The Sleepwalker

Part Three: 1̶̜͎̌͌1̶͎̅

Aware


The purple creature prowled the halls on all fours, pausing every once and a while to just listen to the quiet. Poor eyesight slightly hindered his movement, but his hearing and sense of smell was excellent, so he could hear the incoherent and quiet mumblings of multiple Agents who had lost their memories and minds around him. Among other ways of knowing where he is, he constantly tapped his forefinger's claw against the floor as a form of echolocation, not unlike a blind man and his cane.

Though he had already eaten his five-course meal, complete with metal toothpicks in the shape of a forearm and hand, Aware was hunting a different type of prey now. One that could offer more than a full belly.

After consuming the Polybius machine, he found himself enjoying an array of new... things. At first, he only heard thousands of voices in his head, each indistinguishable from his own, and it drove him to the brink of madness, further than he'd ever gone on his own before, but he soon learned to shut them all out and tune into one at a time, effectively giving him the ability to read minds. He knew now that by consuming more divergences, his abilities would grow until he was unstoppable. It made him feel... powerful. The surge of strength after killing...

He liked it.

He wanted it.

He needed it.

There was suddenly a noise from around a corner. Aware stayed silent but didn't stop his slow crawl forward, or his tapping noise lest he walk into a wall. More noises from down the hall followed, each sounding like a whimper mixed with a low scream. Aware was fully aware of what was making this noise, and was not surprised to turn the corner and see in Aware's usual dim, half-blind state, an Agent floating mid-air, arms and legs splayed out. White smoke came from his mouth and disappeared somewhere above him, where the air seemed to get darker.

Aware gave a toothy grin and stood on his back legs. His prey gave no indication that it knew Aware was behind it, until it dropped the Agent and seemed to spin around to face Aware.

"They call you the Amnesiac." Aware said, voice sounding guttural, loud, and scratchy, as if it were coming from the arcade machine's old speakers. It was terrifying nonetheless. "I now know why. I thought you just had to hover over to take memories... looks like you eat them as well."

The Amnesiac screeched like a bird in reply, still invisible.

"That was not nice at all." Aware scratched his claws on the metal tiles below carelessly as he spoke. "I was merely asking about your... unique abilities. Tell me, what do you see?"

Aware saw the shadow begin to move, so he quickly pounced forward and used his claws to grip the creature by what he guessed was the neck. The Amnesiac shrieked again and Aware felt talons rip at his flesh, but he paid the pain no mind and in turn he held on tighter and squeezed.

"Congratulations! I will relieve you of this burden called life... please do not resist." Aware said with a smile, enjoying the thrill like a psycho. "It will only make it worse for you..."

The fight was over quickly and the invisible creature stopped its attacks with a quick pop of the spinal cord. The brain, now shut off from the rest of the body, stopped telling the heart to beat and the lungs to breathe. It was one of the Sleepwalker's many favorite methods of killing. Just a quick snap and it was a one way ticket to the Reaper.

Aware smiled as he began to pat around the creature, feeling around for a specific part of it. The Amnesiac felt almost like a bird, with feathery wings and beak-like face, but what Aware was after was located in the head.

Or more specifically, the single eye socket right above the beak. It was difficult to locate, but easy to tear the eyeball right out of the creature's corpse and place it right in the center of Aware's own head. The purple flesh shot out small tendrils and impaled the invisible ball, sucking it into his forehead, making sort of a donut hole in the middle of his face.

His sight was restored almost immediately. The blurriness he had lived with before had now sharpened into a yellow-tinted heaven. Aware was left stunned at all the never before-seen visuals. Colors were still nonexistent to him, but being color-blind was still better than being completely blind.

"It's... it is all so amazing!" He said to himself, still looking around at the somewhat bland but still better-than-before hallway. Suddenly, an Agent began walking down the corridor looking dazed and oblivious to Aware.

"Where am I? What... what are you?" She asked in an insecure voice, like a child telling her mother about the broken vase. Aware's answer was to smile at the easy meal. "You don't look..."

"I advise you to choose your next words very carefully." Aware growled, but he found it was hard to be angry when you could see everything.

The Agent gulped. "Who are you?

The monster smiled. "The name's Aware. Clever as the Devil and twice as pretty."

The Agent didn't move; she was most likely frozen in fear. So Aware began a slow approach.

"I'm going to kill you. Because I'm a monster." He leaned his face in real close, close enough that she could undoubtedly smell her friends on his teeth. "And we know all too well that monsters don't sleep under our beds, monsters sleep inside our heads. But I'll save you from yours, my dear. I'll save you..."

Her death was quick. He watched it all with glee.