Immediately Eric could no longer see or smell 34C, Eric burst out if his hiding place, running towards nowhere in particular.
But not fast enough.
He heard the growl first, low and sharp, like a blade dragged across stone. His nose hurt, his eyes felt like they needed to close for a long while, but Eric fought to keep them open. He needed to be awake and alert if he ever planned to escape from this hell hole. He listened again from the growl straining his ears...
Then out of nowhere, he felt he impact of another body colliding with his own.
34C slammed into him from behind and they both went down hard. Eric hit the floor shoulder-first, breath crushed out of him. He rolled, tried to scramble back, but the other boy was already on top of him, pinning him down like a predator that had done this before.
"You run like prey," 34C whispered, grinning. "But you smell like me."
Eric drove his elbow up and luckily caught 34C's jaw before he bit out a chunk of his arm. The older teen barely flinched, but remained determined.
He landed a punch to Eric's ribs, causing him instant, blinding pain. He gasped, coughing. Something cracked inside him. It had to be a rib. His previously pristine white hospital scrub was now stained with spots and splashes of blood.
He twisted, legs kicking until he got loose from the tight hold of subject 34C.
But 34C was fast. Too fast. He was laughing now. Enjoying it. He looked half crazy. Like the pain and the chase was his own sick idea of fun.
Eric's vision flickered at the edges. Colors merged in his brain, with images going in and out of focus. Seeing all that blood was not helping Eric's case either. The hunger surged, twisted, roared.
The hunger he felt became a living, breathing voice in his head. Speaking g to him. Whispering and then yelling.
"Let go."
"Do it"
"Feed."
"Rip him open and take what you need. You need it"
His teeth clenched. His hands flexed. Something in his spine popped.
He slammed his shoulder into 34C, flipping him. Got on top. His fingers curled around the other teen's throat.
The boy smiled, even as he choked. "There you go…"
Eric's hands trembled.
He could feel it.
How easy it would be to just squeeze.
How good it would feel.
The voice in his head was no longer a whisper. It was screaming.
"TAKE."
"Eric"
In the middle of the ruckus, Eric could also hear his name coming from somewhere close.
A new voice. Softer. Real.
"Eric."
His hands froze. He blinked. The voice called his name again, closer this time.
"Eric, stop."
His breathing hitched. 34C looked up at him, blinking slowly, still smiling.
"Don't let him win."
The words didn't come from the thing beneath him. They came from behind. He turned his head and saw her.
Elara. Mr Arthur's daughter.
Standing in the corridor. Lab coat stained, hair wild, eyes wide with something between fear and faith.
"You're still in there," she said.
Eric stared at her, shaking, hands still wrapped around the boy's neck.
"I...I... Elara, I was going to..." His voice cracked. "I wanted to-"
"But you didn't," she said.
And in that instant, Eric realized something terrifying and true. He could have. He could have ended the other boys life without a second thought.
While Eric stared up at Elara Arthur, he did not even noticed when Subject 34C scooted and then ran away. His eyes were trained on her as she walked slowly and tentatively towards him till she sat beside him on the floor.
The reminder of her name and who she was slammed into him. The resulting anger bubbled under his skin as he sat helpless on the floor beside her. The previous adrenaline ebbing away.
The silence sat between them like a loaded weapon.
Eric looked away from her, back to the floor. His shoulders rose and fell, slow and heavy. His jaw locked. His breath hissed through clenched teeth.
"You knew," he said, voice barely a whisper.
Elara blinked. "Eric-"
"No," he snapped, head whipping toward her. "Don't 'Eric' me." She froze.
His voice was low but sharp, cutting, not yelling. That made it worse. "You live in their house. You eat dinner with them. You told me you would be my family. You smiled at me like everything was fine, and the whole time…"
He gestured at his arms, his veins glowing underneath his dark skinned arms, his hands trembling. "You were in on this."
"I wasn't," she said quickly. "Not like that."
Eric stood up so fast the bench scraped the floor behind him. He paced to the far side of the room and pressed his fists into the wall. He didn't hit it. Not yet.
"But you knew they were doing something," he said. "Even if you didn't know the whole story, you knew. And you still let me go with them. You sat... You sat and let them do this to me."
"I thought they were helping you," she said, standing slowly. Her voice shook, but not from fear, from something closer to shame. "My dad told me they were giving kids a second chance. That they were… healing people."
He turned slowly, face hard. "Healing."
"I believed him."
Eric laughed. His laugh was short, bitter. "I trusted you."
"I didn't know what this place really was until I started noticing the kids who never came back," she said. "I cared for all of them, but eveytime Dad took them for treatment, they never came back home. At first he told me they'd been adopted out of state. Then he stopped answering altogether."
She stepped forward, slow.
"I stole his credentials. Broke into the restricted lab. I found their logs. Their charts. Yours."
Eric's face twitched. "You read about me?"
Elara nodded. "You weren't just a name. Mum a d Dad were watching your DNA from the day you moved in. Planning to activate your mutation within the week."
He turned back to the wall, hands spread against the steel. "So why'd you wait?"
Her voice cracked. "Because I didn't know how to stop it. You think I could walk up to him and say, 'Hey Dad, stop turning foster kids into monsters'? I couldn't even find out where they kept you until it was too late."
He didn't move.
"You were the first one I could reach," she said, quietly. "I failed the others. I'm trying not to fail you."
Eric didn't speak for a long moment.
Then, quietly he spoke, his voice shaking. "Do you think I'm one of them now?"
"No," she said, instantly.
His fists clenched. "I feel like one of them. A monster"
"No. No, Eric. You feel like someone who's still fighting."
Eric looked at her. Really looked. And for a split second, his guard faltered. Beneath the glow in his eyes, the shaking hands, the wild heat running through his body. He just looked tired.
"You're the reason this happened," he said.
" I know."
"And now you want to fix it."
"I want to help you survive it," she said.
"Survive?"
"Yes, Eric. Survive. You can fight this. Please try. If I loose you too like the others, I'll go crazy!"
You can't survive this. The voice in his head said.
You can't fight it. You won't win... Give in. GIVE IN.