Chaos-Daemon

The screen displayed a ringing icon, the sound of a phone dialing playing through the speakers to indicate the call being made.... After a long few seconds, the screen flashes to connected, before displaying a bright dazzling scene of a beach, the blue ocean lapping in the background, before it swung around and the immense shape of a draconic figure, silhoetted by the sun, came into view. 'Thissss had better be good Parker.... ' a deep grumbling voice came through the speakers. The trembling man in the whitecoat behind his desk, sweat beading down his temples, stammered a response. 'I..Im sorry Dr Sobel-Ashcroft... I know that you're on your second honeymoon with Mrs Ashcroft.... but we have a bit of a situation'. The huge shadow on the other end of the call grumbled, steam escaping from its nostrils. 'What now Peterssss? James in accounting blown himssself up like a balloon again? That happens with alarming regularity thesssse da-' 'No Doctor! Its not that- ' the worried scientist interrupted. 'It's one of the newer R+D team members - they've.... performed an untested, unauthorised change... in themselves....' Peters looked around nervously, looking around the darkened office. 'What have they done?' Growled the now leaning in, now very interested green dragon. 'Well, I dont know if you recall her but it Elizabet, y'know, the gothy woman that scares the hell out of half of the team. Well her research has alway been a bit... dark since she arrived and began looking at applications for the formula. Bats, spiders, even ways to permently make a user look for all and intents.... dead. Goths right?' 'Yesss, well thats nothing too out of the ordinary Peters, sssstop pratling on and tell me what shessss done.'  Vanessa groaned and took a sip from a gigantic container holding presumably a cocktail, a full size umbrella almost comically stuck in the top. 'Er... well.. yes... ahem, well I got into work yesterday morning and found her collapsed in the lab, an auto pump next to her and residue of serum surrounding her anus area, indicating she had delivered a significant amount of serum into herself. I checked her vitals and.... she was dead. She was pale... well paler than usual and had no pulse or other life signs. I administered CPR but couldnt get her to stabilise'. 'Does... does the authorities know about this Peters?' Vanessa stop mid-sip and looked very directly into the camera.... 'N... no ma'am.... because what happened next.... I had just finished giving CPR and was about to call for the company's internal medical teams, when Elizabet just sat bolt upright! Damn near gave me a heart attack! She blinked a few times, then asked if it had worked. I got her up onto a chair and looked her over. She was freezing, icy to the touch and still porceline white. I got a blanket on her and let her rest. When the rest of team came in, we started trying to find out what had happened. Elizabet was pretty out of it, complaining she was tired and was trying to nap whenever she could. I didnt want to alert yourself or the other board members of the protocol breach until we knew all the facts. That was when we found several unexplainable things. When pressed about what strain the formula was that she'd used, she was hesitant to say and later confessed it was one of her own devising, using an unknown to us coding sequence. We're still running tests and trying to figure out what it was. But thats not the worrying thing...' 'Ussse of an unauthorised ssserum variant? If thatsss not the most worrying part, youre concerning me Petersss' Vanessa's magma-like but feminine voice rumbled. 'She's dead ma'am' Peter blurted out, going ashen grey. 'We monitored her vitals when she regained consciousness and she still showed no heart beat, no respitory action and had a body temperature of 37.5°C, that of a hours old corpse. Yet shes alive and talking, moving around! And worse... shes showing signs of extreme aversion to sunlight, even breaking out in blisters when a researcher opened a blind near her. She crossed the room and threw the poor lab assistant near clear across the room, showing signs of hightened speed and strength. Even bit the poor bastard too. We managed to isolate her in one of the lab rooms but... shes got the team scared.' The green dragon sat there, unmoving taking in the information and once Peters finished his report, continued to sit there mulling the information over. Finally she leant in close to the camera. 'I want her isssolated ahead of more tests, and I want that mystery ssserum variant examined by your best men and women. We're flying home immediately and I want to investigate this persssonally.....' The call trailed off as the immense figure moved away from the camera, the sound of another dragon roaring in annoyance, before cutting out completely. Peter gulped at the knowledge that he'd not only pissed off two dragons but had also cut their holiday short. Peters got up from his desk, exhaled, pushed his glasses up his nose and walked to the door of the office, before opening it. He stopped in his tracks when he saw the lab beyond in a state of carnage, lights flickered intermintently, papers strewn about and no sign of the small team he'd requested stay behind. Knees trembling, Peters crept out into the semi darkened room, looking for anyone. He froze when he saw the door the room Elizabet had been kept in smashed from its frame. Something moved in his periphery and he span to face it. Standing behind him, cloaked in shadows, skin like a silvery moon and a face both smeared in blood and twisted into a bestial mockery of its former self, Elizabet eye'd the trembling Peters hungrily like a cat playing with its food. 'Sorry Peters, but... im so hungry'. The last thing Peters saw before his scream was cut short was glowing red eyes and too many sharp teeth.                            ************ Amelia and Vanessa observed the security footage when they got back to their office-cum-home a day later. No one had survived in the lab, the 4 staff, Peters included, exsanguinated. Whatever Elizabet had become had fled into the night, one eyewitness claiming she'd burst into a cloud of bats. Of course, no one would ever breathe a word of this, those employees who'd witnessed anything silenced with a NDA and the threat of becoming test subjects for the R+D department. Vanessa turned her emerald scaled face to her wifes and purred 'Sssso are you going to ssssay the V word or am I?' 'Sssssooooo we may have created a vampire...... if we can get that bloodlussst under control, imagine how that'll sssell to the alternative community' Amelia, always seeing the silver lining, chuckled. Vanessa rolled her yellow reptilian eyes...