Epimetheus Novel Draft

This thread is reserved for the completed and proofed works of the Epimetheus project ( https://greyknights.forumotion.com/t4196-epimetheus-collaborative-creative-writing-project ). Any posts here will be removed.


??????.M?? / Somewhere in the Eye of Terror

The heavy door to the cell creaked open slowly, sending two of its occupants scurrying to the corners. If they could, the other two beings in the cell might have done likewise, but, fused together and suspended from chains made from an unbreakable warp forged metal, that was beyond their current abilities.

Abadon stepped into the darkened prison, the amber eyes of one of the xenos blanks regarding him with fear. On the other side of the cell, the female human blank, naked and caked in filth, snarled like a cornered beast. The Warmaster ignored them both, focused solely on who - or, more accurately what - was hanging in the centre of the cell.

His powerful arms bound at the wrists, Epimetheus’s similarly shackled feet hung a meter above the cold stone floor of the dungeon. His skin was a ruin of scar tissue, his black carapace having ben removed early in his captivity, and his eyes and mouth having been sewn shut with fibre hewn from the sinew of Daemons. Behind his sealed lips sat the void where his tongue used to be, Abadon making good on his promise at the time of capture, and a clean surgical wound ran along the side of his throat where his progenoides had been extracted.

The price in oaths and fealty that the Warmaster had received from Fabius Bile and his ilk in exchange for this particular genetic material was immeasurable. When next he launched a Black Crusade upon the Imperium Abadon would not only reap the benefits of that loyalty but, with the blessing of the four, have new and more powerful troops as his disposal.

And, if his ultimate plan should come to fruition…, No, similar ventures had been attempted in the past and come to naught. The Warmaster dealt in practicalities and actualities, not what ifs.

Sensing a presence in the room, Epimetheus twisted on his chains, his enhanced physiology still granting him the strength to do so in spite of the unknowable amount of time he had been in captivity. As he spun above the ground, the true extent of the horrors wrought upon Epimetheus became apparent, driving a smirk to Abadon’s lips.

His limbs removed, the third blank was grafted to Epimetheus’s back, one last failsafe should the emasculated Grey Knight slip his bonds and attempt to escape. The man was barely alive, the dull eyes set below a heavy brow barely open, and tubes protruding from holes bored in his torso through which flowed dark liquids, sustaining his hellish existence.

Abadon drew close to his captive, causing both Epimetheus and the symbiotic blank to flinch.The Grey Knight’s nostrils flared. Despite being deprived of most of his senses, he could tell that the Warmaster was near.

Leaning in close to his prisoner’s ear, Abadon whispered, “soon, Epimetheus. Soon”.

The breath being forced from Epimetheus’s nose became grunts, and he pulled and twisted more forcefully at his bonds causing the blank joined to him to murmer a plaintive wail.

Exiting the cel, the Warmaster left the Grey Knight to struggle against his restraints, safe in the knowledge that he would never be able to break them no matter how long he hung there. (C.Z. Dunn: 2014)