"No! Don't kill me, please I'm begging you!"
A voice called out, crying for help. It belonged to a gruff, stoic middle aged 'Macho' man, who at this moment was not exhibiting any one of those traits. Mostly because he was strapped down to a table, unable to move and unable to process what was going on.
He had just awoken in this place, confused and disoriented, only to look down and find that his left leg… His whole left leg was missing. But he strangely couldn't feel a thing, it was both odd and strangely confusing to him. This only added to the horror of the whole situation though.
"Don't worry, I severed your spinal cord from the rest of your body, so you won't feel a thing." A cold, emotionless voice responded to the man. The lack of any regard or emotion for the man sent phantom chills down his paralysed spine.
Standing nearby, with many different tools and other devices at his disposal, stood a handsome, suavely dressed man with a lab coat covering up his stylish clothing. He looked like your typical scientist, the types who spent all day in the lab and barely ever socialised. The only difference being this man was almost too handsome…
"P-Please… I'll do anything!"
But no matter what the terrified and confused man on the table said, the handsome man never even flinched or hesitated. It was like he had no emotions at all — which wasn't that far off from the truth. In fact, it was as close to the truth as it could get.
This mad scientist was, in fact, what was commonly known in this world as a sociopath. Sociopaths are commonly misunderstood and misrepresented. It's become a common 'fact' that they lack the ability to feel emotions, which is factually untrue.
It's more like they lack the ability to feel 'strong' emotions like the average person can. Which is why a lot of sociopaths often turn to things like crime, murder or become top business elites — because the adrenaline rush from seeing their victims beg and cry, or seeing their company succeed while crushing their competitors was enough to actually make them feel something.
"My head fucking hurts…"
Suddenly the man on the table started feeling dizzy, with sweat beads pooling up on his forehead. He tried to resist the pain, but nothing he did could alleviate him of the throbbing headache he was now experiencing.
"Ahh… That would be the hole I drilled in the back of your head, the acid should be working right about… now!" The suavely dressed handsome man spoke, as if it was just casual conversation.
Right as he finished his sentence, the man on the table fell unconscious, with blood starting to pool and drip down the back of the table onto a conveniently prepared bucket underneath. This blood was strangely coloured, with a mixture of ghastly green and black mixed within.
'Test subject 08 — lasted 00:32:12 before succumbing to the acid's effects. It seems we need to adjust the ratio for subject 09.'
The scientist noted some words down on his notepad before turning away to focus on his computer screen. Data flowed across it like the ocean's tide, it all looked like garbled numbers to the layman, but the handsome man understood it all fluently.
He wasn't like those murder/serial killer types of sociopaths, he found his thrill from doing scientific research, and because of his 'unique' traits, his superiors had assigned him to a more discrete, not so legal division of the company that others who actually had morals were more adverse to.
And as a result, he excelled in his role even more.
"They're ready to see you now, Lucian."
But the handsome man, better known as Lucian Verdan, was pulled out of his thoughts by a sudden voice from the doorway of his laboratory.
'Ahh, that's right.' He thought to himself, still absorbed in his own mind.
He had almost forgotten that he was pitching a new research topic to the higher ups. Lucian was just so engrossed in his current research that his mind had completely filtered that out. Thankfully he had an assistant to remind him.
"Thank you, that'll be all Sylas."
Lucian nodded at his assistant, Sylas, in the doorway and made his way past, ignoring the disgusted look on Sylas's face as glanced at the scene inside Lucian's laboratory.
The laboratory itself was impeccably clean, it was only the scene on the centre table that disgusted Sylas. The sight of a limp corpse with brains still dripping out the back of its head would be enough to make any mentally stable person queezy.
'It truly takes a special kind of person to do this job…' Sylas thought.
As he was walking through the maze-like hallways, Lucian practised the pitch he had prepared for his new research project. It was something he found particularly interesting, even before he became a scientist. Souls. This was always something that had eluded not just Lucian, but the entire human race ever since the concept first came about all those thousands of years ago.
That was the direction of his project. Not much was known about them, or whether they existed at all, but that was exactly what Lucian intended to find out. The prospect of finding an answer to a previously unanswered question was the very reason he became a scientist in the first place. Scientific research was one of the very few things Lucian could feel any emotion from.
"Sir, you can't go in there."
Elsewhere, near the entrance to the lab, a man covering his face with a hood barged his way past the main desk of the laboratory. The receptionist, a petite and small woman, would never be able to stop him with her small frame, so her next best option was to shout for help.
But even though this did manage to gather the attention of other workers nearby, none of them actually took action. They were all like the young receptionist — skinny, not very built and frankly cowards. They weren't security, most of them were normal research assistants, or scientists. Risking their lives for their job was not something on their agenda for the day.
'There he is!' The hooded man exclaimed inwardly, as he spotted the very person he had been looking for this whole time.
He ignored all of the gawking onlookers as he increased his pace to a sprint and chased after the handsome man in the white lab coat, Lucian. Meanwhile, Lucian was completely engrossed in his thoughts, unaware of what was happening around him. But that wouldn't last for long.
"You killed my wife, you son of a bitch!"