I watched a man die tonight. I watched a man die and the date wasn't even that good. Well, it was okay. Painfully average really. They were cute. Nice tattoos. And the dinner itself was okay, cheap sandwiches from a hole in the wall vegan kitchen, sliced tough soy protein drenched in sauce and leaves. We held hands in then rain and laughed and I wanted to kiss them but I wanted to go home more. And I slipped away, a small goodbye already fading in my ears, hood back up, the darkness taking me as I slipped through the shadows.
The station was essentially empty, just me, the angry guy pacing, a homeless man sitting against a wall, and the woman on the other side of the tracks. I sat crosslegged on the bench, my knees hemmed in tightly by the walls designed to stop anyone from lying down. I met the eyes of the angry man for just a moment and saw in them something terrifying. They were full of anger. He spat at me and turned away, heading for the other end of the platform.
A train pulled in on the other side and the woman was gone. The homeless man sighed. Time crawled by. The pacer, muttering to himself, pawed something shiny, a round object passed hand to hand, tossed up and down and caught. It was almost mesmerizing. My eyes kept drawing towards it focusing on it, how silvery it was, how it caught the light. It was pretty. The polar opposite of his ugly face, screwed up and miserable. I shuffled a little deeper into my thick cloak, the cold chill of the November air penetrating even the tunnels.
His meaningless pacing had taken him back over to me when the train whipped through the tunnels and stood motionless before us. We boarded the same car through separate doors, neither deigning to glance at the other. His movements took on an almost feverish intensity as he huddled into a seat. We were the only two in this car.
The usual blur of stations slipped by. Music drowned out the rumble of the tracks and I counted the lights in the passages in time to the beats of the song, the sad crooning of a lonely woman keeping my company. I didn't really want to go home. I didn't want to be alone. I wanted to be held. I could've fucked them, I was pretty sure. I could see it in their hungry eyes, in the lingering of their hands, in the subtle bend forwards. They were practically begging me to stay, to keep them warm all night. I could've. I was lonely enough. But more than anything, I wanted to be loved. I wanted to feel safe. I glanced at the man again. He was staring at me, that familiar hunger in his eyes.
Shit. I fingered the knife in my pocket, comforting and large. The handle, worn and smooth fit my fingers cleanly. No one could hurt me. No one would ever hurt me again. I sighed and wrenched my gaze upwards, eyes half lidded, one fumbling hand muting the music so I could hear. The car was silent. Just us and the voice occasionally calling the stations neither of us got off at. How long would he ride for? How long would I? Would I get off at my own stop? I didn't have that long to decide.
The lights flickered once.
The train hissed to a dull stop. It held still for a long moment. Just as the doors began to close, a third passenger slipped in, body turned sideways to fit, head buried deep in the darkness of a massive black hood, a sleeveless coat swaddling their body. I stared. Of their bare arms, pale and trailing, one was carved with thousands of intricate tattoos. I couldn't tell where they started or ended, but they were gorgeous and fascinating. The newcomer stood in the middle of the car and turned to me. Something deep in that hood almost seemed to glow and I tiled my head sideways slightly in recognition.
The angry man stood too and the two faced each other, the length of the car between them. The train hissed once, engines pumped and wheels squealing as it accelerated. There was something new in the man's face. Fear, I think. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but didn't. I huddled deeper into my seat. There was a tension in the air. The rumbling of the tracks faded away, the tunnels giving way to a deeper void. Every nerve in my body said to run.
A single eye, red and glowing lit up from somewhere within the left of the hood. The thing spoke with a voice alike the depths of the deepest lake, "Atreya of the Third Circle, you have taken something which is not yours."
He spat. "What's it to you, outsider?"
Dozens more eyes, red and angry, more than could possibly fit inside that cavernous darkness lit up. Space seemed to fold and bend to contain them all, my brain insistent that there were hundreds, no thousands, all distinct and countable, all coexisting peaceably on the right side of the hood. "A friend asked for help.
"I can pay you!", he hissed.
It blinked with all ten thousand right eyes at once. "I do not use money", it said, and then started walking forwards.
"Ah!", he cried, "you cannot touch me!"
It paused and waited for Atreya to finish.
He displayed his stolen silver sphere proudly, "I claim the sanctity of the ground. None of the oath may touch me."
The thing took one stop forwards and whispered, "I swore no oaths."
And then the world stopped.
Atreya bore aloft a gun, bullets zooming towards, the sound rocking outwards in great dark waves, the glass windows of the train shattering with the force, the liquid darkness rushing in and plunging us underwater, the hood falling off the implacable beast, the tangle of infinity that made up its head laughing and laughing and laughing.
Atreya was running now, up the length of the car, dancing between the slamming tendrils of life hitting the walls. He ducked and twisted and bucked, as the car folded inwards, the walls collapsing, the car crumpling, the seats bending to form and angry storm.
The tunnel flew by and then we were in a station, dozens of versions of the cloaked figure standing on the platform, all applauding, all laughing, all human in face and not at all in body, made of madness and laughter and the voices of the damned. It was hissing and it was crying and I was hissing and I was crying and blood was streaming from my eyes and ears and I pressed my hands to my face but my fingers were falling off and the thing, no the things, no the thing, no its terrifying eyes were open, were staring at me, were inside me and I blinked with all 184 of my own eyes, watching from all angels as I saw it all.
Atreya was rolling, he was twisting, the blades were cutting, blood, black and acidic, was ripping outwards, it was a tidal wave, it was clashing with the darkness, it was filling my eyes, it was in my mouth, it was all I could taste, the angry metal of his gun forcing its way through my lips, the trigger pulled, my brain exploding into a cloud of skullbones and nerves, nerves on fire, nerves spread over the whole of the station like ropes to hold the ceiling on, because gravity was fighting us, because it threatened to pull me away, because I could see the storm that was the hunter, because I was part of the swarm, because I was never human, because I had failed to exist, because my knife was in my hands, and in my arms, and in my stomach, and I was chewing on the metal walls of the train, and the walls were not metal but bone, and they were not bone, but great teeth, and the car wrenched open, a great mouth, tongue licking, trailing between the razor sharp fangs,
and in the middle of it all, the victim, whose name was already lost to the winds, was crying and I felt sorry for him, and the mouth was closing around us both, and the beast was hungry, and the beast was the train, and the beast numbered in the thousands, and I still had too many hands, and all of them were digging nails into my back, and the teeth closed deeper, and I was no longer whole, and we were lost and
And there was a hand on my back. The robotically feminine voice confidently declared we were approaching my station. I blinked and we were, the train pulling in slowly. The hunter stood beside me, a hand rubbing my back. Its hood was up still, nothing inside but the darkness, that beautiful darkness. I shook a little. Time slowed down for a moment.
"I'm sorry", it said. "I did not see you there."
"It's okay", I whispered, my voice still full of teeth.
It nodded. "If you have any aftereffects", it responded, "please call me. I can help." A tattoo, a single word written in black ink slid down it's arm and disappeared into my back. I felt it etch itself in my skin, a worm crawling beneath me, wriggling until it found a nest in the nape of my neck, comfortably curling around my collarbones.
"Okay", I said quietly and got up to leave.
The victim was curled in a ball on the floor, blood leaking from his eyes. His stolen gem had rolled from outstretched fingers. As I left the car, I turned back and watched one tattooed hand grab it. The figure, dressed in black, held outstretched its other arm, pale, white, bare from marks. "Who wants it?", it asked.
I stepped off the train and the doors closed.
A toothy grin emerged from wrist to elbow, cracking open, sinuous tongue licking sharp teeth.
Whatever it said next was lost to the train pulling away.
I watched a man die tonight. I saw him crumpled on the floor, the last vestiges of his mind crawling away. I went home, keys rattling the door open, the bed familiar and filthy, the blankets never warm enough. I felt strange. I felt sad. I felt the name of an unknown monster burning around my neck, daring me to speak it. Daring me to ask. Would it be mad if I called? Was it lonely? I sure was.
The bathroom light hummed dimly as I studied the phrase. Was it really so simple? The word was sharp and angry on my tongue, both impossible to pronounce and yet endlessly familiar, the tattoo shifting to make the phrasing clear.
It hummed a little tune as I fell asleep and gently stroked my back with a million different arms. I slept that night in the arms of a monster. I slept in the arms of a monster and for once I was happy and safe.
To be continued???