Patient Zero: Messiah of Thorns

Chapter 7

"Elena! Put your mask on! Now! Fast!”

Nico lunged forward, grabbing the filtration mask from the dashboard and pressing it onto Elena’s face. The woman still looked dazed, her green eyes trembling violently as she stared at the windshield, which was now covered in crimson tendrils.

“He’s out there, Nico... my father... he’s calling me,” Elena murmured in a hollow voice.

“It’s fake! It’s hallucinogenic gas from those rose petals! Look at me, Elena! Look at me!” Nico shook Elena’s shoulders hard until her head snapped back.

Elena blinked. Her consciousness slowly returned as the air filter on her face began to hiss, filtering out the deadly spores that were starting to fill the cabin. “Nico? I’m sorry... I... my head feels like it’s going to explode.”

“Don’t take it off. These tendrils are starting to squeeze the fuel tank. We have to get out now or we’re going to be roasted alive in here.” Nico grabbed two chemical canisters from under the seat. “Can you hold one?”

“For what? We don’t have a flamethrower, Nico.”

“Not fire. This is concentrated herbicide mixed with corrosive acid. Fire would only trigger a massive spore explosion. We have to clear this vegetation before they crush the truck’s steel frame,” Nico kicked the cabin door open.

The air outside felt heavy and hot. The scene before them was horrific; the highway had completely vanished, replaced by mounds of pulsating plant flesh. A sickeningly sweet smell penetrated the layers of the mask, making Nico’s stomach churn.

“Get down on the left side! Follow my lead!” Nico shouted.

Elena jumped down, her feet landing on a soft, wet organic surface. “It feels like stepping on giant intestines!”

“Don’t think about it! Spray the tendrils wrapped around the front wheels! Now!”

Nico aimed the nozzle of his canister at a vine as thick as a human thigh that was coiled around the Thorn-Breaker’s iron plow. A bluish-green liquid sprayed out. Instantly, the plant reacted. A loud hissing sound erupted as the acid began to eat through the layers of crimson cellulose.

“Look! They’re moving away!” Elena cried out, directing her spray toward the rear wheels.

“Keep spraying! Don’t give them an opening!” Nico worked with the efficiency of a machine. His movements were fast, without hesitation. Every time a tendril approached, he cut it back with a chemical blast.

“Nico, look under that bus! Something is moving!” Elena pointed toward the wreckage of a school bus wedged between giant roots.

Nico narrowed his eyes. The crimson veins in his arm throbbed intensely, providing a familiar burning sensation. He could feel a heartbeat there. Not the irregular heartbeat of a monster, but a weak, terrified pulse.

“Ignore it, Elena. We have to clear the road.”

“But that’s a human, Nico! I saw a hand!” Elena ran toward the pile of roots under the bus, ignoring Nico’s warning.

“Elena! Get back here! It’s dangerous!”

Nico was forced to follow. He sprayed the path ahead so Elena wouldn't get ensnared. When they reached the underside of the bus, Elena began spraying the roots wrapped around a figure. Slowly, the mound of plants shriveled, revealing a middle-aged man still wearing a tattered security guard uniform.

His condition was horrific. His legs were no longer visible, completely fused with the asphalt overgrown by roots. In his chest, a crimson rosebud grew through his ribs, its petals trembling with the man’s short, shallow breaths.

“Help... me...” the man’s voice was barely audible, nothing more than a dry rasp in his throat.

Elena knelt, her hands trembling as she reached out to touch the man’s face. “God... hang on. I have a serum. I can try to break the infection.”

“Don’t, Elena,” Nico’s voice sounded cold behind her.

“Nico, help me! Help me pull him out!”

Nico stood tall, looking at the man with an unreadable expression. In his red eyes, he no longer saw a human. He saw a host that had already been consumed, a fate he himself was fighting against. “Look at his lungs, Doc. The plant has already replaced his respiratory tissue. If you pull those roots out, he’ll die instantly from organ failure.”

The man opened his eyes. They had turned white, covered by a film of spores, yet the remnants of human consciousness were still there. He looked at Nico, as if recognizing something similar within the man standing before him—a reflection of suffering.

“Kill... me...” the man whispered. Clear tears flowed down his cheeks, which were covered in crystalline nodules.

“No! We can save you! Nico, get the axe from the truck! We have to cut these roots!” Elena screamed hysterically, her tears beginning to wet the inside of her mask.

“Elena, look at him!” Nico pulled Elena’s shoulder to make her stand. “He is being tortured! Every second he breathes, that rose is eating his nerves. Do you want to let him live in a hell like this?”

“We can’t give up on them, Nico! If we start killing people who can be saved, how are we any different from this plague?!”

“He cannot be saved!” Nico snapped back. “You’re a scientist, you know the truth! Stop pretending that the old morality still applies here!”

Nico approached the man. He crouched down, placing his crimson-veined hand on the survivor’s forehead. A burning sensation surged between the two. Nico could feel the man’s agony—the searing pain, the unbearable itch of roots crawling through bone marrow, and the pure desire to finally end it all.

“You want to go?” Nico asked in a tone that was suddenly soft, yet clinical.

The man nodded weakly. “Don’t... let... me... bloom... please...”

Nico stood up, then turned to Elena. “Get in the car, Elena. Now.”

“Nico, what are you going to do?” Elena backed away slowly, her face full of horror.

“Doing what has to be done. Get in, or you’re going to see something you won’t want to carry into your dreams tonight.”

Elena shook her head, her tears spilling over. “This is wrong. We’re supposed to bring hope, not death.”

“Hope is the serum at the Greenhouse. Out here, all that’s left is mercy in the form of death,” Nico gripped his large wrench, the metal emitting a faint red aura.

Elena turned and ran toward the Thorn-Breaker, covering her ears with both hands. Nico looked at the man under the bus one last time. There was no doubt in his eyes. His pragmatic side had hardened over five years of surviving alone in these ruins. To him, this death was the final gift for a human who had almost lost his soul.

“Sleep,” Nico whispered.

He swung the wrench in one swift, powerful motion toward the base of the man’s skull. A dull crack echoed, followed by an oppressive silence. The rose plant on the man’s chest suddenly withered, its petals turning black and crumbling into dust.

Nico stood up, feeling nothing but a cold emptiness. He wiped a drop of crimson blood that had splashed onto his hand. This death felt so efficient. So logical. A memory that had just been stored was now erased, replaced by the efficiency of the act.

He returned to the Thorn-Breaker and hopped into the driver’s seat. Elena was curled up in the passenger seat, her face hidden behind her knees. Her shoulders shook with suppressed sobs.

“The path is clear enough to ram through. We’re moving,” Nico said flatly, as if he had just finished a routine engine repair.

“You killed him without blinking, Nico,” Elena’s voice sounded hoarse from behind her knees. “You did it like it was nothing.”

“I gave him what he asked for. You need to start learning the difference between living and just breathing, Elena. In this world, they often aren't the same thing.”

Nico floored the gas. The Thorn-Breaker roared, its iron plow smashing through the vegetation weakened by the herbicide. The truck lunged forward, crushing the remaining roots and continuing to drive through the crimson labyrinth.

Every few meters, new tendrils tried to grab hold, but the V8 engine was too powerful. Nico pushed the vehicle at a dangerous speed, his eyes fixed on a small gap in the distance that showed the remains of a highway still free of plants.

“Just a little further,” Nico muttered.

However, the air outside began to change color. The pale red gas that had briefly subsided was now pouring out again from giant rosebuds hanging from the surrounding buildings. This time, the volume was much larger. The fog swallowed the Thorn-Breaker like a suffocating blanket.

Hiss.

The sound of the truck’s air filtration system began to strain. The indicator light on the dashboard flashed red.

“Nico... the filter can’t handle it,” Elena looked up, her swollen eyes staring at the indicator with anxiety. “These spores are too thick. They’re clogging the engine intake and the cabin system.”

Nico felt his head begin to throb. The heat in his spine surged drastically, this time accompanied by intense dizziness. The red vision at the edge of his eyes returned, but this time it was darker, more real. He felt pressure on his memories, as if something was trying to forcibly erase them.

“Hold your breath, Elena! We’re almost at the end of the block!”

Suddenly, Nico saw something in the middle of the road. A man was standing there, blocking the Thorn-Breaker’s path. The man wore no clothes, his body was muscular, but his entire skin was made of sharp crimson crystals. His face was identical to Nico’s.

Nico slammed the steering wheel to the right to avoid a collision, causing the truck to skid violently and smash into a concrete utility pole.

BOOM!

The impact threw their bodies forward. The truck’s engine suddenly died, emitting plumes of hot steam from the crumpled hood. Silence attacked once more, but this time it felt far more menacing.

“Nico? Are you okay?” Elena tried to reach for Nico’s shoulder, but she stopped when she saw him.

Nico didn't move. He stared straight through the cracked windshield. Out there, in the thick red fog, a monstrous figure that resembled him was walking slowly toward the truck. The figure smiled, revealing rows of sharp crystal teeth.

Welcome back, Subject 01, the voice echoed inside Nico’s head, but this time it wasn't the familiar voice of the Sovereign. It was his own voice, yet it sounded far more ancient and bloodthirsty.

“He’s coming for me,” Nico whispered, his hands gripping the steering wheel until the steel bent.

“Who? There’s no one there, Nico! It’s just a hallucination!” Elena screamed, trying to snap Nico out of it, but her own vision was beginning to blur from the gas.

But to Nico, the figure was very real. He could see giant thorns growing from the monster’s back, glowing with a blinding ruby light. He could feel the same rage and hunger that he had been trying to suppress within his soul all this time.

“I am not you...” Nico growled, his eyes beginning to glow golden-yellow again, mixed with red.

The hallucinogenic gas continued to seep into the cabin through the cracks in the glass. Elena began to cough violently, her hands fumbling for the emergency oxygen tank, but her eyes remained fixed on Nico, who now looked as if he were fighting an invisible demon, both hands clutching his head as if it were about to split open.

Outside, crimson tendrils began to crawl up the body of the stationary truck, wrapping around the doors, locking them inside that iron prison. The giant roses around them began to bloom fully, emitting a low-frequency singing sound that made the window glass vibrate, invading Nico’s mind.

Nico looked at his own hands. His skin began to harden, turning a dark gray with glowing red veins. He looked toward Elena, and for a moment, he didn't see a woman. He saw a source of energy. A prey.

Eat, Nico. Become what you were meant to be, whispered the shadow outside, its voice now invading Nico’s entire consciousness.

Nico groaned, clutching his head. He was trapped between the fragile remnants of his humanity and a monstrous evolution that promised limitless power. The fear of losing himself, of losing his memories, was the greatest agony of all.

“Elena... run...” Nico whispered with the last of his strength, his breath gasping, just before total darkness swallowed his consciousness and the monster’s shadow merged with his reflection in the glass, seizing control.