Chapter Text
Avid doesn’t know if it’s Elle’s death or being away from home or this strange, creepy town and deep dark forest, but the thoughts are worse. He sees animals and even people as food. That thought horrifies him. He has to find a cure for… whatever this is. Not only are these thoughts louder now but it’s becoming harder not to act on them. He finds himself holding a chicken, about to break its neck, he drops it in a panic and something in his mind is disappointed that he didn’t kill it, that he didn’t eat it. He’s craving the blood, the raw flesh, he doesn’t know why, he doesn’t know how to make it stop, make it stop, MAKE IT STOP. His heart pounds and each beat hurts like there’s something inside it stopping the chambers from constricting like they’re supposed to.
His mind keeps flashing back to the horrible Thing in the woods. The incident is a blur but he remembers enough to know he should be terrified of the beast. Every time he thought about it his wound hurt even worse, his blood felt like it wasn’t his, it wasn’t him, HE wasn’t himself. He’s so scared that he’s going to hurt someone, that he won’t be able to control it, especially after he wakes up in the woods, not knowing what’s happened, covered in blood and feathers, having apparently eaten an entire chicken whole, bones and all. He tries to vomit but nothing comes out, just horrible retching. Something is blocking it in and he can’t make it STOP. He whimpers as the horrible pain in his stomach and his veins increases but there’s nothing he can do, he cant make it stop or go away.
He doesn’t know if he should go back to town or just stay out here and die or turn or whatever this thing is doing to him. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, he sobs and scratches at the horrible itching on his skin. His eyes widen as something scratches back. What was that. WHAT WAS THAT???? He recoils, trying to get away from his skin, away from the pulsing rippling skin on his arm as something moves. There’s something inside him.
Avid watches with absolute terror as his arm moves on its own, reaching for a discarded scrap of flesh from the chicken and bringing it to his mouth. He’s got no control as he opens his mouth and swallows the bite. Finally the thing in his arm goes still, but he just keeps staring at it. WHAT WAS THAT.
He retches again but again nothing comes up, there was something living in his skin he had to get it out he had to fix this he had to stop it he didn’t know what to do. He grabbed a pocket knife and sliced into his arm where the horrible pulsing thing had been but there was nothing but his flesh and blood inside him. The fear numbed the pain but he was still horrified at the sight of his own blood and more horrified at the hunger he felt looking at it. The beast in his body craved blood and flesh, and apparently it didn’t matter if it was his own. He didn’t know what was happening to him.
He choked back sobs as he tore a scrap of fabric from his shirt and tied his arm wound off, hoping the bleeding would stop but knowing he couldn’t stop whatever was inside him from doing this, from controlling him somehow from making him kill things…
Avid stumbled away from the town. He’d hurt them if he went back, he knew it now. He couldn’t do that to them, couldn’t let them see him like this, covered in blood, with whatever this was INSIDE HIM taking control. He had no control no control no control he had to get away from them he couldn’t hurt them, not again, not like Elle… The worst moment when he’d killed Elle was that her blood smelled good and he’d run, he’d had to run he couldn’t hurt her more he couldn’t hurt her again, couldn’t stop, stumbling through the woods for days. He’d thought he’d be safe in Oakhurst, that it would go away, GO AWAY but it had just gotten worse. His arm stung but he didn’t care, couldn’t think about that, couldn’t think about how good his blood smelled. It was HIS BLOOD how did it smell delicious how could he even THINK of that how could that HAPPEN.
Avid felt the horrible prickling crawling sensation in his other arm and stopped running, his breathing fast and shallow. He pulled his knife again, his hand shaking as he pulled up his sleeve to see his arm rippling again, the skin pushing up. Something sharp was in there, he could see from the way it poked up through his flesh. He didn’t think, just stabbed into his arm, screaming as he cut through tendons and flesh and bone. He could see something in there, inside him INSIDE HIM. He used the knife to pry the THING out of his arm, wincing as he saw his bones in the horrible deep gash he’d opened up. He flicked the creature out of his arm and shrieked again as he took in the grotesque sight. It was a SPIDER. IN HIS ARM.
Avid stomped frantically at the spider, not thinking anything, fear clouding his whole brain. He didn’t know what to do what had made this happen how to fix it how to stop it. Because he still felt that hunger, looking at the new wound in his other arm and even at the dead spider. He could feel the itching under his skin, all over his body, in his face, his legs, his chest, his heart. They were inside him and there was more than one, he knew it now. Spiders didn’t only lay one egg, they laid HUNDREDS. There were HUNDREDS of them.
Avid collapsed to the ground both from blood loss and from the crushing realization. He couldn’t live like this, couldn’t go home couldn’t go back to town couldn’t do anything to stop this. If he tried to get the spiders out he’d just kill himself he knew, but he couldn’t get help and couldn’t let them keep growing in there because they’d just take control of him and they’d make him hurt people and he couldn’t do that, not again, not again. Shelby and Drift and Cleo and Legs……. All the townsfolk, he couldn’t hurt them, he had to protect them from HIMSELF, from the spiders in his body.
Avid tried to lift his knife to his throat, he had to save them all from him, but his hand stopped a few inches away from his throat and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t move it closer, couldn’t end it, couldn’t save them. His eyes widened and he tried to fight as he dropped the knife and his body picked itself up and started to move, limp and heavy like a zombie, toward town. He couldn’t stop couldn’t stop couldn't stop he had to STOP how could he STOP he was going to hurt them, they were going to die and he couldn’t do anything about it he couldn’t STOP, he couldn’t STOP.
Avid collapsed again, this time completely involuntarily and he felt his skin all over his body move and felt the spiders pressing against his flesh, he could see them just beneath the skin on his arms. He let out a horrible keening wail as the first spider broke through his skin, the tiny legs poking through and squeezing its horrible jet-black body through, out of his skin. The spider scuttled away and soon more followed. But they didn’t all flee; some of them stayed, crowding around Avid’s limp body and starting to feed, to FEED ON HIM. He tried to move, tried to run, but all he could do was scream as the tiny fangs and mandibles chewed through his flesh and helped free the others, helped release them from him. Part of him was relieved, they were leaving, but he was terrified, they were eating him and he couldn’t stop it, somehow they’d paralyzed him and he could only scream, the sound ringing in his ears and making him unable to think, unable to feel anything but pain as his vision began to darken and turn a deep horrible red. He could feel the spiders crawling all over him, leaving his body, feeding on his arms his legs his face they were on his face. He realized the red he saw was blood, they’d bitten his face they were eating him. Then everything, mercifully, went dark as he passed out.