The air outside was cold and there was no sign of the sun in the starlit sky.
“Oh I can’t wait! Think my tits will get bigger this time? I hope so. Maybe I’ll even get a face!” She practically squealed into his ear. Conrad couldn’t help but grin along with her, he was just as excited for what was about to happen.
Alright sweetcheeks, which way?
“I’m gonna let that one slide because I can tell we’re both feelin a little high right now, but that was just terrible.” She said teasingly and pushed on his right shoulder. “The colonel is that way, he’s actually just around the back of the library.”
Fair enough. He said and picked up the pace.
He could hear blood rushing in his ears while his breath became ragged.
He turned the corner of the tall brick building and entered the wide alley between the library and the neighboring lecture hall.
Breathing harder than he needed too he left the well lit sidewalk behind with a smile so wide that it hurt his cheeks.
His skin was starting to tingle now and his vision was changing, the alleyway that was fully dark before was now a wash of black and white. The impenetrable shadows were now in grayscale but fully visible to his eye.
The apparition gave a low moan of pleasure at the change and Conrad couldn’t help but agree with her. The change felt good on a visceral level.
He felt powerful, he felt dangerous and capable of nearly anything.
So long as it led to violence.
He broke into a slow jog now, the library was an exceptionally large building, longer than it was wide and it butted up against the back of the large performance hall.
Up ahead Conrad could hear voices but they came to him as if they were speaking through a long tube. Faintly he could make out what they were saying.
“Hey man, just leave me alone.” The words were tinged with panic.
“Calm down, I just need directions is all. I got lost and you look like you know your way around campus.” Said a deeper voice that was unnervingly calm.
“You followed me back here! Just look up the directions on your phone. I’m outta here.” Said the panicked voice again.
Conrad grinned madly and the apparition cackled from over his shoulder.
“Haha! Yes! Get him Conny! Do him just like Nick.” She said with glee as he rounded the corner, entering what was apparently the service alley for both the library and the performance hall. Dumpsters and loading bays lined the alleyway on both sides for quite a ways.
The man that the apparition had dubbed the colonel was facing away from Conrad while further down the alley was a young man that looked extremely uneasy at the situation he had found himself in.
“Look, I just need some directions. Why don’t you come over here and show me on the map where we are and then I’ll be gone. Out of your hair in no time.” The Rootwell murderer said easily with his hands up in front of himself.
“Ju-just let me go man, I don’t know you.”
Conrad started running.
A bubbling laugh escaped his lips as his feet brought him to his target.
He distantly registered that he crossed the dozen yards or so between him and the murderer in what seemed like a blink and was suddenly behind the older man. Hazy shadows danced on the edge of his vision, twisting and turning like steam off a lake.
“Hello Mr. Rootwell murderer, A little outside your hunting grounds wouldn’t you say?” Conrad said into the man's ear. His voice had the same distorted and rough quality to it that it did when he had killed Nick.
Rough and low, like he’d smoked a pack of cigarettes every two hours since he was twelve.
The murderer flinched away from Conrad as he spoke and jerked his head away and around to see who had gotten so close without him knowing.
“Oh shit! What-the-fuck!?” The young man yelled as he backpedaled away from the pair and fell to the ground. Landing squarely on his ass.
The older man’s eyes went wide when they met Conrad’s and he also tried to back away from him but Conrad matched his steps eagerly.
Staying uncomfortably close to him, so much so that Conrad could smell the man’s cologne.
His cheeks felt as though they might split and he could feel that the apparition was smiling with him.
“I-I-I-I don’t know what you’re talking about but I’m leaving now.” He said, stuttering and clearly the one afraid now.
“Oh no no no, he can go-” Conrad pointed to the young man still on the ground without looking at him. “-but you and I have some things to take care of.” Conrad said with a chuckle, his eyes not leaving the mustached man.
“Go on then.” Conrad said and made a shooing motion with his hand toward the intended victim who nodded his head quickly and stood before sprinting past them. As he disappeared around the library corner Conrad rasped.
“Ah there we are, where were we?”
“Look, I don’t know who you are or what you think you know but I’m going now and you can’t stop-” His words were cut off as Conrad lunged at the man.
Quicker than a blink, Conrad grabbed his raised arm at the wrist and with a twist of his body hurled him at the library wall with impossible strength. The man spun through the air, his eyes wide in surprise and his mouth open in a silent scream right before he smacked the concrete wall with an extremely satisfying splat, about twelve feet above the ground. He hung there on the wall for a brief second and then immediately fell to the ground in a groaning heap.
“Uhnnn Conny, do it again. Just like that. Please. More.” She said breathlessly into his ear and he eagerly complied.
Over and over he threw the man at the opposing walls, just to hear the splat he made and the accompanying moan from the apparition.
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Like a gruesome game of racquetball, Conrad threw him from wall to wall, back and forth. The man unfortunately died after the third impact, apparently breaking his neck as he fell to the ground but Conrad kept at it until he was only a lumpy pile of flesh. Pulling every ounce of violence he could from the encounter.
It was a high like he’d never felt before, it was similar to his experience with Nick but this time he’d kept his head and was more aware and able to appreciate the finer details of it all.
The smell of his blood, the sound of bones snapping as they hit the walls, even the unpleasant smell of the man’s half digested dinner added to the experience.
Finally Conrad stood to his full height and surveyed his bloody work with a satisfied sigh.
That’s probably all we have time for I think.
The apparition was simply breathless in his ear but he could feel her agreement.
Bloody body prints and various splatters marked both walls almost to the top of the three story height buildings.
Bits of flesh stuck to the bricks here and there and bone fragments were spread throughout the alley like confetti.
He was oddly dry though, even though he’d had to gather up the murderer’s flesh like a loose pile of laundry against his chest several times. When he finally looked down at himself he was mildly surprised to see that he was fully encased in wispy shadows and that the wisps that had been dancing at the edge of his vision were in fact the shadows that were encasing him intruding on his line of sight.
Uh, am I wearing you right now?
“Oh yes. Yes you are, like a fucking glove. Isn’t it great?” The apparition said with a sigh.
Not sure how I feel about that right now.
“I thought it prudent, especially considering we had an audience for the first half of that.”
Oh shit, I forgot about the kid. Conrad’s head snapped to where he’d seen the kid go and could just see a pair of trendy shoes sticking out around the brick corner.
“Eh he passed out pretty quick, he was recording the whole thing though so we should deal with that on our way out.”
With one last look at the glorious scene he’d created he turned and left with a smile still plastered on his face and practically skipped to the young man.
The kid’s pulse was fast but not overly so and his breathing seemed fine. Conrad gently put him in the recovery position just in case anyway before searching him for his phone.
He found it tucked into his shirt’s breast pocket, the camera lens poking out and facing forward.
What surprised him more was when he pulled it out to stop the recording and delete the footage the forward facing camera was also on and seemed to be actively recording.
He immediately jerked his face out of frame but not before he saw that text bubbles were constantly popping up and disappearing, almost faster than he could read them and they almost universally were all caps and questions about the young man’s wellbeing.
Uh shit, did he livestream the whole thing or something? He thought as he stopped the recording by pushing the red button with a shadowy thumb.
“Huh, yeah looks like it.” She replied, sounding drunk and content. “Guess we better get outta here yeah?”
Yeah I think so. He thought as he stood up from the unconscious would-be victim. He went to check his pulse one more time and with a start realized the young man’s eyes were wide open and fixed on Conrad’s own.
“Here’s your phone back. Might want to call the police eh?” Conrad said conversationally, his voice still dry and raspy.
He can’t see my face right?
“Nah, he can’t see hardly anything. S’pretty dark back here. You can see cause I’m awesome though. You’re welcome.”
The kid nodded numbly from the ground and accepted his phone back from Conrad’s wispy fingers.
“Well. See ya round!” Conrad said cheerfully as he walked away down the alley toward the main walking path in front of the library.
He looking at us?
“Nah, he’s trying to call the police. Lookin at his phone.”
Good lets drop the shadow suit as quick as we can. I gotta get back into the library before the police get here.
“Oh but Conny! It feels so good to be inside me. Doesn’t it?” She whined.
I’ll be the first to admit it feels freaking great but we gotta play this smart remember? He said, ignoring the innuendo.
“Ugh, fine. You’re right. You’re right. Gimme a sec.” A heartbeat later a tingling sensation spread over his body as the shadow rolled off his skin.
We’ll do it later at home, we need to test what all we can do and maybe get some practice in.
“I’m gonna hold you to that. I feel all empty now. Sucks. Sucks balls.”
He ignored her grumbling and instead hugged the library wall, putting what looked like a large electrical box between him and the almost victim.
Once out onto the main path he stepped into the street light and gave himself a quick once over while walking as quickly as he could without drawing suspicion. There seemed to be no blood on him whatsoever and a quick sniff revealed he smelled the same as before, not a hint of that coppery tang he craved was on him.
He smiled to himself.
I really enjoyed that.
“Same! We should take some martial arts classes or something, I’ll bet that’d make it even better.”
That’s…actually a really good idea. I’ll look into it, I’ll bet the university offers free ones somewhere.
He pushed open the doors to the library and spotted Katy, still sitting at the same table. The quiet murmur of the library greeted his ears.
A quick glance at his watch while he made his way to the table showed him only about twenty minutes had passed.
“That was quick!” Katy said happily when he pulled his chair out and sat down.
“Oh yeah, it was just a quick little errand. Thanks for watching my things.” He said with a smile.
“No problem, although I was worried I was gonna have to leave them. My roommate just text me. There's some emergency at home so I have to go.” She said, gathering up her notebooks and shutting her laptop.
“Oh well, hopefully everything’s okay. Maybe I’ll see you here again?” He said, still riding the high that killing brought on.
“Oh! er sure yeah! Here, I’ll write my number down.” She said with a wide smile, getting caught up in Conrad’s good mood as she wrote her number on a corner of her notebook paper and tore it off before sliding it to him.
“I’m Conrad by the way.” He said, realizing he never introduced himself.
“Katy, but you already knew that.”
Uh, shit. Uh.
“Saw it on her notebook? It’s thin but plausible.”
“Yeah, er, sorry. I saw it on your notebook when you sat down.” He said lamely.
“Sorry if that’s weird.” He added after a moment.
“It’s alright! I figured you just remembered me from last semester. We took an English class together, remember?”
Fuck.
“Oh, er yeah. That’s right.” He said, trying to ignore the stifled laughter in his ear as he pocketed the small piece of paper.
“Well gotta go! See ya around Conrad.” Katy said as she walked away with a wave.
That was close.
“Ha! It was hilarious is what it was! You were all ‘er, uh, Oh, uhm’ Real eloquent there Conny.” She said into his ear.
“Can we go home now? I’m dying to see what I look like. I feel like I grew so much this time.”
She whined.
Yeah, let's go home. I won’t get any more work done anyway. Too Keyed up after all that.
“Yay! And guess what, Conny!” She cheered in a whisper.
“I remembered my name.” She said in a much more serious tone than he’d ever heard her use before.
Oh yeah? He replied, equally curious and worried as he tucked his books away. What is it?
“Morgoran Lilliene.” The words struck something deep in Conrad and a thrumming of power similar to when he committed violence accompanied the words.
Conrad grinned and Morgoran Lilliene grinned with him.