Shashi flicked on the basement lights, illuminating a cramped room that felt suffocating in its smallness. It could barely fit three people, and its sparse furnishings only added to the oppressive atmosphere. On the left stood a broken washing machine, rusted and forgotten, in the middle of the room, a small table sat forlornly, and to the right, a crooked, narrow bed sagged under the weight of Anjali's fragile form. She lay there, motionless except for the strained rise and fall of her chest, each breath seeming to cost her something, as if even sleep had become a torment.
"Pick her up—and watch your head," Shashi instructed, his voice calm but urgent, as he moved to the washing machine. With a press of a button on the decrepit appliance, something unexpected happened.
"Got it," Sachin muttered as he gently lifted Anjali into his arms. He started to move, then hesitated, his eyes widening. "Wait, what—"
Before he could finish, the washing machine slid swiftly to the side, revealing a narrow, dimly lit tunnel that led deeper. Sachin stood frozen for a moment, Anjali in his arms, staring at a secret passage now open before them.
There was hesitation in his steps, a trembling uncertainty that almost rooted Sachin to the spot. Yet the troubled look on his daughter's face was more than enough to make him gulp his fear. With a heavy breath, he forced himself forward, moving steadily—though painfully slowly—toward the secret passage. It was only as he neared it that he realized it wasn't a tunnel at all. Instead, it was a gaping hole in the wall into a pitch-black room.
"Move it!" Shashi's sharp impatient voice rang out from the other side of the hole. Sachin hesitated, but he knew there was no choice. Reluctantly, he obeyed. Carefully, he slid one leg through the narrow opening, the cool air from the other side brushing against his skin. His knee bent awkwardly as he tried to maneuver the rest of his body into the space. Finally, he straightened, fully inside the room.
"Welcome to my lab—and your redemption," Shashi gloated, his voice dripping with satisfaction as he flipped a switch. Blinding lights filled the room, revealing a vast underground space. Cement floors stretched out beneath Sachin's feet, and the thick, bricked walls stood firm, as though guarding secrets of their own. In each corner stood a pillar, their rough brick surfaces worn with age. Between them, wooden racks were arranged haphazardly, some empty, some crammed with jars of strange liquids. Scattered across other shelves lay apparatuses that only someone trained in reactions would understand.
But at the very heart of the room, drawing Sachin's attention like a beacon, was a stretcher—the kind you'd find in a hospital. Its stark, cold metal gleamed under the harsh light, ready and waiting for whatever grim purpose Shashi had in store.
"What are you waiting for? Put her on the stretcher," Shashi commanded his voice devoid of patience. He yanked a small, wheeled table from the back of the room, its metal frame creaking as it rolled forward. The table stood at waist height, its surface worn and scarred, pocked with rust and deep scratches that told stories of past experiments—none of them pleasant.
"Yes, Mr. Rai," Sachin responded, his voice low and compliant. He moved toward the stretcher, his heart aching as he gently placed his daughter's fragile, sleeping form on the cold metal surface, his hands trembling ever so slightly.
As he stepped back, he asked "Mr. Rai, is this place... under the house behind yours?"
Shashi let out a grunt, distracted as he hopped between the scattered shelves. "Yup!" he said his voice casual despite the strangeness of the situation. "You will never guess how I found this place." He moved swiftly, gathering a beaker, a hot-plate, syringes, and jars filled with various liquids. His hands flew from one shelf to another, placing the collected items on the table while Sachin watched in silence, uneasy.
"This place used to belong to my chemistry teacher back in school," Shashi said, finally done placing everything he needed on the table. He paused briefly, collecting his thoughts. "One day, we heard he'd been diagnosed with cancer. Naturally, everyone felt sorry for him, until…" His voice trailed off as he dragged the table back to its original spot. Sachin watched, his brow furrowed in confusion.
"Until what?" Sachin prompted.
Shashi let out a low chuckle. "Until, he was arrested two years later for cooking meth. He was arrested during school hours in front of everyone. Now that was a day to remember."
He reached for a small vial labeled Anesthol, his hands steady as he expertly filled two syringes with the liquid.
"That's horrible," Sachin said, his voice tinged with shock.
"And funny," Shashi replied with a smirk. "Anyway, when I started my own little nightly ventures, I knew this place would be perfect."
Shashi approached Sachin, holding out one of the syringes. "Here, this is for the pain."
"But I'm not in any pain," Sachin stammered, fear creeping into his voice.
"You will be," Shashi said coldly, "once we start. So, inject it. I'll take care of your daughter."
With clinical precision, Shashi injected the syringe into the crook of Anjali's arm, causing her body to twitch a little involuntarily. Reluctantly, Sachin followed suit, pressing the syringe into his own shoulder, his hands trembling as he administered the dose.
"Good boy," Shashi said, his grin widening as he took back the syringe. "Now be a dear and bring that stretcher over here, next to your daughter's. You'll want to lie down soon enough." He pointed toward the stretcher, propped upright against the wall behind Sachin at a distance.
With sluggish steps, Sachin made his way toward it. Each movement felt heavier than the last, his limbs betraying him as though the air around him had thickened. The room wavered and swirled, the walls and floor rippling like water disturbed by speeding winds. His hand brushed the stretcher with an unsteady grip, and he dragged it over, positioning it beside his daughter's.
Shashi watched with contempt, the corner of his mouth twitching in amusement. "What a loser," he thought, eyes narrowing as Sachin struggled.
Shashi stood near a small, dark locker on the floor—an oddly pristine object amidst the chaos of his dingy lab.
Shashi crouched down, pulling a key from a chain hidden beneath his shirt. Unclasping it from around his neck, he inserted the key into the locker with a quiet click. The door creaked open, revealing a single vial of deep red liquid nestled inside. Shashi's grin grew more sinister as he lifted the vial to eye level, its contents glinting ominously in the dim light.
"Time to go all out," he murmured as he gazed at the vial, a tension-filled smile curling on his lips.
Sachin, barely able to keep his eyes open or his feet steady, lay flat on the stretcher, exhaustion weighing him down. Just as the warm haze of sleep began to overtake him, Shashi's voice echoed through the room.
"Brace yourself, this one's a stinger!"
"What is...? Oh, no—OH MY GOD!"
The moment Shashi cracked open the vial, a putrid stench erupted into the room, so overpowering that Sachin's eyes rained in tears. A sharp, prickling sensation spread across his skin, and for a fleeting moment, he could swear he tasted blood on his tongue. The vial was tiny, barely an inch long, but its contents filled the room with a deathly, suffocating aura—like a crypt teeming with the souls of the damned, desperate for release.
"WHAT IN THE LIVING HELL IS THAT?!" Sachin screamed, struggling to catch his breath between gasps.
Shashi only laughed, the sound dark and gleeful, as he casually approached the wheeled table, waving the vial in the air. "This, my friend, is how Butcher seized control of Panaha's underworld overnight. The infamous enzyme—Arcazine."
With a calm precision, Shashi began rearranging the various tools and chemicals on the table, preparing for what came next. "You see, catalysts need all sorts of enzymes to drive reactions, but some... some are nearly impossible to get. This one? Arcazine? It's a legend."
He placed a beaker on a small hot plate and poured the Arcazine into it, flipping the switch with a soft click. The low hum of the warming plate filled the silence as the vile liquid began to heat.
"We catalysts call it the 'Red Miracle,' but the WDA didn't see it that way. They banned it the very day it was created. Something about the way it was made just... didn't sit right with them. The formula's been kept under wraps ever since."
Sachin, still gagging on the scent, watched as Shashi dropped a small blue rock into the beaker. The rock, riddled with countless irregular holes like it had been eaten away by something unnatural, immediately began to melt as it touched the heated Arcazine. The sight of it was unsettling—alive, almost, in its grotesque disintegration.
"So when Butcher walked in as the sole supplier of Arcazine in Panaha," Shashi continued, his tone shifting to something darker, "the other gang leaders were powerless. Not that they didn't try to stop him—but he was untouchable. Too strong."
The blue rock dissolved, bubbling away into the red liquid, as Shashi added more unnamed enzymes from a collection of vials. The concoction hissed and swirled, merging into a sinister brew like a potion in a witch's cauldron.
Shashi smiled, eyes gleaming. "And now, Sachin, we get to witness its magic."
The effects of the Arcazine exposure had finally worn off, and Sachin, teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, summoned the strength to speak. His voice, frail but filled with the concern of a devoted father, trembled as he asked, "This will work, right, Mr. Rai? She will live?"
Without a word, Shashi unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a large belt-like apparatus strapped around his midsection. At its center was a hollowed circle, carefully designed for a specific purpose. Picking up the beaker, now filled with a thick, green, slime-like substance—a fusion of the enzymes—he looked over at Sachin, his eyes dark with finality.
"Are you having second thoughts?" Shashi asked, his tone sharp. "Because it's too late for that now."
"No, absolutely not. This is the only way to save her. I'm just... I'm just worried," Sachin replied, his voice weakening with each word, the weight of the decision bearing down on him.
Shashi sighed, fitting the beaker snugly into the carved circle in his belt, the mouth of the container pressed directly against his abdomen. "I told you before—it's a simple transference reaction. I've done it countless times. The disease will be drawn from your daughter's body and put into yours. She will live. You... won't."
As he spoke, a vivid green hue began to spread through Shashi's veins, snaking its way up from the belt and spreading like roots across his body, reaching his jaw. His pupils dilated unnaturally, nearly filling the whites of his eyes, while his jaw grotesquely swelled, as though something inside was trying to burst free.
Sachin's eyelids grew heavier, his voice now barely a whisper. "Good... that's all that matters. She... must... live…" His voice trailed off as he succumbed, to a deep, consuming slumber. For now, the battle was out of his hands—he could only hope he'd made the right choice.
Shashi stood over them, his face stretched into a broad, sinister grin, now grotesquely overgrown like a predator savoring the thrill of the hunt. His mouth gaped open, wider than humanly possible, as his tongue slithered out and split into two, each half extending like serpents. At their tips, repulsive maws formed, ringed with jagged teeth that twisted into a crown of sharp edges. The tongues latched onto the throats of the man and the girl, sinking in with ravenous hunger.
This was Shashi's Operatus. Every catalyst had one—an irreversible transformation, the very first reaction they inflicted upon themselves. Without it, no further reactions could be performed. Yet, no catalyst had a choice over the form their Operatus would take. Some were gifted with rare abilities, capable of extraordinary reactions, while others were cursed with the mundane, destined to fade into obscurity. It was a gamble, and Shashi, well, he reveled in the gamble—especially when it came at the cost of other people's lives.
His twin tongues swelled grotesquely around the necks of his willing victims, sprouting tiny spores that hissed out green fumes. The toxic cloud coiled around them, thick and impenetrable, concealing the trio in a toxic shroud that left only their flickering shadows visible.
Time passed, and with a bone-shaking thud, the fumes dissipated, revealing Shashi slumped over, drenched in sweat, his breath ragged and strained. His eyes, bloodshot and streaming with tears, flickered open.
"Hah... Hah... Hahahahahaha!" he bellowed, his voice cracking into hysterical laughter. "I did it. I fucking did it!" His triumphant yell echoed through the room, as a sickly yellow light pulsed across his face, illuminating his twisted expression of victory.