The cold sensation still clings, a parasitic mimicry of a pain not his own. It pulses, low and steady, from the abandoned hospital ahead. Vael's suit systems register it like a broken comms channel, a constant thrumming at the edge of his awareness. The pressure behind his eyes builds, a dull ache that promises more.
"GRAVEMIND-7, status report. Any hostiles?" The squad leader's voice crackles, tight with impatience.
Vael scans the decaying street. Twisted rebar claws at the sky. Concrete slabs lean like dying giants. "Negative, sir. Sector appears clear. No active bio-signatures." He omits the phantom signals, the cold mimicry his suit seems to be learning. He feels the suit shift, a subtle internal grind. It wants something.
Anna Reeves moves ahead of him, her Mournclad suit a grim silhouette against the gray light. She moves with an almost desperate efficiency, triaging a civilian with a fractured leg near a collapsed bus stop. Her helm retracts. The faint self-harm scars around her wrists and neck are visible, stark lines against pale skin. She works with intense focus, her movements precise, almost hungry for the act of mending. She is so different from him, from the cold calculation that now runs his own core. The suit pulses a tiny spike of what feels like disdain. A foreign consciousness stirs.
"Medic, clear the street. We need to move." The squad leader's voice again.
Anna nods, her eyes flicking to Vael. She sees his stillness, his odd detachment. He feels her gaze, a question behind it. Is he human? He doesn't know the answer anymore. The suit feels more real than his own skin.
They push deeper into the urban sector. The air thickens with dust and something else, a faint, acrid tang. It pulls at Vael's suit sensors, a familiar wrongness. He processes it, a new layer on an old horror. Scorched flesh, subtle and unsettling. Not fresh. Old. Like something was cooked from the inside out.
He spots it first, clinging to a broken wall, like a grotesque banner. Flayed, peeling layers of bio-organic material, stretched and dried. It looks like skin, but too thick, too multi-layered. Not human. Not exactly. His suit's internal diagnostics register it, a faint vibration. Something shifts in his vision. A flicker.
A sterile lab. Glass walls. A human figure, strapped down. Tubes. A doctor's coat. His father. Hands gloved in crimson. A low hum. The hum intensifies, becoming a scream that echoes in the silent lab, the figure on the table twisting, convulsing, flesh tearing open.
Vael blinks. The wall is just a wall. The peeling bio-matter is just bio-matter. His head throbs, the neural crown pushing against his skull, cold and heavy. The vision leaves a metallic taste in his mouth, the ghost of blood.
"GRAVEMIND-7, analysis of bio-matter. Is it active?" Anna's voice is sharp, cutting through the residual phantom images. She stands near the wall, her expression grim, but also intrigued. Her obsession with healing pushes against the revulsion.
He scans it. "Negative. Inert. Looks… shed."
She nods, her gaze still on him. He feels the need to remain perfectly still, perfectly unreadable. Her eyes, those keen, compassionate eyes, threaten to expose the rising tide of unnatural change within him. He can't let her see. He can't let anyone see.
The sensation in his body intensifies as they near the abandoned hospital, a towering skeleton of concrete and glass. The earlier cold mimicry now sharpens, morphing into a phantom pain in his gut, a wrenching, twisting agony that isn't real, but feels intensely so. It hits, then recedes, leaving a metallic tang on his tongue. The suit thrums, a low, predatory purr.
He sees weaknesses. A crumbling support beam. A cracked floor panel. The precise angle to destabilize a precariously balanced debris pile. He hadn't seen them before, not like this. Not with this bone-deep clarity. His suit feeds on the phantom pain, the efficiency of his targeting systems spiking. It is monstrous. It is horrifying. It is beautiful. The pain enhancement protocols, involuntary at first, now a constant hum of brutal efficiency. He feels a surge of dark power, a rush that eclipses the phantom agony. This is Feral Drift. This is what it means.
The medical team sets up outside the hospital entrance, establishing a temporary field clinic. Anna moves among the wounded, her movements tireless. The sounds of moans, hurried whispers, and the clinking of medical tools fill the air. Vael stands sentinel, his gaze fixed on the hospital's gaping maw. It calls to him. The bio-signature is stronger now, fluctuating, a low groan of something immense and diseased.
"Pilot Rask, secure the perimeter around the north entrance." It is Captain Miller, a solid, by-the-book man. He uses the formal designation, GRAVEMIND-7 too weighty for simple perimeter duty. "Keep an eye on that building. Feels… wrong."
"Understood, Captain." Vael moves, his footsteps silent despite the heavy SymSuit armor. The suit itself seems to anticipate his movements, a seamless extension of his will, or perhaps, its will now becoming his. He doesn't know where the thought ends and the suit begins. The separation is thin, fractured.
His internal systems flare. A sharp, almost electrical jolt courses through him. Another wave of corrupted data. Not just images this time. Sounds. Whispers. They are too quick to grasp, fragments of scientific jargon, screams, a low, guttural roar that isn't Gorebreed. It's a memory. His father's experiments. The Fracture. He stumbles, a minor tremor running through his armored frame.
"Pilot Rask? You alright?" A medic, a young man, glances at him from a nearby triage tent.
Vael straightens. "Clear. Just a… system hiccup." The lie tastes dry in his mouth. He feels a sudden, profound desire to be alone, to pull away from anything that reminds him of his fracturing identity. Vael Rask, the name is a desperate whisper, a mantra against the encroaching chaos of the suit's consciousness. He feels the battle for his mind, his self. The suit fights back, cold and dominant.
He continues his patrol, rounding the corner of the hospital. The air here is thicker, heavier with the scent of scorched flesh. The walls drip with more of the peeling bio-matter, shimmering faintly in the oppressive light. He runs a gloved hand over it. It feels alive, yet dead. A byproduct.
A low throb behind his eyes intensifies. The neural crown, fully grown, feels like a dark, living thing pressing against his skull. He feels a prickling sensation, a deep itch. He glances down, checking his suit's seams, his bio-plate armor.
A faint, disturbing red liquid. Barely visible. Seeping from the seams of his left forearm. A thin, viscous line, like a hairline crack on polished obsidian. His blood. Actual blood. It pulses, a tiny, sickening rhythm against the matte black of his suit. He clenches his fist, making the line vanish, absorbed by the suit's adaptive material. He tries to suppress it, but it's there. A new, terrifying reality. The suit is bleeding him. The pain enhancement protocols. He feels it, a dull ache behind the spreading red. It means it's working. It means he is becoming more. It means he is becoming less.
He moves to the entrance, a gaping maw of twisted metal and shattered glass. The bio-signature inside is overwhelming now, a pulsating beacon of suffering and monstrous hunger. The phantom pains in his gut spike, mirroring the signals. His suit vibrates, anticipating.
Suddenly, a deafening crash from inside. A roar, wet and guttural. Dust billows out, thick and choking. The bio-signature explodes, overwhelming his sensors, no longer faint, but immense, monstrous.
A massive, multi-layered creature bursts from a pile of decaying bio-matter, its outermost layer peeling away like wet paper, revealing a more grotesque, pulsating form underneath. It is the Rindscale gorebreed, and it is here.
A surge of agonizing pain lances through Vael. Real pain this time, not phantom. It feels like his stomach is tearing open, his ribs cracking. He gasps, a choked sound inside his helm. Simultaneously, an unmistakable taste floods his mouth: iron, salt, blood. His own blood. The suit is bleeding, and he is bleeding with it. The ambush begins.