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LiquidSkin: Variant 707
She worked late in the lab, bent over her bench beneath Atomica’s cold blue lights. The atomizer
hissed in her hand, releasing a fine spray of her latest experiment—a mixture of surgical LiquidSkin and
the Vega-9 strain. The mist shimmered like silver dust, delicate, beautiful. She smiled, satisfied. The
consistency was perfect, a friable vapor, finer than perfume. She believed it would drift, settle, and
vanish. She was wrong. Friable particles don’t fall. They linger, suspended for what feels like eternity,
hanging weightless in the air the way asbestos clings, impossible to contain. She slipped off her mask,
inhaled once, and carried on with her notes. In that moment, she was already infected. No matter how
careful, she had never been prepared for a friable liquid.
At her desk she stirred her coffee with her pinky, as she always did, an old habit from med school. She
frowned. 'That’s weird… my pinky looks shorter.' She tried to laugh it off. By evening, walking home,
her index and middle fingers were shorter too. By the time she reached her door, all her fingers had
receded, rounded, glossy. Kicking off her shoes, she stared down at toes that were shrinking in equal
rhythm. Her body was erasing itself piece by piece. She pulled open her laptop, typing clumsily with
stubs, researching frantic rumors. Urban legends whispered about Osenic—a diabetic medication that
could stop LiquidSkin transformations. It would not reverse, only halt, if taken in time.
She called her friend, begged him to bring someone who had the drug. By the time they knocked, her
hands were gone to the wrists. She struggled against the latch knob, pressing down again and again as
her forearms melted from wrist to elbow. The door finally opened. She collapsed forward, dragging
herself by what remained of her arms. Her friend lifted her onto the bed, voice breaking: 'Quick, give me
your Osenic!' The syringe plunged into her chest. The process froze—too late. Her limbs were gone,
her body encased in silicone-like skin. Her mouth was reduced to a smooth oval, making only glooping,
bubbling sounds. Her eyes were the only part of her that remained painfully human.
The black vans came before dawn. She was lifted, silent, and taken into the bowels of Atomica. Deeper
and deeper, past echoing gloops and soft moans. Every sound pulled her further, heavier. The moans
were not only theirs—they were her own. She was the product. She was the factory. They passed
bodies suspended in translucent pouches: Variant-701, torso split by a massive plunger forcing slime
from its vault. Variant-702, almost human, limbs fused, siphoned dry. Variant-703, a reflection of
herself, aware, panicked. Variant-704, closer to human but faceless, still producing endlessly.
Variant-705, a tentacled form, milked violently through its limbs. Variant-706, eroded and hollow, yet
still releasing gush after gush. Each number pulled her deeper. The less she was, the more she
belonged.
At last her gurney stopped. A placard swung above her: Variant-707. She looked across the aisle, saw
her reflection in the glass—already inverted, sealed in a pouch, hoisted upside down, tail up, mouth
down, ports waiting for valves. The number blurred. In the reflection, it shifted. 707 became LOL. This
was her factory position. She would always be here, upside down, feeling what they felt, her own
gloops echoing forever. Variant-707. LOL.
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