Chapter Text
How long had it been since I was free?
It feels like an eternity of walking through endless plains of dirt and rubble, your only company loud thuds and other pairs of lifeless eyes with Cheshire cat smiles betraying their pain. None of us were happy, not anymore.
Lumbering forward on unsteady legs you felt completely disconnected from your body, you imagined this is what having Locked-in syndrome is like the ability to think and feel yet your body refuses to listen, a constant war between mind and body. That was the most painful thing about living like this, there was nothing you could do when you heard the screams, nothing you could tell them that would purge yourself of this never-ending nightmare filled with guilt.
You could still smell the blood coating the once-green hills you couldn't say how long it had been there a reminder of the ones they couldn't save.
Suddenly you felt itsbody leaning down to grasp at something with its grotesque limbs, you couldn't help but internally gag upon seeing the mass of flesh and bones held within its grasp. Although the parasite you were contained in cared little for the contents of its find or was it the parasite that always lived inside all of you, but no one ever knew about it?
No matter how many times you had experienced this feeling the smell of rotting meat left out in the sun too long, flesh slipping and squelching beneath its fingers, screams and pleads filling its uncaring ears; it never got easier. You kept telling yourself there was nothing you could do and that you never chose this life, at first you ever tried to fight against its most basic instincts but after a while, it became...
Normal.
Glancing slowly around it checked to see if anyone had witnessed what it had found whether there would be a fight for something neither really wanted nor needed; none of this murder and loss of life was needed for its survival yet the drive was always there to kill and consume. Off in the distance peaking behind a towering line of trees, it made what could be considered eye contact for them with a short one-off in the distance. Lifeless eyes locked with lifeless eyes yet you both knew the pain each other faced almost an unsaid understanding passed between you two, and you couldn't help but wonder how could they have ever survived being that small in a world full of giants? Both smiled at each other twisted versions of a greeting before the smaller figure retreated into the forest its instinct telling it that this was a battle they could not win.
Glancing at its form you could tell why, while their upper body had well-defined muscles carved into its form this was all supported by malformed legs barely able to hold it up.
As their shadow swayed back into the forest its attention was drawn back to its prize, you could feel its mouth open those blunt teeth not made for its diet scraping the contents into its mouth. You felt nothing as parts of god knows how many people slid down its throat, you knew it was only a matter of time before all of it was just vomited up again like a makeshift burial.
The only evidence of what it had done was the red-painted stain branded into its palm a constant reminder of what you were a part of.
With its "appetite" sated it turned around heading back into the forest its footprints a lasting signature on an artist's work, all you could think was when would this nightmare be over, but you knew it would never be over. Although at least it was easier when they were already dead.