The Eden Projects (FINAL EDITING)

Chapter 46. Bridges Burned.

- Kasper -

Move on... how...

Kasper paced back and forth in their new quarters. 

This isn't how it was supposed to be.

Zak and himself would share a room just as they always did. From what remained in the ways of furniture revealed the space as an office at one point. He didn't care. A room was a room, was a room. They were all the same. Four walls, a door, and some kind of window in some kind of manmade shape. 

He was anxious. Zak hadn't moved and even though Ace had told him he wouldn't, it still unnerved him. Zak was never still. It was such an unnatural thing to see him so unmoving and ghostly. Even when he slept, he would toss and turn and shift through the night. Kasper had watched him do it again and again. Over and over until he was sure that Zak wasn't ever fully rested. So this was strange in every sense of the word.

"Get food for him..." He settled down at the edge of a filing cabinet-desk set. "-the hell am I supposed to do that." He was exhausted. There was no way he would be doing any hunting on his own until he himself had something to eat. Even if it was for a friend. Kasper reached for his bag and rummaged through its contents until he had found a knife. Does it have to be human? For a moment he considered the dog. I can do that. It would be easy enough. He thought of how it might feel to kill it, could he really stop himself from consuming it before it so much as reached Zak... No I can't do that. It hit him then.

"Do I count..." He turned the knife on himself, the glint of the blade catching the light as he contemplated. "If I can keep the cut open..." He shuffled to Zak, heart racing, and positioned his bare arm over Zak's face. "Same difference, right? Blood is blood." For only a few seconds, Kasper thought it funny that this is where life had led them. Instead of himself feasting on Zak, it was the other way around entirely. Then again, he'd already devoured Zak in more ways than one. 

Without a second thought, Kasper began cutting, each slice deeper than the last, flexing his hand with each venture until blood began to run freely, pooling and dripping onto the sheet just shy of Zak's head. A dampened pain was radiating up into his shoulder. He dropped the knife when the wound gaped with an unnatural pulsing and stuck a finger in. "That's right, stay open. This is gonna taste like shit." Using his elbow, he tilted Zak's head and pressed the bleeding wound to his unconscious lips. 

This is so stupid. 

Almost instantly Zak's body reacted. With a sudden lurch, he bit down. Kasper grimaced as Zak's teeth retracted and repositioned, his tongue lapping eagerly at the cut, taking in all that could be given. "Gh- oww-" Black lines streaked up Zak's neck and face, the dark pattern pulsed and a soft moan snuck out between gasping slurps. Kasper put a shaky hand behind Zak's head, holding him in place. One of Zak's arms drifted up, fingers curling around Kasper's arm, holding him there. "Slow down-" Kasper's breath caught in his throat when Zak tore away a strip of his flesh. This is how it feel... He felt Zak's teeth grate against his bone and it nearly buckled him. His knees hit the edge of the bed and his vision blurred. Am I crying? He felt the chill of icy tears on his skin. Does it hurt that bad? 

"That good huh." Kasper muttered. Feeling the tug of Zak's mouth again and again. One of his fingers sprang towards his palm like a rubber band when Zak snapped one of the tendons. 

When he had chewed a significant sized hole, Kasper moved his finger and wiped up the bloody dribble from his friend's cheek. He wondered when it would be enough, he wondered how much he could give before he himself gave in, and he wondered if he could fight Zak off without killing him now. Does he know what's happening... and for the most fleeting of slips Kasper thought just maybe they could feed off each other in an endless loop. Bite for bite, and drop for drop. Giving and taking and giving again. Stripping the nutrients out of each other like a snake eating its own tail. So was the life of a parasite.