Lain

I back away from the boy in the bed in a hurry, holding my bloodied arm against my chest. My back hits the wall and something gets knocked over and falls to the floor, but I don’t look away from him. My heart is beating like crazy in my chest and I am breathing heavily. But I can’t look away. I refuse to.

What the hell did I just do!? Why did I do that!?!?

My black blood is still on his face, still staining his bed sheet next to his head and still dyed into the wraps that covers most of his face.

I made him drink my blood! The things I said… Why did I say that!?

I made him mine…?

I look at the boy on the bed and something inside of me just sort of clicks. Mine. He belongs to me.

I shake my head violently and look away from him, “No no no no! What the hell is this! Why do I…!?”

My eyes fall onto him again, and yet again something in the back of my mind clicks into place, a missing piece finding its slot. Mine.

I forcefully pull my eyes away and go for the door, quickly exiting and pushing myself against the wall, away from his room. I fight to get my breathing back under control and try to wipe the blood off of my arm, further messing up my already dirty clothes.

Something inside of me draws my attention to the room and for some reason, despite being outside of the room, I can sense the exact position of the boy. I can feel him lying on the bed. I know that he is breathing. I know that he is sleeping…

Sliding along the wall, I move myself further away from the room until I am walking down the hallway. Step by step, I try to grow the distance between us, but I can feel him in that room. Much like my sense that tells me about the shadows and their depths, I know that he is in there. His exact position, the distance between us, that he is injured… that he is healing…

I stop walking away and instead take a step towards him. He’s healing…Whatever it is that I did to him is helping.

I move forward and return to his room in a rush. I can save him!

My hand stops at the door, just short of opening it, more and more the realization of what I had just done slowly seeping into me.

Slowly, I open the door and my eyes fall on him. Mine.

I close it and put a hand to my chest, calming my breath.

Focus Lain, focus! What is this feeling? Examine it.

It, it isn’t love… I can at least be certain of that. I don’t want to crawl into bed with him or anything… This is… It's ownership…? Why!? Why do I feel so certain that I own him now? That he is, mine…?

…

Because he is now, he’s mine. I made him mine and he accepted. Some part of me tells me as if it makes all the sense in the world. As if a queen had just made a decree into law.

“No no no no! You can’t own people! I can’t own people!”

Yes, I can. In fact, I do. I just did it, I was there. My mind whispers back.

“No! People can’t own people! He has a right to be free, he is an individual!”

Yes, people can’t own people. Yes, he is an individual. But I own him, he is mine. I made him mine. These rules don’t apply to me, I am above them. I am a…

I shake my head violently and back away from the door again. What are these thoughts, these feelings!? Why the hell am I feeling like this!? I shouldn’t be like this. I’ve never felt anything like this before!

My back hits the wall and I can feel something through my connection with the boy. He is dying. Not enough, blood is not enough. It is a start, but he needs more. He needs food.

I swallow a bit and push away from the wall. He’s dying, needs food.

“I have to save him… I, I’m responsible now, I have to.” I tell myself shakingly.

Turning away from his room, I run down the hall and towards the storerooms, moving past a late-night patrol and ignoring their questions. Heading inside, I start going through boxes, my connection to the boy pulsing lightly in the back of my head as I reach for some MRE’s. Wrong.

“Wrong? What’s wrong with these? They’re food! He needs…!” I stop, realization sinking in as I drop an MRE back into its box. “Wrong type of food…”

I turn and run out of the storeroom, moving past the guards again as they yell something or other. I think I yelled back to them that I will be back, something about going hunting. I don’t bother listening to their response as I run away, making my way for one of the outer hallways and throwing myself out an open window into the night.

My feet hit the ground outside, and I burst into motion, sprinting for the woods. Thoughts go through me about it being the night, how no one is supposed to be outside at night, how this when the most dangerous of beasts come out. I cast these thoughts aside, my connection to the boy lightly pulsing in the back of my head and demanding my attention. My connection to my first…

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I shake my head again and force myself to focus as I clear the airfield in a bounding sprint and launch myself off the ground and into the treetops of the surrounding woods. Moving from branch to branch, I keep myself moving at top speed, snapping tree branches and shaking the trees as I move forward in a hurried search of something to hunt. In search of food. As I move, giving in more and more to my instincts to help guide me, I realize that I can start to feel the shadows gathering around my body. I still can’t see them, nor can I control them, but something inside of me has changed to the point of where I can finally feel them gather. Here and now, running through the treetops like a hunting predator, I can feel them better than I ever have before.

Slowly, my stance changes and how I move and jump shifts. I feel as something inside of me takes over, moving me to avoid the beams of moonlight coming in through the canopy, shifting my weight so that I do not bend and break the branches, making my every step as light as possible and producing hardly a sound. I become a shadow.

My surroundings become a blur as I move faster and faster, able to navigate the trees with uncanny grace, moving past sleeping birds and squirls in their nests with them being none the wiser.

Up ahead, I hear a roar.

It takes but a few moments for me to arrive, launching myself into the clearing like an arrow set loose. I hardly take in the area or what is going on as I throw myself forward, my feet barely touching the ground before I am sent rocketing forward, practically gliding over the ground.

For a split second I can see them. Two figures roaring at each other and posturing aggressively in what I assume is a contest for territory. One is a giant bat looking thing with a long tail tipped with a stinger. If its neck was more elongated, I may have mistaken it for a scaleless wyvern. The second is a three headed beast, with the head of what looks like a lion, one of a goat, and the third of a snake growing as its tail.

I don’t stop running forward, despite there being two of them here, I simple have to pick which one to kill. My decision gets made for me as the bat looking creature twitches its large ears and looks towards me in surprise. It quickly gives up on waving its wings about threateningly and jumps into the air, taking off and fleeing, much to the surprise of the lion thing that I am just going to call a Chimera.

Curious about what scared off the bat, the Chimera’s heads turn to look to where the bat had looked preciously, but it doesn’t see me, instead choosing to redirect its attention back up to the flying bat and giving a roar of victory. At least it tries to.

As the lion head rears back to let out its call, I am already colliding with it, my hand spearing into its eye and grabbing hold of its head by the eye socket. My other hand grabs it by the mane, and I give its entire head a violent pull as my momentum from launching myself at it continues to carry me forward. With a violent twist, the beast’s massive head turns with a loud crack, rocking its entire body to the side and forcing it to fall over as if it had just got hit by a train.

Riding the beast's body as it falls over, my feet find the ground and I dig my claws in, violently pulling on the Chimera’s head and forcing it to continue its roll. On its back, the goat head screams in fright as it hits the ground with a load crash. Quickly enough, the body of the chimera rolls over the goat head, it gets pulled under by the incredible weight of the beast’s body and I hear a muffled crack ring out as the goat’s screams get cut short, its neck broken by the rest of the body rolling over it.

Behind, the snake head is pulling itself up off the ground and looking around, seeming a bit disoriented, trying to find whatever the hell just slammed into its body and killed the other two heads. Despite turning in my direction, it fails to notice me right up until I am already wrapped around its neck. It lets out a hiss is surprise and tries to move to shake me off, but before it can do much, I am already spearing my hand up and under its jaw. With a twist and a pull, I wrench its head from its body and toss it aside. The tail quickly loses its strength and falls to the ground in a heap.

Landing on the ground, I walk back over to the main body of the Chimera and go for one of its legs, my attention focused squarely on the flying bat as it circles in the air, watching my every move. Slowly, it comes to a stop and lands on a tree. Opening its mouth, it shows off rows of sharp, needle like, teeth and lets out a threatening hiss and a deep chittering call. I stop approaching the Chimera and instead take a step towards the bat. I can feel my shadows writhing over my body violently as I spread my arms and scream at the bat. “Mine! My food! You can have the scraps! Fucking try me and I’ll kill you too!!!”

It backs away a bit at this and lets out a low hiss, still, it does not move to leave the tree or attack me. It simply watches me and bristles it back fur like a threatened cat.

Keeping an eye on the bat, I go for the Chimera and get to work on ripping off one of its back legs. The thigh alone is already bigger than me, so the whole rear leg has a ton of meat on it. Working my claws in, I work on tearing it apart at the base and eventually manage to rip the whole leg free from the body.

Shouldering the leg, I back away from the corpse and start walking back to base, refusing to show my back to the bat. As I reach the tree line, I call out to it, “The rest is yours! Do what you want but if you come near my territory then you’re dead! Don’t follow me!”

The bat simply turns its head curiously before climbing down the tree and reaching for the corpse. Grabbing it by one of the legs, it drags the whole thing towards itself and lets out a hiss towards me. Seeing me not move in response to its call or to stop it from taking the corpse, the thing climbs on top of the Chimera and grabs hold of it with its rear claws before flapping its wings and taking off into the air, sending heavy gust of wind in every direction and shaking the trees. With one last call, it takes off into the air with its prize and flies away.

I watch as it leaves, heading in ruffly the opposite direction of the FO Base. Once I can no longer see it, I turn away and sprint back into the woods, my connection to the boy lightly pulsing in the back of my head and urging me forward.

My first warrior needs food.

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By the time I get back to base, people are looking a bit agitated. They ask me questions about why it is that I went charging off into the night like a mad woman, why the heck am I carrying around a whole leg bigger than a man, why was there blood on Private Smith, what did I do? Yadayada, I ignore them and head straight for the kitchen, dropping the leg on the ground and going for a butcher knife. The soldiers around me scatter a bit as I get to work on cutting chunks out of the leg, chopping at it in a hurry. Eventually, a couple of them give up on trying to talk to me, saying something about going to get the Lieutenant Colonel.

It’s not important, they can get the boss over here if they want to, but I need to hurry. Grabbing a pan and oiling it, I get to work on quickly cooking up a slab of Chimera steak, medium rare. I don’t bother with seasonings or anything like that, hells, I could probably just feed it to him raw. But the last thing I want is for him to end up getting worms or something, especially whatever kind of parasites would call a monster its home. Heck, I’m still not entirely comfortable with Sky eating raw meat…

Once I have it cooked up well enough that it feels safe, I throw it on a plate and grab a knife and fork. Rushing out of the room and to the infirmary. A couple of soldiers are still following me around, asking questions, but I just continue to ignore them. I only stop just as I reach the door, my hand hovering just short of opening it. He’s dying. Not enough. Needs food.

I force myself to move forward and open the door, ignoring the thoughts going through my head as I look at the boy on the bed, ignoring the medics surrounding him and looking him over.