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Intestines were torn from the body that was split open and sawed through while I cowered in the cupboard with my shaking hands gripping my chest.
The liver was snapped into with teeth glistening in fresh blood that coated the air inching through my shaking lips.
Everything was dark. The body was nothing more than a void being pulled apart and gobbled up by the greedy mouths piercing organs being yanked from the carcass.
There was nothing I could do.
I sat there in a puddle of my own piss, feeling it frozen in my pants.
The ammonia from it clung to my nostrils and ran down the back of my throat.
I had darted in here at the first hint of sound, leaving a disgusting trail behind me that led to the body already here.
Now, I was trapped in a house with a pack of monsters growling and snapping amongst themselves over who got the best organs.
I closed my eyes to try and block it out, but I could still hear the wetness of every entrail being pulled out and slapped onto the wooden floor. Every snapping and sucking of bones thick enough to sound like branches.
I could taste it all in the air thick with blood. It coated the back of my already burning throat in a new tickling fire that threatened to burrow into my lungs and give away my position.
I clamped my hands over my mouth harder as a cough tried to jerk itself from me.
The suppressed snort was enough to pause the devouring. I heard the blood dripping back over the body when the monsters paused to process the new noise that had disturbed them.
My heart didn't hammer in my chest like it should have been. It didn't even beat.
I clutched the dead weight anyway, knowing that the monsters would be seaking the tender heart inside.
The heart was the best part. That's what I had been hunting for myself until I found myself as the one being hunted.
Nobody around here had taken a breath or felt warm blood pump through thier bodies since they had died. This was the darkness where the dead roamed until they found new life as something else entirely.
Monsters, once lost souls, were the superior species here. They grouped together to hunt the darkness for vulnerable souls too naive to realise they were in danger.
You either scurried around long enough to barely scrape by, or were consumed by the nothingness that molded you for a new life as a predator.
I was still trying to fight that feeling deep inside that wanted to break and birth me into something else. It had already pulled my nails from thier beds and thickened them into claws developing into the perfect flesh-carving tools.
My teeth, broken into splinters, bled around the gums tacky from dehydration. It formed its own gorey saliva that usually worked in keeping other lesser souls at bay who hadn't yet been exposed to the more heightened nightmares.
Light didn't normally exist here. So, when it did appear in the chests of newly departed souls, it was a sign that an easy feast had been delivered.
My light was barely visible through my fingers. Something that had lit the way for me now was barely distinguishable from everything else.
The monsters were waiting for me to make my next move.
The silence was a tactic to try and flush me out and into thier jaws. I used the same tactic when I stalked lost lights desperately trying to gather thier bearings.
I didn't move. I stayed there in the cupboard while they waited on the other side around thier bleeding carcass.
Eventually, the squishing of fat tearing from limbs returned when one monster grew tired of the long wait.
The others slowly rejoined, until all four sets of teeth were back to fighting over the punctured cuts.
I'd have to move soon. I needed to find my own food and crawl into whatever hole I found to avoid more prowling monsters keen to bloat thier bellies.
I pressed my hand to the wooden door and slowly pushed, only to have the hinges squeal out.
Again, the feast was paused; this time with low growls in my direction.
There was no use trying to hide now.
I shoved the door open and slipped across the bloody floor on my scramble for the entrance to the bedroom.
Throwing myself around the doorframe, I felt teeth graze the tops of my fingers that yanked me down the stairs and around the wall at the end that bodies hammered into on thier chase after me.
I could feel the wetness of thier tongues flicking over my back when they tried to pull me back into thier snapping teeth. It soaked through my shirt that clung to my skin like plastic.
My hands fumbled for the front door that was wide open. In my hunt through here, I had left it slightly ajar so that it didn't attract attention. The pack had widened that gap in thier entrance after me.
Yanking the door shut behind me, I bolted down the road in panic.
I knew this place well enough to not stumble blindly like I had when I had first come here.
The road had storey houses lining each side with thier fenced yards. Street lights were planted out the front of each one, just behind the gutter to the road I bolted down.
This road would come to a curve that bent on itself back up to another leading to the left and towards a roundabout. Others branched from it, spreading out to form the rest of the town filled with all sorts of dangers.
I knew this street. It was the one I died on and had learnt to survive in by hiding from darkness itself. It's the one that almost had me torn apart mere moments after arriving here, and the one that sheltered me from thundering feet chasing down screaming souls I didn't dare save.
I veered to the right and tripped over the gutter outside the fence I followed to its opening.
Throwing myself around it, I started to frantically tear at my soaked pants to wipe myself and dump them on the ground.
Then, I kept running.
I found more roads I followed further from the familiar street I knew. They twisted into new streets with speckled lights glinting in the distance.
I heard gutteral screams break the silence somewhere further away, which caused alarm in the others.
I could see the glow of a soul sneaking through a home opposite me. They didn't keep thier light covered and instead used it to guide them past a window upstairs.
I was aware of how tight my stomach had twisted itself inside of me. Even in death, the pain of hunger never left. It only grew more savage the further a soul lost themselves.
I checked behind me and set my eyes back on the light bobbing along the floor.
With my scent left behind, that should keep the pack busy enough to make my escape into a new type of danger.
I needed to eat. That light was mine.
Scurrying across the road, I made sure to close the door behind me instead of giving myself the preferred quick exit.
The light upstairs danced across the walls even down here. It showed me the staircase pressed to the wall to my right that would lead straight to my meal stomping around above me.
I peeled off my shirt to quickly wipe down the saliva the tongues had flicked across me, dumping that behind the door so I could start my naked ascent without being marked.
There was no shame here. I had gone weeks crawling in the nude after once being scent-marked by saliva. I wasn't going to be making the same mistake so close to a successful hunt.
I was gentle on the stairs that didn't groan when I crept up them. With no scent smothering me, I easily darted to a room opposite me so I could use it as cover to stare after the light continuing onwards.
It had its back turned to me. It wouldn't see me coming.
With it retreating into another room, I made my move.
Barreling up to the light, I tapped it on the shoulder to startle it and make it let out a yelp.
It turned to me, a young male, flicking his eyes up and down my nakedness standing before him.
My eyes also took him in. They found his cause of death at his stomach peppered with holes burned straight through him.
Pills.
At least he had found clothes. A red emblazoned hoodie left wide open but pulled up over his orange hair, and a pair of grey pyjama pants but no shoes.
Must have raided them here then.
"What are you doing?" I whispered and checked the silentness "cover that thing up!"
"The light?" he peered down at it stupidly.
"Yes, the light" I sighed back and scanned the area "where are the clothes?"
He pointed me back down the hall and to the room I had been using as cover. I heard him zip up the hoodie to kill the beam dancing over the walls of the house.
I pulled back into the doorframe and sighed at my oversight. Of course. There was a pull away cupboard here bundled with crushed clothing at the bottom.
They'd have to do.
"What are you doing here?" the light spoke up "I don't remember seeing you in my house."
He died here. Probably OD'd in the bathtub or some shit.
"That doesn't matter" I grunted back as I pulled on a shirt too large for myself and hunted for some pants "you need to get somewhere safe. There are things out there that will see your light and come kill you for it."
"Kill me?" he whimpered out.
Did this guy need to be so dense? I was once fresh too, but damn, I hadn't been this pathetic.
"I'm here to help you" I grinned at another set of pyjama pants I found that I quickly pulled on and tugged the length of the drawstring tight to.
The cleanness caressed my caked body like a fresh wrapper on an old lolly.
The dusty scent on them wouldn't last long. I still had to track down a water source to wash myself and bloat my belly on.
"Come on" I grunted out, grabbing another jacket from the pile "let's go."
The light followed obediently. My speech had him rattled enough to not go branching off on his own. I was his best choice; a lone stranger just like him.
I smiled when I saw the door to the front of the house was still shut. Turning it, I stopped to make sure the light was still smothered before leading it out into the void.
"I can't see" he complained instantly behind me.
I snatched up his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
"I won't let you get lost, OK?"
I think he nodded back. There was no other noise saying he had understood.
I led the way with the hesitant light digging its heels and slowing me down.
He crept to the gutter I pulled him over, making him stumble and gasp out.
"This is the road" I kept the anger out of my voice "nothing is on the road."
He loosened up a bit; still pulling back and mistrusting, but a little easier to lead where I needed him.
I can't believe I actually had a light that was alive! He was still fresh and frantic and all mine!
"Where are we going?"
He whimpered out, tugging once more.
"Somewhere safe" I only replied and pulled back "we need to be quick. Monsters will find us if you dawdle."
This panicked him. He let me guide him a lot smoother now.
I followed the road rather than cut through the yards. This made the light trust me more when he realised there really was nothing in the vast sea of tar.
I snaked us back towards my street several blocks away. We halted at the roundabout to avoid a curious young beast nearby, before completing the loop joining to where I had fled earlier.
The monsters had dispersed from here. I couldn't hear anything snorting along the street. Not even claws clicking on the road or the snarling fight over food that usually rose somewhere nearby.
A clear passage.
"It's not far now" I grinned while leading onwards "just a bit further until we are safe."
I wasn't going back to my house still sitting there with its wide open door. The road led to a col-de-sac I needed to be in.
"It's OK" I soothed the light when we stepped into it and were surrounded by homes with doors thrown off hinges or left open "I'm going to make some noise to let them know we are here."
"Noise?" the light panicked now "what? Who?"
I didn't let go of his hand that tried to yank free now. Cupping my free hand around my mouth, I let out a long, shrill whistle that pierced the silence.
"Are you insane?!" the light cried out in his hushed voice "you said there were monsters!"
"And there are" I reminded him "but they won't know that's me. It sounds just like them."
Still, he tried to tear free. I had to use both hands to keep him grounded and from disappearing entirely.
I turned back to see more lights hovering in the darkness. They were rounded and bright, just like his. Five in total stood there, unmoving.
At seeing more of them, the struggle stopped. He turned to me, then squinted at the new company gathered so openly before us.
"See?" I encouraged him with a gentle push towards them "it's safe here. Show them yours so they know where you are."
The hoodie was zipped down and the delicious light beamed outwards. The others responded by bobbing and creeping forwards.
I felt my dead heart soar at them. I let go of the hand I clutched so I could move aside.
The lights changed position so that they all disappeared behind the leading one. With only one light now approaching, I saw mine stop and peer at it in confusion.
"Wh...."
The air was blown from his lungs when the light speared straight towards him. His body went sailing before smashing into the tar loudly.
The lights blazed past me to thunder to the panicking soul trying to scramble to his feet again.
I followed while more monsters bolted past me to eagerly circle the body the lights snapped its teeth into, severing the head from the neck and piercing through the spilling eyeballs.
The lights danced in the darkness as they let me approach the fresh kill, snapping at the others to keep at bay.
I plunged my claws through the bare chest and hit bone immediately. Spearing from the side of the ribcage allowed me to tear the heart from its prison and sink my teeth into it sputtering over my hands.
The monsters swept in now that the heart was claimed. They ripped the legs from the pants, and fought over the arms still tangled in the jacket. The monster adorned with lights ran its tongue over my arms to savour the blood dribbling downwards.
"There were others in my home" I told it while the saliva smeared over me "they left behind the old kill there upstairs."
The lights huffed for one of the others to investigate who eagerly bolted for the house before another joined for the feast.
Unlike the prowling ones from earlier, these monsters had formed a union with me a long time ago.
I gave them lights, and in return, they shielded me from others trying to kill me. When I finished my progression into a monster myself, I already had my waiting mate ready to protect and hunt with me.
It was a good bargain. Plus, the one with the lights was very good at fooling fresh souls with the markings down either side and at the front of its body. It was going to make sure I was never hungry.
I snarled at it trying to sneakily inch it's tongue to the heart I squeezed. It responded with quivering lips parting slightly to warn me through a growl of its own.
I wasn't sharing this heart with anyone. Not even the monster who valued me and my steady progression to becoming like them most.
Hunching over it, I tore through the fleshy meat savagely. The others were getting impatient waiting to see if I was going to leave scraps.
The body beside me was absolutely decimated from the remaining two mouths ravaging it. Blood soaked the tar while guts and bubbling fat hung from the teeth of the starving predators searching the darkness.
"I'll go find more" I spoke up and sucked my fingers clean.
Fresh souls were unpredictable in where they would arrive. I could be lucky and find another only a few streets away, or I could be prowling for several days in unknown territories again.
The lights nudged me, hovering when it snorted down my back to test my new scent painted across me.
I let it smear more dripping paths into my musty clothes before it allowed me to leave its side. I looked back to it, taking in the sight of the dancing lights tearing up its own feast in the col-de-sac, before leaving on my hunt for more.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
