MTLNOVEL Chapter 5: 5
** Chapter 5: The host **
The video ends, but the transmission continues.
Molly Mason drives along the deserted road, the green shine in his eyes reflecting in the rearview mirror as headlights of a nightly predator. The black liquid from the Lazarus protocol now moves under his skin, drawing light veins that throb in sync with his heart palpitations. She holds the steering wheel with hands that are no longer fully yours -*nails are black, sharp, and in the joints, bone spirit breaks the flesh.*
* "Do you still think you can control me?"* The voice of the devourer echoes in his skull, a symphony of whispers from all he has consumed.
Molly does not respond. In the passenger seat, the camera is still on, broadcasting live to an obscure forum of conspiracy theorists. She wants the world to witness to her last moment.
---
** 72 hours after the destruction of Ravencroft **
Levaosnia's secondary roads lead her to a village marked on Ayman's map: *Blackwater *, a settlement surrounded by forests so dense that sunlight barely penetrates. The rotting wooden houses have tablets covered with boards, and in the posts, missing posters from the 80s. In the center, an abandoned clinic with the same symbol: *the triangular eye *.
* "Ravencroft branch,"* Molly whispers to the camera, filming the corroded plate. *"Ayman mentioned this. They tested the protocol in remote villages before climbing."*
Inside the clinic, medical notebooks detail experiments in residents -*"serum of immortality" injections that have turned whole families into meat -thirsty creatures*. In a drawer, Molly finds polaroid photos of patients with elongated limbs and sewn mouths. In all, a figure was repeated in the background: *DR. Vorstaan, younger decades, immune to time.*
* "He was never human,"* the devourer laughs at his mind. *"Vorstaan was my first host. Now it's your turn."*
Molly falls to her knees, holding her head as visions invading her -* Vorstaan in the 1940s, leading rituals in forests, implanting eggs of something non -terrestrial in war prisoners.
---
** The call **
In the basement of the clinic, a disk phone rings. Molly answers, knowing what comes.
* "You are getting beautiful,"* says Vorstaan, your crystal clear voice as if you were by your side. *"The devourer is adapting to your body. So you will not even remember your name."*
She breaks the phone against the wall, but the voice persists:
*"There are other hospitals, Molly. Other altars. You can be my queen in this new world ... or food."*
On the wall, the symbol of the bleeding triangular eye. Molly scrapes it with the knife, but the blood is hers, not the wall.
---
** The final ritual **
Live broadcast shows Molly bedridden in a decaying motel. Its left arm is bandaged, but under the bandages, the skin opens to reveal a mouth with sharp teeth. It feeds the creature with pieces of raw meat bought at a gas station -*but not enough.*
* "He wants more,"* she confesses to the camera, sweating cold. *"If I don't control it ... I will become an anomalous."**
The devouring proposes a pact: *destroying a new hospital in exchange for "freedom" *. Molly knows it's a trap, but it's the only track. It goes to *São Lazarus *, a giant medical complex on the border, abandoned after unparalled epidemics.
---
** The true altar **
The São Lázaro hospital is a modern version of the nightmare: smoked glasses, uV -illuminated aseptic corridors, and in each room, glass tanks with hibernation creatures -*humans cast with machines, animals, and other unidentified beings*.
In the center, an old supercomputer displays the symbol of the eye. Vorstaan appears on all screens, his body now a colony of bright worms under a human peel.
* "All this was a test, Molly. You passed."* He opens his arms, larvae falling from his sleeves. *"The devourer chose you to be your new voice. I killed Ayman to leave room in your mind ... and it worked."*
Molly pulls out the knife, but her legs fail. The floor opens, revealing an underground chamber with an altar of archaic technology and living flesh. In the center, a giant heart pulsates, connected to cables that are burying in the ground.
* "The core of the devourer,"* vorstaan whispers. *"Destroy it, and you will die. Accept it, and will be immune to death."**
---
** The sacrifice **
Molly rises to the altar, the camera still transmitting. The heart emits radiant heat, and the voices in your mind shut up. She understands: *The true devourer is not the monster, but the parasite inside the nucleus - a cosmic entity traveling among hosts, promising power in exchange for bodies. *
* "Ayman died to bring you here,"* Vorstaan insists. *"Honor him."**
Molly laughs, a hoarse and broken sound. *"Honoring you would be to end you."*
It sticks the pocket knife into the nucleus. The heart shouts, releasing a wave of energy that throws it against the wall. Vorstaan disintegrates, larvae exploding in green flames. The hospital collapses, and Molly runs, holding the camera as her body crumbles -*The skin cries, revealing the solidified black liquid in exoskeleton.*
---
** Epilogue: eternal transmission **
The last broadcast shows Molly on an unknown road, her body now a distorted silhouette of elongated limbs and green eyes. The camera is buried on the earth, filming it from below as it walks to the horizon.
* "He is dead,"* she whispers, but her voice is multiple, ancestral. *"But there are other nuclei. Other hospitals. I ...***... let's find them."*
The camera captures figures following it at a distance-* anomalous, doctors, and faceless figures.* When the transmission ends, static fills the screen for hours, until a final image comes:
Molly, now unrecognizable, standing on the ruins of another hospital. Her face is a tentacle mask, and behind her, a spiral of bodies rises like a monument.
The video is closed with a binary code message, translated:
*"Hunger never ends."*
**End.**