The dream was always the same.

The dream was always different.

Sometimes he was running, two or four or six or eight or ten powerful legs beneath him pounding the ground in rhythm. Sometimes he ran through an empty plain, along an endless beach, up a rocky mountain path, down empty highway roads, or over stalled traffic. The setting didn't matter. The body didn't matter. He was running and he was strong and tiredness was for lesser beings. His muscles thrilled with power and a desire to run faster and faster, and he did. He would run and run and never tire and it was glorious.

Sometimes he was swimming, with fins or wings or tentacles or a long sinuous body writhing through the water. Sometimes he dodged between rising stalks of seaweed, through an obstacle course of reefs, through an underwater cave with nothing but echolocation to guide his way, through shallow rivers and between the roots of trees, or though the endless ocean, with sunlight above and endless blackness below. Whether salt water or fresh, warm or cold, deep of shallow, he didn't care. He was swimming and he was strong and fast, his teeth sharp, taking in air through gills or breaking the surface to fill his lungs, just feeling the cool water over his skin, his scales, his fur, his shell…

Sometimes he was flying, on wings of feathers or flesh or scales or cuticles, defying gravity as he tore through the air. He flew through rain, through fog, through smoke, between buildings, through the canopies of trees, between blades of grass. His size didn't matter. His form didn't matter. He was flying, and that was enough…

Sometimes he dreamed of eating. Eating and eating and eating and eating until there was nothing left to eat and moving on.

Sometimes he dreamed of spreading. Of growing infinite bodies borne on the air, or in the water, or droplets of water in the air, of waiting on surface, carried on blood and spit and, growing and growing and growing, visions of a world subsumed by tainted flesh and rotting wood.…

Now, he dreamed of blood. Flowing through veins, filled with oxygen and minerals and energy and hormones and bacteria and virions genetic data…

But it was always the same.

There was something behind him, or at his back. He couldn't see them, not when he turned his head. Not when he chirped, listening for echoes. Not when he opened eyes, so many eyes, eyes all over his body, so he could see.

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There was no one there.

There was some one there.

They were on his back as he ran, when he swam, when he flew. There were there when he ate. They were there when he spread. They were there in the blood. When he moved, they moved. When they moved, he moved.

Sometimes he dreamed of killing.

What he killed was always indistinct. All he got was a sense, whether they were large of small, slow or fast, soft or hard. He killed in the sky, something that was the same size as him, their tentacles ripping at each other with mouths as they tumbled through the air, trying to win before they could hit the ground. He killed in the water, dozens of limbs with claws trying to latch on so his tail could have the leverage to pierce through flesh and start pumping in air and drawing out blood. He killed in the trees, the ends of his limbs catching on bark as maneuvered with pincers and tongue. He killed on the ground, standing on two armored legs, four fingers and a thumb all tipped with shark-like serrated teeth for claws, another tooth held like a danger in one hand, climbing a large, indistinct thing and stabbing it through the ear.

They were there, at his back. Not someone to be defended. Not needing protection. Not weak. He never saw them. Not out of the corner of his eye. He never heard there. There was no breathing besides his own. He didn't smell them, or taste them, or feel them, but they were there.

Waiting.

Watchful.

Hungry.

He was the hand, and they were the tooth.

He was the tooth and they were the hand.

Almost, he could hear whispers in the dream winds. Whispers that seemed to come from the back of his head.

Something fell on the back of his hand, something cold and warm and soft and hard and slimy and scaly and furry and hairy and angular and…

Sometimes, he dreamed he was being born. He has curled in the warmth of a womb, lungs filled with fluid. Curled up in an egg, hearing the outside. Feeding. Changing. Growing.

Alone.

Not alone.

They were there too. Feeding. Changing. Growing.

They wrapped around him.

He wrapped around them.

They nestled within, burrowing like a parasite.

He nestled within, burrowing like a parasite.

In the dream, his eyes opened, and the thing looking through them wasn't him.

In the dream, he opened eyes that weren't his, looking through them using someone else.

In his dreams, he stood in front of a mirror that showed a monster. Eyes and teeth and claws and fangs and fur and scale and wings and tentacles. One hand reached for the mirror, and the reflection did the same. They touched the surface, and there was no mirror, only hand against hand, and it was disgusting and wrong and alien and—

One hand drew back, fearful, turning to run, to hide, to get away from the eyes of this strange and terrible monster…!

He lunged, grabbing their wrist and she screamed…