Question time! What do you think happens when you put an almost fully human merc, who has recently lost her fingers, in the same room as a part-eldritch monstrosity with claws and an adrenaline rush caused by a near-death experience?

Oliwia tried to pull off some fancy move that would have locked her legs around my shoulders and pinned my arms to my sides, but then my claws slashed through the air much faster than she could react. The pain lancing through her thighs left her weakly thrashing under me. She screamed as my claws flashed out again and again, tearing through her forearms and spraying blood all over the place.

An idle part of me, a part not consumed by the need to shut her up and GET THOSE STUPID EYES AND SKIN AWAY FROM ME, noted how bad it would look if someone walked through the door and spotted me in that position, half-straddling her as I was.

Then viciousness snapped back into the foreground. My hand shot into her mouth, stifling her screams. Her eyes nearly popped out of her skull in terror as my claws came to rest at the base of her tongue.

I shuddered, locked in place. Pain bloomed through my right shoulder while a dull ache picked up in the rest of my back. I tried really, really hard to remember why I was there in the first place.

"Adrian? Are you okay? She didn't get you, right?!" Amelia's voice snuck into my thoughts, cooling the inhuman parts of me.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I remembered what it was all for.

One of my targets was already dead. As for the other…

Fuck! Fuckity fuck! Oh shit she's bleeding out!

"Need to get off the call for a bit, but I'm fine."

"What?! No! Don't you fucking dare hang up on me!"

"Amelia, I'm going to try and turn her before she dies!"

"I'll just mute you, then."

"I'm probably going to eat her afterwards."

"Ew. Muted."

I snarled in frustration, but the inhuman side of me was still pushing. The Stalker raged at human contact while the Runner coiled in my thoughts, grinning in delight at the thought of another of us rising in place of the stupid human.

Well, seeing as 'experimentation' was the whole reason I was there…

I let the human part of me snap and fall away for a little while. Leaning forward, I lined up my eyes with the terrified woman's. Then my jaw unhinged, and words unsuited to mortal ears spilled out.

She shuddered. Then she went back to thrashing, weakly at first, then more and more wildly. I actually had to retract my claws when they started to bead with blood.

I felt that same something well up within me. My mind crystalized in its focus as I bent my attention fully on the sensation. I tracked it as it unspooled from somewhere close to my navel, burned a slow path up towards my eyes, and then dripped out of me and into the woman beneath me.

Instantly, the struggle grew worse. But with me focused on the transformation, I also felt the Essence take root inside her, oily and twisted. Infecting, changing, and altering her fundamental nature, starting with her body and extending dark tendrils into her mind. The transformation raced down her physical form, instantly closing cuts, scabbing over the stumps of her fingers, and sealing the rents in her thighs.

Her mind, however, was getting a much rougher treatment.

It was already overwhelmed by knowledge she wasn't meant to be privy to. Now I could feel it quake, shudder, and crack under the weight of the transformation. Bits of it flaked away, allowing memory-filled tar to take their place.

In that moment, I understood that Oliwia was just determined and desperate enough to 'survive' the transformation. She would rather bend than break, even if 'bending' meant she would never be herself again.

This meant that I would soon be getting a new Shadow Runner sibling, fresh off the eldritch press.

And that was a problem.

I didn't need another shadow around. What I needed was a failure. A dead, half-formed shadow I could munch into with no guilt. Even with the sensation of Essence burned into me, even with bits of it in the air getting drawn into me as I transformed Oliwia, I had no idea how successful I would be at following the 'traditional' absorption exercises.

I needed more Essence.

It was my only hope of crawling back to relative stability. I needed it the way a man dying of thirst needs water.

So, with only brief hesitation, I did what no true Shadow Runner would. I engaged my Assault skill and leaned more heavily on her mind than I should have.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

My Runner bits screeched in disapproval, but the Stalker reared its bloodthirsty head, anticipating both the kill and the meal that would follow. Caught between the two, I only barely managed to crack Oliwia's mind before it was too late.

The would-be shadow grew slack. The eyes drained of life and thought even as the transformation of her body finished.

I staggered back, my mind spinning with glee, disgust, terror, and horror at my actions. In a very real way, I hated myself more for what I had just done than I did for killing my 'fellow' humans.

I laughed at the thought, loud and jittery, as I struggled to make up my mind on what I actually was.

Human? Surely not! Two-thirds of me thought of those creatures with disdain.

Stalker? Pfft, I wasn't some stupid brute! A puppet to its own nature, incapable of even functioning properly within the reality it decided to invade.

Shadow? I spoke the tongue, did I not? Did I not pay The Observer homage? Did I not exult in knowledge, and the thrill of the netspace, and the hunt of the mind? Yes, yes I did, and I —

"Adrian?" The voice was hesitant. A tiny bit terrified, too.

My mind snapped towards it, my inner eye focusing on the image of the woman hovering there.

I could reach out. Project my will past the device. Call out to my brethren on the other side, and —

"Are you okay? Please talk to me?"

I almost whimpered as I slumped over, eyes falling briefly shut.

"I-I'm fine," I managed to force out. In the right language, too! At least, I was pretty sure I hadn't used shadow-speak… "I'm fine. Thanks for… checking in with me. You might want to look away for this next bit, though."

"No. No I won't."

I couldn't deny that I appreciated the steel in her voice.

"Thanks," I mumbled, barely forming the word.

The need to dig into my 'meal' right that instant was nearly overwhelming. With effort, I managed to remind myself of the danger I might still be in. My mind jumped along with the ping I sent out, tracing back to the room's entrance camera and then into the hallway beyond.

To my utter relief, there was no panic to be seen there. In fact, a bored couple strolled right past the rental's door, signing themselves into the neighboring room. No alarms blaring. No rush of security trying to batter down the door.

I was almost shocked at the apparent disregard for people's safety. Really, it was on par with the slums…

But then I remembered the vastly superior noise cancellation of inner district buildings. No one would be coming after my ass immediately, because no one had heard a thing.

Now, the two might well have had some kind of life alert system linked into their bioware. But that would, presumably, alert only their merc buddies or captain or whatever. Worst case scenario, they were subscribed to some kind of medical service that would dispatch rescue teams.

Seeing as there was no immediate danger…

At long last, I caved to the needs of both the Runner and the Stalker within me, sinking my teeth right into the shadow flesh and bone laid out on the bed.

Once again, I did my best to track what was happening to me. Essence surged into me through the bits of flesh I devoured, gradually getting absorbed into my blood, bone, and even mind. But I also felt small bits drifting down to that same spot near my navel, gradually gathering inside a larger pool of Essence I was only just starting to feel out.

I cracked open the failed shadow's chest, tore out its ribs, and munched down on them. Then, finally, I reached out for the heart.

I could feel something different the second my teeth met its flesh. A flush of Essence more potent than ever before surged into me, doubly so when I got halfway into the heart and found some kind of a small bead in there. Before I could even question the decision, I swallowed the small sphere. Then I moaned in delight and relief as Essence swamped my being, relentlessly pushing towards that pool I'd noticed earlier.

That was the last coherent thought I had for a while.

The rush of power and pleasure had completely pushed my mind past the edge. I couldn't focus on anything but frenzied feeding. When I finally stopped, I only did so because there was nothing left.

An entire shadow carcass, devoured whole in what was… less than ten minutes, if the clock attached to my HUD wasn't lying to me. I didn't know how that had happened.

Well, I did. I just desperately tried to block out the memories and the tar-stained sheets of the bed.

"Back with me yet?"

A strained voice snapped me back to awareness yet again, and I weakly chuckled in response. It was all I could do.

"Bad news," Amelia went on. "We need to work on your eating manners. Good news, you don't look like a crazed cannibal, because you're only stained by… tar, did you call it? Anyway, you need to do something about this scene. Now. I know they had some kind of lighter or whatever. We watched them smoke. Find it."

I numbly followed her directions, luxuriating in the calm of her orders even if her voice was still tense.

Find the lighter. Throw Rafe's body on the bed. Bundle it with some flammable shit, particularly the tarred-up sheets. Throw everything else that could give you away onto the pile. Extract credit chips and any useful bits of equipment, especially the weapons that fit in your large pockets.

Hack the fire alarm in the apartment. Turn off the sprinkler system and smoke detectors. Step back. Turn on the lighter. Get the sheets to catch fire.

As it turned out, shadow tar was highly flammable. It was very good that we figured that out sooner rather than later. The whole bundle went up in flames within seconds. I owlishly blinked at it once or twice before my brain finally kicked into gear and I started rushing out.

I only just remembered to properly loop the cameras so they wouldn't catch me. Covered in suspicious shit as I was, I'd definitely draw attention.

I tried to keep out of sight of everyone as I hurried to an elevator. It was Amelia's idea, however, that I should ride up to a higher floor, then let myself into one of the rooms listed as 'unoccupied' with a quick use of the breach quickhack.

Once inside, I immediately bustled over to the shower. Running the water as hot as I could bear, I tore my clothes off and scrubbed first at my skin, then at the outfit itself. I felt a jolt of annoyance that I hadn't thought to, you know, empty the pockets first. But if the water ruined anything, I could deal with it later.

Much cleaner, if a little drippy, I let myself back out of the apartment and took an elevator down. The lobby was rapidly emptying of customers as cops and firefighters rushed in. I tried to act as oblivious and panicked as everyone else.

No one stopped me, which honestly came as a bit of a shock. No one really paid attention to me at all. No one had a reason to.

It was this fact that I kept repeating to myself, over and over again, as I finally made it out of the building and stiffly power-walked over to Rafe's motorcycle. I wasn't going to leave it behind. It was the most valuable piece of physical loot I'd gotten out of the whole mess, and I was pretty sure one of the chips I had extracted from his port was a key to the bike.

Realizing I had no more reason to keep delaying, however, I steeled myself to finally learn if the whole thing was worth it.

With a deep breath, I pulled up my Reality Enhancement software.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.