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When he dreams, he dreams of being torn apart, dismembered, piece by piece. Every night he dies, killed over and over again with a new device, medieval truth-seekers composed of leather straps, spiked wood and rusted iron and each method of torture proves to be more gruesome than the last.
Tonight he’s on the rack, rope tied in braided knots around his wrist, ankles and neck. With each spin of the wheel, his restraints constrict, winding him up tighter and tighter, a human-sized music box of screams.
To prolong his agony, the process is repeated until his limbs snap under the strain of the tourniquet, his body becoming stretched, unhinged separated. Miles life hangs on by a thread, the noose threatening to wring the breath out of him and it ends with a tug, his head snapping free of his spine and suddenly everything goes black where there was once white hot pain.
Miles eyes fly open, the shock of his death more potent than the melatonin in his system. He can’t move, not yet, so he lies there drenched in a cold sweat until the sleep paralysis wears off.
"Alive," his mind supplies, "You’re alive."
The reporter blinks up at the ceiling from his position on the bed, tears dripping down into his ears because every night he prays for the bloody rituals to stop, and every morning he wakes up with the knowledge that they haven’t.
Miles recognizes his surroundings, knows he’s made it home instead of passed out drunk in someone’s yard when he reads the rounded text of his motivational poster: “Hang In There,” the kitten urges him, it’s miniscule claws scraping for purchase as it’s hind legs dangle precariously from a branch.
He thought — he hoped his nerves would short out like fuses, burn numb to the misery over time, the gore too, but he’s saved up thousands of frequent flyer miles from his nocturnal trips into hell and his suffering has never felt any less intolerable.
His blood is humming, cold veins prickling to life with a fresh delivery of oxygen and there’s enough circulation in his fingers to make them twitch once his brain sends down the sensory impulse to do so, but the switch over to alertness never occurs as fast as he would like. Seconds seem like minutes and minutes seem like hours when you’re a prisoner inside your own body.
Miles closes his eyes and forces himself to relax, to feel weightless. He focuses on his breathing patterns, tries to imagine himself sun-bathing on the sands of the Dominican Republic just like vacation getaway spots pinned up on his wall. The buzz of the air filter on his fish tank makes him think of sailing the Caribbean Sea, the trickle of his tabletop water fountain like blonde champagne in his glass and the heady smell of incense inspire images of Cuban cigars.
Meditation helps control the fear. He’s taken a few classes, read a few books that currently reside in his cramped bookcase about finding inner peace and creating a better you. He’s tried every natural cure he can think of from acupuncture to church to dream-catchers to exercise the man-made demon that plagues his dreams and some of it works, some of it’s bogus, but eventually, the creature returns because they one and the same being entwined, a caduceus of two souls.
It’s daylight out and his bedroom is unnaturally dark, the Hindu blankets pinned over his windows the cause and his lava lamp can only produce so much glow, but the mist forming a crown over his unruly hair is a different sort of darkness altogether.
“You.”
The nanite implants are becoming increasingly resistant to the prescription drugs Murkoff is happily supplying their favorite test subject (as par their arrangement) and it’s not that hard to find whatever other substance he might need on a college campus, but Miles has had to explore more dangerous, more unstable narcotics to suppress it’s influence.
The columnist grabs for the object nearest to him, which happens to be a mostly empty bottle of Jack and throws it. The rush of movement irritates the drug addict’s body, makes him feel light-headed and woozy because the one thing the creature cannot force him to do is eat and the journalist is nothing if not a rebel. His aim is off, but it doesn’t matter, nothing so simple and fragile as glass can kill it. God knows Miles has tried countless times.
The swarm bends around the clear object hurled at it, leaving the amber liquor to shatter against the wall. The nanites fly in agitated patterns over the broken pieces, then converge above their host’s face. Miles almost wishes the demon had a nose so it wouldn’t be able to hover so close, too close.
What it does have is a face, or a parody of one and the limited expression it’s capable of looks angry. The entity growls at him almost like a pitbull, the slits of flesh around it’s jaws producing the menacing sound as it inspects the intentions of the man who attacked it.
"What the fuck are you? What the fuck do you want."
Miles whispers harshly, the grotesque scaring spidering out from the depths of creature’s eyes a blur at this proximity, but the man doesn’t dare avert his gaze.
The reporter never gets a response to his questions. It’s stupid for him to even ask because he has no idea if the ugly thing can talk or understand a spoken language.
"Miles what the fuck is wrong with you?"
Hailey. Fuck, Miles forgot he invited her over last night. She’s laying beside him on his frameless mattress and bedspring, pillows and sheets spread out in a trashy heap on the vintage red carpet.
She’s used to his outbursts, his violent episodes, blames it on the drugs and his weird fixation with demonology and she’s only half right.
Miles tried telling her the truth, that his body is a vessel for a shikigami, but the girl laughed, thought it was joke because despite her own meddling in the dark arts she doesn’t believe in magic or in the existence of another realm. Nevermind that no one can actually fucking see the evil spirit except the man cursed by it, not without the proper equipment. At least, that’s what Wernickle’s scientists tell him, but Miles has a funny feeling that they’re just using him to collect data on their precious creation and their promises for rehabilitation are all bullshit.
A high-pitched screeching resonates in the back of the reporter’s consciousness and the wavelength is loud enough to make his eyes water and ears ring.
The demon wants the girl removed and the cacophony is Miles only warning before the spirit takes charge.
"Go. Away."
His words are intended for the apparition, but they strike the goth girl instead.
Miles retrieves the arm she’s been using as a pillow and it occurs to him that maybe her weight on his chest aided his loss of sensation, but then he sees the elastic band tied around his bicep, notices the litter of puncture wounds in the crease of his elbow and the used needles on floor. Even when pricked and pale, his hands still do a good job of clawing at her face and tangling in her two-tone hair.
Maybe it’s because she feels sorry for him or maybe she’s attracted to guys with serious health problems, she would have to be or else she wouldn’t have hung around him this long. Either that or Hailey has a complex or a syndrome interfering with her will to punch him because that’s what a normal person would do in this situation and Miles really thinks she should fight back instead of letting him off easy, give him something stronger than meek attempts at retaliation to contend with because Mile’s deserves a good assbeating after what he’s done.
It would be better for her if she started blacklisting his number or avoiding him entirely because he’s used the teenage girl more times than he can count and Hailey always picks up when he calls looking for a distraction because he hates being alone with it and knowing she’s not going to make him pay for all the shit he’s put her through hurts a lot more than a couple swings to the face.
"You’re such a spooky cunt, Miles."
The girl wrestles out of the reporter’s grip, a tuft of hair lighter. She scoffs at the long auburn strands plucked and looped around her own fingers, doesn’t want to know how many Miles has clutched in his hand, settles for pealing the tresses off and dropping them onto the floor to pile on top of the thick coating of cigarette ashes and dirty laundry.
Hailey steps out of bed, retrieves her discarded clothing from various corners of the room, careful not to injure the underside of her feet on abandoned CD cases.
"I should have listened to Chelsea. She warned me not to come over."
She says, slipping on her miniskirt and a cut tee, punk bracelets rattling with the haste of her redressing.
Chelsea. Miles recognizes the name as Hailey’s sorority leader. Hailey must be pretty pissed off at him to mention her. Hailey hates the corrupt educational system, hates the elitist organization that humiliates their members with pledges and hazings, but the brooding occultist is loyal to her sisterhood, performs their ridiculous traditions because she doesn’t have anywhere else to go and she doesn’t want to end up broke and alone like her mother.
"Nine inches my ass. Maybe if you had a bigger dick I’d have a good reason for letting you ruin my life."
Her angry bootsteps stomp down the stairs to the first floor where Miles throws all his parties. The party boy hasn’t bothered to clean up the mess and it’s starting to spawn flies, but that’s OK, the maid will be by soon to wave her magic wand and make the dirt sparkle.
Hailey is kicking a pathway through the jungle of toilet paper an beer cans, charging passed the manly wood paneling and leather armchairs and tacky displays of school pride.
The loud crack of the front door signals her departure from one of Murkoff’s prestigious alumni buildings, two stories of old masonry and shitty wiring recently renovated with a new coat of paint and Miles lives upstairs scot-free, but he’s too busy drowning in his own self-loathing to be present for her harmless rampage.
The demon curls around his master’s depressed form in excited orbits, pleased to have the man all to itself.
"You’re not real. You’re not. It’s the drugs … it’s just the fucking drugs, that’s all.”
He’s not sure who he’s trying to convince, himself or the apparition with his statement.
Miles curses himself for ever stumbling upon Murkoff’s underground medical facility. He never should have agreed to their terms, never should have accepted their money, but he unwittingly sacrificed himself to their God and the corporation opened their arms and gave him hope for a solution in exchange for his silence and in that moment it was just too good of a deal to pass up.
It’s been a couple months since he was officially accepted into the “Walrider” project and he can’t remember what his life was like before their mad science transformed him, just knows that the man he was then is favorable to the freak of nature he is now. He wants his humanity back, his freedom, his sanity, not just a semblance of it.
Miles hates the abomination almost as much as he hates himself for sitting on top of Murkoff’s experiments, for helping them conduct their research knowing full well how demented their goals are and not doing a damn thing about it.
The guilt is starting to get to him. Lying doesn’t sit right in his stomach, especially not to a man who has made a career out of exposing corporate coverups to the public and he’s putting every student at risk because of his selfishness, his fear of never being normal again.
He knows he has to be an adult about this, that torching Wernickle and his piece of shit company in a great big ball of fire is how he earns his redemption, but Christ that doesn’t mean he has to like playing the role of the martyr.
"Why? Why won’t you leave me alone? I don’t want you here. GET OUT!”
The demon cocks it head like it’s troubled, confused, as if a machine is capable of understanding such an emotion even if they occupy the same gray matter and Miles thinks that despite it’s sick and twisted intentions, the creature’s mentality still reflects that of a petulant child.
Wernickle had mentioned his invention was a prototype, that it was volatile, compulsive. The doctor called his greatest achievement a God, the “Walrider,” but Miles doesn’t acknowledge the machine as a deity, doesn’t call it by name. He uses spiteful labels instead: thing, it, demon because he wants to put as much distance between himself and the gnawing jaws of the parasite as possible. Miles may be the host, but with the right tweak to his brain, the right dosage of chemicals, this parasite can reverse their roles, govern his every action with no preamble.
There’s no more time for thinking as the apparition dissolves into a mist, spreads itself over the expanse of Miles body, playful chirps originating from the gashes in it’s sealed jaws.
It craves Mile’s attention, his companionship and that’s where their interests ricochet because the twenty five year old prefers the single life to an unholy matrimony with Frankenstein’s monster.
"Don’t. Just … don’t.”
The protest sounds flat, defeated, even to him and as much as wants to be left alone, he knows the demon won’t listen to his request.
There a squeezing in his balls, an instant flux of pleasure and Miles groans, arches off the bed, his insides alight with the sheer power of his orgasm. It’s ecstasy in it’s purist form, hot liquid love that makes him shake wildly in his skin. He’s feels spent, weak and heavy. A light show of colors dance across his bleary eyes and he watches them through fluttering eyelashes, his lungs billowing with open-mouth breaths that leave his throat cracked and dry.
"Fuck."
The mist travels over him, touching, caressing in an effort to calm his accelerated heart-rate and just like that the pleasure is over, sedated and converted into peaceful drowsiness. These extreme fluctuations in mood aren’t healthy, but he’s not the one playing amateur chemist here, the machine is and Miles has no way of reprogramming the technology hardwired into his DNA to stop screwing with his brain.
An invisible force lifts the hem of his t-shirt, traps the fabric under the reporter’s arms so that his chest is accessible. Miles hisses at the harsh bites addressed to his nipples, squirms because it stings and he’s pretty sure the crazy motherfucker drew blood. The dark entity employs the rough treatment so often to his aureolas Miles is starting to wonder if it has a fetish because if it needed blood to sustain itself, the leech could take it from anywhere, not just his pectorals.
The creature croons its delight at the taste, nuzzling the side of his master’s cheek like an affectionate pet and Miles can feel himself swell, aching for release again. A makeshift hand strokes him while sunken eyes watch in ravenous fascination and Miles cants his hips to get more friction, more pressure against the barely there phantasm and the swarm moves in conjunction, thousands of tiny microbes vibrating in unison to jerk him off.
Then he’s floating up, defying gravity, flipped around in mid-air so his back scrapes against the stucco ceiling, just missing the lighting fixture. Miles shouts as he’s lifted up off his feet, groans as he smacks into the textured spirals of plaster waiting at the top, their sharp contours digging shallow impressions into his shoulders.
Miles squints through the throbs of pain surrounding his skull, and the combination of tobacco smoke, miasma and darkness make it difficult to see, but the thing is staring at him, the specter’s visceral patchwork of facial muscles contorting into new shapes because it can’t decide on what emotion it’s feeling, but it’s claws seem to know because they grip and push and punish as they hold him in place.
Miles wants to put an end to the abuse so he latches a fist around the the sinewy band of it’s neck. His grasp is faint, white as a corpse despite the firm press of his fingertips, and the possibility of the man inflicting any damage to the machine is ridiculous. Lucky for him, the ghost doesn’t like to be touched by anyone, much less endangered by physical contact that it hasn’t initiated. It hisses, flails then flees in a roar of disgust.
Left without the supernatural powers of his loyal pet, Miles falls ten feet down on to the sturdy hardwood slab of the dinning table. His crash landing scatters leftover dirty dishes onto the floor, a contemporary artwork of moldy pizza and Chinese food and shattered porcelain smeared across the kitchen tile beneath him.
Miles is more vocal about his injuries this time. He rolls onto his side, trying to steal back the breath taken from him. His forearm is bleeding, and with a rumbling yell, he pulls out a thick shard of ceramic china, tries not to think of how many just like it are embedded in places he can’t reach.
The stereo kicks on, audio bars blazing red and the house is rocking out down to the base boards to the guttural stylings of Killswitch Engage.
The music is an extension of the specter’s aggression and Miles finds the effort to be a little overdramatic because the creature’s voice needs no backup band, it’s plenty shrill on it’s own without the verses of bad lyrics, but yeah he gets the message, it’s pissed at him.
The journalist is grappled backward, forced to lay prone because the ghoul favors him that way, utterly submissive, a throne to be sat on. What comes next surprises even Miles because for as long as he’s been plagued by this strange pet of his, he doesn’t remember it having such a violent streak outside of his nightmares.
In a hail of movements too fast for the human eye, the reporter’s t-shirt and boxer briefs are slashed into confetti and the man is too afraid, too vulnerable to move because God forbid his body parts get caught in the fray. When the air settles, Miles shivers, chilled by the cool temperature in the room, the torn remnants of his clothes his sole source of warmth.
Miles notices the time, hopes the maid isn’t a good Samaritan, fears what will happen to her if shes comes to investigate the noise instead of leaving at the first sign of occupants.
There’s an electronic laugh emanating from everywhere and nowhere, draped in ominous context, and this occurrence wouldn’t freak him out so much if he could see the vocal cords that produce the sound, but right now there’s no body, no mist, just blank space with a voice.
The resonance raises the hairs on his skin, triggers his fight or flight response and if he has to choose between fight or flight he chooses flight because the tone doesn’t quite belong to the repertoire of sounds he’s learned to interpret from his pet.
This voice sounds older, more mature, developed and that scares him more than the thought of the creature being innocent and oblivious to the sins of it’s actions.
Miles slowly, carefully slides himself along the tabletop, fumbling through a mine field of cut class and crushed solo cups. He doesn’t feel the sharp edges cut into his palm as he inches further away; superficial scratches that can be healed with a band-aid don’t worry him as much as being sliced up and carved open and Miles never considered stitches or staples to be all that fashionable.
A stormcloud of mist materializes above his naked body, enshrouding him and Miles tries not to flinch as a pair of hands emerge from the overcast. They’re glistening black like sharpened raven’s claws as they stalk over his skin in feather-light strokes. The demon is toying with him, Miles realizes, preying on his fear, provoking him with ticklish raps, spreading goosebumps over his defenseless flesh.
The ghost finds it all very amusing, but Miles deems the game unfair and wicked, decides to remain stock still and passive. The vulturous talons descend to the soft belly of his navel and Miles watches their wayward trails with held breath and a pounding pulsebeat, two fists clenched at his sides. Clawed fingers flick over a weak spot along the center line of his waist and Miles can’t contain his frightened gasp, his evasive withdrawal when he imagines those sharp nails hallowing out his insides.
The ghost growls happily at his host’s colorful reaction, it’s hands taking on a new appearance entirely. The fatty tissue is gone, stripped away, and the bony phalanges on his skin still somehow feel whole and alive as they rub back up against his bruised ribs, counting the rungs, and Miles doesn’t dwell on the implications for too long, fears he’ll break if he does.
The pest is appeased, content, safe so it reveals it’s face in a declaration of trust, rests it’s head against his master’s brow, singing a throaty love song. The demon is smiling behind the mutilated mask of it’s face, molars visible, but stitched shut as they whistle a synthesized melody. Somehow the gesture soothes Miles, gives him peace to shut his eyes and despite the screamo music blowing a hole in his speakers, Miles can hear the demon’s purr clearly from inside the private vault of his head.
The pest leans back to drink in the the sight of it’s host, coos it’s approval of Mile’s lanky frame, bare and ripe for the taking and the man laughs because the machine’s circuits are lighting up, flashing with excitement about the flaws in his mortality.
Robotics coalesce, molding together to form the skeletal structure of the creature’s legs and feet before moving on to construct the bow of the pelvis. The process is creepy in it’s disorder, a collection of floating pieces that hinge on the architecture of a full body.
It’s rare that the reporter witnesses the demon completely constructed and the odd assembly of bone and muscle weighs more than he thought it would. The effervescent bulk settles on top of him in layers: vapor and solid states.
The parasite grinds it’s angular body against it’s host in an attempt to entice, but the motion is mechanical, a poor imitation of the warmth of another human body.
A bendable belt of metal creeps out from the recess of the demon’s mouth and it reminds Miles of a lizard’s tongue if not for the frayed wires at the tip. Sparks lick the reporter’s face with gruff kisses, singe marks of black and yellow and goddamn this would be a lot more enjoyable if the sentient being wasn’t an electrical hazard, but if he concentrates, he can almost convince himself that the droning of working parts and heated air are a living, breathing person.
Walrider was designed without a sex or deprived of one by it’s creators, a eunuch as some might classify it, but the demon’s anatomy on all other accounts is male, equates for it’s domineering personality and the foreign mass pressing against the tenderness of the reporter’s thighs.
Miles knows what the brute wants from him and it feels wrong, insane, because a machine has no use for love or for sex. Mating is a trait shared among animals, living organisms with instincts to preserve the species. Cybernetics bastardized into a chimera of man-not-man lack the premise of understanding to engage in such a practice.
Maybe the creature’s desire stems from it’s observation of Mile’s raunchy escapades, that despite all the drugs the man has been consuming to censor the demon’s consciousness, it has been watching from the darkness the entire time, learning by example and the playboy has had no shortage of partners.
The parasite wants to be accepted, to be perfectly symbiotic, to please it’s host, but it also avoids anything water-based with a vengeance and that’s a problem because lubricants are important and Miles may be loose, but he refuses to be fucked raw.
He runs. To where, he doesn’t know. A place where he can be free, if the liberty is his anymore. He gets as far as the edge of the table before he’s caught roughly by his ankles, talons climbing up the back of his legs until they hook into the fleshy groove of his pelvis and that is where they tow.
Miles should probably let go because there is no happy ending to this, no escape, but he holds on to the illusion of freedom for a few more seconds before he surrenders.
The machine isn’t stupid, it won’t kill it’s host, but it can make the man suffer in a multitude of ways that are arguably worse than death and ripping off it’s master’s legs would minimize future offenses.
"I am sorry. Shit. No don’t, please.”
The demon silences it’s master’s pleas with a ferocious snarl, snaps at the man’s mouth with it’s muzzled jaws to prevent more words from rushing out.
Energy fumes at the corners of the creature’s eyes, it’s features hardened into a glare of molten silver, lightning streaked across it’s pointed cheekbones. The ever-present swarm that shadows the creatures presence rages and out of those dark flames are borne the shackles that bind Mile’s wrists to the table. Without preparation, the parasite rams it’s phallic appendage against it’s master’s ass, jabs at him relentlessly until the ring of muscle accepts the intrusion and all Miles can do is scream.
The human’s knees scrabble against the wood, his blunt nails razing lines onto the table’s surface in a sad attempt to dilute the pain, but the ghost is unwilling to compromise, to soften it’s hold. Miles pathetic resistance calls more restraints to manifest and the human can’t so much as turn his head because all the joints in his body have been immobilized, locked in obedience.
Miles is stuck facing the kitchen sink until the machine decides to revise their positions and on the window ledge sits a tiny herb garden, another one of his failed therapy schemes. He’s forgotten to water the rosemary and there’s a picket fence of snuffed out cigarette butts polluting the soil, but somehow it’s managed to survive, to stay green.
He can smell it, his own blood attempting to lessen the friction and the reporter has to close his eyes, draw in shallow breathes so he doesn’t gag.
"Jesus."
The object inside him has no definite shape. It’s amorphous like a tentacle as it wriggles in deeper, further, stimulating him in places he never thought could be breached. He;s filled, swollen with the length of it and the appendage keeps growing, alternating girths and while the violation hurts like a son of a bitch it feels good too, almost too good.
Miles dick rubs uncomfortably against the table, buried under the pressure of their combined weight and with every sway of their bodies comes a barely there jolt of gratification. Before he knows it, his muscles are giving out and he’s splattering all over the dinning table, bathed in his own filth.
The demon pulls away gently, shows him mercy, and Miles doesn’t think he can muster up the strength to stand even if he wanted to. The smell and the grime and the shame prove too foul to remain motionless. It’s not the most graceful dismount, but he falls from the counter and onto the garbage dump that is the floor. He crawls the rest of the way to the bathroom which thankfully isn’t very far because any function that involves the use of his ass is caustic and abrasive.
He props his aching muscles against the base of the sink when he gets there, the wet slickness right at home with the beads of sweat on his skin. He relaxes, head and shoulder pressed against the sleek oblong surface and it’s awkward to proportion himself accordingly so he doesn’t slide off, but this is his milestone and he needs a moment to gather himself. When he feels capable of the task, he grabs for the brim of the sink bowl, uses the leverage to build himself up into a crippled stance.
And old medicine cabinet hangs above the faucet and Miles pries free the squeaky metal hatch to get to the array of pill bottles hidden inside. His ragged hands plow through the overstocked shelves, sickly and eager for relief and his poor motor skills drop the fluorescent orange containers into the sink, a clatter of popped caps and vibrant tablets that accumulate around the drain.
Miles scoops up and swallows as many of the capsules as he can before the ghost has a chance to seize them all, destroy their effects by grinding them down into useless microscopic dust, too fine of a powder for Miles to snort should he resort to the unsightly habit.
Miles doesn’t care so much about the loss, it’s a replaceable income and he’s already ingested enough toxic chemicals to overdose, but he won’t die, can’t die because this damn thing will keep him alive.
The brunette stumbles into the shower, turns on the nozzle and lets the cold splash over him. The spray sends a bitter shock to his system, but it brings him a keen sense of clarity too. He slumps down to sit near the drain, hugs himself around the knees and waits because the pills should be kicking in soon and the demon will have no choice but to be domestic for a few hours.
The barrier of water irritates the pest because it cannot penetrate it out of some Pavlovian misconception about the purifying element and it’s divine properties. The demon screams it’s aversion, rakes murderous claws over the walls leaving behind deep ravines, a symbol of it’s wrath and Miles tries his hardest to block out the chaos.
The creature is loosing it’s power, it’s control, and before long, the deafening wails quiet into whispers, then to memories. It’s erratic silhouette dissolves from the bottom up, the specter’s ghostly tail shortening to coil inside it’s vacant ribcage. The demon’s hands and face are the last dismembered pieces to vanish, and they do so defiantly, clawing and screeching until their authority is exhausted.
His bathroom becomes just another room in the house and he becomes just another ordinary man amongst millions of others.
Miles runs a hand through his soaked hair, looks above to the shower head like it’s heaven’s own aqueduct raining down on him. He catches a bit of his reflection in the chrome finish, tries to make sense of his distorted shape while the drops continue their cascade over his tired eyes and it feels like he’s being enlightened, cleansed with new purpose.
He can’t spend all day at home, there’s no time for that, no salvation in cowering and the thought nearly makes him weep. What he needs is to get ready for work (so what if he’s five hours late) and he wants to wear something nice, slick back his hair with a comb and some gel because today is a special occasion; today he signs his resignation letter with a big “fuck you” tucked around his middle finger.