Episode four - The beast within

Lucas remembered that by 7h am that same day, the scientists went to his cell. He was pretending to sleep deeply, while the guards disabled the electrical fence and opened the door.

Carefully, the scientists entered the room, not before the guard positioned himself, pointing a heavy shock gun towards Lucas's back.

- I guess he is still asleep. How much sleeping sorum you gave him?
- About twice as usual.
But the third scientist interrupted:
- Well, make it four then. I gave him twice the amount before our meeting yesterday.

To what the first scientist answered:
- Are you two insane?
- Well, we can't kill him, remember?
- We can't kill him, but if Dr. Jones is right, we can make him immune to the sorum...
- You and Dr. Jones. Dr. Jones is a lunatic. Let me check his vitals.

A moment passed, and the conversation continued:
- He is probably in coma. His body is cold, the respiration and heart beat are too slow.
- Good, this will only help some tests I want to make. Let's move him to the exam room five.
- Yes, this is not a bad thing. Let's hope he doesn't die when he drawn most of his blood off.
- Guard, lock this cell while we prepare the exam room.
- Yes, Dr. Right away -- replied the guard.

A few minutes later, two nurses approached the cell, along with three armed guards.
They tied Lucas to a bed and took him to the exam room.

One of the guards left the room and positioned himself at the door, the other two remained, for the case something went wrong.

The doctors were very excited, as they almost never have authorization to perform tests, as the bodies are considered to be property of the military.

Two of the doctors begun to set up their equipments, while one of them plugged Lucas to a vital sign analyzer.

- I'm very surprised, he is indeed in coma. I got some strange readings from his brain, but that's probably just a fault of the equipment.

He then joined the other doctors and begun to prepare. A few instants later, one of then turned around in order to give Lucas an injection, but Lucas was gone.

- Holy shi ... The doctor didn't have the time to complete his sentence. He was thrown away to the other side of the room.

The other two doctors immediately looked behind, only to see their worst nightmare to 'come true: There was two huge blood marks on the wall, close to the door. They concluded these were from the guards.

They looked to the other side of the room and saw their colleague half crossed the wall, with bones exposed all over the place, and much blood.

They looked straight ahead and there was Lucas, all convered in blood, and with a visible rage in his eyes. He was no longer with a death appearance, his skin returned to normal color.

One of the scientists couldn't hold his thought to himself and left a word escape from his mouth:
- Impossible!

In hearing this word, Lucas eyes seemed to gain a more human configuration. The rage seemed to calm down.  Lucas then looked at the man who spoke and replied him:
- I would also say all of this to be impossible just a few weeks ago. Now can you please tell me what is happening to me?

The doctor who previously said something tried to say a few words but entered a shock state. His colleague however replied Lucas:
- Please answer me quickly, we don't have much time: how did you manage to control the anger? In your state, you should have killed both of us too.
The other doctor then could spoke a few words, even thought he was shaking hard:
- Shut up! Don't say this to him! Don't give this monster any ideas! Do you have a death wish?

Lucas felt the rage again and moved close to the doctor who spoke last, raising his hand against him.
The other doctor said loud:
- Calm down!

And Lucas immediately turned his look into something more pleasant. He then spoke:
- Sorry. My body seems to have wishes of his own. I'm afraid I'll get you both killed at any moment, so I'll keep the distance. What have you asked me before, Dr?
- I asked how could you hold your anger? It's not natural for a thing like you to hold off your instincts, at least not so soon. We know you transformed not too long ago.

Lucas felt kind of in shock but tried to understand every single word the doctor was telling him.
He thought for a moment and then replied:
- I need to know what I am and what's happening to me. When you spoke to me, I thought you might have some answers. This rage, this hunger, then slowed down a bit. I think I can manage it for now.
- Very well. You were bitten by a vampire. You are a vampire now. Not entirely, I may add, unfortunately. A human bitten by a vampire will always be half human, and this is what give you the hunger.
The other doctor was a surprised as Lucas, and shout:
- What the hell are you talking about? Half human?
- I'm sorry my friend, but I couldn't tell you. I had access to Hitler's research. It tells that there are pure vampires, and that they don't experiment this kind of pain as transformed ones do. The bone marrow still produces human stem cells, which are then swallowed by bigger vampire cells, which induces transformations on them, before they differentiate. But the vampire body doesn't produce a few enzymes which the human cells needs to function. As a reaction, they release chemical toxins in the blood stream that signals to the brain they need to feed. It's unknown how the brain "knows" that it needs human blood to supply these, so that the organism can keep working.
The other doctor went to reply, but Lucas interrupted:
- Are you telling me that these images I have about bitting human beings and drinking their blood are real? I'll have to do that to not die.
The doctor then vigorously attempted to reply:
- No, you only have to ...

But the guard outside, who attempted to contact the ones inside by radio and got no answer, had triggered the silent alarm to the entire building.

Heavy armed and heavy armored  men charged the room and opened fire, even before the doctor could finish his sentence. As Lucas was between the door and the doctors, as the guards shoot attempting to hit Lucas, they accidentally ended up killing both doctors.

Lucas immediately charged against the door. His anger was so intense that he didn't feel as the projectiles of the guns entered his body, breaking some bones and perforating his internal organs.

Two guards had already entered the room and positioned on the sides of the door, while a third one was between them, still passing through the door. Lucas got to the guard at the left, which was the closest to him, and managed to hit him hard at the chest. The guard flew against the wall behind him, but for Lucas surprise, he managed to fall on his feet, with some difficulty. In the fraction of second between the guard got on his feet and positioned himself to open fire again, Lucas managed to hit the guard of the middle, who already passed the door.

 He knew his previous hit wasn't enough, so this time he hit as hard as he felt that he could. This time it was too hard, and his arm passed through the armor and the guard's body. His hand got stuck and the guard on the right was already shooting at him, so he kicked the middle guard's body while holding his hand still, throwing the remains at the shooting guard. It wasn't hard enough to injure the guard, but gave him the time to reposition in order to hit the guard at the left. But as the guard had enough time to aim, he hit Luca in the head, injuring his left eye and causing lots of pain.
 Lucas fell on the floor, but the anger was so much higher that he immediately hit his arms against the ground, with so much strength that his body flew in direction to the guard, and he then punched him in the chest. The armor didn't get a hole this time, but bended hard enough to break the guard's ribs, and to get his body to fly against the wall, this time passing through it.

Lucas took one of the guard's guns and used it as if it were a baseball bat, and hit the guard now entering the door, so hard that some guards behind him flew backwards too.

One of the guards tried and succeeded to get a knife on Lucas's neck, but Lucas, in pain, craved his teeth on the guard's neck. He felt possessed by an irresistible desire to suck the guard's blood, but he only had the time to get a little, as he realized another guard, with heavy artillery, was pointing directly to him.  Lucas wasn't fast enough to deviate the shot, which ripped his right leg off. The pain was almost unbearable, and he fell to the ground, so he could only took the bitten guard's shotgun and shoot the guy who hit him. He then charged a few rounds against other guards, but when the gun went empty, there were still four guards left. One of them tried to shoot Lucas on the head, but he then threw the empty gun at the guy, making a bloody scene I would prefer not to describe.

Lucas got on his single foot and managed to grab one of the guards by the vest, and with a circular movement, hit another guard with the roting one's foot. And then threw the guard hard against other two soldiers.

A few kicks on the bodies on the floor and only one guard remained alive. Lucas could hear on a guard's radio that a fifty man squad was moving towards that floor, and that, should Lucas escape alive, the remaining ones had clearance to start "operation darkstar". Lucas concluded that whatever that means, it should be bad.

He felt weaker. But also dominated by the hunger. He then jumped at the remaining guard and bitten him without mercy, drinking every single blood drop he could. He realised that not only he was drinking, but that some substance was liberated by his teeth, which made the victim's blood thinner and easier to swallow. At some point he fell that the victim's heart was no longer beating, but he kept drinking until he couldn't feel a single drop. He felt a complicated mixture of disgust and pleasure, guilty and freedom. But had no time to consider what was happening. The pain on his leg was reducing, and he had the impression that a exposed bone was growing relatively faster. Could vampires regenerate? He wasn't going to stay there enough time for realizing.