Even through that morbid fog fast filling in the recesses of his skull, Dmitri had a certain clarity, a sharpness in his senses he had not known in better times.. All of it stood out in vivid clarity – the minute wisp of smoke from his crumpled cigarette, the brash synthetic light radiating from the pristine white tile of the laboratory floor, the deep crimson pool spreading out to fill in the cracks in the tile, the meaty gore-slicked stump where his right leg had been, the muted ring of bare fists desperately hammering against the metal door at his back.
“Dmitri, are you still with us? It's coming, Dmitri! Quickly, press the door release! I’m not safe out here!”
“Yes, Doctor, I'm still with you. I'm with you always.” Dmitri glanced ruefully at the large steel button above his head and returned to his cigarette, relishing the grit of the smoke with his dulling senses. “As you’ve always been there for me, I am now here for you.”
“Can you reach the release? I know the organism maimed you, Dmitri. I know it must be a strain to exert yourself in that state, but would you please try and reach the button?” There was a loud knock as the other man flailed his entire body at the door. “Dmitri, please! A life is in the line! We don't have time for this!”
“There's always time.” Dmitri took a deep drag from his cigarette, the smoke mingling with the heavy crimson haze seeping through his flesh. “Always time for safety, isn't that right, Dr. Vasilev? Safety always a top priority at Tekhnologii Zhizni.”
“Dmitri? You’re not well, I do not understand you.”
“Truly? ‘I do not understand?’ The classic maneuver of the maladroit liar.” The cigarette nearly tumbled from Dmitri’s trembling lips, steadied only through sheer willpower.
“You are blaming me for this?” There was a flicker of agitation in the voice, one that faded quickly into desperation. “Now is not the time to argue. Yes, Dmitri, I made mistakes, I am happy to accept my share of the blame for the carnage, but given the possibilities, surely you can not blame me? We were on the verge of changing the world - a man of vision, a man like you were before your wounds! We had to take that risk! ”
“Do not speak to me of risks!” A spark of fresh outrage welled in Dmitri’s failing heart, pushing his voice to an unnaturally strong crescendo. “A man who would sacrifice his followers in the name of budgets has no right to speak of risks! A man who would awaken a monster in the name of science and then not even have the basic goddamn sense to…”
The world dimmed before Dmitri’s clouded eyes as the strain of shouting taxed his depleted brain. For a moment, he could feel the fog closing in, the specter of death watching him from a lofty perch and peering through the void to mock him. This was not the dispassionate angel of death from the myths of his childhood, but a different thing entirely, all wicked claws and chitinous ridges, toxin-toned flesh and rows of teeth spiraling back into its bony beak of a mouth - the thing, the creature, here to finish the job it had started when it caught him unaware. How had this demon taken him by surprise? In his delirium, Dmitri struggled to unravel the true memories from those sanguine hallucinations. The only thing he could remember for sure was the blood, great viscous pools and sticky smudges and streaky trails and the occasional odd speck hinting at some grim site to be found shortly.
There was a resigned sigh from behind the door - another hallucination, perhaps, given the clarity. “Dmitri, I am truly sorry for what I have wrought, and one day I shall pay for my sins in full. But what is there to gain from leaving me here to die as the others have? What is one more corpse? And what about you? Is this act of spite truly worth your life?”
Dmitri's eyes fell on the remnants of his right leg, the splintered bone and tattered flesh and shredded vessels still draining his life onto the floor. He no longer felt the pain of the wound, no longer felt much of anything. There was only a tiny ember of hatred, kindled by images of the savagely mutilated corpses of his dearest friends, to remind him that he was still alive.
“I think we have already paid for our sins, Doctor,” said Dmitri. “I think this monster is the emblem of our sin, and we unleashed him. If we were good men at all, we would have blown up the laboratory and ended this madness when it first broke containment!”
“No, Dmitri, that was never an option and you know it. Not with this specimen. An alien, Dmitri! A being unlike any we had ever witnessed - and alive! You would kill this magnificent creature before endeavoring to communicate with it?”
“The information in its body would have suited our purposes quite nicely,” said Dmitri. “But Doctor, I do not think we should have killed it. I think we should have vaporized it. Bathed it in plasma and sent whatever remained back into the stars. This was no visitor, it was a demon…maybe a true demon, like something from a childhood myth.”
It was superstitious nonsense, and the Dmitri of yesterday - the Dmitri still in possession of all of his limbs, with his life blood still inside his body - would have mocked anyone suggesting it as a retrograde peasant. If there was some scientific rationale to explain the way the creature moved, some reasoning behind its existence and biology, he would not entertain such absurdity. If he had not seen it slither through an automated maintenance passage like a living oil slick and reduce a group of technicians to meat, if he had not seen it withstand rifle fire at close range and retort by bisecting a guard, he would never have thought for even a moment that there was anything but nature at play.
“Don’t speak like a child, Dmitri, you know…” The voice paused, replaced by the faint, frantic scraping of boots on the scored steel floor. “Is that…is that the creature? Oh mercy, it’s close. Please, Dmitri, hit the door release! There isn’t time for more discussion!”
“There’s time for little of anything, I’m afraid.” Dmitri’s eyes shifted to the cherry red tip of his cigarette, now just millimeters from his lips. He could scarcely feel the heat. His body was shutting down, the cells dying as his abused heart thumped its dying rhythm. “There is never enough time, though. But this is true for you as well, right, Doctor? With all of your strength and brilliance, you never had time.”
“This is not a time for your anger, Dmitri. You hate me, you’ve been very clear about that. You want me to suffer? You want me to take the fall for this? Of course! We can discuss this later, at great length if you desire, after you've let me in! Please, Dmitri! Have some mercy!”
Dmitri let out a weak laugh that again nearly rendered him unconsciousness. “Mercy? This is a trait of yours, yes? I recall hearing that once...Dr. Vasilev the merciful, the ethical, the visionary, and now? Dr. Vasilev the doomed. A perfect epitaph, is it not?”
“Dmitri, you are not in your right mind. You must be delirious from pain and blood loss, but it's not too late! I can still save your life, Dmitri...” The figure behind the door resumed its frenzied knocking. “...but only if you LET ME IN!”
Dmitri knocked off his ashes into the sanguine puddle. “No, Dr. Vasilev, I am a dead man. As are you, it seems. I have but two remaining pleasures, and I plan to relish them – to finish this cigarette, and to witness your death at the talons of your own hubris.”
“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DMITRI, LET ME IN! LET ME-”
Thus did Dr. Vasilev meet his fate as the horror found him. It lasted but moments – but agonizing, protracted, gruesome moments. Dmitri only the sounds of the slaughter, but this was enough. It began with a truncated chirp of terror, the last desperate cries of Dr. Vasilev before the organism silenced him. Next came the tearing, the wet noise of living meat ripped away in chunks and the savage crunch of claws sundering and crushing bone. Then the corridor fell silent as the thing, its pained fury only briefly slaked, skulked off in search of livelier prey.
An abrupt chill swept across Dmitri's flesh, a signal of the end. He drew in the last drag of his cigarette and let it tumble from his lips. He gazed up at the flickering lights and smiled.