor.

Of course landing a hot goth chick was too good to be true! She was so stupid!

"Shit!" Chloe cursed as she dashed for the door. "Shitshitshitshit!"

She had no idea what was in that vial. She had to get home before it kicked in. She couldn't afford to get caught by the cops while drugged out of her mind, or pass out in an alleyway like some kind of cheap whore for any passerby to have their way with.

She needed to get home, go to sleep, eat a lot of food, and get this shit out of her system over the next few days.

-Tainted Blood-
​

…

Chloe was sinking.

That's all she knew.

She was sinking in frigid arctic cold water.

She tried to struggle at first, but it was useless. The intense wet cold seeped into her bones, sapping every ounce of heat from her body and left her limbs as unmovable lead weights.

And so she sank, face first, down into the dark abyssal depths.

Everything around her was pitch black, and the only light she could see was the moon far above her.

It was beautiful.

So large in the sky, and with such a pretty silver sheen to it.

It was almost like a magnet, holding her attention hostage, and slowly pulling her towards it.

…

But that couldn't be true.

After all, she was sinking, face first into the ocean.

How could the moon be pulling her in if she was sink- wait, how could she see the moon in the sky if she was face down?

The moon wasn't supposed to be at the bottom of the ocean.

The moon wasn't supposed to be silver.

…

Th-The moon wasn't supposed to be waking up!

The moon cracked like an egg, splitting open like a flower bulb made of blood and bone, and at its center one giant black eye stared up at her.

Chloe screamed.

The icy water rushed into her lungs.

!

Chloe shot up in bed, covered in sweat, shivering like a leaf in a hurricane, and coughing up mouthfuls of salt water.

Instinctively she flailed for something, anything, but all of her limbs were numb, and slow to respond.

When she finally managed to stop choking, and was awake enough to process everything, all she had was vague pieces of a nightmare she couldn't remember, and a mattress absolutely drenched in sweat.

With a disgusted face she pulled off the blankets from her bed, changed into dry pajamas, and dropped down on her bare mattress feeling oddly exhausted.

She would wash the sheets in the morning. She had to get a full night's rest, the university was starting in a week, and she couldn't afford to get sick.

-Tainted Blood-
​

…

Chloe was sick.

The week that she should have been spending getting ready for university starting, she instead spent alternating between writhing in pain on her mattress and hunched over the toilet.

Migraines were constant. It felt like someone was inflating a balloon in her skull and that at any moment her head was going crack open like an egg.

She could hardly go an hour without emptying her stomach. What little medicine they had was damn near useless as it would all wind up coming right back out.

She was so hungry.

And… thirsty.

She was sweating what felt like entire buckets of water every day, and emptying her bowels of whatever liquid was leftover.

She greedily gulped down any drink she could get her hands on, only to taste it a second time as it immediately came back up.

The dehydration only got worse as the days went on and she kept losing liquid.

Her skin felt leathery, her mouth was parched and cracking, and her eyes were so dry that she swore she could feel them scraping against the back of her eyelids.

She was so thirsty that when she did manage to fall asleep, she dreamed of water.

A great sea, a bottomless ocean that had abyssal depths

Every night she would desperately dive into that sea, and drink as deeply and greedily as she could before she was ripped back to reality.

Her father fussed over her, like the pappa bear he was, putting ice packs on her head, washing her blankets, and bringing her soup for her to inevitably throw up.

Chloe tried to distract herself from her misery but nothing seemed to work.

The radio was too loud and would cause her migraines to flare up- the same with music. Her hands were shaking too bad to hold a pencil steady to draw. And there was no way in Hell that she was going to be able to do anything outside.

She spent a few hours reading the small government stamped paper book that was sent in the mail with her ID, but even her excitement for the future couldn't help her to forget the pain she was in.

"From Ditizen to Citizen! Everything a D-class needs to know about stepping up in the world."

No. Chloe's days passed slowly and horribly, and she came to the conclusion that Commander Patriot was a hero above all other heroes for going on TV to warn kids not to do drugs.

"I'm sorry commanderrr…" She sobbed deliriously into her pillow. "I should have listened to youuu…"

Her only consolation was that the opening ceremony for her university was still half a week away, and she was slowly getting better.

-Tainted Blood-
​

"BEEP BEEP! Rise and shine! It's never too early to make PROGRESS! BEEP BEEP! Rise and shi-"

A hand slapped down weakly on the Commander Patriot alarm clock, silencing it.

Chloe groaned and rolled over on her mattress, trying to will away the morning.

On the floor beside the mattress was a case of water bottles her father had brought over for her. It was new and unopened after she had gone through (and thrown up all of) the previous one.

Only half awake she reached over and grabbed at it. She fell half off of the mattress and tore at the shrink-wrap with a desperate fury and shaking fingers.

The first bottle popped free and she didn't even bother with the cap all the way, she just twisted it until it cracked and hung off the side, then let the lukewarm room temperature water spill down her chin and neck as she tipped it back.

Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.

Chloe drank like someone drowning in reverse, swallowing so hard and so fast that her throat burned, and the water poured out from the side of her lips.

Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.

She chugged down the entire bottle in seconds, but it didn't help.

If anything the thirst was even worse now.

With a sound that was half a sob, and half the cry of a dying animal, she dragged the next bottle to her mouth. And then the next one. And then the next one. And the next one. And the next one.

Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.

Bottle after bottle, wolfing down the water, unable to stop, even as she choked, even as her lungs burned for air, even her stomach began to ache from overcapacity.

She kept drinking.

Eventually the last bottle clattered to the floor empty, and Chloe fell back on her bed, gasping for air.

She felt… good.

Better than good, actually.

All of her aches and pains were gone, her head didn't feel like it was exploding, and her stomach wasn't doing flips in a paper shredder.

For the first time all week her nervous system was calm, without any pain signals, and it felt heavenly~

She was a bit numb for some reason, sure, but she would happily take being a little numb over whatever that sickness had been putting her through.

Chloe let out a satisfied groan, rolled over, and buried her face in her pillow. She felt so good that she was right on the edge of just drifting back to sleep and snoozing the day away.

Actually… that sounded like a great idea. It was too early for any functioning human to be up. Why had she even-

"THE UNIVERSITY!" Chloe shrieked as she launched herself out of bed. "I'm going to be late! Oh my God, I have to take a shower, and brush my teeth, and get dressed, and make sure my suitcase is all packed, and-"

She muttered spastically to herself as she scrambled to scoop up what she needed off the ground of her room.

She was so out of it that she was halfway out the door before she remembered to reach behind her and grab her bag.

She was so out of it that she didn't stop to think that feeling a bit numb all over might have been a bad thing.

She didn't notice that she couldn't feel the ache in her leg that had been bothering her since she fractured it as a kid.

She also didn't feel the way her bones bent and snapped, how her muscles tore themselves apart into strings, and how her skin ripped into bloody strips as her arm stretched double its natural length to grab her backpack, then reeled back in like a rubber band and stitched itself back together.

No, she didn't notice that.

The only thing on her mind was that she couldn't be late…

…and that she was just a bit thirsty for a cup of water.

-Chapter End-
​

You know, I've never watched Worm.

People keep asking me if I take inspiration from it in my science stories, or being like "I love how you referenced worm in a roundabout way", but I don't know anything about what it is, other than that the MC is a villain by accident with worm powers from eating Cthulu's hair or something. And I've only picked that up from overhearing people talk about it, without any context.

So, I got it into my head that it would be really funny if I wrote a story "inspired by worm" despite never having watched the show, because it would be like the story inspiration equivalent of the telephone game. And I don't have to worry about ripping the original creator off by making it an original work instead of a fanfic, because it'd be physically impossible for me to copy anything, or reference anything, because I don't actually know anything.

So. That's what this story is.

This is so fucking stupid, but I'm excited for it.
Any comments with ideas, opinions, or thoughts would be helpful. Thank you for reading!

 

[Akuma-Heika]

other than that the MC is a villain by accident with worm powers from eating Cthulu's hair or something

Click to shrink...

Rather than eating Cthulu's hair, it would likely be more accuarate to say she was raped by an Outer God's shed skin cell. Which Outer God was Cthulu the Priest of?