Kehl A terrible reckoning: Part Six

Kehl knew one laboratory above all others; it was his father’s main research center, a fortress of science perched on the coast. And he was heading straight for it, a blue-and-white torpedo of desperate resolve cutting through the dark water.

As he swam, he felt the presence in his mind, Alex, begin to fade. The ancient shark’s voice became quieter, weaker, laced with a desperate urgency.

“Kehl, stop… Listen to me! If you get into trouble in there, I won’t be able to help you. My connection to you… it weakens when you fight me this hard. They’ll kill you, Kehl… and me with you…” Alex’s voice cried out, then fell into a despairing silence.

Trapped in the recesses of their shared mind, Alex felt a familiar, crushing emptiness. Only a year of this new life, he thought, his ancient consciousness reeling with regret. And everything is lost again. I should have taken control from the start and never, ever given it up! I’m an idiot!

Kehl breached the surface near the laboratory’s private pier, the silence of the facility deeply unsettling. He hauled his massive frame out of the water, his clawed feet thudding on the wet concrete. He was alone. Truly alone for the first time since his transformation.

“I can’t do this without you, ” he whispered, the words addressed to the silent demon in his head. But no one answered.

Shaking off the feeling of dread, Kehl scanned the imposing structure, his mind digging for memories of his youth, of tours his father had given him. He found an unused service elevator shaft shrouded in darkness. “Yeah, I remember this, ” he muttered. With his immense strength, he began to climb, leaping from one level to the next, ascending ten floors in a matter of moments.

He emerged into a darkened corridor and came face-to-face with a security guard. The man was a walking arsenal, clad in heavy armor, holding a high-caliber machine gun, and wearing a night-vision rig. “This never happened before, ” Kehl thought grimly. “Everyone is against me.” A flicker of his old self, the scientist who abhorred violence, surfaced. He crept forward and, instead of killing the guard, knocked him out with a single, powerful swing of his arm, sending the armored man flying into the far wall with a sickening crunch.

He finally made it to the main hangar. The cavernous space was pitch black and eerily silent. He took a step inside.

Suddenly, the hangar was flooded with blinding light. Crowds of armed fighters materialized on balconies and behind armored vehicles, their weapons all trained on him.

On a high gantry, a commander in tactical gear stood in a fighting stance. “Kehl Vortex!” he boomed through a loudspeaker. “Raise your hands and get on your knees! Right now!”

Kehl looked at the sea of guns, then up at the commander. A low, arrogant laugh rumbled in his chest. “I’m not your slave, ” he sneered. “Do you even have a clue who you’re dealing with?”

“Fire to kill!” the commander roared.

At that moment, in the laboratory’s central command office, the Head of Security rushed in. “Boss, he’s here!” he panted, addressing Dr. Marcus Vortex. “But… there’s a massacre going on out there.”

“I know, ” Marcus said calmly, turning to his assistants. “Get everything ready for the experiment.” He then fixed his cold gaze on the security chief. “Go to work. We need to wear him down until he’s weak and helpless.”

“Yes, sir!” the man said, running out.

Dr. Elena Vortex approached her husband, her face etched with worry. “Honey, I don’t think this is a good idea. There has to be another way. Think about it. He’s our son.”

Marcus laughed, a short, ugly sound. “No.”

“He’s my son!” Elena’s voice rose, her eyes flashing with anger. “He will always be ours! You’ve lost your mind with these experiments! What are you trying to achieve? Look at all these victims, all this death!” She turned and left the room, her shoulders shaking with sobs.

In the main hangar, Kehl was a force of nature. He leaped and crashed through the ranks of soldiers, his strength enormous, intoxicating. He reveled in it. Bullets peppered his body, bouncing off his thick hide or sinking into his dense muscle, only for the wounds to seal over instantly, his regeneration working at a furious pace. In that moment, he felt like a god. Invincible.

He was so consumed by his power that he didn’t notice the commander on the balcony pull out an RPG.

“How do you like this?!” the commander yelled, firing.

The rocket streaked across the hangar and hit Kehl squarely in the legs. The explosion was deafening, throwing his massive torso against a wall with bone-jarring force. He slid to the floor in a heap.

Kehl slowly came to, his head ringing. A wave of agony, sharp and terrifying, shot through him. He looked down and howled in pain. “Where are my legs?!” They were gone, blown away below the knee. “Why isn’t regeneration working?!”

He saw the soldiers slowly, cautiously approaching him, their guns still raised.

“Don’t touch me!” Kehl roared, trying to push himself up with his arms.

The commander’s mocking laughter echoed from the gantry. “You’re still helpless, just like you always were.”

“You’re all dead!” Kehl screamed, his voice raw with pain and fury. “I came in peace! I just wanted to talk!”

“So you wanted to die?” the commander retorted. “Creatures like you can’t talk.”

Suddenly, Elena ran into the hangar, pushing past the soldiers.

“Mom!” Kehl shouted, his hands reaching out for her, his face a mask of agony.

“Get away from him!” Elena commanded, her voice majestic and filled with an authority that made every soldier freeze. “Everyone, out! Quickly!”

“But ma’am, ” the commander stammered, confused. “We have orders…”

“Orders to kill him, right?” Elena snapped, her eyes blazing. “To kill my only son? Are you carrying out another one of Marcus’s murderous orders?”

Shamed and uncertain, the soldiers began to disperse. Elena rushed to Kehl’s side and hugged him tightly as his world faded to black.

When he woke, it was to the cold bite of steel. He looked down. His legs were intact, fully regenerated. But they were shackled, as were his arms, by massive steel cuffs bolted to a reinforced medical table.

A familiar presence stirred in his mind. Alex was back. Finally, he thought, a wave of relief washing over Kehl.

Then Alex took control. “You can’t do anything to me!” he roared aloud, testing the restraints. “It’s impossible to kill me!” He tried to get up, but the chains held fast.

A mechanical robotic arm descended from the ceiling, a long, sharp needle at its tip. Kehl smelled the faint, acrid scent of the poison from the abandoned lab.

“No!” Alex screamed, straining against the chains, Kehl’s entire body trembling with the effort. “Let me go, I beg you!” He looked through the thick, black protective glass of the observation room. He could see his mother’s silhouette, her form shaking. “Mom! Dad! I know you’re there! You’re going to kill me!” he pleaded. “I can’t lose everything! I can’t become a weak person again! I’ve obeyed you all my life! I became a scientist for you!”

“Alex, help me!” Kehl screamed in his head. “I can’t get out!”

“You should have listened to me!” Alex’s mental voice was a cry of despair. “It was a trap! I can’t help you now, there’s no way out!” Using Kehl’s body, he roared at the glass. “IDIOTS! YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU’RE DOING! YOU’RE ALL DEAD!” He thrashed, trying to pull away from the descending needle, trying to gain a few precious seconds.

Behind the glass, Elena pleaded with her husband. “Marcus, please! You won’t make him a normal person. Don’t kill him, he’s our son, I beg you!”

Marcus’s voice was flat, devoid of all emotion. “Everything is under control. He’s just a mistake. And mistakes must be corrected… or destroyed.”

Kehl heard everything. Tears, hot and human, appeared in his eyes.

The needle pierced his neck.

A cold numbness spread through him.

Goodbye, Alex.

He began to fall asleep.

Morning. His house on the beach.

Kehl jumped up from the couch, gasping. “What? Phew, it was just a dream…” He felt… light. Too light.

He looked at his phone. Several messages from his parents. They were coming to visit soon. He got up and went to the bathroom to get changed, vague, dream-like thoughts of sharks and labs swirling in his head. “Was it real or a dream?” he wondered aloud.

Then he noticed it. A faint, silvery scar on his leg, right where his mother’s letter opener had stabbed him.

And then he remembered everything.

He looked at his hands. Pale, thin, human. He looked at his body in the mirror. Lanky, weak, human. The power, the muscles, the magnificent belly, the tail, the blue skin… all gone.

“No…” he whispered, his voice thin and reedy. “Nooo! I’m like that again… I’m human again!”

The end.