The Eden Projects (EDITING)

Chapter 55. The Devils Breath.

- Kasper -

When Kasper awoke, it was like being born again.

Everything was new. Everything. Everything. His body ached and thrummed in ways it never had before, and something clouded his vision. It was all a murk of blurring color. His body was charged. Lightning ripped through his nerves, deadening their ends and then he had no end. He was the floor, the dirt, the sky, the air. The worms and crawling things, he was buried, and pulled back to life. A life left better ended.

Then he was up, he'd been here before, feet numbly marching him towards the stairs with a mechanical stride. If music played, it would have been slow and muffled, something bitter and sweet all at once. The sweeping arm holding a scythe. Smooth and complete. He was dead, and now, he was alive.

Cold...

He couldn't remember the last time he had been so hungry in his life and when he felt at his stomach and chest nothing stopped his hand from pressing to the bone. He felt the bitter warmth of mucky internals slip against his fingers. His insides were on the outside and someone was yelling.

Focus... Focus.

One foot over the other. 

He was seeing things. Trees, faces, walls, flashes, flashes of times long ago. 

He was hearing things. Voices, birdcalls, and screaming. Gunfire. Something like water lapping at his back. 

A hand, he felt the ghost of it graze his cheek, a hand he'd felt before but never in that way. It was different. He was different.

Wake up...

Kasper's walls opened up and he saw Him. -is this a dream? He felt like screaming, but everything was numb and he couldn't make a sound. So he stared, hoping Zak could see him trapped and when he thought nothing could keep him there the door opened, and Zak spoke.

"Save us. Please."

It all made sense.

Always.

He was moving fast, faster than he ever had. 

It was then he realized, he wasn't breathing. He didn't need to. Something had done it for him and now all he had to do was run. Run. Through the door, and across the porch. Down, down, down and into whatever stood waiting for him. He was alive. Alive. Nothing could stop him. It was all a dance of toy soldiers, and glass ballerinas. Gauzy dresses and intricate uniforms. Red, black, and paisley. Muzzle flashes carrying him along in a crescendoing sweep. 

He was hungry for it all, their heat, their lives, their blood. It slicked his chin and chest: caught up on the spiking scales along his arms. None of it mattered. He was an animal starving at a banquet. Uninvited and lapping up his fill and all he saw was them. All of them. All the seconds between the sighs and laughter. The moments before you fell away into sleep. The minutes when its hold began to slip. He was there. He felt nothing. Not the wind, not the warmth. Nothing.

Was it all a dream...

He was dead.

He felt nothing.

Something stung his side in a familiarly chilling way. It was something he had felt before. It blew him sideways and he felt his body repair whatever damage it had done.

It's a dream...

Then he was on them. One man at a time, tearing through them faster than his hands could grab, some had faces, others had none by the time he had cleared through them. Swallow. It was hard to do when your hands fed you without giving you a moment to breathe but he did and with it, the fire inside of him was stoked to a blaze. He turned, ready for the next, and someone rammed him hard enough to knock him flat. He felt the bones on his side give way and reform in rapid succession as he pulled himself up. His ears were ringing, and finally, his senseless world had sound. "Hh-" He panted. Swallowing down the last chunk of flesh he held in his jaws. "You-"