"I... I saw..."
"I saw... I killed my family."
Hercules could not tear his eyes away from his hands, as though they were truly stained with his loved ones' warm blood, never to be washed clean.
The psychological impact of the hallucination was so real that the pain and guilt of destroying what he loved with his own hands nearly overwhelmed nerves that had only just survived the physical ordeal.
The Apothecary who had been waiting beside him quietly observed his reaction.
At Hercules's words, the Apothecary's expression, hidden beneath his bionic eye and helmet, betrayed neither joy nor anger. He merely nodded steadily and answered calmly in his modified, slightly distorted voice.
"That is normal, Brother Hercules."
"Normal?" Hercules jerked his head up, his eyes filled with confusion.
The Apothecary seemed to see through his thoughts and continued in that cool, almost cold tone. "The severity of your gene-seed rejection far exceeded anything recorded in our database."
"This violent conflict caused your genetic chains to undergo a... mutation on the brink of collapse, one we could not fully predict."
"This mutation is a double-edged sword, both for you and for the Legion."
He stepped forward, his gaze sweeping over Hercules's face and the screen monitoring his physical readings from beneath his helmet.
"It may have brought some... atypical side effects."
"One of them is that, unlike the vast majority of successful recipients, you do not appear to have had those powerful mortal emotional bonds and certain memories completely erased after the surgery."
"You still clearly retain emotional impressions of your family on Colchis. They may even have been amplified and distorted into the visions you just witnessed by the psychic storm caused by the rejection."
The Apothecary paused, then continued, "By Space Marine standards, your condition might be considered