The bluish artificial seawater had dropped without Rand's knowledge—the aquarium was nearly a quarter full less.
The large space freed up makes the whole aquarium look a little weird.
Rand stepped forward to inspect the aquarium in surprise. In his initial thought, this situation was naturally due to a crack in the aquarium. He bent over and looked inch by inch for any cracks that might have been there, but in fact, all parts of the aquarium were intact.
Rand was so puzzled that he even got down on his knees behind the desk to check the water line, and then he felt the rug under his knees feel undeservedly damp. He reached out and felt the carpet, and the liquid seeping from under the thick gray fibers wet his palms, and then he found that the wallpaper at the back of the aquarium was also wet, and there was a low leather sofa near here on the surface. Full of fine water droplets... It felt like an invisible flame had caused the water in the aquarium to boil and atomize and soaked nearby furniture while he was in a coma.
It's all confusing and...
Something doesn't feel right.
A few seconds later, Rand discovered where the dissonance came from—he found Munster sinking to the bottom, motionless on top of the already broken coral rock.
This is obviously very rare for it. Munster was always swimming, even when he was injured and forced to be trapped in a salad bowl, and he kept swimming. But now it has no such amazing vitality at all, it is suspended there feebly, its fins wiggle slightly, and the scales on its body have turned into a pale green gray.
A palpable sign of weakness.
"Oh no."
Rand was stunned for a moment, and after carefully observing Munster's state, he let out a sad low cry, and he thought in horror that maybe during the short period of time he passed out of a coma because of that damn neurological asthma, Something went wrong with Munster as well, and maybe it's his struggle to make the water splash out of the aquarium (it's hard to explain those tiny water droplets on the surface of the home, but Rand apparently didn't think so many).
Not long after, Rand pulled the oxygen pump out of the broken coral, it was no longer working, the plastic casing was covered with strange cracks (the thing looked like it had been hit hard), He wasn't sure if that was the reason for Munster's weakness, but he tried putting a new oxygen pump in the tank and filling it up with artificial seawater.
Beyond that, Rand found himself unable to do anything about Munster's unexplained weakness.
He tried to call some pet hospitals in Kansas City according to the numbers recorded in the telephone yellow pages, but those doctors said that they did not have much experience in treating pet fish of unknown species, and some suggested to him to quickly Sick fish were picked up to avoid infecting other fish—a remark that angered Rand. He simply hung up the phone and went back to the aquarium.
The color on Munster darkened at a speed visible to the naked eye, and Rand stared at it sadly, beginning to think he was about to lose it.
"Hey, don't do that."
he said to the weak fish. He reached in and tried to scoop it up. He didn't know what was wrong, maybe it was the "sea water" that was prepared? He wanted to move Munster to another container, give it a water change, maybe salt and water would make it more comfortable... Rand felt like a swarm of bees buzzing in his head. .
When his finger touched Munster, the latter moved slightly, and it touched Rand's finger with its mouth, and a large translucent membrane, perhaps of skin, came into contact with Rand's finger from it. The small part of the skin fell off, and under the gray skin was an ugly grayish-white tender meat, and there seemed to be a trace of pale blue capillaries.
Then Rand accidentally touched Munster's abdomen, and another large piece of scale fell off with the skin attached. This time Munster bounced violently, looking very painful.
Rand pulled his hand back in fright, not daring to move it again.
"Oh, God, what the hell happened?"
For the first time, he felt that deep distress - the inability to communicate due to the gap between pets and humans.
Rand sincerely hoped that Munster could tell him what was wrong in a way he could understand, but at this moment, he felt the pain of that little life and there was nothing he could do.
A shallow sadness pervaded the man's heart.
Look, those cops, those cops always bring tragedy—as if a voice spoke to him in his ear.
After that, Rand once again bite the bullet and boarded the fish forum he had logged in to before. He made a post and sought a solution without any hope. However, when everyone recognized him quickly, apart from a few taunts, he failed to get any useful reply.
When Rand returned to the aquarium for the second time, Munster had disappeared. Rand's heartbeat paused for a moment... After a few seconds, he found a new change in the "cocoon" that had kept Munster busy for a long time.
The entrance on the side was covered by a layer of translucent film, and through that layer of film, Rand vaguely saw a figure wriggling slightly inside.
It was Munster, and it seemed to be busy with something, its head swaying slowly... After a while, the translucent membrane turned the same white as the rest. Rand realized at this time that as the entrance was sealed, Munster's "cocoon" became a very regular circle.
An hour ago
Washington —
"…Yes, I must admit that the search is slow. But the reality is we don't have a better way. Subject 7371 itself is a Class VIII mutant, and according to the data it left behind, it has a strong possibility of transformation... That's right, the live embryo is the one... I'm sorry, but that red-scaled embryo is almost inactive, and Subject 7371 is the most vital entity we have at hand... Listen, even if it's being forced to larvae now, this kind of Level 1 experimental individuals also already have extremely strong protection measures, and we do not have any tools at hand to screen or identify its bands…”
After a few minutes, Vincent hung up the researcher.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling that his tolerance for this group of trash had reached the limit. The group of idiots were obviously petrified, like a flock of hens caught by a bright light, useless. It's not that a more radical approach doesn't exist, it's just that they are afraid to engage directly with it. The massacre left by Subject 7371 when escaping the Floating Island Laboratory left a deep psychological shadow on the group of guys who should be lawless in theory.
Thinking of this, Vincent's mood became worse than before.
He made a simple gesture, and a security guard standing at the door left silently. That was a capable kid, and Vincent knew that soon he would get a new batch of blood to deal with this time.
Although the problem is still there.
"Someone from the Department of Defense wants to talk to you..."
Caroline quietly handed over the phone from across the room.
"They want to talk about this accident."
Vincent twitched the corners of his mouth, only those closest to him could understand that this was his way of showing contempt. He didn't give Caroline an answer immediately, and his eyes fell on the nameplate on the other side of the table - Deep White Biotechnology, next to it was the company's emblem, a double-faced mermaid with two tails and four arms.
For a moment, he suddenly felt tired, and the terrifying mermaid turned his head like a living creature and opened his mouth at him, and then showed a hideous smile.
…
"Tell them I'll call back later." After a moment of silence, Vincent rejected the call.
Caroline stared worriedly at his pale face.
"Are you uncomfortable?"
she asked.
Vincent frowned and was about to answer her "everything is fine" when the transparent cold hit him.
Vincent gritted his teeth, kept his composure with terrifying restraint and shook his head at the others.
As if receiving a silent message, except for Caroline, the security personnel in the entire room also withdrew.
With the metal doors closed, the gigantic, sci-fi office became even more silent.
"Vincent?!"
Caroline immediately understood what was going on, she panicked and ran to Vincent's desk, opened the drawer and started rummaging.
But Vincent couldn't feel all this. He blinked, and the symptoms that had been symptomatic before became more serious.
The table was twisting like a dancing grass, the ceiling was starting to deform, and the most important thing was the images, oh, the images, roaring toward him like locusts—
blue sea...
bright red blood...
Broken corpse...
The icy currents brushed across his scales...
Almost everything was pleasant, including the satisfying pleasure that followed the killing.
After a few seconds, however, a chaotic panic rushed over him. Something extremely terrifying, extremely painful, happened.
The strong emotion that seemed to crush even the heart was more "fresh" than the previous "memory", but because it was too "fresh", the emotion was like an electric current flowing through Vincent's nerves. Caused a hell of torture.
Just a little bit, Vincent was about to merge into the consciousness in that hallucination and mix with it completely.
[Go away—]
Vincent screamed at the moment when his spirit almost collapsed.
Although it was just a scream in his consciousness.
[I am just me]
[You can't affect me!]
Get out of my head!
The tsunami of consciousness was just like when it came, and was instantly driven back by Vincent.
He climbed ashore from that sea of illusions and returned to real reality.
At the same time, Caroline finally took out the potion from the drawer. She squatted beside Vincent and stroked his sleeve, then fiercely stabbed the potion on the body that had started to twitch.
The hallucination disappeared as the golden liquid was injected into the blood vessels.
Of course, the huge side effects brought by the drug, the pain did not disappear. In great pain, Vincent was paralyzed on the chair like a dead man, dripping with sweat, and his body spasmed slightly unconsciously.
His body has no strength at all now, and even a finger can't move according to his consciousness.
From his current angle, he could just see a group photo on the table.
The tall, handsome, blond youth like the reincarnation of Apollo happily hugged the boy in his arms. The boy had fair ivory-like skin and light blond curly hair, and there seemed to be a hint of distress in his eyes.
Vincent stared at the two people in the photo and took a slow, deep breath.
When the pain eased a little, Caroline rushed over, holding Vincent's face, and asked tremblingly.
"Are you synced?"
It took Vincent a moment to set his eyes on the woman in front of him.
He nodded very weakly.
After getting a positive answer, Caroline knelt down on the ground for a moment, her face pale from panic.
"This non-triggered psychic sync... it's starting to seep back, right? When did it start?" There was a glint in her eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?"
…
After a long time, Vincent's unusually weak voice sounded faintly.
"After escaping from it," he said, "I can't control it, Caroline, it's transforming..."
Just then, a special beep for emergency contact came from the communicator on the desk.
Vincent was too weak, and Caroline was in a state of extreme confusion, and both ignored it.
After three beeps, the contact was automatically projected onto the metal curtain wall of the office.
A researcher with dark circles and skeleton-like eyes frantically appeared in front of Vincent and Caroline.
"Call, call headquarters... This is the Arctic SIREN-II base... I'm left-behind Georgean Lee, now reporting an emergency to you, requesting encryption of communications..."
In theory, the image should be extremely smooth and clear, but at this time, I don't know why it appears intermittent, and the image is covered by mosaics caused by communication delays from time to time. There is actually a twist and hideousness that is difficult to describe in words.
Caroline looked at the picture, her heart began to beat wildly uncontrollably.
As the "encryption completed" report from the mechanical tablet fell, George Ann Lee's voice seemed to be chopped to pieces by the gust of wind, and was intermittently thrown into this deadly quiet office thousands of miles away.
"... Five minutes ago... Test subject 7928, test subject 9036, test subject 9877... cocooned in the SIREN-II spare petri dish... The base was attacked by... extreme infrasound waves... request... help... "
He didn't even finish his last word, and the whole picture suddenly froze.
The hoarse voice came to an abrupt end, and the office fell into a dead silence in an instant, until a few seconds later, the sweet mechanical sound sounded again.
"Communications were interrupted due to signal problems, we are working hard to fix it for you, please wait."
However, both Vincent and Caroline knew clearly in their hearts that this signal would probably never appear in front of them again.