This is a continuation of the current longer story. As always, you can catch up or get reacquainted with the story by following the links in order of appearance.

Outside the Dairy Queen
Along the Forest Path
The Aftermath
A Light Repast
Red Lethargy
Lost in Darkness
Fear and Confrontation
The Next Room
Blackened Mist
Rat in a Cage

Lost in Darkness

“You’re awake,” she said. A soft smile lit her face with a glow he had not noticed before. Her eyes ran the distance from his feet and then up to his face again. “I think you might be ready soon.”

Eddie’s throat was still raw, torn from the ordeal he had been through. Words didn’t quite form. Instead what he meant to say, “Ready for what?” Came out as a guttural rasp. He found himself incapable of forming words that made any sense.

“Mother.” Mira had leaned into the hallway and shouted deeper into the house. She didn’t wait for a reply as she walked into the room, her eyes never left his body. “Yes, it seems to have gone exactly as she said it would.”

Eddie shied away from her touch as she ran a finger from the edge of his shoulder down his bicep. The anger he had felt was forgotten and it had been replaced with a cold charge that set his body on edge. Deep in his core he craved her touch though that craving was fueled by a fear he had never felt before.

The ability to form words still eluded him. After the grunts he couldn’t escape he finally gave up and he focused his attention on the window behind her. Though he couldn’t see past the curtain he refused to look directly at her.

“The change has almost completed.” her mother had stepped through the doorway into the room. Eddie felt her hands on his back and his shoulders. “It is magnificent.”

Her touch sent jolts through him but not directly. He could feel her caress but not as if she had directly touched his skin. Without looking down he had known he wasn’t wearing a shirt. He had to think about it but he realized that he was also naked from the waste down as well. Modesty didn’t take its toll on him but his state of undress didn’t seem to phase the ladies in the room either. It wasn’t until he brought up a hand to brush away the touch of the mother that he noticed something wrong.

His skin had changed. He glanced down his body. The change covered what appeared to be every inch of his flesh, if you could even call it flesh at this point. His skin had taken an ashen gray hue and it had thickened as well. Much like a sheet rock exterior, his body was no longer the smooth of human flesh. He could see no other visible changes within the quick glance but the ladies hadn’t taken their eyes off him.

They each scanned up and down his body as they paused at different sections of him to take it all in. He was no longer human. He wasn’t ready to admit it to himself but the situation warranted a bit of self reflection. Nothing of this situation felt natural to him.

“I am sure you have questions,” Mrs. Green said. “We will get to them in time. For now you still need some rest. Rest and recovery will allow you to finish and heal.” She laid a hand to his chest and gently pushed him back onto the bed.

Eddie wanted to fight her, wanted to break free of her touch, but he lacked the strength to resist. He couldn’t even lift his hand to brush hers away from him.

When sleep claimed him again he drifted into a darkness unlike any he had ever felt before.

The room had changed. That was his first thought when he woke the last time. Not the room, his entire environment. He wasn’t in the room they had confined him to when he recovered from the beating he had taken, what was it, days? Weeks? He had no possible frame of reference to tell him what had happened during the past however long it had become.

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Eddie sat up to assess his situation. No sense laying about anymore. His body felt clean, his wounds had disappeared in his sleep. Though he was in darkness he could see outlines of the room around him. Nothing definite. More like a notion of what surrounded him. But even that he didn’t see with his eyes. It all popped into his head like a topographical map of his surroundings.

He knew he had been taken underground. He also knew that the bed he sat upon was little more than a mattress on a stone or concrete floor. He could feel footsteps above his head, the movements of at least two people. They made different impressions in his mind like they carried different body weights. Both of them though, their movements weren’t slow. He felt like he would know if they were sick or old, or there was something off about their movements.

The anger that had consumed him so long ago, it was gone. It had been replaced with a different desire. The need to be free, be out in the open, the need to hunt, consumed him. His anger of before had gotten a focus. It had become a sense of aggression he wanted to fulfill with the blood of prey. They weren’t words in his mind, not like when you have a discussion with yourself about your feelings of the world around you. His thoughts were now impulses and desires.

He felt the light that edged past the door to his left as it opened. He knew there was light, knew someone had opened the door, but he couldn’t see either. He couldn’t see anything, not with his eyes, not like he thought he should be able to. Images flashed through his mind of the area around him again but still it was nothing like what he had taken for granted. He had become blind in a world ruled by what could be seen.

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