"---Today we claim another bounty for the strong, for us!"
Mark raised his blade above his head as he delivered the last of his fiery speech to the gathered warriors, their roars boomed out over the empty field ahead until it clashed against the stone walls about a kilometer away, they numbered a little over 6.000 and in a few moments they would follow Mark through the walls of the fortified city
Mark looked over the faces he remembered from the gathered battle line before he turned around to face the fortified city ahead and yelled
"With me!"
Then he led the charge, here with his trusted comrades he would claim what lay ahead with his own hands, with his mind awaking from its long lightning induced coma Mark felt more in tune with this reality than the one he had left behind
"...Where is this?"
That is why when he suddenly found himself standing on the surface of an endless quiet lake he was confused, he looked around, moments ago he had been on a field and now he was here again
"WHAT THE FUCK!?"
He yelled in a furious roar, he had finally felt like he belonged and now he had been ripped away from it again. Defeated, Mark fell to his knees, his legs simply giving out as he muttered
"...What do you want with me"
The empty body of water gave no answer, however, Mark felt something stir in his body as an answer to his question seemed to bubble up in his consciousness. The answer hadn't come from the outside, it had come from within
'I am more suited for the other reality? I was never meant to go there? My purpose… Is to feed?'
The words echoed in his mind for a few moments before asked
"Then why was I sent there?"
As before the endless still waters gave no answer, however soon enough the answer bubbled up in his mind
'So because I was in danger, I was exchanged? oh right, the big eyeless black serpent… I guess that means I was right in thinking it was a Scourge like me…'
As Mark sat on the surface of the water, he slowly began sinking down into the abyss, slowly at first however he soon felt a constant acceleration, gazing down Mark soon saw the eyeless black serpent rushing up roaring a stream of profanities
"MARK YOU MOTHERFUCKER, I WILL FUCKING SKIN YOU ALIVE—"
Mark flashed a refreshing smile and responded
"Yeah, no you won't… Have a great day"
Waving at the eyeless black serpent as it rushed past him attempting to bite and most likely tear him apart
"Well, given his reaction, I don't think I'll arrive somewhere particularly pleasant…"
Mark let out a sigh as felt his consciousness fade, even if he hadn't realized it fully yet, his time as a warlord had changed him significantly more than he expected, even though he had yet to fully internalize it
-
Slowly, Mark came to and found his current situation less than ideal, his wrists and ankles were locked in cuffs, which were connected by a sturdy metal chain that went further down into the floor and up to the ceiling
'Yeah, I can see why he was pissed'
The 'cell' if one even could call it that was short enough that he couldn't stand up fully and narrow enough that he couldn't sit down, the only somewhat comfortable position Mark could immediately find would be if he rested his knees and behind against the walls. That combined with the illuminant walls and ceilings, quickly reinforced his initial idea of this being less than ideal situation
"...Yeah, this is definitely not one of those human prisons, which makes me question why you are here"
Mark gazed at his sword, it was cradled between his legs, no not that sword, the same sword that he had been charging across open pains making rivers of blood with
'Still this makes this significantly easier… Assuming regular monitoring of these cells and a way to distinguish dead and alive prisoners, I just have to act like a corpse long enough'
With that line of thinking, Mark quickly absorbed his sword into his body, storing it along his spine before he abruptly stopped emulating all the normal things people's bodies would do while they were alive
-
It took a while; however, at what Mark estimated to be around 72 hours after he started playing dead, the small cell finally moved. First it was clasped by a mechanical arm before it was attached to an airlock, then the contents were simply vented out into the cold vacuum of space
'Well that was easy, next problem will be getting a ship…'
Mark casually observed his surroundings as he spun listlessly in the vacuum, the station lay in the shadow of a large gas giant and was clearly a specialized prison facility with no visible commercial or public modules
'So no way to steal a ship or hitch a ride… Looks like I'll be playing space debris for a while…'
Without knowing if the prison station was surveilling the area, Mark didn't want to risk being discovered, so he simply drifted along under the basic laws of inertia for a while longer.
As Mark floated around playing dead he had a long time to think, he mentally reorganized and sorted his fractured memories, not only from his time in the other reality, but also those that remained from the time he had been flying around in the Sparrow with Lisa and Luna
'The question is time, how long has passed… Given I changed places with the eyeless black serpent, I guess they might not think favorably of me anymore'
Time passed slowly but steadily as he floated around, and eventually became part of an artificial satellite made up of frozen biomatter in various states of decay, in other words, a giant ball of frozen corpses
'Welp, I guess that's what happens if you simply flush people and corpses out into space… This should also mean the prison station is in a geostationary orbit of the gas giant, right? Which should mean it and this place will remain shaded by the gas giant'
Mark's face twisted a little as he fed on a nearby corpse; now he had a shaded place and a large amount of frozen corpses filled with despair to feed on so he only had to wait for someone to show up
'Some of the corpses have been manipulated; organs have been harvested, and some have been burned by thrusters… It might take some time, but this seems like this is the best shot I've got to get a ship…'
As he lay and played dead Mark's mind kept busy mulling over the information he had received when he had last stood on the lake in between reality
'... To purge as much negative emotions as I can… If that was the case, why am I so suited for violence and inflicting fear?'
Mark sank deeper and deeper into his thoughts, his mind raced past through everything from biology to philosophy to colour theory, trying to get closer to an answer that would solve the question of his existence, as his inhuman mind crunched data time slowly passed
-
"Hey, doc wake up"
Hearing the voice come over the console she had laid next to her head in her cot, Victoria woke at once, she blinked her eyes a few times before she turned on the light above her as she responded
"...I'm up, how does it look?"
"There are a few fresh ones, but we've only identified 11 that look mostly viable"
Unzipping her sleeping bag Victoria grabbed the side rail and dragged herself out of her cot and grabbed a moist towelette, which she bit open before she wiped her face
"Send me the image data and I'll do a preliminary evaluation. I don't want to be out there for too long"
"Got it, give me a moment…"
Victoria let out a sigh, her current work made her miss her busy student days a bit, the 6 year education she had undergone to become a biochemical doctor had been filled with all-nighters of study since her family couldn't afford a tutor, let alone a neurological data transfer
'All that work just to end up harvesting organs from the frozen bodies of deceased lifers… Well, at least it pays for Dad's treatment'
What Victoria and her crew, Bob and Ellen were selling wasn't the harvested organs themselves, it was the genetic code and antibodies contained in these organs, since the lifers had been imprisoned for so long most pharmaceutical outfits had at least a passing interest in them, from megacorporations to local biochemical plants. And in this context interest did equal profit for whoever could salvage them
'And so here I am, on a ship with 2 mercenaries with loose enough morals that when they stumbled on this artificial satellite they decided to harvest the organs of the dead lifers…'
Puncturing a ration pack with a straw Victoria began sucking down her breakfast as she looked over the image data of the 11 different candidates
'No… No… Maybe… No… Yes… No… No…'
After a moment she spoke up again
"4 of them look promising, 3 maybes beyond that"
A moment passed before Bob's voice echoed out from Victoria's console
"Alright, I'm closing the distance now"
"I'll suit up and grab my gear then, Ellen, are you in this call?"
"Yep, I finished the latest modification of your tools last night, tell me if anything feels funky though… I'll most likely be able to adjust the feel on the fly"
Hearing the distracted voice of Ellen that most likely was in the middle of a rather high stake dungeon dive on her personal device Victoria nodded before responding
"Alright"
As Victoria suited up in her vacuum suit a casual thought passed through her mind
'...Hopefully this harvest goes smoothly'