The boy who used to be Claire's brother stood up slowly, and Morgan's fight-or-flight instincts screamed at him to stop. Joints bent in ways that weren't right, and muscles rippled under skin that had become slightly glowing. His eyes were no longer human when he turned to look at Morgan. Their pupils were stretched into vertical slits like a predator's, and they glowed with that inner light.
The mutated boy said, "I can see it now," and his voice was full of harmonics that shouldn't be in a human throat. "The web. The machine. Everything was connected and went to the center. And in the middle, something that I wanted to eat."
"It's so hungry it could eat the whole world."
Morgan stood up, keeping his body relaxed and ready. He had fought mutated people before and knew how they acted, what they were good at, and what they were bad at.
But this body was seventeen years old and soft, with muscles that weren't used to fighting and barely remembered the decades of fighting experience that were burned into his mind. The disconnect was so dangerous that it could get him killed if he took too long to think about something.
"What's your name?" Morgan asked, buying time while he thought about what to do.
The living room was a chaotic scene, replete with furniture that not only served as weapons but also exacerbated the situation. Claire was outside, close enough to hear if things went wrong. Murphy was at the church a few blocks away, probably already writing his story about how God changed him.
"Names don't mean anything anymore." The boy turned his head to the side and looked at Morgan with an unsettling amount of focus. "You're also different, changing to be, in fact, but not transformed."
"You have seen this before, right? You know what's going to happen."
Morgan didn't say anything. The boy jumped.
The boy's movement was faster than that of an average person. Enhanced muscles pushed him across the room in a blur. Morgan's body reacted before his conscious mind could understand the attack.
His old instincts took over, even though his young body was weak. He moved to the side and felt the air move as the boy's clawed hand came within inches of his throat. Morgan's muscles, unaccustomed to the sudden strain, ached in his legs.
The boy hit the wall behind Morgan, leaving deep holes in the drywall. He turned right away, without a second thought or any doubt. The Syndrome had changed his nervous system so that there was no longer a delay between seeing something and doing something about it. He was faster, stronger, and completely out of control.
Morgan picked up a broken chair leg from the floor and felt how heavy it was. At least it's better than using your hands. The mutated boy circled him, moving like a predator and being patient. There were still pieces of who he had been in that glowing gaze, but they were lost in the new instincts that the Syndrome had put into his brain.
The boy said, "You can't save me."
"I can feel it taking away the last bits of who I was. There won't be anything left but this soon. And then I'll be perfect to be part of something bigger..."
Morgan said, "There's nothing great about becoming a slave to a machine," and he changed how he held the makeshift weapon.
The boy's laugh made Morgan's teeth hurt. "You still think in such small terms. This isn't slavery. This is how things change. People were always meant to go beyond themselves."
"We're just the first as humans."
He attacked again, and this time Morgan couldn't get away. Claws dug into his shoulder, ripping through skin and cloth. Blood rushed out quickly and hotly, and the pain was so bad that it made his vision blurry. Morgan swung the chair leg with the force of his dodge, hitting the boy's outstretched arm. The wood cracked but didn't break, and the boy who had mutated fell to the side.
Morgan took advantage of the situation, his mind calculating angles and weaknesses like it had done thousands of times before. The boy's body had been improved, but it was still new to him, and he wasn't used to how it felt.
His movements were strong but not very precise because he relied on brute force instead of technique. But then Morgan got the chance she needed.
He faked going high, then went low, knocking the boy's legs out from under him. The changed body fell hard to the ground, and Morgan was on him right away, pushing the broken chair leg down toward the throat.
The boy caught it just inches from his neck, and his hands wrapped around the wood with a lot of force. The leg of the chair broke into pieces and flew everywhere.
They fought and rolled around on the carpet, which was covered in blood. Morgan's weak body screamed in pain every time he moved, but he couldn't stop.
In the original timeline, he learned that being kind to the transformed was just a slower way to die. The Syndrome didn't allow for humanity, but it only allowed for hunger and the desire to spread.
Morgan was able to put his knee on the boy's chest and hold him down with all of his weight. His hands found the boy's throat, and his fingers dug in.
The mutated flesh was tougher than human skin and could withstand pressure, but Morgan knew where the weak spots were. He changed how he was holding it, found the right angle, and squeezed.
The boy thrashed around under him, and Morgan almost fell off because of the extra strength. The claws tore into Morgan's arms and chest, leaving behind burning trails of flesh. Morgan, on the other hand, held on with a blank face and mechanical movements.
He wasn't angry or scared at the loss of the boy. Instead, he felt like a puppet being controlled by the Syndrome's code letting him live would just kill more people.
The door flew open. Claire stood in the doorway with her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide with fear. She was not afraid of the transformed figure that had once been her brother; instead, her fear was directed at Morgan. The way he held down a screaming, struggling body with the calm efficiency of someone who had done this before.
She gasped, "What the FUCK are you doing?!"
"That's my brother!"
Morgan said, "It's too late, he's already lost it," in a flat voice. "Your brother died as soon as the Syndrome was done rewriting his brain. This is all that's left."
The boy's struggles were getting weaker as his body's need for oxygen grew stronger. His glowing eyes locked onto Morgan's, and for a brief moment, something human flickered in their depths with acknowledgment and even comprehension.
Thereafter, the light went out and the body stopped moving. Morgan held on for ten more seconds to be certain.
He had previously witnessed people who transformed into monsters pretend to be dead, lying in wait for their opponents to lower their guard. He let go and stood up only when he was sure, and the result of that is his whole body was shaking from pain and effort.
Claire was crying and leaning against the doorframe. "You killed him... you just killed him," Claire repeated, her voice trembling.
"I finished it," Morgan said, looking at his wounds.
The scratches were deep but not life-threatening. They would need to be cleaned soon to keep them from getting infected. "He was already dead, and the entity that took over his body is no longer your brother."
"How do you even know!!!" Claire's voice was sharp with anger and sadness. "How do you fucking know for sure!?"
"Because I've seen this stuff happen to a lot of people. I've seen the Syndrome turn whole cities into nightmares. I've killed enough mutated people to know that they can't change back once they've changed."
Morgan couldn't say any of that, so he just looked her in the eye and said, "I'm sorry for your loss."
There were footsteps outside, it sounded like more and more people came to see what was going on because of the screaming. Morgan moved quickly and took pictures of the body with his phone just to write things down as proof. He needed to know what was different about this timeline's Syndrome and what had changed.
He knelt next to the dead body and carefully picked up a piece of torn cloth, folded it, and put it in his pocket. Claire watched him with a mix of fear and slight interest.
"Who are you...?" she asked in a whisper.
Morgan didn't have an answer that made sense to her. A man who had lived through the end of the world and then been sent back in time with all of his pain but none of his strength. He was the last person who had learned to kill without thinking about it, and now he was stuck in a body that remembered being innocent.
People were starting to gather outside, and their voices were getting louder in fear and confusion. Morgan could see them through the window pointing at the house and recording it on their phones.
He had to go before the situation got out of hand and too many people saw what he could do. But he was too late.
Murphy pushed through the crowd, and even in the dark, he could see his pastor's collar. He saw Morgan through the window and saw the blood-soaked teenager who finally became a young adult standing over a body that looked almost human but not quite.
Morgan and his father looked at each other, and Morgan saw his father's face change from one emotion to another too quickly to keep track of. There was worry, confusion, and even planning. But underneath it all, something that looked a lot like pride.
Murphy walked slowly into the house, raising his hands to calm the people outside. "Everyone, please stay back. We need to stay calm, even though the incident is a tragedy."
"I'm going to help my son."
He shut the door behind him, keeping the people who were watching from seeing him. As soon as they were alone, Murphy's friendly mask fell off, and Morgan saw the cold, analytical look he had seen before. He walked slowly around the body, looking at it with professional interest.
"Interesting," Murphy said quietly. "The change is not finished yet, but it is stable."
"The bones have changed, and the muscles have gotten stronger. And look at the eyes, they still shine even when they're dead." He looked up at Morgan. "You did a great job killing it, it's almost like you've done this before."
Morgan said, "It was attacking me," in a calm voice. "I stood up for myself."
"That's not defense, son. Defense is messy and desperate. What you did was kill someone who's still proven innocent." Murphy moved closer to Morgan and looked at her face. "You held its throat until you were sure it was dead."
"You acted without panicking and had no doubts about it. That's not how a scared teenager would act but rather how a trained person would act."
Morgan didn't say anything and waited to see what his father would do next. Murphy smiled, and it was the first time Morgan had seen him smile since the regression.
"You're amazing, Morgan. I thought something had changed, but this... this is more than I expected." He reached out and put a hand on Morgan's bloody shoulder, almost as if he cared. "You're going to play a big role in what's to come. I can feel it."
Murphy turned back to the body before Morgan could say anything. He knelt next to it and put both hands on the corpse that had changed. His eyes were closed, and when he spoke, his voice had the same deep sound that Morgan remembered from the sermons that would end the world.
"Thank God," Murphy whispered, his voice full of real awe. "God has begun."
Morgan's blood froze. Not because Murphy was praying, but because of who he was praying to. His father knew even then, at the very beginning. Already knew that the Syndrome wasn't random or natural.
He had been waiting for this and getting ready for it. Now that it was here, he welcomed it like an old friend.
Morgan stood still in the blood-stained living room, watching his father pray at the altar of humanity's extinction. He realized with horrible clarity that stopping Murphy would be harder than he had thought.
Because the Syndrome wasn't controlling Murphy. He had been waiting for it the whole time.