Diamondback

6: Attic Adventures

"God, I'm gonna be late again to work..."

"Where is it?! I can't find my left shoe!"

"Oh! This is my JAM! Turn it up!"

"Is she serious? Ugh. Just smile and maybe she'll get the hint."

The next morning, I jolted awake in the middle of my living room with tattered bags of groceries, no memories of last night, and countless unfamiliar voices shouting in my head. No matter how far I dug my claws into my own skin, I couldn't turn it off. I couldn't turn the noise off. The scars my nails left quickly dissolved as if they were never there before. But the blood didn't disappear. Matter of fact, this blood...

This blood isn't mine.

Holding back an internal scream, I scrambled to my feet. The carpet beneath me was damp and red. Sickeningly red. I had been lying in a puddle of blood for God knows how long.

My mouth tasted like rusty iron.

Fighting the urge to regurgitate whatever I put in my stomach last night, I hurriedly licked the back of my hand to get rid of the taste. What did I do last night?

"Should I even step outside?! So many people died last night! Who knows if I could be next?!"

"I should call in sick. There's no way I'm leaving the safety of my house."

"I knew it! The apocalypse is coming! They said I was crazy! I was right!"

These voices. They're the voices of the Roseorn citizens.

"I thought I saw a monster! I did! I did! That thing was running around last night, killing everyone!"

"How many people did I kill..." I sighed to no one in particular.

"What was that?! Did somebody say something?!" An old man's voice began shouting the loudest amongst all of the noise in my head.

Am I...reading minds? When I was with Eliza, I never got to dig that far into my powers, so this was new. Without her gentle guidance, I was lost. "So can I talk to them?"

"Something's talking to me!"

"I'll take that as a yes. H-Hey, uh, sir? What's...What's going on?"

"Should I answer? Maybe! This could be my inner self-conscience! Hello, otherworldly being!"

"Yeah, yeah," Human contact. Right. Human contact. Just take it slow. "S-So, um, what's with the, uh, d-death going around?"

When I focused on just the old man's voice, all of the others seemed to fade away. "Well, there's some monster goin' around and slaughterin' and eatin' everybody!"

"E-Eating?" The iron taste in my mouth was becoming unbearable.

"Eatin'! We're in deep trouble!...Also, by any chance, are you my younger conscience?"

"Far from it. Ah, thank you, sir..." I tried focusing on my own thoughts and finally, everyone else's voices were outta my head.

Shit -- sorry -- crap.

I must've lost control last night when I blacked out. How many innocent people did I kill? How many innocent people did I...eat?

My tongue brushed past chunks of flesh stuck between my fangs.

Something I recognized as tips of cold, dismembered fingers.

Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew! Disgusting! Spit it out! Throw it away! Wash your mouth out! There is no way on this godforsaken earth that I'd-