In your heart heart, in your soul you knew who it was you would find at the heart of the swarm even before you laid eyes upon him. The clawed, reeking monster spread the too-long fingers of his distended left hand in a grotesque greeting as the SPACE WOLF fell into the eye of the swarm storm. The hexagonal steel decking beneath him squealed and moaned, shifting. ‘Captain.’ The word was a mocking chorus of rattling echoes, humming into his ears from all around. ‘Look, I am healed.’ For all the gruesome malformations of his flesh and bone, the aspect of the man beneath the changed body was clear to your eyes.
‘Esemesas, why?’ he shouted, furious at the youth’s folly, his voice resonating inside his helmet. ‘What have you done to yourself?’
‘Hakur died aboard the Eisenstein!’ thundered the rasping voice. ‘His existence is at an end! I live now! I am the pestilent champion… I am the Lord of the Flies!’
You spat. ‘Traitor! You followed Grulgor into his grotesque transformation. Look what you have become! A freak, a monster, a—’
‘A daemon? Is that what you were going to say, you hidebound old fool?’ Callous laughter echoed around him. ‘Is it sorcery that has renewed me? All that matters is that I have cheated death, like a true son of Mortarion!’
‘Why?’ you screamed, the injustice hammering at you. ‘In Terra’s name, why did you give yourself to this abomination?’
‘Because it is the future!’ The voice buzzed and chattered. ‘Look at me, captain. I am what the Death Guard is to become, what Grulgor and his men are already! Undying, living avatars of decay, waiting to reap the darkness!’
Your senses were heavy with the stench of corruption. ‘I should have let you perish.’ You coughed, faltering for a moment.
‘But you did not!’ came the scream.
'It is not yet too late'