A scream - strangled, full of pain and fury - echoes through the lab. The intercom clicks, static blasting through for a moment before a voice comes over, dry and cracking with the stress of the words he has to say.
This is your Commander speaking.
I have been infected.
I know what I have to do, and if I fail, someone, anyone, finish the job for me. This is my final order.
May God have mercy on all our souls.
The line falls dead again, and there's a silence in the base for several long moments. Einhorn is sitting on his bunk, rapidly draining the last of his flask, feeling the influence of the...the Thing growing in him with every passing moment, knowing that if he doesn't resist know, he'll be gone, nothing but a shell for it to destroy everyone else through. A kerosene lamp used only when the electricity goes out provides the fuel, and the smell is nauseating, soaked into his clothes, down into his flesh.
A match is struck - and fizzles out.
Another is struck - and dropped, catching the Commander on fire, his screams terrible. He had prepared to do this stoically, to take this for the team, but the pain was unbearable, and he found himself dropping to the ground, curling up in a ball as his clothes were burned away, melting to fuse with his skin - at least, what skin that wasn't being burned away itself, hair and flesh and bone being exposed and charred underneath the inferno, stripping away the infection at the cost of his life.
At some point, the pain overrides his senses, and he slips into beautiful unconsciousness.
Of course, he never wakes up.
