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southstardrabbles · 7 months ago

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storm front #1 - a new normal

content: very brief mentions of violence/cannibalism, mentions of a previous lab setting, some implications of human experimentation

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For weeks, hunger has been the only constant. Gnawing and restless and bone-deep, a particularly strong pang of it forces Nightfall awake. He cracks an eye open as if hoping that his surroundings might have changed while he slept.

The only change, of course, is the light. The last rays of sun filter through the trees, casting long shadows over the forest floor as daylight slips away. He lays there and watches it for a moment, curled in on himself to conserve warmth.

At times, he’s wondered if he should go back to the lab, if they’d even allow him. Could he just crawl back and hope the guards wouldn’t shoot him on sight? Could he limp back to safety with his tail between his legs and submit himself to their judgment again? Something ugly in his chest twists at the idea—whether it’s because he’s too proud or too stubborn, he refuses to entertain the thought for too long. Regardless, Nightfall remembers enough of the carnage from that night to know that even if they accepted him, things could never be the same.

But even when he resigns himself to this new existence, it still leaves the question of survival. In the weeks that have passed since his escape he’s only eaten twice: the unfortunate nurse who tried to stick him with a sedative, and then weeks later, an injured deer on the side of some nameless country road. All that matters is that it hasn’t been enough. He’s running on fumes as it is.

Everything is only made worse when he's forced to confront the fact that he underestimated how difficult it would be to find food. He’s long since lost his taste for plants, and hunting is even worse. He’s yet to get used to this strange body, a body primed for violence but lacking the speed and agility he needs to fend for himself.

But his senses are still sharp. While he’s still breathing, he’s still alive. He can pull himself together one more time.

It takes him a moment to recognize the sound of footsteps, then a second longer for his reflexes to decide whether he should consider it food or danger. By the time he’s even sat up, though, the stranger comes into sight. Though he instinctively pulls down the hood of his jacket to keep some sense of normalcy—pass himself off as some homeless person looking for a place to sleep—she’s already gotten a look at his face and he’s gotten a look at hers.

The stranger is a tall, slender figure with warm brown eyes. Unlike him, she’s dressed for the weather—a thick jacket, gloves, and a scarf draped loosely around her shoulders like a contingency. A large knife sits in a leather sheath at her hip. She looks at him and she smiles.

“Hey… are you alright?”

He stares at her blankly. Is he hallucinating?

“Sorry, I was just passing through... you look pretty rough. Do you need help?”

His answer is a simple reflex. “Do you have anything to eat?” His mouth is hopelessly dry—when he speaks it's hardly even a whisper. But if she has anything, anything to eat, even just a few scraps, he’s more than happy to overlook her total disregard for his appearance.

“Not here,” she says with a shake of her head, “but I have plenty back at my house.” She pauses, looks him over, and adds, “You can come with me if you’d like. You must be freezing.”

“Please.” He sounds a lot more desperate than he’d like to admit, but she’s already offering him a hand—a hand he readily accepts, the first human contact he's felt in months.

“Alright, alright, come with me.” She chuckles and helps Nightfall to his feet, then keeps walking without even bothering to give him a second glance over her shoulder.

He follows her, of course. How could he not? Trailing along behind her like a massive shadow, he stares at the back of her head and thinks. She’s something different yet so familiar, something he vaguely remembers from a lifetime ago—a lifetime of faces and voices that have since been erased, leaving nothing for him but the most basic idea of how to be a person.

He’s not a person anymore, not really. He’s been relegated to his instincts, hiding away from prying eyes, but even as an animal he doesn’t know how to live. Maybe she sees that in him, the need for some kind of foothold. If he can just start again, get a better hand dealt to him…

“Mind if I ask your name, by the way?” The stranger’s voice is soft, but it cuts through the silence like a razor.

He stops, thinks, sorts through his memories and comes back with nothing. All that remains is the most basic identification they gave him—a project name and a number branded into his skin with red ink. But it’s all he has.

“Nightfall,” he finally murmurs. “You can call me Nightfall.”

She hums and nods in approval, tucking her hands into her pockets. “I’m Rain. Nice to meet you.”

“I… yeah.” He itches with the urge to reach out, shake her hand or something, remind himself that this is real, but she’s keeping a pace that won’t let him hesitate for a moment without falling behind. “Nice to meet you too.”

---

There’s effectively no conversation for the rest of the walk—for Nightfall it’s agonizing, but Rain seems comfortable enough in the silence. When she unlocks the door to the front of her house and lets him in, it suddenly occurs to him how long it’s been since he’s been inside a house at all. He stands there, waiting, as Rain shuts the door behind them and drops her keys on a small table nearby.

For a house in effectively the middle of nowhere, it’s a pretty nice place: warm, spacious, well-furnished. It smells of wood and fresh spices and at least from the entryway, everything seems spotless. Nothing out of place.

“Don’t just stand there,” Rain chuckles with a gentle nudge to his arm, “come on. Settle down and I’ll get you something to eat, okay?”

It’s tough for Nightfall to pinpoint, but that might be the exact moment that everything kicks in. After weeks of clinging on by a thread, after countless days of trying to go through the motions, it’s over. His body practically moves on autopilot as he walks to the living room and collapses onto the couch.

Even though he’s only been awake for a short while, the exhaustion in his system is nothing short of bone-deep. It’s the kind he knows sleep can’t fix, a tiredness he remembers from a lifetime ago, perhaps one that never left him to begin with. Sleep still tempts him, but he forces himself to stare at the ceiling and listen to the sounds of Rain preparing something in the adjacent room. She hums quietly to herself, some tune he doesn’t recognize accompanied by the occasional sound of dishes or silverware clinking.

After a few minutes Rain comes back into the living room—the meal she’s prepared is simple to say the least, but Nightfall is willing to take whatever he's given. She hands him a bowl of soup and sets a glass of water on a side table, then sits on the other side of the couch to keep a comfortable distance.

“Don’t eat too fast,” she advises him. “I’m sure you’re starving, but if you have too much you’ll get sick.”

It's difficult to take her advice—god is it difficult, but he forces himself to pick away at the food bit by bit. Better to eat slowly than fuck it up and end up worse than he started. It doesn’t help that Rain is silent the entire time, just watching him eat. It's only once he finishes eating and starts nursing his drink at a more sensible pace that she finally says anything.

“So… what brings you around here?”

The answer comes from him a little too easily. “Didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Homeless?”

“Something like that.”

She hums thoughtfully and nods. “Well, you're welcome to crash here if you need a place to stay. I'd hate to let you freeze to death out there.”

Nightfall isn't sure if he's physically able to freeze to death, what with all the weird new features of his physiology, but he can't refuse the offer. He’d be an idiot to waste his one shot at a half-civilized life. Not to mention Rain seems… different. He still can’t figure out why the sight of him hasn’t scared her off. Maybe she knows something else that can help him.

“That… would be nice,” he finally whispers.

Rain smiles, leans over, and pats him on the shoulder. “Then you’re welcome to stay for as long as you’d like.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s no problem. Let’s go ahead and get you settled in, alright?” Rain stands up and gestures for him to follow. “I have a guest room ready upstairs that you’re free to use.”

The second floor of Rain’s house is just as meticulously kept as the first, small paintings and photographs hung throughout the hallways. Most of the doors here are shut, but the one at the end of the hall is slightly ajar and seems to open into some kind of office—Nightfall tries to get a better look inside, but Rain’s already leading him down a different turn before he gets to see anything. She stops in front of another open door, a large but sparsely decorated bedroom.

“I know it’s not much, but…” She smiles, looking a little embarrassed. “It should be fine for now. I can always go into town and fetch some decorations if you want.”

Nightfall stands in the doorway for a few long seconds. This, by all his standards, is all he could ever ask for. It’s a far cry from the shared quarters he used to be familiar with, dozens of people and dozens of bunk beds lined up in one long room. The idea that this is his, entirely private…

“It’s perfect,” he murmurs. “Thank you.”

“Go ahead and make yourself comfortable,” she tells him, starting to turn away. “I have a bit of work to finish up, but come talk to me if you need something, alright? I’ll be right down the hall.” Once he nods in agreement, she leaves without another word.

The first thing Nightfall does with his newfound free time is shower.

He sits under the spray for what feels like an eternity, dirt and grime slowly coming free from his hair, his skin, under the nails he’s let grow and sharpen into claws. He lets the water run until the heat colors his skin with blotches of red and the air thickens with steam, right on the verge of too much but still within the realm of comfort.

He feels lighter when he finally shuts the water off and steps out of the tub, wiping the condensation from the mirror. The figure that looks back at him… he had no idea what to expect, but it wasn’t this. He stares at the marks littering his body, the huge Y of silvery scar tissue sprawling across his chest. Though he can’t see the source of it in this lighting, he still feels the slow pulse of magic through his veins like a second heartbeat. For as long as he can clearly remember, it’s always been there. Always present. Always radiating a power he can’t hope to control.

He dries himself off and walks back to his room. The door to Rain’s office is closed now, but he can hear the faint murmur of conversation from behind it. He leaves it be.

With the sun finally sinking below the horizon outside, the only thing he can manage to do is lay down on his bed and close his eyes—just a bit of rest, he tells himself.

A few hours later, he wakes to the sound of shattering glass from downstairs.

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