BOOM!!!
Like being struck by silent lightning, Wednesday's vision went black, then was instantly swallowed by blinding light! Everything—the car window, the forest, the back of Larissa's head—twisted, dissolved, and collapsed in an instant!
She felt herself hurled violently into a grotesque, kaleidoscopic tunnel where time flowed with erratic madness.
When she could "see" again, she was no longer in the stuffy car.
She was a ghost suspended in a cold, sterile world that reeked of disinfectant.
Harsh surgical lights beamed down on an operating table in the center of the room. On the table, a small boy, pale to the point of transparency, was strapped down tight.
It was Victor.
Young Victor.
His eyes were wide, the pupils filled with pure, overflowing terror. Tears and cold sweat matted his face.
He struggled in vain, his thin wrists rubbed raw and bloody by the metal cuffs.
A group of figures in white coats, wearing bizarre plague doctor masks, surrounded him like he was an inanimate specimen.
Their eyes behind the glass lenses were cold, indifferent, void of any human emotion.
A scalpel descended, glinting in the light.
"Ah—! No! Please! It hurts! Mommy... Mommy..." Young Victor's screams were shrill, heart-wrenching pleas that echoed in the empty lab, shattering the soul.
No one answered. There was only the cold clink of metal instruments and the monotonous, emotionless voice recording data.
The scene accelerated wildly, flickering like a broken film reel.
Once, twice, ten times, a hundred times... The same operating table, the same cold blades, the same screams that grew gradually weaker.
Wednesday was a forced spectator to this cyclic, cruel ritual.
She didn't know how much time passed. A year? Two?
She watched the fear in Victor's eyes gradually be replaced by numbness. The screams turned into silent tears, and finally, even the tears dried up.
Those eyes, once brimming with terror, slowly became hollow. Then, from within that void, a strange, twisted light began to breed.
During a later surgery, as the blade descended again, Victor suddenly spoke. His voice was hoarse but carried an eerie, flippant tone:
"Hey, Mr. Beak, you hold that knife like an old lady cutting a steak for the first time."
"And Miss Assistant over there, your waist-to-hip ratio is truly regrettable. I bet your husband would rather watch the game at a bar than come home to you, huh?"
"Your experimental data is receding as hopelessly as your hairline..."
He used the most vicious language to precisely provoke and mock every white coat, attacking everything from their technique to their families.
Wednesday watched in shock.
She saw the "Beaks," who had always maintained absolute calm, stiffen. Their breathing grew heavy.
Finally, a researcher, poked in a sore spot, slammed down his instrument. He picked up a needle and thread, and roughly, without anesthesia, began to sew Victor's lips shut, stitch by stitch!
The needle pierced flesh, pulling black thread through.
Victor's body trembled violently, but he couldn't form a complete syllable. Only a suppressed, guttural heh-heh escaped his throat. The madness in his eyes was almost spilling over.
---
The scene shifted again.
Time passed unmeasured. The operating table was empty. The white coats rarely appeared anymore, seemingly having forgotten this "failed product" with the sewn mouth.
Victor was locked in a massive cage, like a strange, abandoned pet.
He sat in the corner hugging his knees, quietly watching the lab's new focus.
Several transparent containers held colorful, writhing, slimy life forms. The white coats swarmed around them, recording, gesturing, filled with fanatical anticipation.
Wednesday could feel Victor's gaze fixed on those things for a long time—especially on one black entity that seemed to be condensed from the deepest night.
Time stretched again. Wednesday watched as the colorful life forms lost their vitality one by one. They turned grey, shriveled, and finally died of exhaustion.
The atmosphere in the lab shifted from fanaticism to anxiety, and finally to desperate silence.
In the end, only that puddle of black "sludge," which looked like it was about to extinguish as well, remained.
As an observer, Wednesday could clearly "sense" the weak yet incredibly stubborn will radiating from that black substance—
[Don't want to die...]
[Survive...]
[Hunger... Craving...]
[Bond... Live...]
It was the most primal, pure, and overwhelming will to survive.
Even though its form was like mud, even though it might dissipate the next second, the thought of "wanting to exist" burned so fiercely.
Victor seemed to feel it too.
He stopped hugging his knees. He stood up, gripped the bars of the cage, and stared unblinkingly at the black mass.
Until one night, when the lab was empty.
Victor looked up. In those hollow, crazy eyes, a different emotion appeared for the first time.
He walked to the cage door and silently fiddled with the lock—no one knew when or how he had learned to do this.
Click. The latch sprang open.
He walked out. He didn't try to run away. Instead, he walked straight toward the container holding the black symbiote.
He stood quietly in front of it for a few seconds.
Then, he raised his fist.
BANG!
He smashed his fist into the reinforced glass! His knuckles split open instantly!
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Punch after punch. As if he couldn't feel pain, he smashed silently, stubbornly! When his right hand was a bloody mess of exposed bone, he switched to his left! When his left hand was ruined, he used his head!
From behind his sewn lips came a suppressed, muffled heh-heh laughter. It was maniacal and liberated, a silent roar venting all the accumulated despair, rage, and twisted desire for life!
Alarms shrieked! The white coats finally realized something was wrong and rushed in with weapons!
"Turn around! Immediately!" They pointed their weapons at Victor's back, shouting orders.
Victor stopped.
He slowly, slowly turned around.
However, there were no wounds on his body. His hands were pristine, as if the self-destructive smashing just now had been a hallucination. He held the shattered container in his hands. It was empty.
He looked at the terrified white coats in front of him. The corners of his mouth, sewn shut with thick thread, began to snap open, one by one.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
The threads broke. Blood dripped down his chin. But what he revealed was a massive, grotesque smile—crazy enough to make one's skin crawl.
"Let's..." His voice was raspy, but carried a terrifyingly cheerful tune, "...play a game."
"Battle Royale."
"You have three seconds to prepare."
Black, viscous liquid, seemingly alive, surged from his torn mouth. It rapidly crawled over his entire body, forming a colossal, hideous, tooth-filled shadow!
---
The vision ended!
In the split second before her consciousness withdrew, Wednesday realized—
The symbiote that wrapped around Victor in the darkness hadn't just found a host. It had captured a soul more desperate than the dark itself.
They were not host and parasite. They were two shipwrecks in a torrent of destruction, anchoring each other against the void.