[MythicDusk]

His lungs burned as he pumped his legs. Stumbling through the dark caves, his feet catching on the uneven ground. He staggered for a moment, placing his hand against the cool rock, before snatching it back like it had burned him.

He didn't understand the sensation in his legs, the trickle down his spine, he didn't understand any of it. But he felt that same panic spiral into his gut as he heard a deep bark.

And he ran.

They could probably follow his scent. He remembered that. he rmeembered learning that. He rmemebered being told that. He couldn't remember if it was in his new body or if it was while he was in the Mother. He missed the Mother. Crammed with all of his brothers and sisters, even if they were plucked out one by one as they were deemed incompatiable or inconsistent or simply useless.

Eventually, he was the only one left clinging to the Mother's lifeless corpse.

Project Kayron they had called him.

Modern necromancy they had called it.

He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, wanting to push the memories away, wanting to push the data away that his new mind couldnt make sense of. His mind saw in pictures, in scents and in touch and taste. It didn't see in digits and coding like he used to.

He felt a gasp burn his lungs as the bark grew closer and he ran again.

[MythicDusk]

Dan ran the mission priority over in her head, again and again. She needed to put a stop to whatever these fucks were doing in that lab of theirs.

She licked her dry lips, a trembling exhale echoing from her chest as she kept creeping forward, her shoulders low and her back stooped.

Modern necromancy her late father's left nutsack. What they were doing was killing people who wouldn't be missed and implantinc artificial intelligence into the brain. Re-firing the deadened neurons, allow the AI to take control, revive the corpse with a new person inside it. A fake person.

It rose a whole lot of questions in her, but she shoved it down. She knew what she needed. And what she needed to do was go and put an end to this spate of abominations.

Mainly so she could get paid, but same difference.

She felt her breath catch as he heard a low, rumbling, heavy bark. A scent of an animal on a trail of something that excited it. An intruder, and escapee, Dan didn't know. But it made her palms sweat and made her instinctually reach for her holstered gun.

She licked her dry fuckin' lips again. She had to stop breathing so heavily. She whipped the gun from its holster as a young man came charging out of one of the passageways, a snarl curling her lips.

"Stop right there, dickfuck. The hell're you doing?"

[MythicDusk]

He gasped, his bare, bloodied feet stumbling to a halt on the hard rock as he lost his footing and fell hard on his ass. He whimpered in pain as he rubbed his lower back in an instinctual movement. Fear shot through him at the sight of the woman. Her red eyes and hair pulled back gave her a severe look. He didn't have much time to take in more details of her face before he heard another rumbling snarl.

"Please, oh god, please. They're after me. They want to take me back there. Please help me, I don't want to go back there."

He was babbling. The chip that fired in his brain knew this was a dumb thing to do. Babbling helped nothing, it just made the information harder to convey. But the hard pressure around his chest, the slowly tightening iron bars that pressed against his ribs urged him to empty his lungs of words.

"They're bad men, they're coming for me."

He felt stinging in the corner of his eyes, and he quickly reached a hand up, inspecting the wetness on his fingers with a tremble.

[MythicDusk]

She baulked for a moment, resisting a laugh at the man falling on his ass. The laugh was sapped away by his pure panic. His incredible, undeniable fear as he trembledo n the floor. She took how he looked in. The dirty, torn hospital gown. the lines of blood down his arms and hands from where he had torn wires and needles from himself.

And his eyes.

A strange misty blue. A desperate, needy look. His teeth pressed together as he panted with fright.

Fuck, she couldn't leave him like this.

"Alright, alright. Fuck. C'mon. Come with me, we can get somewhere safer and talk all this out. If I don't like your answer though, I'm throwing you back to the wolves."

She gave a sly, sharp grin. One that never inspired ease in people. One that always promised to deliver on her threats.

[MythicDusk]

The man without a name nodded quickly, scrambling to his feet before shuddering slightly at her threat. He remembered learning about wolves. The things that were chasing his heels weren't wolves. Wolves would be kinder.

He followed her easy gait as she led him through winding paths, a number of times water shocking his system as he would wade into underground pools up to his thighs. Some of them with strong currents that gripped at his ankles and tried to drag him under. But, the woman with the red eyes and hawkish smile was always ready to grab his arm and haul him from the danger.

They seemed to get to a place where she deemed safe. There was no longer the sounds of barking and excited howling chasing them. They had lost the trail. The man breathed a slow sigh before curling around himself, his legs still wet and cold. He shook the burn from his fingers, wincing as he bent them.

[MythicDusk]

Dan sighed softly as she pulled bundles of firewood from her stashed pack. She was thankful she had left stashes throughout the caves in preparation. She threw a set of clothes to the man, who winced away in visible fright and she rolled her eyes as she lit the kindling, watching as it slowly came to life.

"Put them on and you won't be cold. What's your name kid? You look too young to be running from those 'bad men' as you called them." She rubbed her own hands together, holding them palm-forward to the fire.

"I'm Danielle. Dan for short."

[MythicDusk]

The man stared at the woman for a moment before he looked at the flames, his brow knitting together in an emotion his body knew, but his mind didn't.

"I don't have a name." He finally uttered, pulling on the pants first under his gown, trembling at the feeling of fabric on his skin before he pushed off the gown, raising his arm to cast it into the fire before he sighed and let his arm and shoulders drop, letting it slip from his fingers as he pulled on the shirt and sweater he had been given.

It was all too large and hung off his frame awkwardly. But it was better than freezing, he supposed as he watching himself wriggle his toes.

"They used to call me Project Kayron. After the god that ferried souls across the river of the dead. I was meant to be the link between the living and the dead."

He swallowed hard, nervous. His fingers coming up to scratch at the stitches that had opened up his- no, not his. this wasn't his body. This was a young man that they smothered and injected him into the brain and expected to work - head. He followed the dark lines in his flesh, wincing as he hit a tender spot. Well, more tender than usual he supposed.

[MythicDusk]

"So, your name is Kayron." She spoke as if she was speaking to a toddler, her hands in front of her, palm-up. "And you're one of the experiments they were running." Her voice began to shake, her breath coming harder as she slowly closed her hands into fists.

"And you worked?"

It sounded callous to her own ears. To refer to him as a robot, as an automaton. She could see by the dried blood on his fingers that he bled like any other man. But she also thought of the mother seeing her son, and instead of being greeted with the misty eyed man with dark hair and what she supposed could be a charming smile, instead met with a stranger.

The idea coiled in her stomach like a viper, preparing to strike.

"Tell me why you should live."

Her voice was hollow, her eyes staring into the flames as she spoke. Her jaw working in silence, as if she was chewing on the words she had just spoken.

[MythicDusk]

He blinked slowly. He supposed that was his name. There was another name that floated in the cesspool of memories that didn't belong to him. It was how his body knew how to work. It was how he remembered some of the names of some of the sensations.

Slowly, he rose his tired eyes to Dan. He was so tired. He wanted to sleep for an hour, maybe three, maybe forever, he didn't know. He just knew it was hard to keep his eyes open. Hard to care about the threat and he huffed a laugh. A joyless, tired sound.

"I don't think I really should be. They snuffed out one life to I could take over his body." He stared at his palms. Sweaty, clammy. He was scared out of his wits. "Kill me, if you deem it necessary." He rolled a shrug, a movement he made instinctually, that his body made out of habit that wasn't his.

[MythicDusk]

Her eyes focused on him as he talked. Dragging them away from the flames to watch the man who stared at his own bloodied toes.

Even knowing all she did about him, she still thought of him as a man. As a person.

She supposed that was her answer.

She sucked in a tight breath. She felt the sudden urge to protect him. As if he was some kind of child. She supposed he was. A child forced into the body and complex mind of an adult man. She watched as he curled into himself, looking tired enough for the both of them. She couldn't help the huff of a laugh that echoed from between her teeth.

"Get some rest, kid. I'll take first watch."