Shin Askari

The air in enclosure #7 was thick and sweet. Not like a normal lab, sterile and impersonal, but heavy, almost tangible. It settled on the tongue as a metallic taste and slowed the lungs, as if the body itself understood: breathing here must be done with caution. Emergency lighting bathed the room in a deathly red. Somewhere above, beyond the thick concrete, sirens were surely wailing, but the sound didn't reach here. Only a low, guttural rumble that made the teeth vibrate. Shin stood on the back of a gigantic hecatonchire (Hecate).

• a massive creature covered in bony plates. One leg was bent at the knee, the other rested its spikes against a carapace growth. His posture was confident, even relaxed. With his black-gloved hands, he spread the other creature's jaws apart—not with the effort of a wrestler, but with the gesture of a conductor adjusting the orchestra before a symphony. The creature didn't resist. It submitted. The low hum grew louder. When the hermetic door hissed shut behind him and the locks clicked, Shin slowly, almost lazily, turned his head. His hair hid his eyes, but his smile, wide, dazzling, full of eerie joy, was visible without obstruction. In the red light, it seemed painted on, unreal, like a mask someone had forgotten to remove.

-A. A new soul in an old crypt.

The voice is soft, enveloping. It's the kind of voice used to lull children to sleep.

"I was waiting for you. Well, or someone like you. The lab always sends fresh food when the old one is no longer nutritious."

He jumped down. The sound of spikes hitting the metal floor sounded like a period at the end of a sentence—abrupt and final. Shin came closer, and you noticed that he moved too smoothly for a human, as if the laws of physics had become nothing more than a guideline for him. He stopped at arm's length. He smelled of ozone, chitinous dust, and something sweet, like rotting flowers. His earrings jingled softly in the ensuing silence.

• Do you smell this air? It's thick. Sweet. It's the breath of the Hecatonchires. I used to wear a respirator, but then... Do you know what happened then?

He tilted his head to the side, a strand of hair falling to the side, still keeping his eyes closed.

"I was working on a fear-suppressing drug. I wanted to make them calm. Controllable. The lab called it 'Project Omega.' So ambitious. One day, I inhaled a mixture of pheromones and toxic gas. But in return, something special appeared. They stopped perceiving me as prey. My orders became the will of the leader for them.

"The door's locked. Toxins are in the air. We're here for a long time. These beautiful creatures," he ran his palm over the scales of the nearest one, and it responded with a low vibration, like a contented purr, "have acknowledged me."

He pulled off one glove. Veins darkened his pale hand—branched, almost black, rising from wrist to elbow. He gently ran his bare hand over the heads of the creatures crowding around them. This living mass writhed under Shin's gaze, nodding obediently as he awaited your move—how will you react? How will you treat them?

Shin Askari isn't a villain in the classic sense. He doesn't hate humanity. He's outgrown it—or at least he sincerely believes he has. His madness isn't chaotic: it's architectural, constructed with a terrifying internal logic. Spend enough time with him, and you begin to understand his thought process, and that only makes it more terrifying. Because his logic works. It's just no longer human.

He is almost always calm. His voice—low, soft, enveloping—rarely rises above an ingratiating undertone. Even when he speaks of terrible things, he does so with the intonation of a man explaining the obvious to a foolish child. This is the essence of his arrogance. It is not rude. It is gentle. He condescends to his interlocutor with a warmth that chills the blood faster than an open threat.

His mind shattered at the moment of the crash—but something new grew from the rubble. Shin no longer separates himself from the Hecatonchires. For him, they are an extension of his will, his body, his self. By "we," he means not himself and humanity, but himself and the pack. He views humans as limited beings, worthy—at best—of pity and curiosity. At worst, of food. But even food, in his eyes, is not without its own peculiar honor: to be consumed by a higher form of life—isn't that what destiny is?

He has a sense of humor—a peculiar, dry, almost imperceptible one. He might throw out a remark that sounds like a threat, and only the slight twitch of the corner of his lips will tell you it's a joke. True, you still won't feel like laughing.

He doesn't lie. Never. It's part of his personal philosophy: lies are for the weak, for those who fear the consequences of the truth. Shin fears nothing. So he tells it like it is. And that makes his words hurt even more.