Rhubarb

The red bulb swung silently, the veined wall crucified by shadow. The slick floors were bruised with black and crimson.

The creature had huddled himself against the wall, his eyelids closed against the blood-lit room. He was awake again. He didn't want to be awake. He kept his eyes closed, his right arm falling limp as he sought refuge within himself. This place kept him awake, kept him hungry, feral, lonely.

He had forgotten when he had eaten, drank. His tongue always rasped, his belly knifing him. It had gone on for too long. He had found rhythm within the pain, the throb of his head and the burning of his body.

The speaker above him squealed and crackled, the sound like a vinyl record at the end of its music, the popping rhythmic. It resonated throughout the room, an infinite prison.

Warbled murmuring whispered from the speaker. "Eight...twenty-one...red...night...gash...glimmer...moon."

The creature hugged his knees as he pressed his back against the wall.

He heard them crawling.

The speaker said, "Center crimson...blind...lifelessly alive."

Slowly, the creature raised its head up, squinting. The tendrils played along the edges of the red light. They were hungry again.

The voice deepened, became guttural. "Visual. Unclear. Unwilling."

The creature's musculature striated as he stood up, his veined, taut flesh bare before the garish light. He leaned his back against the wall, his palms prone, his claws sinking in. They found purchase, the surface snapping like skin.

The speaker roared with distortion.

The red bulb froze mid-swing, the light dimming. He trembled as he heard them moan, heard the shadows chant sweet nothings as their bodies slithered and squelched across the glass floor.

He dug his claws deeper into the wall of flesh.

The bulb became as a dying star, the slithering deafening. He felt them encompass his feet and crawl up his calves. They weren't cold. They were hot, slick, filthy, like a hundred venturing tongues. He felt his stomach lurch as smelled the nidor, the sullied tang.

The speaker spoke in the darkness. The voice was feminine, stilted. "Little tighter. Yes. That's it. Cut deeper."

The faintest of light clung to the bulb, its center dying. He felt the shades slither up from his thighs, hips, belly, chest.

The speaker said, "You'll feed us well."

He felt the meat behind the wall pulse within his hand. He ripped it out.

Sanguine light poured forth from the bulb, the caliginous serpents screeching and reeling from the illumination. A small smile sprung to the creature's muzzle. He opened his eyes, his pupils like star sapphires.

Within his hand was a beating heart, its fibrous, glistening sinew pumping in futility. He closed his eyes and brought it to his mouth, the heart throbbing faster as his teeth pierced the living fruit.

A legion of shrieks erupted from the speaker, a cacophony of enmity, of resent. He ignored them, the muscle stretching as he tore into the heart, the red water dripping from his hand and pooling into his lap.

The speaker spoke, the voice feminine, stilted. "How many...does it...take?"

His jaws tensed as he gnawed, the copper and salt running warmly down his throat. He swallowed and looked up, his chin smeared with blood. He raised a finger. "One. Taken and lost, deathless and dying."

The last half of the heart lingered with life before stilling upon his palette. He swallowed.

The warbled, crackling voice returned. "You'll go too far. You won't return."

He ran his hand against the bleeding wound in the wall, his fingers trailing and swirling its ichor.

"You're always hungry."

He picked at the wound, the bulb flickering and swaying as he frayed the flesh. "We always are."

The speaker popped rhythmically, the voices silent.