Side Effects of a Saint
By @john1208
Fiodor Czernek is sixty-eight, coughing up black tar, and simply too kind for his own good. In the quarantined slums of Oszigrad, compassion is a death sentence. But when a bleeding street-child collapses on his stoop, Fiodor awakens the [Clinical Trial System]. It forces the frail old man into tense, violent medical extractions to save the helpless, rewarding his successes with randomized biological grafts. At first, it feels like a miracle: a randomized lung clears his rot, a randomized retina lets him see in the dark. He weaponizes his new vigor to protect the weak. But there is a terrifying catch. The rewards are a trap. Every random organ and tissue sample spliced into his frail body belongs to a dormant, man-eating biological weapon the city's elites buried decades ago. The more people Fiodor saves, the more of his humanity is overwritten by an insatiable, monstrous hunger. Can a man whose heart bleeds for everyone survive when his own body is mutating to devour them?
1
