Night Lights and Dark Places

Chapter Eight - Beast

It felt like fog, in his head, in his veins. Something lighter than blood, weightless and dizzying. His brain trailed behind him and collided with him every time he moved too quickly, stopped too abruptly. A feeling in his chest like fear, but not fear, that same sort of frantic fluttering that made him nauseous. The world around him was muddied, muffled.

She may as well have been speaking an entirely different language, seeing as he barely understood a word she said. Not for a lack of trying, he caught just enough to emote appropriately and vocalize occasional monosyllabic responses. The walk flashed by in an instant, as if he'd blinked and suddenly she was leaning over the stairwell, looking concerned.

"You ain't looking so hot, boss. You okay?"

He blinked at her, confused. Tolly reached out towards him suddenly and he flinched away from her hand, anticipating pain he knew she wasn't capable of inflicting. She looked hurt by this, inexplicably, and she retracted her hand with apologetic eyes.

"You look like you're about ready to pass the fuck out." She offered tentatively, and he understood.

"Oh, no. I'm just hungry." The admission made it all the more unbearable.

"You could come up, you know. I could make you something."

"I appreciate the offer, but I must decline." Her enthusiasm was adorable, but it was wearing him out. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Again, she looked hurt, but she accepted his rejection with a forced little smile. "Night, boss. Go eat."

~~~

Go eat. Go eat. Go eat. Would she have encouraged it if she knew what that entailed? The subtle sadness on her face was a blurry little memory, a phantom image drifting between flashes of sensation and instinct. His kind had not been built for small meals throughout the day; they were gorge-eaters, and his attempt to grow accustomed to small, occasional meals had proven ineffective. His body demanded the satisfaction it was owed with an urgency that consumed him.

Most nights, he did not waste the energy required to transform, it wasn't necessary when he was just eating bugs and rats, but he needed substantial prey, like the feral strays and larger scavengers in the darker, more rural parts of the city.

His teeth came down hard on the skull of a spitting, hissing cat, splitting the cranium with a delicious crack. Swallowing blood, fur, and brain matter, he adjusted his jaw and severed the head entirely. A dead raccoon hung limp in his claws and he had already set his sights on the enormous rat scuttling around his leftovers. When he had eaten enough, he would sniff around for dead animals, road kill, and expired meats discarded by shops and restaurants. Decaying meat tasted better, but it was harder to find on some days. This hunger was immediate.

I could make you something.

Sad eyes, sad voice, what would she say? Blood dribbled down his chin, his lips pulled too taut across his skull to eat cleanly. Warm, red, robust.

Hand pulling away, little fingers, thin wrist, sad eyes.

The cat's brain felt gritty on his tongue.

Go eat.

Why was he thinking about her? The transformation jumbled things, dampened emotions and made it easier to ignore morality or guilt. It put a laser focus onto killing, eating, surviving. Their kind had no other purpose. Ravenous, mindless animals, taking and taking and taking and giving nothing back.

Wet, spongy bone marrow, softly crunching cartilage, chewy skin and stringy flesh and chunks of salty muscle. Snapping, twisting, tearing, shredding.

Soft. Warm. Red. Her.

He was starving.