Chapter Text
It was a sunny day, the grass was greening, the sun was beaming and the sky was extremely blue. All the NRC students meandered in their usual paths, heading to class, their dorms or even outside to be with their friends (if they had any that is). However, that would’ve been the last happy day they’d experience. Kalim hesitantly wandered into the school’s cafeteria kitchen, expecting to find Jamil there. Though Jamil was not in sight, a familiar voice was humming something. Going further into the kitchen, he saw none other than Lilia Vanrouge. The old fae seemed to stirring something (which was never a good sign). That something had a certain foul stench that profusely attacked Kalim’s sense of everything, and altered his way of seeing life. Peering closer, he could see exactly why it smiled like that. Inside a metal pot was unpeeled whole onions, tomatoes, bananas, raw chicken legs and mushrooms all floating in a mysterious bloody red liquid. Kalim couldnt help but start to sweat uncontrollably and the hairs on his body stood up but he ventured closer.
“H..hey lilia!” Kalim started, rather cheery as usual but with a slight tinge of nervousness behind it all.
Like an owl, lilia does an uncanny 360 with just his head, turning around to look at kalim. His eyes were popped and blood shot and he wore this full smile. Red stains were on his apron but surely that was just the tomatoes! right? right, what else would it be if not tomatoes?
“Hey.. kalim” Lilia whispered, his voice shaky and high as he lifted a ladle into the pot and poured into a bowl offering it to Kalim, “would you like to try some soup?”
Kalim instinctively backed away, no way in the sevens was he gonna try THAT.
“Uhm.. no thanks. I only eat what Jamil makes. Actually, do you know where he is right now?”
”Oh? Dont worry. I made this..” Lilia looked down at the bowl in his dry pale hands, his smile stretching bigger and wider than before. “with Jamil”
Kalim visibly relaxed. If Lilia made it with Jamil, it should be safe! Albeit the appearance of the “soup” was definitely questionable, it couldve been a dish from a foreign land. He shouldnt be so quick to judge. With sweaty palms, Kalim took the bowl of soup and lifted it to his lips. A horrid taste filled his mouth as he blacked out of consciousness.
Kalim’s body began to stretch, in an unnatural way.
At first, it wasnt noticeable in the slightest. Something pulsed beneath his skin like a beating heart, as though an unknown entity had possessed him and took over his consciousness. His limbs lengthened by degrees, joints bending at angles that made them look almost dislocated before snapping back into place. His fingers curled in on themselves, knuckles twisting and protruding like ivy vines threatening to choke someone.Then his mouth began to move by itself. A movement he couldnt seem to stop or control. Kalim’s head jerked uncontrollably like a broken metronome, counting down til he became void of anything that was still human.
The corners of his lips pulled outward, further and further, the skin around them stretching taut until the smile became too wide to be human. His cheeks trembled but he was unable to stop smiling as if it had been forcefully stitched together. His eyes had changed, too. The warm brightness they once held had been replaced by a raw, bloodshot red, the whites veined and irritated as though he had not slept in weeks. A horrid stench like rotten fruit emitted from his dry skin that appeared to start to mould and flake.
And then he smiled.
There was no mistaking those teeth.
Yellowed and unnaturally sharp, they pressed against one another inside his stretched mouth, far too many of them crowding together. His tongue dragged slowly across them.
The expression was almost familiar.
Almost.
But the longing in his eyes was not.
It was the look of something starving.
Something that longed for flesh.