What Crawls Below

3 § Where the Hurt Is

Cyrus had a lot of spare time on his hands lately. What he normally would have filled with meditation and self-reflection had withered away into something darker; after all, he wasn't alone in his head any longer.

Whatever lived inside him now, it wasn't sentient, he was sure. It never interacted with Cyrus directly beyond expanding his bloodlust. He knew from his teachings souls were reused, but each one left remnants of what they were behind--shedding whatever darkness, or the opposite, that had tainted them back into the world. Each new birth was a new opportunity, the slate for that soul wiped clean...but all that leftover energy had to go somewhere. It had created Acheron, and now that the demon was dead, it was inside Cyrus.

Sometimes memories that were not his own, but still frighteningly familiar, invaded his head and clouded all other thought. Cyrus had no choice but to let them come, had no choice but to relive them as his own.

Had it been just like this for Acheron? As much as he hated to emphasize with him, Cyrus had to admit it was hard to tamp it down; after a while, their urges mixed with his until it was hard to remember what he himself truly wanted.

Cyrus awoke, curled up on a pile of newspapers somewhere down in the Brooklyn subway system. The remnants of the latest soul-induced memory still had his mind in a haze. As he became more alert, it became harder to recall, but the basic events he'd been dreaming of were still there. Instead of the strange prophetic scenes he'd been getting used to, he'd had a killing dream.

It left the taste of blood on his tongue. For several minutes Cyrus stayed on the ground, his entire body shaking. The winter chill had invaded the subway and seeped easily past his thin jacket, only making the tremors even more violent.

Then came a sound that made him freeze: heavy flesh being dragged across the cement followed by a hoarse snuffling.

It was enough to get Cyrus to his feet, bloodlust temporarily replaced by a surge of adrenaline. It was early morning; there were several people already down here with him, waiting a good distance away by the tracks for the next train. From behind him, in the total blackness, the sound was only growing louder.

This wasn't the first time the rogues had found him since he'd gone off on his own. If they had truly been a rare sight in the city before, Cyrus's new disposition must have drawn them in from whatever holes they'd lived in, hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Sometimes they were a welcome sight. It took nearly no effort on his part, no conscious thought, to totally incinerate one or two of the creatures at a time. Cyrus normally ended up passing out after these feats, but he was also normally alone.

Glancing back at the blissfully unaware people near the tracks, Cyrus took off in the other direction. He heard the hobbling, scraping footsteps follow, but he was faster, and he came upon a deserted bathroom before the creatures could catch up.

Maybe luck was on his side for once; there weren't many accessible restrooms left down in the subways. He slammed the door behind him and leaned against it, panting, knowing he had only bought himself a small amount of time to decide on his next course of action. It might have been in Cyrus's head--his vision was kinda wavering and his thoughts were an incoherent mess--but it seemed like the pale overhead lights flickered. The already grimy mirrors, coated in a generous layer of dust, seemed to fog up even further until Cyrus couldn't make out his own reflection in them.

Behind him came a tiny squeak. He turned just in time to see the door handle jiggle once, twice, before slowly pointing downward to the floor. With a click, the lock retracted and the door slid open a crack.

That was new.

Cyrus threw all of his weight into the door and it shut again, but another body began ramming into it on the other side. He only had a few seconds to marvel, and shudder, at the creatures' newfound intelligence. All the rogue reapers he'd seen up to this point were animalistic, slaves to their urges and about as smart as the rats that called this place their home. Since when did they have the mental capacity or forethought to open doors?