I close my notebook as I finish writing down my notes for this class, because although I work in IT, which drains my very soul, they have a surprisingly robust program for education, so, y’know, why not use it? I’m curious as to everything around me, to the point that it's sometimes a nuisance for others at least. I personally love going on random wikipedia delves every once in a while, because I learn such nonsensical stuff sometimes. As I finish up putting my stuff away, I hear what sounds like a cricket in the office, which means that Eric probably let one of his bugs escape, he’s nice, and likes bugs quite a bit, but he isn’t the most tight on securing that stuff, sometimes they get into his bag and then the office, so I’ll just grab it and hand it back to him, but as I’m heading over to go find it, I see something in the hall. It turns to me and what I see I can only describe as a cross between an ant and cockroach that’s as big as I am. But far more horrifyingly, its mandibles are covered in fresh blood, with some kind of meat on the ground next to it, and as it moves I see it, there is a corpse, with the head being clean off and the chest open, the bone visible.

I take a deep breath, but as I do, it starts skittering towards me, and like any reasonable person i book it, the office scenery blending together behind me as I do everything in my power to not end up a corpse and as I glance behind me, i see even more horrifyingly, it looks like a mantis now, and even as I toss things behind me it moves around and over them like they weren't even there, and as I almost manage to reach one of the corner offices.

It reaches me and lunges, I try to block it with my arm. but it cleaves straight through the bone and yanks it off the remaining flesh with its mandibles, and while I want to scream my lungs out with the insane amount of pain instead I make a final dash to the door and slam it shut, because like most animals would, it seemed to simply just take my arm instead of continuing the chase. I have no delusions of safety given how easily it cut through bone, but it shouldn’t be an active threat for at least a little while. But as I begin to try and bandage the wound, I feel something heavy come over my mind, even through the searing pain, like a thousand pounds directly on my skull, and I feel it burrow into my mind, blurring it, reaching and pulling to the surface my incessant desire to learn, and I feel deep down, it will make me singular, push that to be all I am, but as it does so, it pulls thoughts to my mind, pieces of my idea of learning bubbling to the surface, that learning is adapting, making that knowledge part of myself, and it wouldn’t be learning if there wasn’t a person to learn, but as those thoughts occur, that burrowing feeling stops tearing my mind away, but it wasn’t stopped, its path shifted to keeping the desire solid and undoing damage done to my mind, but my desire to learn more and more now felt like nothing could stop me from it, that it was All That Mattered, which, while horrifying, at least isn’t complete ego death, and it comes with the perk of my memory being really clear. But i need to focus, preventing ego death doesn’t matter if I experience plain old death a minute later.

Looking around me, I notice their bag is still in their office, which has a switchblade, I remember with quite the clarity that this guy was quite annoying about us following frankly nonsensical rules, yet he brought a switchblade with him, quite annoying. But it fits with how he treats the rest of the office, he doesn’t need it, but I certainly do, so I grab it out, but it alone will not be enough to kill it, it has an exoskeleton which is a tad harder than what knives are good at, I need to break it, so I pocket the knife and grab the computer tower with my remaining hand. At which point I realize I have to open the door first. So I put the computer tower down, open the door, and then grab it again, now, to not die, i begin walking through the hallways which thankfully for me stealthing around, are carpeted, and as I start walking, I realize I can hear it on the left turn ahead of me, along with the sound of raw meat being torn into, presumably being either my arm or a corpse, and as I creep that way, I am proven correct when i see that only my forearm is left in its grasp, at which point I rush to slam the tower into it, which manages to break through, i think of reaching for the knife but I realize in its struggling and damage it is doing to me with some of its limbs, that I won’t have the time unless it slows down, so I start pulling things out as it cries out and makes noises, but unexpectedly to myself, I lose control of my body, and start biting into it as well, and swallowing on some kind of reflex, and finally, as its struggling has died down the slightest bit, I pull the knife out, and jab it into the head of the monster, and push until it stops. At which point, I collapse onto the floor and breathe deeply for a bit, at which point something clicks in my mind, and I pull myself towards it, cutting off one of its limbs and eating the leg, and not just that one, I continue eating till it’s legless, at which point I cut off what resembles blades as well, still focused on doing what must be done, but I then realize that the blades are too sharp to just consume directly, so I first take some metal and do my best to make it blunt, then I slam what remains of the computer tower into the blades as well, breaking it into small enough pieces, which I swallow. And suddenly I fully realize what I just did, I ate the monster that cut off my arm, and while doing it, I didn’t even realize what was going on, and that's when this thing didn’t erase my mind.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I still want to check if Eric is safe though, so I head over to his desk and see his usual outfit completely torn to shreds, but I notice no blood on it, at which point my mind connects the dots, I just ate a giant bug monster, I got infected with something that takes stuff you enjoy and amplifies it, clearly altering you, Eric also adored bugs, that massive bug I ate was Eric. 

I Ate Eric.

 His mind must have been gone, but that doesn’t make it much better for me. I'm going to grab my bag and go home, I don’t really care how much longer my shift is, I’m heading home now. The guy at the front looks like he’s about to question me, at which point he stops for a moment upon seeing me and the blood on my shirt, I pause and look where I was expecting a stump and see a black-ish arm, covered in chitin, at which point I rush out while they’re still questioning what's going on. Equally as confused.