Ichor Cell-Chapter 1: Hi Hungry, I'm Alex

Beams of sunlight filtered down through the patchy thatched roof, catching clouds of dust that swirled through the air like so many specks of gold. The house—though calling it as such may have been a bit generous; more like a small shed—had walls made of old, rotting wood. The only exit was a small wooden door that leaned against the doorframe, merely offering an illusion of protection.
The uneven dirt floor covered an area barely large enough to fit a king-sized bed, a significant chunk of that space was taken up by a large pile of damp hay and a rickety, three-legged chair. Puddles of mystery liquid formed here and there, their still surfaces reflecting the haphazard beams of light piercing the roof.
Hours passed, and patches of sunlight lazily inched their way across the cold earthen floor, gradually warming it up as their source made its way higher up into the sky. One particular beam slowly approached the unmoving figure of a man lying on top of the hay, his eyes closed and unaware. His body was completely still, seemingly dead, the bloodstains covering his ragged clothes definitely not helping the impression.
The man was tall and had strong features, but was unnaturally thin, emaciated even. His skin appeared to almost glow from how pale it was, as if he had been confined beneath the earth for years.
Finally, as the sun reached its apex, its light gently transitioned from the floor onto the man’s face.
“AAAAAAHHHHH! Motherfucker! Jesus fucking Christ!” The man screamed as he suddenly woke up to the sound of his flesh sizzling, in the same movement jumping across the whole room and slamming into one of the wooden walls.
The whole building creaked ominously as dust rained from the ceiling, along with chunks of the ceiling itself. The collapse revealed more holes for the sunlight to pierce through, one of which happened to be directly above the man. The chunk fell towards the moaning figure, bouncing off his skull and clattering to the ground.
“Ow!” He felt a piece of wood strike him in the head, looking up and immediately catching another facefull of sunlight.
“HHHRRRNGGNGNRH!” The man collapsed to the ground in agony, no longer screaming but simply whimpering. Tears streamed down his face, now considerably redder than before.
Still unaware of what was hurting him, the man knew that whatever it was probably wouldn’t politely wait for him to recover. The action of moving his face in any way brought a fresh wave of agony spiking from his face all the way to the base of his spine, but he gritted his teeth and forced himself through it, throwing his blurry, tear-stained gaze around the room.
He took in the hay, the chair, the dilapidated and rotten through walls, as well as the roof that was more hole than whole at this point, yet could not find whatever had burned him so badly.
Outside, he heard the distant shouts of a busy marketplace, various conversations, as well as some occasional clapping sounds that reminded him of... were those horses?
His eyebrows climbed up into his hairline as it finally dawned on him that this was not the room that he fell asleep in; in fact, from the noises he could hear, it might not even be the same city.
The man blinked. “…Where the fuck am I?”
Alex was confused.
He remembered walking through the woods near his parents’ house, enjoying nature while texting his girlfriend, when he saw a bright light flashing through the trees.
Curious, he had immediately moved towards it, not stopping for even a second to consider whether it was safe to do so. After all, he had spent many years wandering those woods, and nothing had ever happened to him, so why would it now?
Unfortunately, that turned out to be a mistake.
After he took but a few steps, the light suddenly rushed straight towards him, emitting a high-pitched screech that made even nails on a chalkboard sound downright heavenly.
In fact, the sound was so terrible that Alex was pretty sure it had been what knocked him out, and the next thing he knew he was waking up with his face on fire in an unknown shed. One that looked like it was built from scraps by a group of deaf and blind 10-year-olds.
At least its obvious state of disrepair meant that all his shouting and screaming hadn't attracted any unwanted attention from a "concerned citizen".
He shook his head to get rid of the distracting thoughts and focused on the issue at hand. Picking up the piece of wood responsible for his throbbing dome and inspecting it, he found nothing suspicious.
The main concern was whatever had burned him just now. It had felt like putting his face directly into a fireplace, not that he knew what that felt like, but he could imagine. Looking down, he saw that his foot too was bright red and starting to blister.
Speaking of colour, where was his tan? As Alex finally looked himself over, he realised that his skin seemed to have lost all pigmentation and turned whiter than a sheet of paper. All the hair on his body apart from his head had also either burnt or been shaved off by someone. He sincerely hoped it was the former.
“Damn, I guess I’m classified as a jade beauty now.” He chuckled, trying to use humour to lighten the mood.
In truth, he was starting to panic a little bit, as anyone would when waking up in an unknown place with no idea how they got there, with their body changed in ways that shouldn’t be possible.
Skin colour wasn’t the only thing that had changed about him. Something else was off, and it took him another moment to realise what it was. “Where the fuck are my muscles???” He gasped in horror, forgetting about his bizarre situation for a bit to flex what should’ve been a powerful, muscular arm, but was now something closer to a twig one might find on the side of the road in winter.
“No, no no no, no way.” He muttered as he lifted his shirt and clearly counted every single one of his ribs. “Are you kidding me?” He asked, his budding panic now replaced with anger. "What the actual fuck??"
“Years, YEARS of training and now it’s just gone???” He ranted, breathing heavily as his eyes slowly reddened and his hands curled into fists, crushing the plank he held him into splinters, but Alex was too upset to notice.
As Alex felt anger cloud his mind and his desire to hit something grew, he forced himself to calm down. He could worry about all that later, safety came first. As he opened his eyes, he noticed the shards of wood clutched in his grip and frowned.
‘Given my unfortunate… reduction,’
He thought as anger once again flashed through his mind.
‘I shouldn’t be able to so easily crush wood with one hand, no matter how rotten or old it is.
Pushing the matter to the back of his mind, he resumed searching his environment, but no matter how hard he looked around he could not see anything that could possibly have burned him the way it did. The only things present were the hay, chair and swirling clouds of dust.
Huffing in frustration, Alex sat down to think. He let his mind wander as he observed the way the light caught on the motes of dust and caused them to shimmer. The sun's warmth radiated outwards and heated the room to an uncomfortable degree.
‘Wait a minute. Heating the room...?’
Alex looked around once again, this time focusing on where the light was touching.
He saw the hay, presumably the place he had been laying, now completely covered in light. He also saw the place where the roof had collapsed, a pillar of light shining directly where he had been standing before. Gazing between those two places, a crazy theory started forming in his mind.
"Nah, it's not burning the hay or anything else, so I doubt the sun is suddenly at like 200 degrees..." He rationalised as he approached the nearest shaft of light.
Not fully believing his conjecture, he cautiously brought his hand up to the light. Taking a deep breath to hype himself up, he quickly reached in to touch it.
Immediately flinching back from the waves of pain that exploded from the point of contact, he stared in shock at the angry red blisters already forming on his fingers. He kept switching between staring at the light, the plank of wood he had crushed and his pale, dead looking hand.
To be absolutely sure, there was one more thing he had to check, and fortunately there were several puddles of liquid—he was not willing to bet it was water—on the ground. He slowly made his way towards the nearest puddle, deftly avoiding the shafts of light like a professional escape artist until he finally stood over it. Taking a deep breath, he looked down.
Having half expected to find some sort of horrific monster staring back at him, he was very pleasantly surprised to see the same familiar face staring back at him.
“Oh thank Go-” The words got stuck in his throat as he suddenly noticed something, leaning closer to inspect the reflection in more detail. The same nose, the same mouth, the same long, black, wavy hair.
However, a few things were different. He looked sharper, more refined, his jawline slightly more pronounced. The gaunt, starved state of his body also reflected in his cheeks.
His eyes, instead of the usual grey irises, had instead turned into a pair of bright crimson orbs piercing deep into his soul. He jerked backwards in shock, only to inadvertently step into another beam of light.
“GOD FUCKING DAMNIT!” He swore over the sound of his sizzling flesh as he quickly stopped himself and moved back into the shade. Ruefully rubbing his stinging scalp, he swore to beat the shit out of whoever built this doghouse.
“Well, I at least know that I'll still look good when I eat up a bit.” Alex muttered as he came to a conclusion that was as ludicrous as it was apparent. “But... I guess I’ve turned into some sort of vampire?”
Alex tried to rationalise it, to deny what his senses were telling him, his thoughts racing.
'Maybe I got infected with some virus? But no, that wouldn't explain my aversion to sunlight. Some sort of radiation sickness that makes me extra vulnerable to UV rays? But why? I have so many questions...'
He massaged his temples in frustration.
'You know what? Standing here wondering won't get me any answers, so I'll just not think about it.'
Looking around, he furrowed his brows. “But what do I do now? Since I can't really go out into the light, I guess this means no leaving this… shack until the sun goes down. Unless I suddenly develop the urge to test what it’s like being a burnt chicken nugget.” He chuckled nervously.
Alex was trying his best to cope by talking to himself; it helped him organise his thinking.
“Well, maybe I’m a vampire.
Hopefully
I am one. Although I can see my reflection...” He muttered aloud. “However, I definitely am getting hurt by sunlight, have super strength and also appear to be dead. Speaking of…”
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He realised there was one more thing he could check. He placed his palm on his chest and waited. Silence. No movement.
“Huh. I guess that’s that.” The lack of a heartbeat definitely cemented him as some type of undead, if not a vampire, then something lesser, maybe a ghoul. Probably not a zombie, as those were usually rotten and disgusting.
Though for all he knew maybe the process just hadn’t started yet and he only had a few hours until he started smelling like a butcher’s dumpster.
The reason he doubted he was a vampire was the flip side of the zombie reasoning. Vampires were always portrayed as these beautiful and powerful creatures of the night, and while he definitely was stronger than before—he quickly tested it out by doing some push ups, easily getting to 100 without breaking a sweat—he definitely wasn’t winning any beauty pageants. Expected when he looked like he hadn’t eaten in weeks.
“Speaking of food, shouldn’t I be getting hungry or something? It has definitely been at least a few hours since I ate, and that was before whatever this is.” As he looked down at himself, he idly wondered whether someone had undressed him, shaved him and then dressed him in what appeared to be two old towels sown together.
As soon as he thought of food, a roaring, agonising pain lanced out from his torso into his head. It was a hunger unlike any other he had ever experienced. Even that one time he went days without eating was NOTHING compared to the all-consuming desire that filled every cell of his being at this moment.
He collapsed to the ground while trying to retain a dim awareness of his surroundings—at least enough to ensure that he didn’t fall directly into a beam of light and get swiftly vaporised.
‘Holy shit, this is definitely something else. I think if someone threw me a cow right now, I’d swallow it whole and then go after the one that threw it too. How the fuck am I supposed to wait until nighttime?’
He thought as his body was wracked with hunger pangs the likes of which he felt the world had never seen.
He regretted thinking about food; the thoughts obviously having triggered his stomach. Now, he believed the next several hours were going to be some of the most awful of his life.
Laying there writhing in pain, Alex noticed that his perception of the outside world was slowly fading. He wasn’t sure if his mind was just too consumed with hunger to care about anything else, or if he was actually dying. He certainly hoped it was the former, because dying of hunger immediately after gaining (probably) superpowers sounded lame as hell.
‘I really hope somebody could come around to wherever this is. I could really use a hand to SATE THIS
HUNGER AND FEAST ON THEIR FLE-’
His thoughts jerked to an abrupt halt when he realised what had just come out of his brain.
“Wha- What the hell?” Alex stammered out, doing his best to control his breathing and stop his teeth from clenching so hard they cracked. If he wasn’t already white as a sheet he would’ve gone even more pale.
The thought of something, even his own body, changing something as inviolable as his thoughts triggered a primal fear he had never felt before.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t spend long dwelling on the worrying effects this hunger might be having on his mind, considering the equally worrying but much more immediate effects it was having on his body.
‘Fuck, this is bad, at this rate I’m gonna pass out before it even gets dark, and at that point who knows if I’ll ever wake up again!’
As his senses withdrew further and further, sources of distraction from the pain grew fewer and fewer. This, along with the pain growing stronger over time drove Alex to the brink of collapse, unable to do anything but suffer in silence.
As the hours crawled by, eventually Alex could no longer clearly see anything besides the dirt in front of his face. A feeling of detachment came over him, his mind floating free of his body and drifting through a blurry fog.
This was probably a good thing for his sanity as it significantly reduced the pain he was experiencing; however, it also meant he no longer had full awareness of what was happening to him.
As he floated through this fog in a trancelike state, Alex was blind to the changes his body was undergoing from the extreme stress it was being subjected to. He could not sense how his hands, now acting only on instinct, started scratching away at the packed dirt, leaving shallow furrows which slowly transformed into jagged scratches.
Had he been more aware, he would have noticed how his nails, previously smooth and clear, had turned black and metallic, growing in length and developing a serrated edge along the bottom surface.
He would also have felt his mouth producing increasing amounts of saliva, pooling beneath his face as his teeth grew and gained razor sharp tips, forcing his mouth into a permanent snarl.
As the sun made its way down the sky towards the earth, shadows lengthened while the damaging beams of light moved away.
The movements of the creature laying on the floor of the shack shifted from a slow, agonised writhing to sharp, sudden twitches punctuated by crackling sounds reminiscent of the snapping of twigs on a forest floor.
The being’s limbs moved in ways that human physiology simply would not allow, but then again, no bystander would have mistaken it for a human in the first place. The low, guttural growls it was releasing as it writhed made that clear.
With the darkening sky, the surrounding temperature steadily decreased, and a chill spread through the air. Though this could be attributed to the decreasing sunlight, the light layer of frost creeping across the puddles spoke of a less… natural cooling.
The instant the sun finally dipped beneath the horizon, taking away the last of its light from the shack, all movement within ceased, but only momentarily. With one final CRACK, the creature lifted its head, revealing an appearance straight out of every child’s darkest nightmares.
The monster—for that was what it was—had nothing in common with Alex's smooth, handsome face. Gone was his quiet smile and gone were his piercing eyes. In their place was a grotesque, razor teeth filled mouth straight out of a horror movie, as well as two malevolent, blood red orbs fitted deep into their sockets gazing across the room, like portals straight to hell.
The creature’s smooth, pale skin glistened in the moonlight; black, wormlike veins wriggling beneath it like so many snakes. Hard, corded muscle coiled underneath its skin as it slowly and gracefully moved across the earthen floor with absolute silence, seemingly ghosting across it without disturbing even a grain of sand. Heavy, rasping breaths were the only sound echoing through the empty space, as even the insects in the vicinity were silenced.
They knew that this… this was not a being to be provoked. This was a predator, a creature born of the deepest, darkest pits of the world, its desire for blood only overshadowed by its ability to spill it. And it was going on a hunt.
He was free. He could feel the overwhelming power now contained in his body, ecstatic that his need for nourishment had pushed him beyond his weak,
mortal
shell and into this new, superior form. Strength beyond the reach of mere humans, speed rivalling the fastest animals, and an overwhelming bloodlust outshining even the greatest predators to ever walk this world.
‘Blood!’
Hethought, the words refusing to come out of his mouth as anything other than choked growls
‘I need blood!’
His eyes darted around the room, searching for prey. The lack of light, dimly lit as the shack was, was not an issue at all; it appeared as clear to him now as during the day.
The discovery that He was alone sent white hot rage coursing through his veins. He let out a high-pitched screech like a thousand forks being dragged across the world's largest saucepan, the sound twisting the very air around him.
‘I'm HUNGRY!’
Heroared in his mind. The idea that these peasants, whoever they were, weren’t presenting themselves as offerings to sate his hunger was absurd! They should be joyfully lining up to slit their own necks and let him bathe in their blood, not hiding away and leaving him to search.
‘If they aren’t coming to me, I’ll go to them!’
He swore, the rage boiling within driving him to ignore the door across the room. Instead, He swiped at the wall beside him, immediately tearing through it as if it were paper.
Upon emerging into the open air, He was immediately stunned. He found himself standing on a sandy street which ran perpendicular to the exit He had created with his attack. There were other, similarly dilapidated huts resting on either side as far as the eye could see. The fact that none of them had collapsed so far was a damn miracle.
But that wasn't what had stunned him; He didn't care one bit about his surroundings in his current state. No, what truly stopped him in his tracks was the smell.
So many different odours, some good, some bad, some unknown, all clamouring for attention as they assaulted his senses. It sent him reeling, feeling as if He had just been punched straight in the brain.
It was overwhelming.
As He staggered, a breeze blew down the street, sending a new wave of fumes directly into his nostrils. He whimpered, scratching his face, leaving bloody furrows that healed almost as soon as they appeared.
Thankfully, ever so slowly, He could feel his body beginning to adapt, reducing His sensitivity but increasing his range. The smells were gradually becoming less overwhelming, while the differences between each odour were easier to detect.
His body further filtered out anything unwanted, such as the odour of faeces coming from the shack six buildings down, or the smell of flowers drifting in from somewhere two streets over.
Finally, after half an hour of pain and effort, He was only left with the useful, desirable smells. Those of food.
‘Hmmm, so many scents, so much prey… it’s like an all you can eat buffet!’
He sing-songed in his head as He deliberated which delicious morsel to devour, though most of them didn't smell all that appetising.
There were a few that smelled outright wrong, his senses telling him that while eating them would satiate his hunger well enough, it would have some unintended side effects further down the line.
Others were simply… unimpressive. Sure, they might fill his stomach, but that’s about all they would do.
Others still smelled of something greater, their scents promising growth, not just fulfilment. It was these that He decided to pursue.
‘I’ll take… this one!’
Hethought and immediately pounced away from his shack, heading in the direction of the most alluring smell He could detect.
As He bounded along the crooked street, kicking up clouds of dust and moving at such speeds that He would appear to bystanders as nothing more than a shadowy blur, his delirious brain idly wondered whether He could outrun a bullet as He was.
The thought brought a chuckle to his lips, except it once again came out as a choked, demonic gurgle, no doubt curdling the blood of any who heard it.
If He had been himself, He would have noticed that the closer to his destination He ran, the less run down the surrounding buildings were starting to look, and the cleaner and straighter the street seemed to be.
Had He been himself, maybe He would have double guessed charging towards what was obviously the wealthier district of the city.
Unfortunately, He was not himself, and so He did not notice or question these things.
As He turned a final corner, He smelled that He had arrived at his destination. While He still did not and could not care about his surroundings, He couldn't help noticing that the structure He was about to enter seemed much larger than the one He had woken up in. Stepping inside, the cold marble floor gave it a weight the other lacked.
Moving deeper into the building, He came upon a small atrium in what appeared to be a living room. Sniffing the air, He realised that the smell was coming from somewhere upstairs, which would normally have been an issue to access without stairs.
Thankfully, this was only a problem for regular mortals, not a superior lifeform such as himself. With a slight flex of his muscles, He launched himself upwards and quickly vaulted over the railing.
Once again on the move, He sensed that He was getting closer and closer to his destination, until finally, He drew to a stop.
In front of him, close enough to touch, was an ornate wooden door. Delicate swirls with flower designs adorned it, green and yellow roses on a white background.
Anticipation filled him. Every cell in his body was telling him that behind this door was the solution to this unending hunger, this constant
pain
. He could feel his teeth aching to sink into the thing on the other side, could sense his unstoppable desire to consume it whole. This puny door was daring to stand between his exalted self and his meal.
‘It has to GO!’
Heroared in his mind, raking his claws across the door in a series of lightning-fast slashes. The door proved surprisingly resistant, his attacks leaving only shallow scratches when weaker hits had rent the earth with deep lacerations.
He found this curious, but his curiosity was overshadowed by his unyielding rage at such a delay.
After several more seconds of high intensity shredding, He finally tore through the obstacle and dashed into the room as fast as He could, colliding with something soft and bouncy.
‘Is that a bed?’
Alex’s addled consciousness briefly wondered before a feeling of utter euphoria wiped away any semblance of rational thought from his mind.
Flavours exploded in his mouth, a mixture of every delicacy He had ever eaten all in one, magnified by a hundred and topped with pure ecstasy, sending shivers of ecstasy coursing from his head to his very toes.
He forgot his bizarre circumstances, his name, his very sense of self. All that was left was the feeling of absolute bliss filling his body at that moment. Distant screams sounded in his ears, but He cared not, for nothing could take him away from this divine experience.
After swallowing, He could feel a strange heat spreading from his stomach to the rest of his body, an unprecedented surge of energy filling him, yet just as quickly as it began, it was over, the mouthful digested. He growled in anger and went back for more, once again experiencing the heights of joy before suddenly losing it.
He repeated this cycle over and over, the energy in his body growing, the feeling of contentment lasting longer and longer each time, until He no longer felt the need to eat more. Not that He even could, having resorted to licking the bedsheets to get the last few drops out.
When the energy in his body reached saturation, He could feel it start shifting towards his chest, condensing, solidifying further and further until all of it had settled where his heart would be. Constant waves of warmth emanated from the spot, filling a hole He hadn’t even realised existed.
As He finally felt the hunger draining away, his body emitted cracking sounds as it slowly shifted back and reverted the process that had happened earlier that night. The strange feeling of being a passenger in his own body faded, and Alex felt his perception return to normal as the fog lifted.
Shaking his head to clear it, Alex let out a sigh of relief and opened his eyes with a smile. His relief was short lived however, as he finally registered where he was and what he had been doing, his eyes widening in horror as bile rose in his throat.