This place is at once foreign and familiar. All appears to be blanketed in darkness, but there seems to be no shortness of light here. Figures seem to dart past, and are almost discernible in periphery, but to look for them is to wonder if they were ever there at all. The landscape, the flora and the fauna, this whole environment is like nothing seen elsewhere, but nothing seems out of place; it would all likely feel alien if concentrated upon, but there are more pressing matters at hand, and so the surroundings remain natural enough to be inconsequential.
I wade through the shallows of a great sea whose existence I only just noticed, and I am as naked as I was the day I was born. I was born, was I not? It doesn't seem to particularly matter. I am striding slowly toward a small island in the distance. Its sands are bright, but not like the white that tropical sand might be, or, in truth, like any sort of sand I have seen before. A handful of trees sway gently there, though I cannot feel a breeze.
I hear snarls of rage and of pain as I trudge closer to the island. It looms larger in my view, and I see a great battle taking place upon its sandy surface. Indescribable creatures are pouring onto the land from the sea from every direction--even from behind me, I realize. They swim around me, ignoring me, but I know they are not unaware of my presence. They are not sharks but they move with the same air of ferocity and cruelty, every fiber of their beings emanating the imminent havoc they will wreak.
The creatures climb onto the island and immediately begin to attack smaller group in the island's center, though who or what they are fighting I cannot tell. As I make my way up the shore myself I can see that these creatures are joining many who are already on the island, who were already carrying out what I can only assume is some sort of great hunt. Whatever is being fought must be some great and terrible beast for the creatures to be outnumbering it so vastly.
My footsteps on the sand are startling: this is like no sand I have ever encountered before. It is at once both coarse and soft, cold and warm, and more so of each extreme than I have ever felt on a beach. I step into the fray, making my way to the center, but I remain ignored by the creatures around me. Then I see what is being attacked, and I cannot understand it.
These creatures, these perfect predators that came from the water with such menace, are attacking creatures of their own kind. The ones under attack are physically the same, obviously the same bizarre species, but it soon becomes apparent that there is a key difference. The ones who emerged from the island's edges are filed with rage, with hate, with spite and with venom. The ones under attack are filled with rage just the same, but I can feel something else from them. They radiate a sense of purpose, of pride, and of dignity. The attackers are fighting against something; the attacked are fighting for something. I know that this difference means everything.
I remain ignored and continue through the fray like a ghost. As I walk several paces away from the scrum I realize, to my shock, that I have been here before. I know I have never set foot upon this spot, but at the same time I know that I am not arriving here, but returning. Here, I was torn open. Here, my skin and my veins were open, and I fled. Somehow I feel that this memory, though vague, is true, and that it will be the last time I would run from combat for a long time.
Something warm runs slowly down my chest, and I look down. That scar, suffered that day, has opened and seeps slowly. It is not blood that escapes from the wound but something else; what it is, I cannot tell. I catch some in my hand and it glistens on my fingers, and I watch a drop fall from my fingertip to the sand. I hear the fighting far behind me suddenly stop. I turn to see why.
Each creature involved in the battle is now looking my way. The ones that were attacking bare their teeth at me and snarl, slowly pacing my way like they might stalk potentially dangerous prey. The ones that were being attacked seem to confer with one another momentarily, then bound in my direction, seeming to do all in their power to be the first to reach me.
My oozing scar itches. I try to ignore it but it is too much to bear, and I scratch at it furiously. My fingernails are sharp and ragged now, but I do not notice, nor do I notice the bits of flesh that I am tearing off. It just itches so much. The murderous creatures coming toward me are now little more than an afterthought; I feel like if I cannot satisfy this itch, I will surely die. I believe that I have felt this itch all my life, but for some reason it is only coming to a head now. My fingers are longer now, and my fingernails are smoother, more claws than the nails the were, but that itch just won't stop. I keep ripping off chunks of my own skin, and it starts to feel better and better and better. So I keep scratching.
Finally it stops. I look at myself, and I discover that I am one of the creatures that have been around me all this time. And they continue to come for me, and I am not scared. I am hungry.
I am so hungry.
-:-:-||=||-:-:-
Wally woke up terrified, gasping for breath and trying desperately to regain a familiarity with his surroundings. He glanced over at the clock. 2:41 am. Shit. He sat up slowly, his head pounding. He couldn't tell if he was still drunk or if he was transitioning into a hangover. Either way, he reasoned with surprising clarity for the state he was in, some fresh air would do me some good. He slipped his jeans on quietly, doing his best not to disturb--Sheila? Shelly? Sarah?--the girl still passed out in the bed. Not that he could wake her if he wanted to; Wally just didn't want her falling out of bed and hurting herself.
He slipped his shoes on and made his way to the door, leaving his shirt behind. He'd be back in that bed in a minute anyway. Wally would have preferred to get back to his own place if he could, but he was in no condition to be riding a motorcycle anywhere, and certainly not all the way back to Davis. He almost hadn't come to this party tonight--he was reluctant to come to Sacramento at all if he didn't have to, ever since he got jumped in that parking lot--but half the team was going and the girls were supposed to be fine as hell. He chuckled softly on his way out the apartment door, thinking about the semiconscious girl still in bed. The girls had been fine, alright.
He wandered down the hall of the apartment building trying to find a staircase. He wasn't sure of how he had gotten here in the first place, much less the building's layout. The last thing he remembered was riding a bus with this girl who was probably Sarah, getting off to get pizza, then hooking up in an alley for a bit. Wally was relieved the night hadn't ended there, but it wouldn't have been the first time he had fucked a girl in an alley.
Bits and pieces of his dream started coming back to him as he made his way down the stairs. It was a little troubling, but not too bad; bits and pieces were usually all he'd get from one of those dreams. Wally had been having these strange dreams even more frequently in the weeks since that altercation downtown, but he never remembered much of them. In fact, he only really knew that they were one of those dreams because of the sense of ominousness he always woke up with, and a few common things he would remember. Many attacking few. A change. And that itch.
The itch part especially didn't make sense. His cut had actually healed rather quickly, leaving a barely discernible scar about six inches long right across his sternum, seeming to point from his left shoulder to his right armpit. Probably-Sarah had told him it was sexy. Wally had told her to shut up and get naked.
Wally reached the bottom of the stairs and walked through the small lobby of the apartment building. He passed the wall of mailboxes on the left and grabbed a phone book from a stack near the corner. The door locked from the inside, and he would need a key or someone to buzz him back in to gain reentry, but that was what the phone book was for. He propped it in between the doorframe and the door itself and stepped out to the sidewalk, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He felt something there, pulled it out, and laughed a little. I knew there was a reason a saved this, he thought with amusement, and he stuck the newly rediscovered spliff between his lips and fished for a lighter in his pocket. It, too, was there. Wally lit it and took a long drag. All he needed was a minute to clear his head.
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