//OOC: Audition video released hehe
//

Jeeeeesus, how many broads are getting hitched this month? Dutch had thought as he stepped onto the elevator at the down-trodden Inn of his next appointment.

He checked his agenda on his phone, the bride's name this go-around was Julia. He committed it to memory. God forbid someone should mention it and he stand, stupified. It's best to just be prepared.

*ding*

He stepped off the elevator, heading to room 324 where there was confetti sprinkled outside the door frame. He paused for a moment, getting into "character" before entering. Apparently this chick had a priest kink, they had him pull out the old costume, he very seldom got a call for anything other than a paramedic or police officer Strip-O-Gram.

He sauntered in, not bothering to knock on the propped door, the ladies were waiting.

"Ooooh Roooomaan!" a woman called to him, pushing the play button on a stereo CD player. Roman was his work name, helped keep work and home life separated.

That was his cue.

A few dances, a bunch of dollars, he could do this. He did it often enough, but honestly it was a strain on him, he worked this job a bit every now and then, during peak wedding season and Valentine's when people would send him as gag gifts to their co-workers. He made quick money and then took breaks, long breaks to recoup from the degrading feeling he always got afterwards. He felt like a cheap hooker.

He was gyrating in front of Julia who was wearing a toilet paper wedding gown, one of the games they had him participate in. That part was actually fun. He loved it when they included him in more than just the dancing.

The bride's groom busted through the door... This is a new one... he was angry, maybe he didn't like that there was a guy getting ready to rip off his holy velcro'd priest pants in front of his wife's face.

But whoah, he shouldn't be THAT angry. This dude is tripping out.

Dutch jumped back as the man bit his future sister-in-law, the man was diving over the table in the middle of the room, the one full of presents. Dutch tended to avoid violence all through his life, he had only been in one fight during the angrier period of his life. It ended with them both in the hospital and he knew he would never ever do that to another person, it was awful.

But now, in this situation, he grabbed the serving knife off of the cake stand and held it en guard outstretched towards the madman.

"You back the fuck away from them. NOW." He yelled at the man, tapping into his threatening voice, the one he used to have to use with his dealer, before they came to an.... understanding back in the day. Seeing that his words had no effect on the man, he began pushing the women out the door, swinging the cake server wildly to hold him off. It was too late for the first one attacked, she lay in a pile of ribbon and cellophane. Dead. He rounded the room and ran away, dialing 911 and getting no answer.

He jammed the elevator button, urging it to rise, pushing it again and again, frantically glancing towards the confetti door. Towards the screams. Another woman had been trapped in his jaws when he exited. He just... he couldn't bring himself to stab the man. He saw it flash through his mind's eye a thousand times over. Stab him, slice him up Dutch, do it, do it. But he couldn't.

He was a coward, he knew, and he only felt a little shame. He was still in character for the job. Stoic Roman, doesn't give a shit.

He tucked the triangular blade between his belt and his skin, it wasn't very sharp but it was something. He was sure that... well he was mostly certain that if it came down to his life or another's he'd use that knife. Surely he could do it.

Giving up on the elevator he slammed through the stairwell door, grabbing the rail and swinging himself to the lower level. He ran down to the first floor from there, towards Emergency Exit 'cause he still doesn't give a shit. The phone in his dress shoe was digging in wrong, that's the only place to keep it when the rest of your clothing rips right off.

He pushed open the heavy Emergency Exit door, it was darker outside than he expected.

Outside he heard car alarms and yelling. He ran to his car, if this was a riot he would be the first to get the hell out of it. Probably sports fanatics again.

He locked his car doors, removed the knife and tossed it into the seat. He grabbed a joint from between the seats and lit up, taking in a heavy puff to calm his nerves. What he had just seen....... what he had just let happen..... He shook it off. He didn't owe those women anything. He got most of them out anyways. He was an object to them, an object that got itself out of that room before it got gutted.

His hands shook as he sped away, heading towards his home. He ran out of gas in front of the prestigious Hotel Delgata.

Clouds were thickening overhead and the sound of thunder boomed above the world.

"Great, I can't even afford to take a piss in this place."

Just as he said it an elderly woman slammed, running at full speed, into the side of his car, making him drop the joint on his lap, scorching him through the black fabric. He fumbled to pick it up before it started to blaze, snuffed it out and tucked it behind his ear. He honked the horn, one long pissy blare.

"Dammit! Come on WOMAN! Watch it! Your fat fucking ass left a dent in my car!" He stepped out to confront her, not realizing that to everyone else he looked like a cursing preacher. He hated violence, but confrontation was another deal. He spoke his mind and right now he was pissed and confused. His eyes were red now, stress, smoke, and anger all building up in his blood vessels.

Those eyes widened when he realized she was like the man. She had the same look in her eyes. Vacant, hungry, angry.

He dove back into the driver's seat and shut the door, he grabbed the cake knife and tumbled out the passenger door on the opposite side. He ran towards the Hotel doors as fast as his feet would carry him, rushed through the lobby and into the broken elevator. He pushed the close door button but the box wouldn't carry him upwards. He sat there, dialing 911 again and again until his phone died.

He banged his head against the mirrored wall as he sat there. His life had gone to the shitter in one hour. One job. He'd probably be a murder suspect now, and there was a street full of witnesses to his questionable character. The screaming priest. That would make good headlines.

He saw the no smoking sign, a mandatory mar upon the hotel's carefully planned aesthetic. He lit up in defiance, using his last to do the job. He tilted his head back and inhaled, he would just sit tight until the coppers came for him, hot boxing in an elevator of the ritziest hotel in the city. Not bad. he thought.

The lights flickered and then stayed off.

"REALLY? Holy hell. The pinlight on the end of his pot was the only thing lighting the tiny room, mirrored from all sides like a firefly floating in front of him.

"Hey, Dutch, listen!" he could almost picture it calling out to him, a certain video game faerie coming to mind.

He noticed the slight glow of the emergency button and the rough outline of a small compartment beside it.

He shuffled himself over to it, careful to inhale so as to keep his last light-up going. He pried open the compartment and reached his hand inside, what could he lose? He pulled out what felt like a pretty heavy and a single . This would come in handy if he was stuck in this box much longer, but for now he just sat back, watching the faerie dance.

Michael Roland would give chase to Mercer into an open volcano, just to assure he was dead. Roland was hired by Homeland Security to track and know where Alex Mercer was at all times, at the age of 32.

Roland remembered the second time he saw this abomination in a lab in North Bethesda, miles from Washington DC where he was kept for seven years.

“Routine report, same vile creature sleeping in tube, no new news.”

Roland spent years visiting that damn lab just to make sure that the component to his job hadn’t woke up and escaped in the night. He remembered looking up at that glass tube filled with water and the monster sleeping in it. After four years of the bullshitter sleeping all innocent like in it’s coma, the government put his tracking on Mercer on hiatus because he was in one place now.

But when a bloodhound is taught to search for drugs, it’s always going to search for drugs.

For seven years, captured and studied Zeus was sustained and kept submerged in water, a oxygen mask on his face. For two thousand six hundred and sixty five days he was in suspended animation in water, fed and respiring through tubes. They had specially designed a wetsuit for him and drilled holes into his back, into his spine and farther to keep monitor on his true brain, the heavily protected viral core in his solar plexus. The core was the size of a grapefruit and had a heavy, diamond strong outer layer similar to the pit of a peach. If the core was breached Alex would die, become paralyzed, or severely defected.

When the abomination woke up, he wanted to be the first to see him. He knew every detail of the history of this monstrosity. But he had yet to get his side of the story.

When Mercer awoke from his sleep he was fragile. He awakened blind, deaf, mute, and with little to no abilities. He had to wait a few days for his body to catch up. The scientists treated him nicely enough that it scared him.

Blacklight was blind in front of him. Three days after waking defenseless, he could hear and speak again. He sat there, calmly staring forward in that white gown, sightless.

“If you're not human, then what the fuck are you? A colony of viruses?”
“Essentially that is correct. The actual cells of the virus make up pseudo-cells so, yes.”
“I'm confused. Okay. So, you're a virus. Well, then why do you have the voice of a human and look like a human?”
“Because the virus recreates everything on a genetic level. I’m not made like normal humans- and they can’t do the things I do. Do you get the point now? If I chop off a limb, it grows back. If a normal human chops off a limb, it’s gone forever. They can’t glide through the air, or create weapons on a single thought, and they can’t- for sure- lift someone up by their neck and toss a person more than five football fields, the things I can do are a movie’s wet dreams.”
“What was the first movie you ever have seen? Since you seem so keen on thinking you are out of movie.”
“Up.”
“Why?”
“I learned how loving humans can be, but it’s just a movie. Not all things are comparable to fiction.”
“Why did you kill my daughter?” There was a clink and Alex knew the sound of a gun pointed at his head.
“I didn’t, Codename Apol-” BANG!

Roland flinched, and then the color drained from his face as he watched the bloodied, mangled jaw still moving. He was horrified watching this thing build its features up again, muscles, bone, skin, talking all the while.

“Quite rude. As I was saying, I didn’t. Apollo did. She was a nurse at the time and due to her unstable abilities she accidentally killed Clarissa instead of healing her. At the time I was in India tracking another sister.”
“DON’T YOU DARE LIE TO ME YOU SICK SHIT!”
Mercer opened his eyes, pure blue, this time they were moving with sight. Michael heard the solace and pity in his voice. “I am so sorry Roland. I wish there was something I could have done. If I would have killed Apollo earlier instead of five weeks too late to save her I would have.”

Then Mick was tugged out of the room by security and lectured by his authorities.


When the outbreak happened Roland immediately blamed Mercer, he HAD to have something to do with this. He was in the job again, without pay.

Michael sat in a empty, locked room in the hotel, plotting, his face in his hands.

Michael remembered being in the basement, turning the music up so loud that no one would hear his victim’s screams during the torture. He was going to use any means possible inflict pain.

As soon as he laid the hot iron on the man’s skin he heard a low grow, almost too human to be human. Sooner or later the soft hisses of pain turned into enjoyed laughter. He was laughing as Michael peeled the skin back from his thoracic cavity. Laughing as he used the electric bone saw on his ribs. He was going to find out what made this bastard tick. But he couldn’t even break him; he would just choke up blood and laugh.
Alex remembered the feeling of gloved fingers gripping his spine through his belly. Surprising to even him, it was ethereal. He wanted to laugh but this was actually getting painful.

“Oh for fucks sake. Are you getting squeamish on me? This is nothi- ah. Ngggh.” The resounding tug on his spine made him utter a sharp gasp. “Goddamn! Watch what you are doing!”

Michael plunged the red-hot iron next to his spine and received a successful cry of pain.

“FINE. ENOUGH!”, were the screams he got. Michael pulled the cooled iron away, gagging on the smell. Alex could feel the searing pain in the back of his head and saw stars.

Blood was dripping from Alex’s eyes, nose and mouth, giving off raggedy breaths, looking down at his autopsied body. “Lovely.”

Mercer’s eyes glassed over for a moment, a scalpel sticking out of one of them. He haphazardly reached a tendril up to pull the metal from his socket, the nerves hanging from it. He blinked his empty socket for a while before his regeneration kicked in and gave him a new one. He dropped the scalpel, getting tired of this game.

“I didn’t know Apollo did this until I killed my her. Why won’t you believe me, Mick?”

The response of his capturer was a soft gag from the man, “Because I saw you there, with those… things on your hands, holding my daughter.”

Alex breathed out. The music was off, all he could hear was the eerie gasps and groans of the two of them.

“So she framed me. Apollo was always too flighty. When she messed up and couldn’t admit it she would blame it on others. When she accidentally gave peanuts to someone with an allergy she turned into another famous terrorist one time, it’s her knack. She was too much like a child… she meant well, but she was too unstable to control herself. She pleaded with me to kill her, Mick. Apollo had already died before I got to her. She died of guilt for hurting your child… I’m so sorry.”

“You said this shit before. You can’t blame this on your fucked up family ties!”

“I only wish I could show you…”

Michael turned, readying the heated iron again, but Mercer had broken free and escaped. He could have left at anytime. But why had the virus stayed so long to let himself be subjected to torture? Was it pity?


The next time Mick saw Zeus was two years later, admiring the petals on a rosebush before he stopped to pluck a rose off and give it to a little girl. Michael read everything on Alex Mercer, even taking down the time to track down people he had “saved”. Sometimes the good outweighed the evil.

Michael, looked out the window getting his stuff together to go out.

Dutch spun, his steps as he paced the elevator thrown off from the sudden motion of the box. He was moving up, the lights were back on and surrounding him were too-bright renditions of his image on the reflective walls.

He could hear the mechanics of the house of mirrors as it rose, random floors that he had pushed about to be ascended upon and wished that he could close the maintenance shaft above him because the noise was just too eerie.

"It's about damn time though" he muttered, wondering why it had taken so long for the elevator to be repaired. He leaned against the wall and fiddled with his arms waiting for the doors to open and free him.

When they did, though, Dutch was not a happy camper.

There was a light and cheery 'ding' as the doors began to slide open. Dutch went to step through them on the fourth floor, but as soon as he saw the people waiting, no not cops or debutantes, but bloody people who all turned to him with anger in their eyes, he slammed his hand on the close doors button and honestly almost wet his pants as an arm shot through the doorway. He kicked it with his dress shoes, the only 'real' clothing he was wearing, and bashed it until it slipped away and the door closed completely.

His eyes were wide, adrenaline rushing, he remembered the man at the seedy motel bachelorette party and the woman from outside, and now all those people. So many people on the fourth floor.

How many others are there?

He paused, regret flooding him at his earlier frustration..... he looked at the buttons. Rows and rows of buttons glowing from being pressed. And the elevator would take him to each and every one of them.

He pulled out the cake and steadied himself.

He was starting to feel sick.

Lisa looked to her two companions as they approached the front doors of the Hotel Delgata, only a few meandering undead lingered nearby, unaware as of yet of their presence. Lisa saw to keep it that way. She pushed the heavy doors open.

Why does everyone seem to measure wealth with how difficult it is to open your doors? Like us mere peasants can't pry it open to breach their castle, pfffft doormen must be pretty buff under those smoking jackets.

The majority glass walls surrounding the doors of the grandiose lobby revealed that this area was relatively clear. There were 3 waiting members of the undead roaming the lobby, watching them as they waited for the group to cross their threshold. Gun ready, Lisa took the first shot, a woman in her Sunday best, or for her it may be lounge-wear, took the bullet in her shoulder. Lisa was out of practice. The woman was closing in, dodging the antique furnishings as she came and Lisa steadied herself before making the kill shot, a knot in her gut and bile climbing her throat.

This was no time for squeamishness to return. There was going to be a lot more killing today.

Alice swung her lead pipe, the hit vibrating up her arms painfully as it collided with flesh and bone. Again and again as she swung, mutilating the back of some woman's head. For a minute she felt as if she were outside herself. The rage she unleashed momentarily scared the hell out of her and she had no idea where this came from.
The woman in the heavily stained from god-only-knows-what chefs outfit finally stilled and remained on the floor, her brain matter poured onto the expensive tiles in a large, crimson pool. The infected were held a bay, but only for a brief moment. A moment that allowed Alice to flip her over and look into the empty, finally dead eyes of the woman. Her brown hair was matted with blood and her jaw was slack and covered with all states of dried blood. The veins to her eyes stood out broken and red, almost angry. Her slightly opened mouth revealed both rows of her teeth which were also broken and red, tiny shards jutting this way and that, stained from god-only-knows-what that would match her apron.

Suddenly desperate, Alice tried to tap into herself, figure out what just happened. She tried to feel some kind of guilt or sympathy for killing this woman, this maybe-mom, or aunt or niece or sister.

Quit being such a fool! This woman died when the infection took her.

Of course, Alice didn't know that for sure. For all she knew this infection only lasted a short while and then people went back to normal. She had no idea what happened to these people and what was happening to herself. She could never kill someone, infected or not.

Her hand started to shake as she struggled with all those she had killed in the past few weeks. She wasn't a killer..

But you're a survivor..

Her inner darkness smiled a huge, Cheshire cat-like smile. In victory.

Drawn back to reality by a small grunt of what sounded like pain, Alice turned to Alex. His beautiful face was contorted into a mask of total, unabridged agony. He had said something aloud but she didn't catch all of it. Without thinking she planted a hand on his back, hoping the small gesture would comfort him.

"Alex, what's wrong?" Concern leaking in her words. More infected approached as Alice looked from Alex to Lisa and back to Alex.