Disclaimer: This story is meant for more mature readers. It addresses dark themes which may be unsettling for some readers, including some suggestions of m/m. Accordingly, it is left to the reader to determine the implied meanings and intensity of the contents by reading between the lines and making their own interpretations.  Please decide responsibly if this story is suitable for you before continuing. 

 

 

Title: In the corner of your eye

Chapter 1: I can see you

He’s there again.

You’re telling me. He mustn’t have much of a life.

He’s occupying the spot in the cafeteria where nobody sits because the table and chair are placed in such a way that you literally have a pillar in your face. He’s somehow managed to squeeze himself inside that narrow space yet follow my progress from door to serving station to checkout counter in one unbroken stare.

Watching YOUR progress? That confirms it. He doesn’t have a life, period.

Now, now, don’t pretend you don’t like the attention. You’re always shouting for mine.

I choose a table where he has to either move or fold himself in half if he wants to see me. I never gave him permission to look at me. Why should I make it any easier for him?

You’re doing it again, aren’t you?

Doing what again? I’m not doing anything. He’s the one that’s staring.

Then take your sandwich and go eat outside on the lawn.

It’s cold outside. Besides, he’s just looking. No harm in that.

Said the rabbit before the hawk swooped down on it.

Maybe he’s just shy.

I DON’T like this.

Then go to sleep and let me handle this.

I commend him on finding me. I’m not easy to see. I’m just one of the faces in the crowd, part of the throng of inconsequential people that form the background for the stories of the important people—the leaders and popular kids—to play out against. I don’t even have an identity with a comforting set of expectations to conform to; not a nerd, a jock, a best friend, a weirdo rebel.

Nobody has ever seen me.

Except him.

He’s decided not to make himself stand out by moving. You only change seats in the cafeteria if you’re a somebody—in which case you’ve probably been hailed by your other shiny pals—or if you’re a nobody—in which case you’ve probably been told to move by one of the shiny people. He doesn’t seem to be either type. Not one of the haves – not flashy enough, not obviously good-looking or athletically-built enough. But also not one of the have-nots – he isn’t frayed at the edges; he looks cared-for by somebody: a parent, a girlfriend, maybe just himself.

The spot I’ve chosen offers a clear view of the corner behind the pillar. I make the most of my strategic move to look at him. Wavy black hair. Dark eyes.  Make that brown eyes, made dark by the deep sockets they’re set in. Olive complexion. Vaguely Pan-Asian features. Not a face you’d look at twice, but if you did, a face that could take some looking, and improve with each view.

Are we perhaps a little... smitten? Unrequitedly so?

Don’t go all catty like some cheerleader. I don’t think he even knows my name yet...  What’s my current name again?

Is this really necessary? *Eye roll*

It’s Iggy. I don’t understand why you don’t just stick to one name.

Because names are important. Every name I’ve ever had has its own memories of the life I lived with it. But now I’m Iggy. Invisible Iggy. 

If you’re so invisible, why can he see you?

Feisty today, aren’t you?

It’s your fault. The excitement of the chase and all that.

I eat my sandwich, which I don’t need, and drink my sickeningly sweet cold drink that’s probably going to give me some horrible metabolic syndrome. I do all this alone. Because nobody ever sits with me.

So who, then, is this rather irritating entity that I’m talking to and occasionally together in chorus with?

Just myself.

Irritating Iggy! I like it! Has a nice ring to it.

Hush, I’m narrating my life story here.

Yes, I talk to myself.

What? You do it too. You talk to yourself; you know, that part of yourself that’s in your head. The voice that’s the opposite of what you show the world.

The rational voice of reason if you’re an impulsive daredevil.

The cheerful accommodating voice if you’re a suspicious bundle of nerves.

The dark twisted one if you’re the epitome of goodness and light.

 

 

Have you been listening to my Voice? Then you know what kind of person I am on the outside. Appearances can be deceiving – Whoever invented that saying wasn’t kidding.

 

 

The bell goes. We leave the cafeteria and begin migrating sluggishly towards my—our—next class. That’s the only thing we seem to have in common so far – we’re both corners. I sit in one corner, he sits in another.

Another half a day of meaningless information delivered in uninspired ways to an uninterested captive audience later, I exit the site of my daily sedation, walking at a faster pace than usual to slip my way through the homeward-bound stampede. I’m good at slipping through things.

He’s following me. I can see glimpses of his plaid shirt through the herd.

I leap out from around the corner, exactly like a cartoon character, but I stop short of saying “Boo!” or some other silly thing like that. And just like another cartoon character, he literally turns pale.

“I can see you.” I tell him solemnly.

Stating the obvious. Way to go. REALLY great first impression.

He swallows, adjusts his collar, tries to explain his nervousness. “You... uh... startled me.”

That’s a killer pick-up line, that is.

Thank you for the observation. Now keep quiet for a sec.

I give him my intense look, the one I save for limited use because staring so hard makes me go cross-eyed afterwards. “Stop stalking me.”

Now he’s gone a most fetching shade of red. “I’-I’m not s-stalking you!”

Are you crazy? The guy might be a homicidal maniac.

What are you DOING provoking him?

Be quiet. I know exactly what I’m doing.

I’m hungry.

Patience. Hunger only makes it better.

Oh come on, it’s such a LONGGGGG wait.

We’re getting there. He was just curious up to this point.

Now he realises it.

He wants me.

 

 

I maintain eye contact just a second longer, just long enough to allow him to see the flash of interest underneath the top layer of determined annoyance. And then I turn on my heel.

He doesn’t follow. But he is thinking about me. I can feel his thoughts riding on his feverish gaze that is dogging my retreating back.

Nice. But slowwwwww!

We have desire. We just need to tip it over into obsession.

 

 

And then we feed.

2: Whether you believe it or not

Writer: The first chapter wasn’t very creepy, right? Hope this one’s better.

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Title: In the corner of your eye

Chapter 2: Whether you believe it or not

...in which we learn who/what Iggy is and what he gets up to in his spare time. Along with a friendly... warning. The mind games have begun. Nervous looks over the shoulder are optional.

*****

His name is Ash. I like it; it’s a beautifully gloomy name, the kind of name that a doomed lover has. He lives two blocks from me, in the ‘good’ part of the housing area. I walk him home on the pretence of doing some inane project on where my classmates live, see him enter an unremarkable door to an unremarkable house. No suspicious mounds of earth in the backyard. No tortured screams from the basement window. Not even a respectably spooky tree to wave ghostly branches over his window in the wind.

Happy now?

Fine, you’re right. He’s a nobody. I’m still hungry.

I know. We hunt tonight.

 

 

 

Your name is Stan, or at least that’s what your nametag says you’re called.

Hello, Stan.

Hush, don’t interrupt. This is serious stuff.

And you... don’t you stare at me with those accusing eyes.

What kind of eyes were you expecting? Adoring ones?

Shut up. You know you’re supposed to go to sleep when I feed.

Spoilsport.

Stan, my man... you’re still staring. If you want to blame someone, blame yourself.

I mean, what were you doing, cruising down that part of town at this time of night with your window down?

 

And why’d you slow down when you saw me in my tiny tight shorts and fishnet vest?

 

You were the one that opened the passenger door to let me in.

 

You were the one that took me to that numberless room by the unlit fire escape.

 

And it was nobody else but you that put the Rohypnol in my soda that I pretended to drink.

 

Ditto the one that brought out the cuffs and all your other interesting little toys when I’d ‘passed out’.

 

 

 

It’s no use, you know, struggling against the leather. The more you wriggle, the tighter the neck strap gets.

You want to ask me if this is a joke. You’re desperately hoping that I’m just being naughty and not... homicidal? Yes, I know you’d be able to express yourself much better if I took out the ball gag. But it’s more interesting like this, trying to read your conversation from your eyes. They’re rolling around their sockets one moment, fixed on me in stark terror the next. Very interesting, those eyes of yours, Stan.

Yes, that’s right. Be afraid.

Your fear is deliciously piquant. I savour its intensification. It’s like... a symphony that’s building up to the crash of drums in the finale. Or the gradually changing aroma of a stew slow-cooked for hours. My, you sure are drawing out the poet in me!

What, not there yet? I read somewhere that slow suffocation can cause a rush of pleasure in certain regions of the body. Is that what’s happening?

Oh yes... I can taste it now.

Dirty lewd thoughts flavour the substance of your desperation. Something like that rotten fish sauce that some people are so addicted to.

Don’t you think it’s a little, well, inelegant, getting off on the thought of imminent death?

Your fear and want have combined into decadent chocolaty molasses that’s sucking me down into the forgetfulness of abandon. Be careful, Stan... you’re making my bloodlust rise.

I’m almost drooling physically at the intensity. In fact, I think certain parts of myself are getting a little rude as well.

I don’t want that. Lust soils the clarity of your pain and dulls the edge of your torment. I want to enjoy every exquisite moment of that unadulterated anguish.

Tell you what. I’ll share my life story with you while you thrash out your last moments of sanity. Just to help me calm down.

You don’t mind, do you?

I thought not. ... Let’s see now...

Well to begin with, I am not the only one of my kind.

We are the nameless things that live in darkness, born with the first man. We are the monsters on which humankind blamed—correctly, more often than not—the slaughter of their kin when night fell. You have been battling us ever since. When you found fire, it became your strongest ally. But still we came, killed, fed, grew stronger on your despair. We were always on the winning side... until the Great Dying Out, when you harnessed electricity and created artificial lights that burned through the night.

We died in numbers too great to count.

We were almost exterminated.

For a while, it seemed that you had won the war.

The inherited bitterness of near-defeat remains, Stan. Every one of us is born with it. Just talking about it makes me want to rip, tear, violate... oh, sorry, did my claws just slip into view? How careless of me. Oh wait, I’m supposed to be telling my story. Right then... so we were almost exterminated, yada yada yada...

Yet the strongest and most adaptable of us survived. We conquered our bloodlust. We moved from the corporeal to the undying. We evolved to put off our outer shells when we matured, and thus freed ourselves of the need to feed constantly. We changed our very nature to consume the darkness that skulked and festered in human hearts and minds rather than your warm living bodies; less satisfying perhaps than rending flesh with tooth and claw, but much more filling. Thus the darkness that once cloaked us became our sustenance instead.

The shared memory of the supremacy of my race... it makes me so happy that it makes me want to preen my beautiful razor-edged, poison-tipped feathers. Such a nice greenish sheen to them, don’t you think? I beg your pardon, I AM sometimes a little vain. Anyway...

We launched a massive counter-attack. We were no longer mindless beasts but beasts that invaded minds, whipping up the darkness within to a fever pitch until the thread of sanity broke and released a feast of rich, dark madness. We began to glory in all that is dark in humanity, having made that the source of our strength.

Stan, my man, the long and short of it is...

As the world of man grew brighter and their hearts grew darker, we thrived.

A drum roll would be in quite in order here. Or maybe the three-note duh-duh-DUH that they use in old movies before the villain makes his entrance. Ah... this is life. Food in plenty. No foes. What more could I ask for? Except maybe... it’s probably a little greedy of me to say this, but...

Once in a while, we would miss the crunch of bone and the springy bounce of living flesh well seasoned with the iron-salt seasoning of blood. But as long as we’re careful, and practise moderation... a few humans less don’t make much of a difference to the general population.

Wait, is that what you think I’m going to do to you? Oh, don’t worry... I haven’t bitten anyone for at least a year. Now... where was I? Ah, yes, our relationship with human beings.

Granted, we can’t do without mankind altogether. We still use human bodies as birth vessels, and for the first few months of our infancy, feed with this body on other living bodies. I am no longer an infant, of course. So you’re quite safe from my nice sharp teeth. My Voice is all that is left of my birth vessel. When I am mature enough, I will lose my Voice and gain my true form – shapeless, boundless darkness. But for now, I keep a physical form to feed myself with. Although I find the female version a little more effective for that purpose, I prefer to take the male form. Why? Oh, just for the heck of it, I suppose. In this case, it has turned out to my advantage, hasn’t it? With you, I mean... Oh yes, Stan, I’m far enough inside your head to know ALL about your  fondness for angelic-choirboy-types.

The same goes for Ash, the stalker. You don’t know him, do you? He’s my... oh, never mind.

Ash... craves for me. But he is confused, because I have the same outward form as his gender. He is ashamed of his desire. The longer I stay out of his reach, the more twisted the sweetness and purity of his attraction becomes. As his feelings grow stronger, they become ever more polluted. I tease, confound, flit into his grasp only to flee again in an intricate Paso Doble towards his doom. To my careful tending, he is a maturing fruit ripening in the black of night, deliciously, perfectly tainted.

 

 

 

Are you listening, Stan?

Your terrified horror lies on the cusp of the crescendo that marks the descent into madness. BUT...

I think I have to stop here. You’re twitching a little too much. I don’t want to actually kill you, just drive you crazy. But it looks like you’re going to have a heart attack or something before we get there.

There goes the main course. I guess I’m not going to get fed tonight. Too bad. That appetiser was really lip-smackingly good.

Oh, relax, Stan. You should be smiling, not crying. You get to live! AND keep your sanity... what’s left of it anyway.

 

 

 

I leave the still-breathing body with the leather outfit still on. I can see the headline in tomorrow’s local news: “Man found trussed up after kinky night.”

Oh, for.... Get dressed!

Why? Do you think the shorts and vest do something for me?

I am SO going to give you nightmares tonight.

 

 

AND I’M STILL HUNGRY.

 

 

Maybe I’m two cents short of a buck.

Maybe I’m having you on.

Possibly I’m just trying to get your attention.

Could be I’m one SICK puppy.

Or maybe... just maybe... I’m really warning you.

 

 

Be good now. Keep the door shut, don’t let the darkness in.

 

 

Whether you believe it or not, we’re here among you.

 

3: The games we play

Title: In the corner of your eye

Chapter 3: THE GAMES WE PLAY

...in which we see Iggy’s problem with grown-up thoughts, and it all starts to get interesting with Ash. Disturbing? It’s supposed to be. This is a horror-romance, remember? So it’s horror first, romance later.

*****

Get up, get up, rise and shine and all the rest of it!

I don’t want to.

But it’s Counselling Day!

Exactly.

We get to talk to Miss Fanne.

Which is why I’m staying in bed.

You should work on HER rather than your stupid loverboy.

She doesn’t need any work from me. She’s dark through and through already.

So you should eat her up already.

I’d rather eat my own puke than her toiletbowl of vulgar darkness.

All you eat is fear. Fear won’t make you strong. You need to feed from someone like Miss Fanne for that.

Well, I refuse to. I don’t like her kind of dark. It’s rotten, stinky, bitter, nasty dark. It just tastes bad.

Too bad, I happen to like her. So up you get.

Hey, stop that. Don’t... take over... my body!

It’s our body. And I’m hungry. So shut up and I’ll take this one.

Fine. I’ll be the watcher today, you get to drive. Great start to the week!

 

 

 

My Voice does a stellar job getting us to school on time. I do that sometimes, let Voice take Iggy for a spin. I’m not supposed to, it’s just one of those rules that every one of our kind knows. But I do it anyway. Mostly when I’m feeling lazy or demotivated or not very hungry. Or at times like now, when Voice wants me to feed but I don’t feel like it.

Voice steers Iggy into Miss Fanne's office. Her skirt is riding up her pale, flabby thighs. Her blouse is on the tacky side of see-through. Her lipstick is too red, and it doesn’t match her coloured mascara.

Be quiet! I’m in charge today.

The one riding shotgun gets to make the snide remarks, right?

Stay down. I need to concentrate. It’s been ages since you let me drive!

.

“Good morning, Miss Fanne.”

“Oh, there you are, sweetheart. Come right in.”

.

Doing a great job with the polite little boy act there, Voice. I don't think she suspects anything.

Quit messing around and do your job!

Ok, I’m in her head now. It’s sticky and yucky as usual.

Whatever... start looking for something to eat.

Do I really have to look at her thoughts? My skin is starting to crawl at the prospect.

Stop arguing. This is for your benefit as well.

 

“May I sit down here, Miss Fanne?”

Genteel laugh. “You can sit anywhere you want, dear boy.”

The glasses that she doesn’t need but wears for effect come off.

“You should always think of my room as a safe place, where you can be yourself.”

 

Sure. I feel as safe here as a banana in a monkey house. Anyway, I’ve found the place. I can see myself. ... Hey, you know who she’s got us paired up with this time? The freaking janitor!

And that is exactly the kind of thing you should be sucking up, not all that fear. Fear is like junk food. Tasty but empty.

This is what will make you grow up fast.

She has him and us in the dental nurse’s office, after school when everyone else has gone home.

Correction. Him and you. I don’t exist in the physical plane, remember?

Fine. Him and me. Or him and I, whatever. She has me on the dentist’s chair, and I’m... well, I’m in the usual state she has me in. The uncomfortable one.

Yes... I can smell it. The aroma of her twisted imagination... It’s quite intoxicating.

 

“What will we talk about today, Miss Fanne?”

“Let’s see now. We’re scheduled to do... oh, career aptitude!”

“Sounds interesting.”

“It is! Now, I just need to ask you a few questions about your, y’know, likes and dislikes. Shall we start?”

“Sure, Miss Fanne. What’s the first one?”

“Here we go then. Do you get stressed easily?”

“Oh, no, Miss Fanne. I’m, like, super laid-back.”

Fake laugh. “So you are... look at you, sitting there so relaxed...”

 

She has him in his overalls only—nope, she changed her mind—so... Oh, come on, does she really think he has that kind of body? Mr. Soda, Chips and Pizza? For that matter, I am not that pale! I shot hoops all last weekend shirtless in the sun. Why’s she making me so pasty? And why do I have that look on my face? Why does he have that look on his face?

Don’t go soft on me, Iggy. You’re sticking it out this time.

I’m feeling sick. Can we stop now?

No. She’s just getting warmed up. Aren’t you loving those lovely gooey luscious DARK imaginings of hers?

 

“So what’s next, Miss Fanne?”

“Do you like being with other people, or do you prefer to be alone?”

“I dunno. Sometimes I like to hang out with my peeps. Sometimes not. Does that help?”

“It’s fine, dear, you just answer whatever occurs to you. Next question...”

 

I hate the view from this dentist’s chair, and I swear I’m getting cramps in my thigh muscles even if this is her head that I’m inside. Oh shhheeeeettt, the janitor’s getting started with his brushes – those stiff ones he uses to scrub the floor. Oh, for... I don’t want those brushes touching me! Especially not th... This is too damn much!

Man up, Iggy. It’s getting so real to her that she can almost taste it.

Her darkness is lusciously thick and creamy... melt-in-the-mouth decadence, that’s what it is.

Stop arranging my body into those poses! You’re as bad as she is!

 

“Miss Fanne?”

“Oh, sorry, drifted off for a bit. Let’s see... just two more questions, I think.”

She’s sweating and her makeup is melting even in the air-conditioning. I hate how’s she’s enjoying herself at my expense.

“I’m ready, Miss Fanne.”

 

I’m ‘ready’, alright. Ready to give up. She has him using a broom now. But wait, why is it the handle that he’s... owwwww!

Naughty’s turned nasty. Cruelty and pleasure. Strong stuff.

There’s guilt in the mix too, gives it a bite of bitterness... perfectly seasoned with despise at your innocent little face.

Easy for you to say, it’s not you she’s playing games with. Stop smiling at her like an idiot! She’ll think you like all this stinky rotten slime!

Oh, but I do like this. I love her mind!

It’s absolutely oozing with darkness. Only this darkness has  got some meaty bite to it; so much more satisfying than Stan’s thin, sour fear.

Don’t wet your pants, you glutton. She’s starting to look at you funny.

 

“Miss Fanne? Are there any more questions?”

“Oh, yes, yes indeed... Where were we, dear?”

“Being alone or with others.”

“Right, right... So the next one is... do you care strongly about others?”

“I like love stories. Does that count? I mean, I think that everyone can love whoever they want in whatever way they like.”

“I’ll just... write that down.”

 

Rich, complex, unapologetically wicked... the kind of feed you could be getting all the time if only you’d get over your prissy obsession over keeping it ‘pure’. Anger is malice is greed is lust is depravity is food to us. Think about that... perpetually, blissfully full instead of always half-starved the way you keep us.

That is NOT our janitor, this guy that she’s made up. He’s a freak! What is she having him do now? There’s NO way in hell that I can... That’s it! I’ve had enough! Give me back the body right now!

*Sigh* Wimp! I wasn’t done eating!

 

 

 

He looks up as I walk past. I am still too distracted by Miss Fanne; I make the mistake of making eye contact. The concern in his eyes is like a flame that sears my eyes. But I can’t look away, like some insect flying into a speeding car’s headlights.

“You ok, Iggy?”

I break away with an effort, look at the floor instead. “Yeah, swell.”

He makes his next move. “Miss Fanne... She’s a little... intense... sometimes.”

She probably plays games in her head with you too, Kemosabe. You might not be able to see the scenes she’s got you in, but I’m betting you can sense the vibes coming off her like the stink from a week-old piece of raw steak left in the trash.

I shrug, put on a stoic look that’s just wobbly enough at the edges to be totally unconvincing. “Yeah?” And now for that tiny quiver of my lower lip. “Things got... y’know... a bit personal.”

There it is... the squaring of shoulders, setting of the jaw. He’s going into protector mode now. “What’d she do?”

I shake my head vehemently. “Oh, it was nothing. It was just me being too touchy.” An upwards flick of a glance, moved away just as soon as he catches it.

I can sense his indecision. Should he leave it at this? Take this opportunity to inch just that bit closer to me? He wants to do the latter, but he’s hesitating, afraid of his own wish.

He needs just a little more encouragement. So I give it to him.

“It’s been kind of rough at home.” I say that looking down at my fingers twisting themselves into pretzel shapes, but at the same time looking at him out of the corner of my eye – and making sure that he knows he’s being looked at.

He enters my personal space. I back up a fraction of an inch, just enough to sow a seed of doubt. Let the questions begin: Is he coming on too strong? Is he giving the wrong message, too fast? Is he inadvertently driving me away? Why does he care so much about my possible reaction?

The last question has shaken him. He tries to deny everything. “Hey, look... if you want to talk or anything...”

I flash him a grateful smile which stops him thinking for a second or two.

Ignition. All those confused feelings of wanting and doubting are back in full force.

“Thanks, Ash.” I reach out towards him as if to touch his hand, only to abruptly draw back my hand  in sudden consternation like I’d caught myself doing something I shouldn’t. The gesture does not go unnoticed.

“Um... yeah... cause I kind of li—” he catches himself just in time. “I mean, people like us gotta stick together.” I hide the jubilant smile that’s rising to my face. He had almost confessed his ‘liking’ for me. Things are going exactly the way I want them to.

I smile again, shyly this time. “That makes me feel better.” And I make sure I brush against him as I go to my seat.

He’s still confused. But the gladness that emanates from him is genuine and unforced.

And it’s making me feel scandalously, dangerously, sickeningly... happy.

 

 

Idiot! We just ate! What do you think you’re doing letting that nauseating light in here?

I’m just baiting him. Let him think he’s winning me over.

Liar! Falling for him, is what you are.

I’m cultivating him. There’s a difference. Can’t you see that it’s all part of the game?

The game you’re playing with him and the game Miss Fanne was playing with you... Just what is the difference between them?

And yet you hate her game and you’re liking this one way too much. What gives, Iggy?

I know what I’m doing.

Fine. It’s not my ass on the line. And I mean that, like, literally. *Gleeful cackle*

I catch his eye from across the room. The reassuring smile he gives me has a promising edge of guiltiness underlying it.

4: A million shades of dark

Title: In the corner of your eye

Chapter 4: A MILLION SHADES OF DARK

... in which we learn something about Iggy’s ‘past’, and Iggy achieves ignition point with Ash.

*****

I sleep sometimes. Not because I need it but because it’s good for the shell, to let it rest and repair itself – like maintaining your car or something; in the same way I eat and drink and generally keep the shell clean. Eyebags and famine-victim ribs and BO don’t make it any easier for me to blend in with the prey. While the shell sleeps, we roam the night, my Voice and I. I’m not mature enough to be away from the shell for too long, but it’s fun—and good training—to flit from one mind to another, nibbling on a bit of rich oily greed here, sipping from an acrid well of envy there, breathing in the heady aroma of a murder about to be enacted. The city is full of delights, and the faster I grow out of the shackles of my shell, the sooner I’ll be able to enjoy every depraved bit of it.

The rate you’re going, you should be grateful you haven’t shrivelled up into a whining ball of mere discontent yet.

Are you still on that? I’m still shuddering at the things I had to watch myself go through in Miss Fanne’s fantasy. I told you already, lust is not my thing.

Or hate or envy or greed or anything else except fear. You’re too picky for your own good.

I have good taste, ok? I’m not some brainless ravening PIG that eats everything.

Those ‘pigs’ shed their shells way faster than you.

You’re so annoying!

Same goes for you, a gazillion times over. I can’t wait to be free of you, you idiotic flicker of a lightbulb!

Voice goes quiet. In spite of those words, I know Voice isn’t really angry at me. Voice is me after all. Which means I’m actually angry at myself.

I should be.

Voice has a solid point, even if it wasn’t very politely put. I can’t live on fear alone. I need to grow. Sometimes I feel so thin and inconsequential that I barely cast a shadow of a shadow, a galaxy away from the solid, impermeable darkness that I’m supposed to be.

I don’t know why I’m so reluctant to feed. I had a healthy appetite when I first came into being. I ate voraciously, reached this stage of my growth in a matter of hours. And then... I just lost my urge to consume.

Maybe the reason lies in my origin. Maybe... I didn’t start out right. But I have no memory of Before. The shell that I wear now is nothing like my birth vessel in appearance. I suppose the only one with any idea at all of Who I Was would be... Voice. I give Voice a poke, and get sulky grumbling noises in response.

Hey, what were we like before we Awakened?

Of all the questions you could ask, why that one?

Try something more helpful. Like, How should I tempt loverboy into trying to assault me?

Don’t. I’m not picking a fight with you, alright?

*Sigh* You’re not supposed to think about Before, you know that.

Why not? Understanding yourself helps you to mess up other minds more effectively, doesn’t it?

It’s dangerous. Cause we came from the darkness that was in your birth vessel.

I know that.

So if you look too closely and drink too deep, you end up devouring your own self from within. You know that too, spastic brain?

I’m not going to go that deep. I just want to... remember... a little.

Suit yourself. I don’t exist anymore anyway.

Voice disappears into a huff again, the kind that experience tells me can’t be undone for quite some time. Fine. I’ll do my own dreaming.

 

 

 

The dream I dream this time isn’t much to speak of. Raised voices. Irregular, panicked breathing. The heart-pounding dread of waiting to be found. The effort of trying not to make any sound while abject, intolerable fear rages inside.

A voice, raspy and slurred, carried on breath so heavily impregnated with alcohol that it’s probably inflammable.

“There you are, baby girl...”

Beefy hands clawing, annihilating the pathetic fight put up by eight-year-old limbs.

“That’s it, baby... You know what turns me on, don’t you?”

Desperation. Screams choked off by the relentless grip of a suffocating palm.

“You little w**** Stop looking at me like that. You want it. I know you do. Filthy little c***!”

Pain.

Guttural grunty beastly sounds of satisfaction.

More pain. Searing, tearing pain.

A final contemptuous kick. “It’s your fault, b****! You’re a little s*** just like your useless a****** mama. Only one thing you’re good for, f****** piece of crap!”

Beady red eyes without a shred of remorse. “You made me do it.”

The darkness expands to envelop me. I am swallowed up again.

 

 

I return to myself, Iggy again, sluggish and heavy, as if I have a hangover only I’m not attached to a body to have one with. I feel like someone put me in a blender and cranked it up to ‘high’.

You deserve it, boogers-for-brains.

Maybe my birth vessel was a girl, and that’s why...

... you’re panting and drooling for some hawt smexy Ash.

Why I have a potty-mouthed b**** of a Voice.

Voice disappears again, and I’m kind of glad about that, because I’ve just about taken all the venom I can stand for the week.

 

 

 

beenawhile

I start at the presence around me, defences up. A moment later, I relax in recognition. I know who this is.

Hey, dad.

notyourdadwe’renothumansstupid

I did that on purpose. Our kind – we’re not born, so we don’t have parents. There is one of us in every human soul – all it takes is another one of our kind to issue the call to Awaken. And this is the ‘guy’ who Called me.

What else am I supposed to call you? Dear Awakener?

ifyoumust

So... what’s up?

you’relookingonthescrawnyside

I’m working on that.

That’s deliberately evasive of me, but I’m not in the mood for another confrontation, especially with him.

fearisnotenough

.

He knows. Of course he does. He’s Old, well on the way to Ancient. He can read my mind as easily as I read a mere human’s.

It’s the easiest to get.

liar

Maybe.

youshould’veshedyourshellbynow

Like you said, too scrawny. But I’ll get there.

i’venevermadeamistakebefore...butwithyoui’mstartingtowonder

 

Maybe if I’m rude he’ll go away. The Old Ones like him, they like to feel respected by the newly-awakened. That’s very human of them, really. But I don’t actually want to provoke him into a fight or anything, so I settle on sarcasm.

Sorry for disappointing you, DAD. I know you take pride in your work.

notaboutthat

A sliver of ice appears in what passes for my heart. My suspicions have grown too large to ignore. We almost never contact others of our kind. And for one like him to actually start an exchange with me... it was almost unimaginable. Something must be wrong... seriously so.

What then?

maybeyouweren’tsupposedtobeawakened

Then why’d you Call me?

iconfess... youweren’tquitedarkenough...

butthatburstofhatepainrevenge...blindedmemaybe

Whatever. You Called, I Awoke. That’s as far as our connection goes, isn’t it?

true

Then stay out of my business, DAD. Go eat a pukey drunk or something.

Ifyouappliedthatsamespiritednessonfindingsustenanceiwon’tneedtointerfere

 

The presence dissipates. Lecture’s over.

First Voice, now ‘Dad’. This is one heck of a car wreck of an evening I’m having.

I give myself a shake, gather my will and swoop down to terrify a homeless guy into soiling himself.

 

 

Just to feel a little better.

5: In the corner of his eye

Writer: This chapter has mild m/m content, which is necessary for the plot. If m/m is not to your taste, please make an informed decision as to whether or not you would like to continue reading.

.

.

Title: In the corner of your eye

Chapter 5: IN THE CORNER OF HIS EYE

... in which Ash commits himself; and Iggy makes a move.

*****

I’m back in my shell. And I’m skulking down a street lit intermittently by flickering lights. Cracked pavement slabs grab at my shoes. Kicked-in gates lean crazily on crooked posts in a show of protecting lawns long ago invaded and desecrated, littered with the bones of lawn furniture sheltering broken glass and blunt hypodermic instruments. Here and there, solitary windows put up a scattered feeble yellow glow of defense against the heavy blanket of gloom that lurks outside. 

I’m not far from my den – the cosy basement that my shell pays a modest rent to live in. But right now I’m in the bad part of the area, on the wrong side of the invisible line that marks the difference between relatively assured safety and imminent harm.

I start to run, taking nervous irregular strides. My footsteps are the only sound in my ears.

A particularly devious pothole succeeds in tripping me. I go down with a half-muffled curse.

When I look up, I am not alone.

He is dressed in black, face hidden under a hoodie. Ghostly pale hands grasp at me with spindly fingers.

I curse again, attempt to run. Ruthless arms hold me back.

Kick. Scream. Bite.

A voice in my ear, calling my name. A voice that I know.

Hey, whadya know, it worked!

He was either following me or watching me from his bedroom window. Exactly like I’d planned.

Loverboy to the rescue. Shall I play some stupid superhero theme song?

He has his arms around my middle. I give him a couple more twitches and a strangled cry of frustration for good measure.

He calls my name again. “It’s me, Ash.”

He sounds a little uncertain. But his tensed muscles are reassuringly solid.

I slump suddenly, putting my entire weight against him. He grunts softly in surprise.

“A...Ash?” I twist myself slowly around to face him. My butt rubs against the zipper of his jeans because he is holding me too tightly. It’s a weird raspy sound that doesn’t match the rhythm of our laboured breathing.

“Calm down, Iggy.”

I’ve managed to make a hundred eighty degrees turn. “S-sorry. I th-thought you were s-some p-pervert,” I murmur into his chest.

“Don’t worry. It’s all good.” He has a throaty catch in his voice that I’ve never heard before.

I look up.

His eyes are unusually free of the disgusting light of do-goodness that always mars them.

“Ash...”

His lips are slightly parted, trembling ever so slightly.

I read desire in his eyes. Desire that he’s pretending isn’t there.

If you don’t take this opportunity, you might as well kill yourself right now.

Shut up. Don’t distract me.

I push myself up a little, brush those feverish lips with mine.

Attaboy... go, Iggy, go!

He returns the pressure with surprising fervour.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Now.

I break the contact, widening my eyes in confusion. “I’m... s-sorry... that w-was...” I keep my face within reach of his as I stammer out my words.

He is flushed, too distracted to speak. But he hasn’t let me go. I see shocked realisation fighting with insistent want in his face.

“Ash?”

He lunges. I don’t even flinch.

He is in my mouth. We’re exchanging bodily fluids like there’s no tomorrow.

And then I draw away. “W-we... sh-shouldn’t.” I keep my eyes closed, increase the trembling of my body that he still holds captive. “E-even if i-it... feels...”

He silences me with another forceful kiss. I enter into it with equal passion, feeling his growing excitement against my belly.

I put my hands against his chest, push with all my might. “Ash!”

He stops in momentary confusion.

“Don’t.” Along with my anguished whisper, I show him bewildered shame and guilty pleasure in my eyes, with just a sprinkle of fear.

He is in the exact state I want him in, throbbing with the pressing rhythm of the desire to possess in urgent tune with the sweet, bewitching song of enthralment against the driving bass of cruelty pounding in his blood.

“Please.”

And then I am running down the street to his desperate repetition of my name.

 

 

 

Out of breath, deservedly elated, I hug my knees in my cosy lightless den and laugh triumphantly.

What’d you think of THAT?

Well done, Iggy boy. There’s hope for you yet.

I’m doing it. I’m going to drive him to the brink. And then I’m going to eat him all up and shed my shell at last.

Tough words. But they’d sound even tougher if you didn’t feel all that guilt over what you just did.

Nonsense!

I can see it clear as anything. Guilt. It’s massive. Cause you like him.

I don’t! He’s just... food.

Yeah, and I’m Hannah freaking Montana.

Stop it! I’m out to get him, I seriously am!

Prove it. Make him hunger for you so much that he’ll do anything to own you.

Anything. A word that has so much potential. All the things he could do to me... all the twisted, brutal, warped, sick things...

It sounds so delicious, I’m tingling with anticipation.

 

 

 

I openly avoid him. Which is harder than it sounds, because I have to let him see that I’m avoiding him without actually letting him catch me. I drift in and out of his field of vision, keeping always in the corner of his eye but never letting my own gaze be caught by his. I hover just out of reach in the mass of bodies in transit, and when he pushes someone aside in a frantic attempt to get closer, I slip adroitly through the crowd to disappear for a moment.

I dip into his mind every now and then, testing the level of agitation as a good cook would test the temperature of a roast in the oven. It’s simmering along nicely, anxiety bubbling up with every missed opportunity. When it’s just so—right at the point when he’s ready to give up but has mustered all his frazzled nerves for one last charge—I let him catch me in the classroom.

“Wait!” he calls out urgently, as I pretend to be trying to make a break for the door.

I stop moving, press myself against the wall. I couldn’t have set it up any better for him. The homebound horde has completed its daily stampede. We are all alone, unlikely to be interrupted.

“Wait up, Iggy!” he calls again.

I let him get closer before I make another bid at freedom. He makes a countermove, trapping me in a corner. Unconsciously, he arranges his frame into the best position to stop any attempt at getting away. We stare at each other, me with my tense suspicious look, him with his tense guilt-ridden one. I make a sudden move, as if bolting, and he reacts by instinct to plant himself right in front of me, hands against the wall, effectively caging me with his body.

I cower, just a little.

“I just want to talk to you,” he says.

I wait for the requisite number of seconds, and then mumble in a low, surly voice, “I don’t hear any talking.”

“About what happened that night...” His voice cracks with nervousness. He swallows, tries again. “I want to apologise.”

I look up at him from my half-crouch, putting just the right amount of accusation and defiance into my answer: “You freaked me out.”

He looks like he’s been punched in the gut, but he manages a level response. “I know I must have. And I’m really sorry about it.”

He is breathing heavily. So am I. We sound like we both have asthma.

I let the tension rise a little bit more. Right at the moment he’s about to say something, I give it to him: “I was afraid.”

The expression on his face is just as delicious as the pang of remorse that stabs him in the heart. “I d-didn’t m-mean t-to... I w-was...” he stammers, as I look down at the floor in apparently renewed terror.

I time my retort down to the last micro-second. “You don’t understand!”

He stops talking, mouth gaping in mid-syllable.

I look up and let him see the bewilderment on my face. “I was afraid because... ”

He closes his mouth, swallows audibly. He’s gone splotchy red with panic.

I release the spurt of shame into my eyes and my voice with surgical precision. “Because I liked it.”

And then I wriggle sideways out of his reach, and dash for the door. He doesn’t come after me, but I’m not too surprised. He’s probably collapsed into a snivelling heap right where I’d left him.

6: Killing you softly with my eyes

Title: In the corner of your eye

Chapter 6: KILLING YOU SOFTLY WITH MY EYES

... in which Iggy tries to look at what he isn’t supposed to see, and Ash gets distracted.

*****

I have a mirror in my den. My shell is visible to me in the mirror just as it is to humans in general. I stand and stare at myself sometimes, trying to remember my birth vessel.

It starts off with Iggy, the me-at-the-moment. Tallish (but not as tall as Ash), slim-hipped, not exactly scrawny, but not so buff as to stand out; tight and tidy all over, in quite an eye-pleasing way if I do say so myself. Dark brown hair, the kind you’d never describe as auburn or chestnut or mahogany or any of those woody names; not grey enough to be mousy, not blond enough to be honey. Just plain old brown hair, held off my face in front with a cheap wire hair band, stopping right inside the collar at the back. And brown eyes to match. Eyes that I can make go all soft and meltingly appealing like the most trusting of puppies, or clear and innocent as an untainted child’s. Equally, eyes that I can speak volumes with of inexpressible longings and deep, dark, yearnings. Eyes that can flirt and beguile and tease and invite. I’m proud of my eyes. I think they’re Iggy’s greatest asset. Apart from that, there are ordinary, symmetrical features in an ordinary teenaged face, albeit with (largely) clear skin. Nobody is likely to take to a pimple convention and a perpetual oil slick of a mugshot.

But when I look longer, Iggy fades away. Every time I feed, I slowly become that person. And once the image of Iggy melts away into the faces of others whose lives I’ve lived, I see different things all the time. I see all the me’s I’ve ever been.

I see the little girl whose dream I dreamed most recently. Her eyes blaze with a hate born of unjust suffering, a hate that is breathtakingly incandescent in its white-hot fury.

I see the willowy actor who specialises in playing female roles in the forgotten art of oriental opera. His rage goes deep, fed by the constant taunting and bullying for his effeminate ways—habitual from being beaten into him from childhood—and the gnawing desire for that one girl who always sits in the back row, imprisoned by the possessive tattooed arm around her shoulder.

I see the identical twins, not only two versions of the same face but two halves of the same soul. His initial empathetic joy for his sister had been soured into envy by the pain of loss when she’d begun falling for their gentle, soft-spoken neighbour. Envy had thickened into greedy possessiveness, impotently hidden behind insincere smiles and teasing banter. The proverbial last straw had come in the form of  the announcement of her double celebration: her engagement, and imminent motherhood. The exuberance and intensity of his bloodlust and brutality when he’d done to the lover what he’d done to his sister still gets me worked up enough to start salivating.

I see the brilliant young woman struggling for recognition for her achievements rather than her sexuality, in constant battle against the golden boy, the rising star in the venerable firm of attorneys. Her resentment and envy of him are strong, surging rivers, breaking into treacherous rapids on the rocks of hidden desire.

I see the young man born with a face that literally only his mother could love, and the teacher who saw the sharp mind beneath the concealing flesh. I relive the thrill of experiencing the mutation of hard-won trust and affection into the ache of unrequited love, and the subsequent slap of unvarnished rejection. I remember the paleness of the teacher’s throat, the quivering uncertainty of holding a life in one’s hands, the slow build up of cruel pleasure with every second of squeezing, the rush of pure release at the final moment, and the red tide that enveloped every detail of that scene.

I see glimpses and shadows of other faces, too briefly worn, too shadowy to recall.

And then I see Iggy again. Iggy whom I became on a moment’s whim, the first of the me’s whom I haven’t actually consumed but created all on my own. Iggy who has no story of his own yet, whose story with Ash I am in the midst of writing. I hope Iggy will leave me as fond a memory as all those others.

I can’t work out which of them was the first me, the real me. And that frustrates me. Because I have this feeling that if only I knew who I’d started out as, I could start to understand these feelings that rise up to confound me whenever I think of Ash.

 

 

 

I can watch him whenever I want without his knowledge. I just collapse Iggy a little more into one of the inconspicuous extras acting as background filler, make him a little greyer to disappear into the mass of flesh that pulsates through the grey corridors and greyer rooms of our daily captivity. In any case, my target is not making himself very hard to watch; he’s just walking along in a kind of zoned-out daze, hunched, hoodie up, hands in pocket – in other words, exactly the default setting of hundreds of other teens who’d spent the previous night blowing up mutant alien warriors or picking off policemen and innocent bystanders according to their gaming tastes.

I smile with quiet satisfaction. I know the signs. It means I’ve gotten well and truly under his skin.

 

 

 

It happens so quickly that I almost don’t see it unfolding.

It’s smooth. She’d been lurking in a recess off the trunk corridor that feeds all the classrooms. An apparent misstep leads into a headlong rush and finishes in a drawers-flash landing. Books and papers fly everywhere, followed by a flustered crawl on the floor and clumsy groping for the scattered debris. Guilty assistance is rendered, probably as planned. Hands reach for the same book. Contact. Fingers against fingers, skin to skin.

It reminds me of the footage of a conger eel that we’d watched in some Science class the other day. Speed, precision, deadliness... I feel like applauding her. Only I refuse to.

Cause that’s my Ash that she’s simpering and making googoo eyes at.

 

 

Her beauty is glaring and the polar opposite of subtle, the equivalent of a neon signboard shouting its blatant message into the night sky. White-blond curtains ironed into smooth perfection are flipped off a heart-shaped face. Even from the distance I’m at, I can see the brilliant blue eyes. They’re the kind of blue that’s airbrushed and digitally enhanced into celebrities and models on covers and screens, the blue that people buy in a box to try to impress that certain someone. Milky skin free of cosmetic enhancement, or at least not the kind that I can see from where I am. A slow flush blooming in the apples of her cheeks. Rosebud lips. Curves like oranges and peaches in all the right places. She’s a bloody farmers’ market display of wholesome goodness.

I’m not taken in by all that showy angelicness, not one bit. But Ash... He has that bemused look that males get when hormones take over Central Command. They’ve collected every damned book and scrap of paper and probably a few pieces of genuine trash as well, but they’re still crouched on the floor making puppy eyes at each other.  If I went up to Ash right now, I’d probably see her face reflected in his eyes like in some third-rate shojo anime.

He finally helps her to her feet. They’re saying something to each other. She reaches out, picks a scrap of imaginary fluff off his hair, and manages to brush against his collarbone in the process. He’s blushing like some spotty junior attending his first Human Reproduction slideshow. Scenes like this one are so common the stairs and hallways are paved with them like a three dimensional screensaver. Him—exotic in a relatable kind of way—and her—stereotypically attractive to an obscenely decent degree—they make what the typical romance-obsessed teenage girl would call a cute couple.

I am too far away to read their thoughts.

But I don’t have to. I understand what’s happening just fine.

You know what they’re thinking, oh yes you do... Ash and Wozzername sittin’ in a tree, F—

Oh, shut up before I headbutt the nearest wall and send Iggy into a coma.

Suit yourself, L-O-S-E-R.

 

 

 

I watch her hook a tendril of hair behind one ear and play with it, twirling it around her finger while batting her lashes at Ash. On his part, he is leaning forward—unconsciously, I hope—and getting an eyeful of decotellage. Something inside me is rumbling, sending out tremors of malice that resonate in every corner of my being.

I’d wanted to spend time cultivating him, nurturing the perfect last meal before I shed Iggy forever. But now it looks like I would have to move – fast.

“He’s mine,” I hiss softly to myself.

And if I have to kill her to keep him, I will.

7: Regret tastes likes ashes

Title: In the corner of your eye

Chapter 7: REGRET TASTES LIKE ASHES

... in which Iggy looks and learns, and gets fed at last.

*****

I sit in his room and watch him. He can’t see me – I’ve left my shell behind. All of me that appears to his eyes would be a shifting patch of shadow on the ceiling, in a corner, under a wardrobe.

Who is he thinking of? Me... or her? I hold my formless breath, and dip into his thoughts.

Relief.

Not a sign of her anywhere.

I see the cuts he is making. Not deep enough to be fatal, just deep enough to hurt.

I read the thoughts that accompany each precise slice of the blade, every one of them so emphatic it’s like he’s shouting them into my ears.

ALL MY FAULT. ALL OF IT.

Slice.

MY FILTHY, PERVERTED FAULT.

Slice.

WHY DO I... WANT HIM... THAT WAY?

Slice.

I SHOULDN’T HAVE.

Slice.

BUT IT FELT SO RIGHT.

Slice.

NOW HE HATES ME.

Slice.

I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT HIM.

Slice.

STOP IT. I WANT TO STOP.

Slice.

BUT I CAN’T.

He stops at last because he’s almost passed out from the pain and bleeding. Lines of crimson criss-cross the scuffy formica surface of his study table. It reminds me of a piece of art we saw on a school trip – ‘Blossoms in the snow’ or something.

 

 

I am proud to be the cause of such carnage.

And yet... I am also deeply, unexplainably sad.

 

 

It may have appeared from what I saw in Ash’s room that I still have the upper hand over her, but I’m taking no chances. She is in another class; I take advantage of that to make the first strike.

He is wearing a long-sleeved hoodie even though the room is hot enough to make even the teachers come in with their sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Thermostat’s busted. Hoodie’s up, putting him in a fabric-encased world of his own. I stand beside his table and wait to be noticed. He looks up presently, slack-mouthed in shock.

“Hey.”

He looks like he’s about to have a fit or something; quite expected really, considering this is only the second time that I’ve voluntarily started a conversation with him.

About ten seconds later, he sputters a “Hey” in reply.

I don’t waste any time on pleasantries. “The crap I said to you the other day...” I lean in and whisper conspiratorily, “Can we forget it ever happened?”

There’s a fruit salad of emotions running all over his face. It takes him another few seconds to come up with a coherent answer. “Um... if that’s what you want...”

“It is,” I say firmly, and then I pause and run my tongue slowly over my lower lip. “Cause I...”

He’d followed the entire swipe of my tongue with his eyes. Now I go all shy suddenly, head down, blushing, throwing him off completely.

“Cause I think... I kind of...” I flit him a glance from my downcast eyes, noting the two blazes of red under his cheekbones in his otherwise blood-drained face.

He is trying to breathe normally, but he isn’t doing too well at it.

I let him stew for a bit longer, and then I look up with guileless, wide open eyes. “Cause I like you.”

His jaw drops. His eyes go as wide as mine.

I finish the rest of my speech at high speed, as I’d be expected to. “And that’s why I don’t want things to get, y’know, weird between us.”

He nods, but he can’t speak because there’s only one thought in his head: HE DOESN’T HATE ME.

I hold out my hand. “Friends?”

He wipes his palm on his jeans before taking mine. “F-friends.”

The relief that floods his thoughts almost obscures the doubt that lies beneath.

Way to go, poop-brain. You were supposed to feed on his self-destructiveness, not try to make him feel better.

I’m gaining his trust.

You’re killing yourself with all the light he’s smothering you with.

That’s so ridiculous it’s almost funny. We can’t die.

No, but you can fade away into nothingness. And you’re doing a really good job of that.

I ignore Voice, even though Voice is 99.99% right.

I don’t know. Maybe nothingness is preferable to this crazy behaviour of mine.

 

.

 

I can’t wait any longer. My hunger is starting to become a serious distraction. Leaving my shell sleeping in the den, I head right for my target, snacking hurriedly along the way on whatever I can find—a father’s anger at his teenaged daughter’s smoking and her rebellious resentment; a wife’s suspicion of her husband’s fidelity and his corresponding scheming to gain his freedom from her constant discontent; a woman’s disapproval of her stepchildren’s liberal upbringing, beefed up with her insecurity that her husband might love them more than her—darkness abounds anywhere there is a collection of human beings. I could shed my shell in a few short days on that all-day buffet, if only I would forget Ash and start concentrating on other, richer sources of nourishment.

But I can’t. He draws me, compels me to seek him out as a wolf is drawn to poisoned bait.

He’s already asleep; the opened foil packaging and well-known brand name tells me why. Probably he thought chemically-enhanced sleep would be dreamless, but still he is dreaming. That’s good for me. Although I’m not an Old One that can manipulate his dreams, I can enter them in my temporary shell-free state, an unnoticed watcher.

I cannot see his thoughts as I would be able to if he were awake. All I sense are his emotions, like the chords in a song without the melody; it forms a kind of soundtrack for the movie I am watching, albeit a movie that is being screened to a very small audience of one.

I see myself through his eyes; the experience is at once disconcerting and flattering. I cast a critical eye over this dream version of myself. I am smaller and look younger, my features are softer, my movements more graceful. I am somehow... brighter. Yet at the same time, I am also sensual and aloof, like an airbrushed lingerie model plastered across a billboard for the voyeuristic pleasure of the world. It amuses me, this image that he has created. If I were so perfect and desirable in appearance, I’d have a colossal problem hiding myself from public notice.

His main emotion to begin with is pure adulation, expressed by insipid harps and bells. I walk blithely along ahead of him, surrounded by some kind of soft-focus glow. But at my feet, little dust bunnies of darkness roll along, getting increasingly closer and larger in size.

The bracing trumpet notes of protectiveness take over. He wants to issue a warning, but he is suddenly struck dumb. I look back over my shoulder at him, smile in a disgustingly angelic way. The darkness congeals into tendrils racing towards me, but I am oblivious to them.

Frustration flares up, a cacophony of clashing cymbals; this degenerates quickly into violins wailing in desperation. He starts to run, arms flailing wildly. But I remain at the same distance away, no matter how he fights to speed up. The darkness reaches me. It is now the solid, armoured claws of a monstrous insect. There is a body to match, hairy, black, obese, embodying a greedy ravenous appetite.

Discordant horror engulfs everything, forming a supporting choir to my tortured screaming. He watches impotently as I am violated by a drooling prosbosis designed to stab and to drain. He is battling with everything he has to reach me, but the more he struggles, the more rapaciously I am devoured.

Black despair and crimson anger meld into a frantic crescendo of strings and wind instruments. The monstrosity discards at last the hollow, desecrated shell that is all that is left of me, and turns to face him.

.

The face of the creature is his own.

 

Now he is the one who’s screaming.

 

Incasdescent guilt and remorse bathe him in melancholic melodies as he cradles me, shrieking out my name in pain.

I open my eyes.

He almost drops me in shock. A plaintive cello refrain starts up – hope, that most tenacious of human delusions.

“Why, Ash?”

The hope is swallowed up in a brassy percussive disharmony of justification clashing with condemnation.

My eyes are lightless ocean depths of reproach. “I thought we were friends.”

The darkness engulfs him.

I gorge myself.

 

 

.

Much later, when the frenzy has died down, I look at his twitching face, held back from consciousness by the chemicals in his blood. I reach out phantom fingers in an involuntary attempt to wipe away his tears.

There is remorse in my mouth, astringently bitter.

.

.

.

THE END.

FOR NOW...

8: Dying to live without you

Title: In the corner of your eye

Chapter 8: DYING TO LIVE WITHOUT YOU

... in which Iggy faces a dilemma, and makes a decision.

*****

He survived.

Cause you never do things properly. I thought you were going to end all this.

I will.

Voice is unconvinced, I know. But well, I never intended to kill him or drive him crazy.

 

 

Or did I?

I don’t seem to know what I want nowadays. I feel like I’m going crazy too.

You’re already crazy.

You’re a mad mangy dog who enjoys torturing me. You work me up and then you let me down. You raise my hopes and then you grind them into mush.

Voice sounds strange. I mean, not that it’s being kind or anything, but there’s a note of despair somewhere in that stream of accusations.

I’m so tired, Iggy. ... So, so... tired.

This is really strange. I’m feeling guilty. But how can that be if Voice is myself? Am I worried about hurting myself in some way?

I just want... not to be anymore.

Oh, so that’s it... that question of losing my shell. In which case I feel as tired of it as Voice is. But it’s no use crying over a clicked ‘send’ button; I’m still in my shell, even after stuffing myself on Ash.

I should have known you wouldn’t care a bit about my depression.

*Deep breath* You should have finished him off! But no, you had to leave him to go on littering the landscape. And leave me stuck with the insufferably namby-pamby Iggy! Who has a rotting jellyfish for a brain!

Hold on, Voice. I just need to feed a little more. And then we’ll be free of each other.

I don’t get a reply. So I ask myself the next question: should I finish Ash off, or should I find another large meal? It’s almost like no choice at all. The first alternative appals me, and the second I simply have no motivation for.

In the end, I go for the faster option. One more push, and that should be the end for Ash.

Even though the prospect sends a jagged dagger of pain through the place where my heart is supposed to be.

 

 

 

So now that I know what I want to do, obviously what I need to do next is to check how much further I have to push him. He isn’t hard to find physically – he’s right where I expect him to be, just slouched over his desk, blank-faced, chin pillowed on his arms. I take a metaphorical deep breath, and dip into his mind.

And what I see... I don’t like.

 

 

To say that I have a problem would be a massive understatement.

 

 

Something’s happened to him. He isn’t thinking about me at all. Instead, he’s fixating on HER. The one that ambushed him. In his mind, she’s turned into this... It’s so horrible I almost can’t describe it... this... creature... of pure light.

I throw every swearword I know at that image of her, but I don’t think it’s making any difference. He’s made her some kind of saviour figure, an idol that he’s using to ward off any thoughts of me. I don’t know what happened between them that one morning that I left him alone. Some kind of heart to heart talk, no doubt. Whatever it was, it’s too late. The damage is done. I curse my softheartedness. I should have gone in for the kill, not left him alone to be snatched up by her. The witch!... Only witches are supposed to be on my side, aren’t they? Creatures of the night and all that. What am I babbling about? My Ash is being snatched away from me!

I make another try at reaching the Ash I know, but it’s too much. I literally shrink away from that light. Painful, searing, the way sunlight would feel to a vampire if you believe in the world according to Hollywood. It is the brightness of acceptance and support, the radiance of compassion and empathy, the blaze of care and affection. Unsullied by passion, untouched by ardour, untainted by any such baseness; unblemished even by the innocence of love.

I’VE LOST HIM. The pain of the thought is physical, a giant hand twisting in my chest and wringing my guts. I retreat to a more bearable distance and try desperately to find any thought of me in his mind. Like a moth flying into the heart of the flame, I brave the supernova to find anything I can – a picture, a word – any miniscule reference to Iggy.

 

 

It’s so hard. I feel like my skin is charring and my flesh is smoking, but I push through the agony.

Come on, Ash… You can’t have thrown me away just like that.

 

 

And then I find it.

Just one thought. I wish I could tell him the truth. It engulfs me in wild, surging hope and yet it also plunges me into black despair.

He’s still thinking of me.

And yet the thought is so small, and the flame surrounding it is so intense.

How could it possibly survive?

 

 

 

I find a dark corner under the stairs to recover and lick my wounds. And brood.

The memory of the brilliant image in his mind is a palpable ache. But even greater than that ache is the pain of the inescapable conclusion I have been driven to.

 

I have to give him up.

 

It isn’t a question of courage, of whether or not I want to fight her for him. It isn’t about her at all.  It’s a question of what I am.

Acceptance, compassion, care, affection… I can never be those things to him.

Why would you want to be?

I am not human.

Really? I never would have guessed.

I am a monster.

Boo hoo. POOR Iggy!

I suppose I should be happy you’ve recovered your usual spiritedness, huh, Voice?

Who else would bother with you, you used wad of gum?

I feel like strangling Voice, even though I know it’s impossible. But satisfying though that might be, it would be pointless, because it would only be a reflection of my self-loathing.

 

I want him.

 

Only now, when it’s too late, when there’s no hope left, is that admission made by my treacherous self. Only when there’s no more use saying them, no more point in expressing that sentiment, am I saying those words to myself that I’ve been denying from the moment they suggested themselves in my consciousness.

I am the lowliest of hypocrites and the most hopeless of fools.

I want him so badly I want to scream it out with bits of bloody lung and display it in letters of fire searing the skin of my face. I’ve wanted him since the moment I decided to hunt him, and I’ve wanted him throughout every second of the cat and mouse game we’ve played right up to the last moment I looked at him. But it’s not as simple as that.

I want him not just in the way a predator wants its prey;

not in the way a ravenous appetite desires food, even though that is how I’m supposed to want him;

not even in a carnal way, even if that is how he seems to want me.

The way I want him is the way a half of a whole feels; I want to be complete. And I the one I want to complete me… is him.

 

I know.

 

I’m stupid.

 

So sue me. Laugh at me. Tweet me and let the world know. Put me on your blog and make it go viral. Kill me.

 

 

I’ve lost him. Whatever you do to me, it can’t be any worse than this.

9: Sorry is always too late

Title: In the corner of your eye

Chapter 8: SORRY IS ALWAYS TOO LATE

... in which Iggy regrets, and has something unexpected dropped on him.

*****

It’s too late now.

I had him, and I let him go.

I will never be whole.

I’d actually feel sad for you if only it weren’t utterly and unmistakably your idiotic fault.

That is the only thing Voice says, but then I really don’t need anyone else to condemn myself to hell twice over.

 

 

 

Hey Voice…

You back from your guilt trip, Spineless?

I’ve made up my mind.

You have? Well, wellllll.... Let me check and see if there are any flying pigs overhead.

I don’t need him.

*Snort* You’re giving up loverboy? That’s it. Flying pork chops confirmed!

I’ll set Iggy up, make it so that I attract every dark emotion around here for miles. Brutality, cruelty, yes, even lust. I’ll invite them all.

Right, and the catch is...?

I’ll go all out and gorge myself and lose my shell.

Sounds good, but I’m not holding my breath.

And then I’ll come and squat in his mind and turn his newfound love interest into a festering pit of rottenness.

Great speech. If only you meant any of it at all.

Voice sounds bitter and on the brink of tears. … The same way I’m feeling.

 

 

 

I cut class, stuff myself in another of my favourite hiding places—an office nobody wants to use cause it’s where some teacher hung himself over a missed promotion—and make plans. The goal is fairly straightforward: How do I get myself hurt, abused or otherwise damaged in a way that would involve someone’s darkest thoughts and emotions?

I toy briefly with the idea of leaving it to chance—taking another nocturnal stroll down the street where I met Stan, or through the bad side of the neighbourhood for that matter—because I need the security of guaranteed disaster. I don’t want to stay in this imprisoning shell any longer than I absolutely have to.

That leaves the people I’ve fed from before. Except Ash of course – I can’t even bear to look at him right now. So… Miss Fanne? Even the thought of another encounter with her makes my skin crawl. In any case, I’m not due for another appointment and dammit, I’m not going to make the effort to stage a breakdown or something just to be used by her again. Her dark fantasies are just too hard for me to stomach anyway, and I think I’d probably give up and throw up my guts from nausea way before I’ve fed enough from her to lose my shell.

I do have some other choices in the school, however. There are a few jocks whom I’ve seen muttering conspiratorially whenever I’m nearby – I caught a stray thought of violence from them one time, though whether it was directed at me I’m not wholly sure. I could try provoking them. And on the theme of violence, there are the known delinquents of course, who don’t bother to hide their apprenticeship or even full membership in one gang or another. Assault, grievous bodily harm, attempted homicide and the like are right up their alley, and it won’t take more than looking at them wrong to bring that on. Still… I’m not sure I really do want the physical pain that comes along with that feed.

Maybe I should just cross-dress and take a walk in Stan’s favourite neighbourhood. Maybe I can get some closet Lolitaphile mad enough at being tricked to do something nasty to me. But then I’d have to get the clothes for that. The conclusion of all my scheming so far is that whatever meal I decide on, I’ll have to work for it, but I suppose that’s unavoidable.

“There you are.”

I jump at the unfamiliar female voice. I’ve been so busy with my plans for self-destruction that I haven’t noticed someone else entering the office. I take a second look at the speaker, and my heart starts beating faster.

It’s her. The witch.

Well I’m not going to play nice. “Who the heck are you?” I snap.

She doesn’t say anything. She just shuts the door, cutting off all sounds from outside. Did I mention that the office is soundproofed? The former occupant was Head of Music – I suppose he did some recording in his spare time.

“I’m talking to you, moron!” I challenge, deliberately provoking her. “What’s the matter, bleached away all your brain cells?”

I don’t get an answer, but the blade in her hand as she rushes at me says everything she and I need to hear. I twist aside just in time, alarmed indignation on the outside, pounding excitement inside. Unseen to her, my feelers unfurl themselves and hurtle towards her to envelop her in their sinuous coils and drive their toothed ends into her. They do not hinder her movements, so she keeps coming at me. I keep dodging. What my feelers find is astounding.

I can see her clearly now. The dark within her, that is. It’s like a solid block that absorbs all light into itself. What’s more, I can tell from the taste of her that this resource is completely untapped. I’ve struck gold with this one, or rather, she’s presented herself to me all wrapped up and decorated with a bow.

“What are you doing?” I yell at her, even as I instinctively start to slurp up all the lovely sustenance. With every passing second, I feel myself growing stronger, feel my own darkness growing more defined, feel all my doubts and regrets floundering and drowning in that sea of wholesome dark nourishment.

I can see her thoughts clearly.

Her mind is a forest of twisted tree trunks and buttress roots, intertwined in a living lattice. Overhead, a fringe of vines obsure the shapes of individual trees, forming a canopy that gives off a weird luminiscence of its own. A slimy, glossy dark green growth covers everything, interspersed with spots of sickly yellow. Not all of the warped shapes are static; something slithers and slides beneath the top layer of green. It is a treacherous place that sets my teeth on edge just looking at it – there’s absolutely no way I’m entering any further than I absolutely have to into that sick mind. In any case, I don’t have to go really deep because it’s literally giving off darkness to the extent that a dark fog is pouring off it like vapour from a block of ice. I barely have to stand at the entrance of her thoughts to draw from the tainted springs that bubble up from her psyche.

And in the heart of that wilderness is her consciousness, jet black coils of defensive paranoia wrapped around a heart of greedy obsession. It has the semblance of romantic love, but it is rotten at the core. There is something in the centre of that suffocating cage of her neediness. And I don’t really have to look to know what—or rather, who—lies within that prison.

Her next words confirm my assessment without a doubt.

“You’re in the way. He’s MINE.”

“He’s mine!” I mimic disdainfully in a falsetto. “Well I don’t see your name written on him.” I pause to lick my lips for effect. “Even though I’m sure I looked everywhere.” I make sure I say the last word in such a way that she had no doubt that I meant it literally.

She screams out a string of obscenities that the regulars on Stan’s street would be proud of, slashing wildly at me with the blade. Her attack is driven by sheer rage. She’s not thinking – I can read her movements like she’s given me a choreography sheet; I weave my own movements around hers so that she thinks she really has a chance at getting me. Let her tire herself out, while I continue to feed on her seemingly bottomless darkness.

Already I can feel my wings taking shape, my talons growing sharper, the venom pumping into my fangs. But I hold them back from manifesting. It’s not time yet.

I want to extract every last morsel of dark from her.

 

 

 

And then I’ll rip her pretty little head off her shoulders and bathe myself in her blood.

Heck, I might even save some and put it in a bottle for Ash.

10: When at last you see me

Title: In the corner of your eye

Chapter 10: WHEN AT LAST YOU SEE ME

... in which Iggy gets what he wants at last.

*****

During a lull in our cat and mouse game, we lock eyes, each trying to stare the other down. Her movements have slowed down, but it doesn’t look like she’s planning to stop.

“He’s MINE,” she snarls, as if simply repeating the words is going to make me turn tail with a frightened whimper.

I don’t like her under-estimation of me, but I totally understand how she feels. She thinks she loves him. But what she really wants is to own him, to break him and remake him into her idea of a perfect match. In fact, in a funny kind of way, I sympathise with her because after all, she and I are after the same thing. I don’t mean in a haha funny way, of course. Things are much too deadly serious for me to be smirking right now.

“E-ve-ry-wherrrre,” I taunt, drawing out the word along with a lewd grope down my own body.

Her perfect face has degenerated into an unsightly mask. “Keep away from him, filthy f*****!”

Then again, when I think of the image Ash had of her, I do feel like laughing. The twisted obsessive need to possess in her is as far away from his angel as the school is from freaking Jupiter. She is way too good with that blade, more so than any girl has a right to be. It’s a good thing I’m not a heavy muscle-bound jock. I’m fast and lithe enough that I have no problem avoiding the wild plunges of her blade. It’s long and thin—what they call a filleting knife, I believe—but still very capable of damaging, if not killing outright. I don’t want the shell harmed yet, not while I’m still feeding. So I try my best to keep the shell away from that blade; all the while take huge heaping bites of her darkness that I don’t even chew but slurp down and swallow whole.

Frankly, she is delicious.

That she is not normal psychologically I don’t need any convincing of; the question is...

Is she truly human?

The answer to that question is very likely a ‘Yes’. I can’t sense any sign of my kind, even though I’ve put out every feeler I have. The way she’s going all out at me is a confirmation; if she were a shell as well for one of my kind, she would never attack me this way – it is another one of those unspoken rules that we all know and are incapable of breaking. She is human through and through, but the kind that we love: completely demented, exquisitely twisted, magnificently warped. She is more thoroughly dark than anything I’ve ever encountered before, and that darkness is being drawn into me so naturally that I don’t even have to try.

“Ooh, you’re so scary!” I squeal, making my voice high-pitched in mock terror. “How I wish Ash was here to hold me tight!”

She doesn’t say anything, just continues slashing in a paroxysm of destructiveness. I twist aside, but not enough to completely avoid her. She nicks me. The sight of my blood twists her face even more, contorting her features with a hideous combination of triumphant bloodlust and excitement.

I sidestep her again, enjoying this exhilaratingly macabre dance in spite of myself. I take a moment to lick the blood seeping out from the shallow scratch she’s flicked across my forearm. I really shouldn’t stop moving, but I just can’t resist the theatricality of this move. I regret it slightly a moment later, when she takes the opportunity to dive at my legs in a brutal tackle. I manage to evade the worst of it, but she gets hold of one ankle. She tries to skewer my calf, but I kick her in the face with the other foot, making sure I get a toe directly into one eye.

She howls, scrabbling at her face, temporarily blinded. I get to my feet and consider whether I should end this scuffle right here. It’s getting too ugly for my taste; my shell already has one scratch and I’m not sure I want to risk taking more damage that I’d have to explain away. Besides, things are moving so frantically that I can’t concentrate enough to feed properly, which is actually defeating the purpose of me prolonging the fight in the first place.

I start to materialise my claws while getting into position to deliver the fatal strike. One vigorous swipe across should do it, taking out the carotid, jugular and windpipe all at once. I swear the witch is telepathic, because before I can get into place, she scrambles to her feet, a protective arm across her throat.

I swear and change direction. I’ll just have to disembowel her then. But it seems she’s anticipating that as well, because she’s gone into a low crouch. She’s keeping her side to me, protecting the vulnerable front of her body.

Fine, we’ll do this the hard way. I let my teeth grow pointed and sharp inside my mouth. Deploy the fangs first, immobilise her, and then shred her. But she’s not going to make that any easier to do, by the looks of it. She has a shrewd, calculative look to her now. The anger has passed, and her cunning is coming into play.

We circle each other, two beasts, each as deadly as the other in our own way and both equally determined to destroy the other.

And then we both stop moving, identical looks of shock on our faces.

 

 

 

Because we are not alone. A third figure is in the room, standing just inside the doorway, back pressed in instinctive self-preservation against the door that he’s just closed.

Ash. You idiot. Go away.

His eyes are wide with horror. “Clare! No!”

Two things happen together, neither of which I am fast enough to intervene in. The madwoman charges me, blade held straight out in front of her like some duelling knight. And Ash steps in front of me, arms open wide as if he were a matador facing down a bull. They collide, collapsing into a single lumpy shape.

My eyes refuse to tell me what I’m looking at.

 

My mouth is open, but I can’t hear what I’m saying.

 

My brain is telling me uselessly that ‘Clare’ means ‘brightness’ in French.

 

And then I finally see it. She is straddling Ash, pulling the blade from his body.

 

The very bloody blade.

 

Which she’s just stabbed into his throat.

.

“Nobody else can have you!” she shrieks, plunging the blade down again... and again... and again, until I wrestle it out of her bloody hands and drive the steel into her eye socket until only the handle sticks out; hopefully it’s gone all the way into her psychopathic brain. She’s still shrieking, but in pain now, clutching at the handle and trying ineffectually to pull it out. I know the room is soundproof, but I’m taking no chances. I pick up the heavy office chair and slam it down on her head. There is a satisfying crack as she goes down. I look around for something else to throw at her in case she gets back up like some zombie, but she stays down, her head at a very odd angle to the rest of her body.

It takes a moment before it sinks in. She’s dead. I’ve won.

“B****!” I spit on the corpse and grind my heel into her gaping mouth.

 

 

 

A gaspy “Ig...gy...” brings my attention back to Ash. I don’t need five years of med school to tell me that taking two aspirin isn’t going to solve his problems. There are at least four holes in him, all discharging blood at a discouragingly brisk rate. His breathing is raspy and wheezy and all the other sounds that breathing shouldn’t be.

He’s dying, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

In the moment of clarity before the last flicker of his life is extinguished, he can see me; not out of the corner of his eye but gaze to gaze, his dark brown one to my lightless black.

Something is changing inside me and I can’t stop it. But I don’t want to look away from him. For one last time, I fan out my poisonous wings of lustrous green and bare my magnificent fangs.

His face is twisted into a parody of a smile. “You...’re... s-so... beau...ti...ful.”

I did not expect those words, but they make me glad. I focus on them while I dissolve into formless indefiniteness. The shedding of my shell. Finally. It happens with much less fuss than I’d thought it would.

I am finally a Formless One.

I start to giggle with schoolgirl excitement before I remember... I no longer need words or sounds of any kind; I can communicate with pure thought alone. I swirl around the room, flying faster than I ever have before. I am no longer limited to mere sight, sound, smell, touch - my mind is working frantically to make sense of the myriad new senses I have suddenly gained.

But the greatest impact of the change is an absence: I don’t feel the presence of Voice anymore.

I rather wish I’d had the chance to say a proper goodbye.

 

 

 

I finally stop my mad flight to hover gently over Ash. He has stopped moving in the final manifestation of morbidity. Thought and emotion have ceased. The fruit that I cherished so tenderly has finally ripened, but at the moment when I no longer have any need of its sustenance. The irony is enough to make me want to laugh.

 

I carry out my first act as a Formless One: I call to Ash.

 

And from the ruins of his birth vessel, he rises. He is darkness clothed in sleek crimson, newly-formed teeth and talons sharp and white, stinger-tipped insect limbs forming an obsidian peacock tail to frame his fresh-forged shape, sleek and deadly.

He is breathtakingly beautiful.

And he is completely mine at last.