“Coming to you live from Mahogany City, the virus is running rampant creating what has been dubbed ‘The Infected’. CDC recommends staying indoors and arming yourself and the President has declared a state of emergency. Police forces and military personal are doing their best to contain the infection but with no understanding of how it spreads, it’s only  a matter of time until we are all-”

The TV shut off and a man stepped before the darkened screen to face the boy strapped to a chair. He looked utterly pristine despite the chaos in the city but the fear on his face said a different story. 

“You have a duty to this family as an Omega. You think I would let you run around like this?”

“Father, please!” The boy begged, tears welling up in his eyes. “You’re infected, you’re not thinking straight!”

The man backhanded the boy, the sound seeming to make the rest of the room silent. A throbbing red mark appeared on the boy’s face and he cried silently. “I’ve never thought more clearly in my life, Merrick! Our family is now a superior race! We are above humans! And you, my son, will not mingle among the humans any longer!”

The man moved to a small table where a single cup had been placed. It was stained red, as if used countless times with the same substance. Merrick began to fight against the binds, openly sobbing. “Father, I beg you! Please don’t do this!”

The man used a small pocket knife and slit his own wrist. Blood splattered onto the floor before he was able to position the cup beneath the flow and collect the thick dark red blood into it. 

“You’ll thank me one day, Merrick. It is a gift from God that we must accept to evolve. It’s the end of the world and only we shall prevail!”

He gripped Merrick’s hair and yanked the boy’s head back until he could pour the blood down his throat. 

For a moment, the boy choked, struggling in the binds before the hold on his hair was released and he was left to surge forward, coughing up the blood and staining his chin red. After a few moments, he vomited but it wasn’t the red of blood. This was a dark, oozing substance and Merrick looked at it with horror.

“What have you done to me?!” he screamed. Again, he vomited, more black ooze dropping onto his lap, streaking down his chin and neck like black tendrils. 

The man tossed the cup aside with a victorious grin. “You’ve taken to it well. Just accept this, Merrick. It will be less painful for you.”

He stepped forward with the same pocket knife and cut the bonds holding Merrick to the chair but, instead of running, the boy collapsed onto the floor in a crumpled heap, violently vomiting out the black substance. 

“You’ll throw up all ten pints of blood in your system as the infection works to replace it.” The man had grabbed a towel and began to clean himself of the blood from his arm, the wound mysteriously healed. “As devotees of our One God, we must accept this gift of change and evolve. Someday, you will thank me for this, Merrick.”

His body was growing weaker, laying in a massive puddle of black ooze. Black tendrils dripped from his eyes and ears, spreading along his skin like a black web. His body twitched until he lay still, the light in his eyes going out. But the man seemed to hardly be alarmed. If anything, he leaned back against the edge of the table and crossed his arms. Five minutes, ten minutes, nearly twenty minutes went by before the black tendrils on Merrick began to sink into his skin and disappear. His body seemed to come alive while his eyes remained dead. It wasn’t until his chest began to rise and fall with his first breath that the light returned to his eyes, followed by a bright red color. 

He was off the floor with a snarl with a hunger so deep that he had no real understanding of where he was or who he was. The man handed Merrick a blood bag and Merrick tore into it with little care. The man gently patted his head as if he truly were a doting father. 

“Welcome to the family, Merrick.”