Addiction and Side Effects

'Keuk! What the hell is happening?' Royl thought, feeling a suffocating sense of addiction that went beyond what he could resist. He was also being choked by Iota.

Royl noticed how he was unable to breathe through his nose, which seemed to have been blocked for some mysterious reason. And the olfactory organ had now become the gills that had appeared on his neck, 'H-How is this possible?'

He stared at the cocooned figure of Menl that wasn't able to observe their plight, fighting while protecting himself against the attacks of the large fish. He wished to shout and alert the other party, but while being choked, words failed to leak out of his mouth.

His body wasn't listening to him as even when he tried to rile up his Fear, he felt a persuasive reason countering him to act otherwise.

"Do as I say, and you'll be able to breathe." Suddenly, a voice whispered next to him, stunning him.

Thump! Thump!

'M-Monster!' Royl turned around slowly and stared at the culprit choking him, turning pale with fright.

A face littered with scales like patches of cactus in a desert, hair that resembled the bristles of a catfish, fins protruding all over his limbs, and finally, a monstrous amount of strength contained in his hand. 'I can't escape! What's with this vice-like grip?'

"Seems you're not persuaded by my mercy to live, huh?" Iota muttered calmly as he took out a syringe and flashed the contents within before Royl, gently pressing the plunger to cause a droplet to ooze out. "If you obey, I'll give you this."

Whoosh!

'As if I'll obey you…' Royl intended to retort mentally when he was flabbergasted, watching his body move naturally as he opened his mouth. His tongue extended forth and licked the oozing droplet of blood in relish, 'Ah!'

A wave of pleasure and ecstasy washed over his entire being, sublimating his being into an ethereal creature, unfettered by the mortal cage of flesh and blood. 'More!'

He began to pant, desiring more of that feeling once it subsided in a matter of seconds. He stared at Iota in fear, 'W-What have you done to me?'

"Store this in your body. If you think as such, it will become a tattoo on your being." Iota didn't reply and instead gave him orders, "Obey me, and you'll experience that feeling once again."

'Fuck!' Royl cursed in rage upon seeing his body obeying Iota's words. He wished to resist, but was unable to do so, feeling his willpower lacking to resist the allure of addiction. He grabbed the needle containing a few droplets of blood, following Iota's words as he turned it into a tattoo.

'How is this possible?' He was stunned, wondering how he was able to do something like this. But it was apparent that Iota wouldn't give him the time to process things through as his comrade, Canl too was plunged into the same plight.

'It's about time that Shaman killed the fish.' Iota thought, observing the Merit Shaman, Menl getting more and more accustomed to the large fish's attacking patterns. And just as he had expected, Menl finished off the fish.

"When your comrade turns around, shoot it into him. Just will it to happen and it will." Iota whispered into the ears of the two and slowly released his hold on their necks. They were still affected by his blood and hence couldn't move much.

The moment Menl killed the fish, he turned around and stared at his comrades, "I've taken care of…"

'Shit!' Royl groaned in frustration, watching his body following Iota's words, unable to resist. He faced his palm towards Menl and shot forth a syringe, taking the other party by surprise.

Menl had never expected to be betrayed by his comrades, staring incredulously at the two syringes that had stabbed into his forehead, "Why did you…"

Gah!

Menl frothed at his mouth and collapsed, twitching erratically.

Iota didn't miss the chance as he stabbed Menl's neck with dozens of needles, absorbed his blood, and waited patiently, injecting it back into his body once the golden stream mixed with the blood.

Royl and Canl observed the scene helplessly, watching Menl too end up in the same plight as them.

'All three are addicts now.' Iota smiled in thought, observing the erratic twitching of their eyes, the drool leaking from their mouths, and the trembling of their fingers. All were signs of growing addiction.

"I need to interrogate them…" Iota took a step forward when he lost balance, feeling his head spin. He was nauseous, and irritated, experiencing a sensation as if hundreds of ants were crawling underneath his skin.

He saw the fins on his limbs getting more prominent while his skin too was changing colour gradually. He was experiencing a mutation, having overdosed on the fish blood without a resting period.

Without a change in beat, Iota condensed two more syringes and stabbed them in his arms, injecting the blood into his bloodstream. They were sourced from Norda.

He was trying to use the human blood's effects to counter the fish's blood. And indeed, the fins stopped growing as a result and began to subside gradually as the effects of the fish blood were consumed faster.

But injecting two more syringes affected his internals as Iota puked, feeling horrendous pain for the first time in his life, one that made him wish he were dead instead.

Instead of suffering from the pain, Iota was instead gleeful, excited even, more than a masochist ever will be, "Is this…the pain originally belonging to my body?"

"Ha…haha…hahaha…" His laughter echoed within the pipeline, drowning the sounds of the moving sludge.

'What a psychopath!' Royl gritted his teeth, intending to get up and escape but was unable to do so as his body was still twitching nonstop. He barely maintained clarity of mind. Canl and Menl were worse off.

Helpless, the three could only remain in place and hear Iota's maniacal laughter.

"Haha…shit, it ended." His joyful laughter paused as the pain vanished a couple of seconds later. Iota began to sweat profusely as his bladder too went loose. Tears streamed out of his eyes while something resembling pus oozed out of his nose.

His body was using all its means to eject the foreign substances out of his body before the damage became irreparable. When this happened, Iota frowned, observing tears stream out of Royl too as he was rapidly harnessing his body's functions to eject out the harmful substances.

'It seems he's pretty skilled.' Iota thought, feeling a sense of urgency, for he was currently incapacitated too. At present, he and Royl stared at each other, trying their best to recover from the side effects.

The one that does it first would become the victor.