Inside the Fire

Chapter 8: Happenstance

Song to listen to: Burried/A Moment Apart

Blood pools out from Tom's body, he gasps from pain and shock. The flashing lights when illuminating his face show how ghastly he's become. His eyes are barely focused, I'm still half asleep trying to process the chaos around me. I know from how tired I am, that I couldn't have been asleep for more than a few hours, seeing Tom here is slight confirmation to that. What happened?
I can't hear the security that watches the footage, the window room is dark, no lights are going off in it. Tom tries to sit up, and grunts. I uncurl and carefully pad over to him, keeping my head low. From the look in his eyes, he knows he's about to die.
"I need you," he pants, catching his breath, "To do something for me."
I shake my head, this can't be happening, not again, I know that look.
"No." I reply feebly.
He smiles,
"I know only you can do it." His eyes are sad, "I'm not going to live much longer, but I know you will at least make it quick."
His blood has reached me, how is there so much of it? I try to escape it, taking a few steps back, but I can see it smearing off of my hands onto the white concrete. They've already been stained. My eyes sting with horror, Tom closes his eyes briefly, as if to give them a break.
"This is the only way we both get what we want." Hos eyes are open, his voice conveying a strength his pale sweaty face betrays.
"I do not want to kill you." I'm at a loss for words, his hand clenches at his side wetly, his clothes squelching.
"Maybe not," he whispers, his thoughts rueful.
At one point, my words gave him comfort, now they only proved to be a technicality. "But I want you to live, I want you to grant me vengeance." Tom finishes.
Vengeance? How would killing him allow me to- oh. I curl a lip in rejection and surpirise. If I kill him, I will be able to leave here on my own feet, so to speak.
"I have no desire to kill anyone." I hiss through my nose slits. But my heart races at the prospect, there is so much more in a human's soul, I can feel my mouth filling with saliva.
"This is the only way." He insists.
His heart is struggling to beat, not enough blood fills his veins to allow it to properly pump. Even speaking has sped it's degradation. The hand that once clutched, tightens into a death grip as blood is pulled away elsewhere.
'Please.' He pleads, his brain still functioning.
Watching the futility of his struggle, I can feel myself give in. Not for vengeance do I approach him, not to consume his soul and achieve euphoria. Nor because he begged do I pull his head down, exposing where his neck meets his spine. It's not mercy either that makes me bare my teeth and steady my breath.
I bite hard and deep into his neck, severing his spine from the base of his skull. His relief is short and is overpowered as an overwhelming sense of exhaultation takes over my mind. Human blood is sour, and burns the inside of my mouth, it's the first sensation I'm able to feel after the joy of consuming his soul ebates.
Like the cat, I can find no part of him in me and consider it a blessing. I doubt the complexity of a human mind would ever be content with losing it's freedom. One might imagine it would be a fate worse than death. Existence without agency, a type of purgatory.
My skin feels like it's crawling, I feel compelled to make the change again. Another quality that is similar to the cat. My knee joints fuse into one, a fish finger and toe form as bones and push themselves out from my hands and feet. I try to hold my breath against the pain of this transition, but a gasp escapes as my tail pulls in, shortening, collapsing in on itself until it can no longer be seen above my skin. As my tail disappears my face crumples in, intead of bone cartilage grows out to form my nose. Canines shorten and are nearly non existent. Instead of my scales extending into fur, they flatten and round out, taking on a coppery pink hue instead of the dark blue I'd lived in my whole life. Everything burns and aches, but the shape is complete. If I was able to sweat, according to Tom's memories, I'd be drenched with it from the effort changing caused.
The cats change had been easy, was that due to the similarities our bioligies shared? Or because I'd grown to loath the human's so much, my body was essentially rejecting the human shape even as I took it.
"Or," I wonder out loud, struck with how young I sound, "I'm simply new to this."
I shrug, mimicking the memory of watching one of the humans do it. It doesn't release the stress of the change, but helps to momentarily distract me. Standing up, balance comes to this form rather naturally and I catch myself in the window. These eyes are weaker than mine, but stronger than the human's whose minds I'd gleaned their experiences from. I am young! I side step Tom's corpse, getting a closer look. Even though this shape came from Tom, I look significantly younger than him. Basing it on his memories, I appear to be 14 or 15 years old in human years. I peer down at the body at my side, realizing that I don't have any clothes. Tom's clothes would fit... barely, but they're also drenched in his blood.
The thought of wearing sticky, stinky, moist clothes is very unappealing. I scour Tom's memories, and find a preferable alternative. His current clothes are a uniform, his normal human clothes are currently stored safely in his locker. The locker requires a key, that is currently in his pants. Touching his dead body is repulsive, it'd been easier to groom the cat, that had been respectful. This is robbery, plain and simple.
I stifle a groan and fish both his keys snd wallet from his pocket. Throwing out the objects in his wallet that I know through him can be tracked, it doesn't leave much by way of money. I retrieve one, deciding to empty the account before breaking and abandoning it later.
For the first time in my life, I step out of the room, into the hallway. Everything looks the same as it had in the eyes of every human that had passed by my holding area, except for the flashing red lights of course. The lights paired with the blaring noise were putting me on edge. Weapons these days don't make much sound went going off, and the lack of sound.
His changing room is fairly easy to find, years of stress had turned it into both a trap and beacon for him, solidifying it's were abouts in his mind. It takes two strides to get to his locker and I unlock it with his key and pull it open. A neat white button up shirt lays artfully folded on top of faded blue jeans, a tan corduroy dress coat with darker fabrics sewn onto the elbows rests on a hanger.
I stiffle embarrassment when I look at his clothes. Even he knew he was a bad dresser, and now we both would have to suffer for his poor taste in clothing. I put on the pants and tuck in the shirt out of his habit, and put on the black crew socks and his leather shoes. No matter how much I desired the coat to also change it's shape, it remains hanging there, mocking me.
With a sigh of defeat, I hang the coat over my arm, I don't know when or where I'll need it, but it's better to have it. I barely leave the room when the pants depend from my waist. These clothes had been tailor fitted to Tom's exact measurements, and my frame is to slender in it's youthful stature to fit their requirements. Little did Tom know, that a belt would be appreciated in my current position. I grab the loose jeans in my free hand. Not only am I dressed strangely, I'm forced to grab at my crotch as well. I can feel the heat from my blood rising when I hear a distinct pssssst, from behind me.
Something burns a hole into my shirt and lodges itself into my skin. It's painful, but not worst pain I've ever felt. I can hear the human's heart beat now, I'd been so focused on handling the clothes I'm wearing that I hadn't noticed it's approach. I turn around just as the gun fires a second time, the projectile burning another hole into my shirt before burrowing into the skin of my shoulder. I take a quick survey of the human, and groan. Again, no belt.
I lunge at her and grab the gun from her hand, and shove her back with my other. Her eyes had barely followed my approach before widening right as I struck her, sending her flying deeper into the hallway. She lands quite a while away, based on her clothes I'd guess she was a rights activist, and I hope me sending her flying made her think I was ungrateful for her interference. Then again, she did shoot me.
I retrace his steps, following his vague memories of these halls, reassuring myself that belts are part of the uniform here, I need to find only one body of the employees to aquire one. I search as I go and one thing is becoming clear. A severed foot here, detached arms, a body with only the top half and everything below the knees. All these people have been eaten. A strange cancerous infection spreads from where this unkown creature's teeth had made impact. Not all the corpses wear the uniform, equal numbers of activists pieces littered the place.
Finally I find one that only was missing the head and top half of the torso, it's arms and shoulder still attached by what remained of it rib cage. I pull the black leather belt from the man's waist, and I think I recognize the hairy arms of my human's supervisor. Unluckily for me, the belt holes don't go in enough to be of use yo me. So I pull it as tight against as possible and push the metal through through the leather, making the belt fit. The excess belt hangs awkwardly at my side, I reloup what I can and jog towards the exit.
Down in a small hallway, I someone gasp for my help. It's not the request for assistance that makes me pause in my escape, it's the familiarity of the voice. Down on the ground, hands shaking with a fistful of guts, whimpers the older female.
"Tom, Tom, you must help me, my research, grab what you can and carry me out of here." She feebly begs.
I approach her, weighing what to do with her now that I'm free and she's just, here. The torso looks like some one had unzipped her, stooping only at her sternum, she's folded into it, bowing her serated skin outward. What could have caused such clean slashes? Her eyes shrink in confusion when I get close, and I crouch in front of her deliberating. "Who are you." She demands,
Her sense of self-importance making her voice more authoritative.
"It doesn't matter" she dismisses, her head lolling, "Get in there and save my research before those hippies or worse get their hands on it."
"No." I shake my head.
The older female's eyes grown angry,
"You work here, you need to do as your told!" She commands.
I smile at her presumption.
"I don't work here, human, but I do live here." I lean forward onto one of my knees, getting uncomfortably close to her face and take in her scent. It's worse to me than it had been to her coworkers. Her skin smells of death and decay, her years of working in this industry and using tan beds to make up for lost sunlight have lathered her skin. Chemicals and perfumes mix in equal measure, wafting up from her skin almost visibly.
"G-get away from me," panicking, she rrys to pull away from me, her head hitting the door behind her.
I lean back from her, my smile gone, denile sharp in her confused eyes. "Good, now the resear-".
I clear my human throat and interupt,
"No, you aren't hearing me." I snarl, lifting my upper lip, "I could care less about your research."
"You made my life miserable for your research. I'll burn it myself if I can, the real question is, what do I do with you." My voice sounds barely human. The hate I feel for this one insignificant human, it's painful as it heats up my veins, I know they are glowing as they reflect against her skin, maintaining a red stain on her dried out face. Her lips tremble, and eyes fill with tears, my words, the overwhelming evidence of my appearance, she understands what I am now. "Disappointed?" I ask, an all to familiar feeling of loathing pleasure twisting my mouth into a smirk. She's shaking, gasping in both pain pain and fear, her mind thoughtless as it seizes, flitting through images of my different forms, cat and dragon.
'The eyes,' her thoughts push out from the chaos of her mind, 'The eyes have remained the same!'. A fresh set of tremors shake her body.
No need to tell her that the appearance of my eyes do change, but perhapse she means the color. That give me some comfort, no matter how much I change, my eyes are somewhat the same. I straiten up and push into her office.
Tablets are stored in a filing case, some placed on charging platforms, others strewn on the desk around a moniter with keys projected in front of it. First things first, I snap every tablet in the room, and crush the monster, folding it multiple times. I can't find an accelerant, much less a way to start a fire. The room has druken in her scent, and being in it, it's obvious that work is all that she cares about. Even Tom's changing room had some personal touches made to it from both him and other colleagues he shared it with. This woman lived a sad existence, one that had brought no pleasure and little recognition. She hates herself and that's what decides it for me. I don't need more of her toxicity in my life, literally.
She crying when I push out of the office, crying when opening the door jostled her shoulder. I carry on with my mission to get to the exit.
"Please!" She cries after me, "Have mercy! If you won't save me, end my life!"
I stop for her once again, I wonder how much she is aware of how life and the taking of it, works for me. I look into her tear filled eyes. And, I pity her, this creature that had once had an overwhelming control over my life. A stumach injury is common to survive from, but no one is coming to save her. This place doesn't exist, I know that much. No authorities have been called, help is not on it's way. It'd be so easy to snuff out her life, in fact I crave to end it. But I won't do it, I refuse to kill because she's asked me to.
"You don't deserve mercy." I reply, "This here," I gesture to her and all her gore,
"Is the sum amount of your life's work."
Her eyes squint in disbelief, I hadn't made sense to her. She had never considered an end to her life, she had known that somehow through dragon blood immortality was possible. Now she lays dying, her goal standing in front of her and it's mocking her.
'I've worked to hard, this is unfair.'
I shake my head, showing my hand.
"This is exactly what you deserve." I hiss, showing my teeth to her for the last time and staulk away from her, her mind reeling with me revealing to know her thoughts.
Her office is close to the exit, I can smell fresh air still hanging in the air from when the door had last opened. Pulling the bullet from my shoulder, it hadn't done much to me, but there is no saving this shirt. With the pride I have left, I put the hideous coat on, and try opening the door with Tom's card. It remains locked. Damn that woman! She'd already trapped him by the time the activists had broken in!
Broken, I blink, and pull the foor towards myself, it swing open easily, a holes on the otherside where the deadbolts should be. My relief is invigorated by the scents and sensations wafting to me through the opened gate, a few dead security guards lay haphazardly around the ground, they're bodies riddled with bullet holes.
Passing them I come to marbled stairs, with a platform at the top. Large thick plastic doors shaped and colored to look like doors block my way, but one is pushed in ajar, the source of the smells. The door moves easily, and I take in the immense reception area of the building. Next to the large doors is a plac of a quote some human scientist had more or less said over two decades ago. His self important ink stain portrait stares out over the room, melancholic and serious.
A receptionist stands behind the desk, her clothes look like some kind of uniform, a soft chale blue power suit. Although she appeared to obviously work here, her thoughts are consumed with her comrades downstairs. She desperately whispers into her phone, glancing at the clock, tipping me off where the camera in the lobby is. Thanks for letting me know, I groan, after I've already fully faced it.
A single tear overflows one eye, and now I can't get out of the foyer fast enough. It's one thing to watch a monster cry, and a completely different thing to watch and hear this one's very private breakdown. It makes me feel creepy. The room is so large, it takes me a couple minutes before I reach the closest revolving doors to me.
So many sights and sounds overwhelm my senses! A light mist falls from the sky, buildings lose themselves in the grey tie dye of the sky. Everything is mirrored, black and grey in the way I'd seen through human's minds, but so much more! I can smell it all, the people passing in front of me, the people that had passed by this way, their assortment of vehicles, sounds pouring out of every cavity both seen and hidden! Some of it is even pleasant. I close my eyes to the beautiful cacophony of noise, smells and visuals and focus only on my sense of touch.
The mist has picked up into a light drizzle, each miniscule drop lightly caresses my face, I breath in my nose and focus on it's smell, drowning out all the others with it's sweet scent. With my face turned up to the sky, I open my eyes and watch the clouds. They vortex, pushed around the building by the wind in the upper atmosphere. The simplicity of this act of nature, I'm at a loss for words, no experience I've had so far could ever hope to hold a candle to this moment.
Then a human pushes past me, their embarrassment at having to stoop so low as to touch someone else out of necessity forces a quick apology out of their mouth. I'm in the chaos of the street again, but this time I walk into it, letting my feet take me wherever they would. I watch the vibrating billboards as I walk, with hidden speakers so loud the windows around them shimmer. I can't tell what they're trying to say, but the moving images are captivating. Human skin bluring into rose petals, condensation dripping down an empty cup. There's something different on each every screen, but they share a common theme, everything shown is meant to capture the attention of the people on the street.
No one pays them any mind, everyone's thoughts are wrapped up in their own drama, so many thoughts thinking so many different things. I'm getting nauseous hearing it all and try to hide back into my brain and block them all out.