Chapter 5: The Feeding

Chapter 5: The Feeding

The skittering under his skin didn’t stop. It was a constant, maddening hum of phantom activity, a nest of invisible insects crawling through his flesh. Alex burst out of the library's quiet basement and into the jarring sunlight, gasping for air that didn't taste of dust and decay. The photo of Abernathy, the metallic stench, the horrifying internal crawl—it was all a single, cohesive nightmare. The beetle wasn’t a curse he was carrying; it was a parasite he was hosting.

He fumbled for his keys, his hands shaking so violently it took three tries to unlock his car door. He threw himself into the driver’s seat, the engine roaring to life with a desperate turn of the key. He had one, singular thought, a beacon of clarity in the storm of his panic: the river.

It had to end. Now.

He drove with a reckless urgency, the familiar streets of his town blurring into an indistinct smear of color. He didn't care about his uncle, the job, or the lost day's pay. The only thing that mattered was the dense, malevolent weight in his pocket. He was a fool for thinking a thermos could contain it. This thing didn’t follow the laws of physics. It followed its own ancient, predatory rules. He wasn’t dealing with an object; he was dealing with a will.

The old bridge on the edge of town spanned the muddy, churning waters of the Ashuelot River. It was a deep, fast-moving current here, fed by the spring melt. Anything dropped from this height would be swept away, buried in silt, and lost forever. A perfect grave.

Alex slammed the car into park and stumbled out onto the gravel shoulder. The air was cool, smelling of damp earth and river water. He walked to the center of the bridge, the concrete vibrating faintly as a truck rumbled past. Below, the water was a murky, unwelcoming gray. He took a deep breath, the cold air stinging his lungs, and reached into his pocket.

His fingers closed around the beetle. The stone was cool, smooth, and familiar. This was it. A moment of rebellion. A final act of self-preservation. He was still Alex Vance. His body, his choices, were still his own.

He pulled his hand from his pocket, raising it over the rusty iron railing. He opened his palm, the greenish-gray carving resting there like a morbid offering.

"No more," he whispered, his voice hoarse.

He focused his entire being on the simple act of letting go. Uncurl fingers. Tip hand. Let gravity do the rest.

His hand refused to move.

He stared at it, a wave of confusion warring with his panic. It was as if the signal from his brain was being jammed, the connection severed. His fingers remained locked around the beetle, a cage of his own flesh. A tremor started in his forearm, a violent shudder of warring muscles—his conscious will fighting an unseen, invasive command.

"Let... go," he grunted through clenched teeth, sweat beading on his forehead. He used his left hand to try and pry his right fingers open, just as he had in his bed, but this time the resistance was absolute. His right hand was like a block of granite, the tendons in his wrist standing out like steel cables. He strained, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his own body turned into an instrument of his imprisonment.

Then, the beetle began to react.

A low, resonant warmth spread from the stone, a deep, cellular heat that traveled up his arm. It was not the gentle, calming sensation from before; this was the thrum of a machine powering on. A faint, almost sub-audible hum vibrated from the carving, a low-frequency buzz he felt more in his bones than heard with his ears. It pulsed in time with his frantic heartbeat, a parasitic rhythm syncing with its host. The power wasn’t just in his hand; it was flowing from the beetle, a current of pure dominance that overwhelmed his own will.

The fight drained out of him all at once. His muscles went slack, his left hand fell uselessly to his side. His right hand, of its own accord, slowly lowered from over the railing and curled back into a relaxed fist, drawing the warm, humming stone back to safety. The warmth was comforting now, a soothing balm on his defeated nerves. The unseen hand had won. He wasn't the collector; he was the collected.

Defeated, Alex shuffled back to his car. The drive home was a blur of numb resignation. The world outside his windshield seemed impossibly normal—people walking dogs, kids riding bikes—a life he was no longer a part of. He was living in a different reality now, a passenger in his own body, chauffeuring a monster.

He walked into his quiet house, the silence amplifying the faint, persistent skittering he could still feel under his skin. He dropped his keys on the counter with a clatter. Everything felt hollow, pointless. What was he supposed to do? Wait for it to happen? Wait to be found with wood splinters in his gums?

His gaze drifted to the corner of the living room, to the small wire cage on its dedicated stand. Nibbles. His hamster. A small, simple creature he’d had since he was a kid. A tiny, uncomplicated life that needed him. A sudden, desperate need for something normal, something he could still care for, propelled him forward.

"Hey, buddy," he said softly, his voice cracking. "Forgot to fill your water this morning."

He reached for the plastic water bottle attached to the side of the cage. Nibbles was usually there in an instant, his nose twitching, his little claws scratching at the bars in greeting.

Today, there was only silence. The cage was still.

A cold knot formed in Alex’s stomach. "Nibbles?"

He peered through the bars. The hamster was lying on his side in the cedar shavings, away from his food dish, away from his wheel. His body was stiff, his position unnatural. For a moment, Alex thought he was just sleeping. But it was the deep, final sleep of the dead.

Tears pricked at Alex's eyes. Grief and guilt washed over him. He’d been so consumed by his own horror that he’d neglected the one living thing that depended on him. He unlatched the small door on the cage, his hand trembling as he reached in to gently nudge the small, furry body.

As his fingers made contact, the hamster rolled over slightly.

And Alex saw them.

The hamster’s soft, white belly was covered in tiny, dark marks. They weren't bites or scratches from a fall. They were a cluster of impossibly small, perfectly round puncture wounds, identical to the ones on his own palm but multiplied a dozen times over. They were precise, clean, and utterly chilling. A signature.

He recoiled as if burned, snatching his hand back from the cage. His blood ran cold. This wasn't neglect. This was murder. An execution. The beetle hadn't just fought him at the bridge; it had been hungry. It needed to feed. And when he had denied it his own will, it had found a different, easier source of life in the quiet of his house.

As the full, gruesome realization crashed down upon him, Alex felt a distinct change in his pocket. The stone pressed against his thigh, and for the first time, he could feel that it was heavier. Not by much, but the density had changed, as if it had absorbed something essential from the small, lifeless creature in the cage.

He pulled it out. The greenish-gray stone looked the same, but the metallic purple veins running through its carapace were no longer dormant. They were glowing with a faint, sickly, internal luminescence, pulsing slowly with a soft, violet light, like the digestive tracts of some deep-sea predator after a fresh kill. It was sated. It was stronger. And it was living in his pocket.