Death came from that stupid covid, not surprised, the fan remembered that much and little more the suffocating crush of a body failing, the way the world narrowed into a red tunnel before snapping shut. He had lived obsessively inside Prototype: memorized every animation frame, every scrap of lore, every whispered implication hidden between loading screens.
He had argued on forums about Mercer's morality, about whether the virus was alive or merely pretending. He had wanted to understand it.
Understanding, it turned out, was mutual.
He awoke beneath Manhattan.
Not in a hospital bed. Not in the familiar morgue slab where Alex Mercer had risen in confusion not knowing who or what he was .
He instead appeared from a cathedral of rot, an abandoned subway tunnel collapsed into itself due to one of Mercers encounters with the military , the concrete jutting like broken bones were pierced through my stomach . I was dying again just after being reborn hm, that sucks. Then I saw it.
Black fluid pulsed through the cracks in the walls, thick as coagulated blood. It crawled toward him as if recognizing a potential organism to consume not knowing my will was stubborn and unbreakable .
He did not panic like most would rightfully do but he accepted the virus knowing exactly what it brought .
He began to change, in body and mind, the Blacklight and himself became one being .
The body he inhabited was humanoid only by appearance .
Muscle fibers braided over one another in impossible density, layered like blackened steel cables. Veins glowed faintly crimson beneath skin that looked grown rather than born. When he flexed his fingers, they split into tendrils before snapping back into shape.
Memory flooded him, not only human memory, but viral instinct that came with the virus . Hunger without emotion. Assimilation without morality.
And beneath it all, him.
A fan reborn with his memories even forgot ones.
He laughed, and the tunnel shook from distant explosions .
"Don't rush the story," he murmured, voice echoing with something wet and vast beneath it. "Let's build first strength first by consuming as much bio mass and unlocking more abilities since don't have plot armor, arrogance is not cool ."
He surfaced into the city at night.
Manhattan was already sick. Blackwatch patrols prowled the streets like nervous parasites.
The infection zones pulsed red on distant skyscrapers, quarantine walls humming with electricity and fear. The city screamed constantly, but no one listened long enough to hear the pattern.
He did not chase missions. He did not seek allies. He did not search for Mercer yet since he was too weak to consume him without being counter consumed so he hunted smart and easy .
The homeless were first to go easy, forgotten biomass that slipped into him without resistance. Each consumption rewrote him, adding mass not as bulk but as potential. Muscle compressed inward, density increasing beyond human physics. His shadow grew wrong, stretching and folding even under stable light.
Then came gangs that were in the area not yet infected since this was still before Alex actively spread the virus
Then soldiers were next to be consumed, playing the game in my previous life i felt that information gathering of the Blacklight was never taken advantage of properly.
When I appear from the shadows the troopers fired first, always. Bullets tore into him and vanished, absorbed mid-impact,remembering the Blacklight can forcefully convert any matter into Blacklight virus,
their kinetic energy redistributed through muscle and bone.
He learned quickly how to consume while moving how to pull a man apart at the molecular level without breaking stride.
Every body was a calculation.
Every scream was weight.
At ten thousand tons of internalized mass, the ground began to fracture when he landed. At fifteen thousand, buildings groaned when he brushed past them.
His shape became symbolic more than physical a man than a walking pressure event, a walking biomass mountain compressed into a human outline.
He avoided Mercer deliberately, he was more advanced in terms of genetic veriety, him being the dominant strain for now.
He knew following the plot right now was like a trap.
He did not want answers yet. Answers limited growth. Stories demanded balance in order to flow, He wanted excess.
By the time he reached twenty thousand tons, the city felt him. Windows vibrated and car alarms went off with each stomp but that will change once I consume Mercer and heller in the near future and unlock gravity control similar to heller in the second game.
Viral biomass across Manhattan turned restless, tugged toward him like iron filings toward a starved magnet.
He stood atop a ruined church, its Gothic spire half-consumed by red growth, rain washing blood into the streets below.
Only then did he look toward the heart of the city.
Only then did he smile.
"Alright," he said softly, claws folding back into fingers.
"Now we can begin."
End of the chapter