by Olen on Sat Oct 03, 2009 2:33 am
He had fallen asleep, slumped into his corner and breathing deeply, shivering once in a while from the impinging cold.
The cold and the sudden occurence of hunger was draining his energy and he had dozed off several times, for a few minutes at a time, before waking again with a start. He dreamt of the girl in the cell across from him; she was the only mirror he had for what was happening to himself.
He could see what had happened to him in her, the sudden tortured bursts in growth and change, becoming less and less human each time. He couldn't even think of what she may have looked like before. Who she might have been before.
He would wake without a punchline to the dream, probably from the cold, and then lapse back into it some time later.
He had no future. Even if he escaped, no one could see him like this. He couldn't survive in the wild either. He imagined being adopted by a herd of whateverhewas', to live a life of pointless homeostasis. That would kill him, just the same. The only way he could survive would be with more of them. He could be nothing else.
He started with a flinch, coming to sudden awareness. He didn't know if he had been asleep or awake, but his consciousness had recieved a sudden jolt and his heart had raced into violent motion once again. Echoing in the distance, some screaming animal penetrating the silence that had settled upon the cell. He blinked and stretched his stiff limbs within the security and privacy of his shade. He looked at the girl, watching her as his brain started to become active once again. The cold was doing things to him. Even hairy; he was naked, and his resistance to the cold was far less than he had guessed. Far closer to the Lemur. He was only human, he'd freeze if he couldn't find some kind of warmth. It was making his brain sluggish, slowing shutting him down.
Another cry from the distance startled him; two more.
He froze.
He waited, paralysed and dreading, waiting for confirmation.
Two more, a birdlike screech and a guttural bellow, echoing in the distance; only closer.
His heart began to beat furiously, pumping blood to his brain in sprinting swells and making him suck freezing air, his eyes widening in panic.
The shock was coming; he recognised it this time. He wanted to escape it; yet there was nothing he could do to stop it coming. The cries of pain came closer, and all around him the creatures began to erupt in deafening uproar, terrified in whatever new voice they were speaking.
The memory of the pain was all but absent; his terror was for the transformation that was sure to come with it.
More animal; more mutant monstrosity. He was going to change, become less human, more animal. Some of them would already be changing down the hall, ever closer to him. Gruesome images of their silent agony began to race unhindered through his mind.
As the screams came within what must have been a dozen cells of his, he looked desperately at the Lemur, a question springing to mind which suddenly seemed far more important than anything else in the world to ask her, as if missing his chance to ask it now would mean the answer being eternally beyond his reach.
He swalled, wetting his aching dry throat, and asked her tremblingly,
"Will you help me think of a name?"
A few seconds later, he dissolved into the deaf and blinding white agony.