[Original Novel] Pressure 3: Beautiful Corpse, Part 4

^{Previous parts: 1, 2, 3}

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The more she went on about men, the more Olivia dwelled on James. It was painful and she wished it would stop, but she also found herself badly wanting to comfort Vivian.

“Why can’t I get over him? It’s been so long. What’s the matter with me? How am I gonna be put together enough to know the right guy when I see him? Who could love me like this? I’m a mess, Olivia. And I just keep getting older, breaking down, decaying.” Emotionally, she was bleeding out. For someone as sensitive as Olivia it was excruciating to witness. So, impulsively, she showed her hand.

“...Supposing you didn’t have to. Get older, I mean.” Vivian stared, eyes still bloodshot from crying. “What? You mean like, be 33 forever?” Olivia laughed. “If you want. I think it’s possible to regress too, if you source parts from someone younger. But I’m getting ahead of myself. How badly do you want this?”

Vivian was now fully engaged, but not yet to the point of seriously entertaining the idea. “Where’s this going? Is there a punchline? Who would turn something like that down?” It was very enticing, Olivia thought. Initially. “It’s exactly what it sounds like. You stop aging, and you can reshape your body however you like. You will never grow old. You will never die. You are a blank canvas that can be whatever you imagine, if your skill is sufficient.”

Vivian looked unsettled. “Still don’t understand why you’re saying any of this. It’s pure fantasy. I half expect you to start talking about Jesus, and eternal life. If that’s what this is about, you should meet my mother. She’s all about that shit.” Olivia sighed. “Turn up the lights for a moment. But when I ask you to, dial them back down. No questions, you’ll understand in a moment.”

In part because she was intrigued but also because she was drunk enough to humor the request without too much thought, Vivian paused the movie, stumbled across the room and turned the lights up to maximum brightness. “I don’t get it. What now?” She looked back at Olivia, who gestured for her to sit down. She did so, and waited.

“In a minute, everything I said will make sense to you. But first I want you to remember the time we’ve spent together. Have I ever been anything but a sweetheart? Have I given you any reason to be afraid of me?” Vivian frowned at the tone of the questions, but shook her head. “Good. Then trust that when the haze falls away, it’s still me you’re looking at. Don’t be afraid. Don’t leave the room or talk to anyone about this. You reek of booze, I doubt they’d listen, but still. I need you to be cool about this.”

It wasn’t clear why she’d become so grim until her face began to shimmer. The same sort of distortion effect seen on a highway on a hot day now gently lapped at the outline of her face, hair, and soon her entire body. Scars became apparent where none were visible before. Olivia’s skin gradually faded from a rosy pink to a mildly greenish white. Her eyes sunk in, her features became withered and skeletal, and stitched-up lacerations appeared all over her arms and legs. Vivian shrieked, and fell out of her chair trying to get away.

“No, god damnit. This is what I was preparing you for.” The weakness set in. Olivia felt her body failing. Her vision began to blur and she found her arms and legs increasingly failed to receive signals from her brain. “Turn the lights down.” Vivian was still in the throes of fear. “Please. Turn them down. I’m dying.” Her skin grew dry and small cracks began to form. Blisters bubbled up, her joints stiffened, and breathing became immensely difficult.

Vivian regained composure, enough so to reach for the dial and begin dimming the lights. But she did not once stop staring at Olivia, her mouth hanging open. This was likely the first thing she’d ever seen that could be called paranormal. For most people, whose understanding of the universe assumes that it is internally consistent, comprehensible and more or less as it appears to be, even the smallest glimpse of what lay behind that veneer can fundamentally undermine their mental health.

This was what it seemed to Olivia was happening inside of Vivian’s mind. The lights were now at the low level they’d been during the film and Olivia’s appearance was slowly returning to normal. Vivian held her head in both hands, brow furrowed, and struggled to accept what she’d seen. First things first. She reached for the bottle of wine and began to study the label.

“I’m afraid it isn’t the wine”. Olivia took the bottle from her and set it aside. When she reached for Vivian’s hand, she recoiled. “I told you, I’m still your bestie. Nothing about me has changed. Can you imagine what it’s been like for me, hiding this from everyone? I showed you because I thought you’d understand.”

She did, to a degree. “So...when you said I could live forever. Stop aging, stay like this for as long as I want. You meant...whatever the fuck I just saw? What did you do, Liv? What the fuck did you do? What are you, even? I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. I still can’t….I mean, how is it even possible? What are you?”

“I’m not sure. There isn’t anything similar I could use as a basis for comparison. A lot more happened aboard the Tartarus than made it into the reports.” Vivian got back into her seat, but remained rigidly upright, poised as if to run should anything else along the same lines occur unexpectedly. “I can see that. Holy fuck. That’s some Exorcist shit. What happened over there? What did they do to you?”

“Not they, he. Or it. I don’t know if it’s gendered. Something began speaking to us in hallucinations, very soon after we reached the Tartarus. It must’ve been just barely within range. James had it the worst. It kept taking him someplace whenever he fell asleep. Something like a dream, but persistent, as if it were a real physical location. It keeps people there. Tartarus prisoners, mostly. Takes them apart, puts them back together, God knows why. But when it remakes us, we’re forever changed. Ageless, preserved like cured leather. And somehow, nobody else can see what’s been done, except in bright light.”

It wasn’t the whole story, but it was enough to make sense of what she’d seen. Vivian digested it, then said something surprising. “And you were just going to sit on this? Fuck my ass, Olivia, you’ve discovered the fountain of youth. I still don’t really understand any of that shit about how it works, but who fucking cares? Do you have any idea what you’ve got? Who doesn’t want to live forever? You could be the richest bitch alive! You could start a fuckin’ religion, I don’t know. Can you really do this to other people?”

“Well, I can’t. Not yet, I need more practice. But I know someone who can. And if you really feel that way, I can lead you to him.”

“Eternally perfected Vivian. Forever beautiful, rebuilt from her own parts. Everlasting Vivian, with temporary stitched seams and permanently preserved skin.” It helped immensely that she’d kept drinking on the way. Olivia helped the stumbling lush down the dark, mouldy corridors to the most holy place, at the very bottom of the Foundry. Now she hung from the wrought iron rack, still upsettingly fresh in Olivia’s memory as the place she’d been dissected. The process now happening to Vivian.

“Forever pretty skin, forever pretty hair. Permanently rebuilt and grateful for it.” The incomprehensible babble came from the flesh puppet, hovering a good foot or so above the soft, squishy floor, an umbilical trailing from its deformed torso back to a large pulsating orifice in the floor. As it droned on, Olivia felt as though in a trance. Was there hidden meaning to it?

“Perfectly preserved Vivian. Eternally young, in love with her new body, and with her father, who perfects her through this Fabricant, his most cherished instrument.” Olivia blinked. Fabricant? Somehow she expected it to refer to itself as the master. The other one like her she’d run into never used any other name. The pale, spindly figure was only roughly humanoid and exuded sickness and decay. Yet his every movement of the small bladed tool was swift and precise. Before her eyes, in a matter of minutes Vivian was dismantled. Methodically, gingerly taken apart the way you might disassemble a delicate clock.

Each of her organs sat awaiting reimplantation in the familiar glass jars, hung as they were from the iron frame. Vivian remained conscious throughout, but not lucid. “Olivia...Something’s wrong. I don’t want this. Put me in bed” she mumbled. The process was too far along now to be reversed. “Shhh. You’re gonna be fine. It’ll be over before you know it.” The hobbled, floating surgeon cackled.

“Perfect little puppet Vivian. With puppet eyes, puppet ears, a real working puppet mouth and nose. Carefully crafted puppet Vivian, reduced to her parts and then put back together. Remade in the father’s image and grateful for it.”

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 5!}