Chapter 3: A Hunger for Misery

Chapter 3: A Hunger for Misery

Sleep didn't come. It was a shore Alex could no longer reach, stranded on an ocean of cold, waking dread. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the fleeting image of black antlers blooming from his own shadow. The night was a long, suffocating ordeal spent listening to the groans of his apartment building, each creak and rattle a potential footstep of the thing that now shared his skull.

When the grey, anemic light of dawn finally seeped through his window, it brought not relief, but the grim necessity of routine. Work. The Blackwood Creek Market. The thought of its soul-crushing mundanity had never been so appealing. He needed the mindless task of stocking shelves, the drone of the fluorescent lights, the apathy of late-night shoppers. He needed an anchor, something real to cling to in the swirling vortex of his unravelling sanity.

The moment he stepped outside, he knew it was a futile hope. The world was… different. Sharper. Uglier.

The air, usually just a mix of pine and exhaust fumes, was now thick with a tapestry of unseen currents. As he walked the familiar route to the market, a woman passed him on the sidewalk, her face a mask of strained cheerfulness. But Alex didn't just see her; he felt her. A wave of bitterness, sharp and metallic like sucking on a battery, washed over him. He knew, with a certainty that defied logic, that she was on her way to visit a husband she no longer loved, trapped in a cage of her own making.

He flinched, recoiling from the unwanted intimacy. The knowledge hadn't come from him. It was an observation, delivered into his mind with the cold, detached interest of a biologist studying a specimen.

Inside the market, the sensation intensified a hundredfold. The familiar, sterile environment was now a cacophony of quiet desperation. The low hum of the refrigeration units, the squeak of cart wheels, the tinny muzak—it all felt like a thin veil stretched over a pit of raw, human pain. And he, somehow, could see through it.

He pulled on his faded work vest and grabbed a dolly of canned corn, seeking refuge in the familiar motions. Stack the cans. Pyramid shape. Labels forward. Don't think. Just work.

But the entity, the echo in his head, was no longer content to be a silent observer. It was hungry.

A young mother wrestled a screaming toddler in the cereal aisle. Alex had seen scenes like this a thousand times, tuning them out as background noise. Now, he was assaulted by the woman's misery. It wasn't just frustration. It was a deep, cloying fog of financial dread, a fear so profound it felt like a physical weight on her shoulders. He could almost taste her shame, the belief that she was failing, that her love wasn't enough to fix this. The feeling was intoxicating, a rich, complex flavor that made the thing inside him stir with a horrifying, eager curiosity.

‘Despair, sharpened by fear,’ the thought slid into his mind, analytical and appreciative. ‘A fine vintage.’

Alex’s stomach churned. He dropped a can of corn, the clang echoing unnaturally loud in his ears. He backed away, his breath catching in his chest.

He tried to focus on his work, moving to the soup aisle. An elderly man, thin and stooped, shuffled past, his eyes fixed on the floor. Alex was hit by a wave of loneliness so vast and empty it felt like the cold between stars. It radiated from the man in a visible, shimmering haze of grey light that only he could see. The sorrow was old, worn smooth like a river stone, the grief for a partner lost decades ago still the man's only constant companion.

The entity within Alex practically vibrated, a predator catching the scent of blood in the water. It was a deeper, purer sorrow than the mother's. More satisfying.

‘Loss, distilled by time,’ the voice mused. ‘Potent.’

Alex leaned against the shelves, a cold sweat beading on his forehead. This was its nature. This was its purpose. It didn't just live inside him; it saw the world through a lens of human suffering. Pain, grief, fear, loneliness—they weren't emotions. They were sustenance. They were a menu.

His shift devolved into a waking nightmare. He saw the world through the creature’s eyes. The pimply teenager shoplifting a candy bar wasn't just a petty thief; he was a well of self-loathing, projecting a pathetic bravado to hide a terror of his own inadequacy. His manager, Carl, who came out to bark at him for being slow, wasn't just a bitter jerk; he was drowning in a swamp of resentment for a life he felt had been stolen from him. Each person was an open wound, and Alex was now cursed to see, smell, and feel every festering detail.

He was restocking a shelf of tomato paste, his hands shaking, when his own familiar despair tried to surface. The memory of the crash, the guilt, the self-hatred that had been his constant companion for years. He tried to cling to it, to that old, miserable friend. At least it was his.

But for the first time, it felt weak. Watery. Compared to the rich buffet of misery surrounding him, his own pain felt like a bland, stale cracker.

And the entity agreed.

A thought, colder and clearer than any before, sliced through his panic. It wasn't a whisper. It was a direct, impatient statement from the parasite to its host.

Yours is fading. It is not enough.

The words hit him with the force of a physical blow. He stumbled back, dropping his pricing gun with a clatter. It wasn't just feeding on his despair. It had been an appetizer, the price of admission. Now, it had consumed the initial offering and its hunger was growing. His sorrow, the thing that had defined him, the black hole that had swallowed his life, was no longer sufficient.

The full, horrifying truth of his situation slammed into him. The entity wasn't a passenger. It was a parasite looking to expand its hunting ground. He wasn't just the haunted house; he was the open door. He was its eyes, its ears, its divining rod for locating the most succulent suffering.

He looked up, his gaze sweeping across the late-night shoppers scattered through the aisles. He didn't see people anymore. He saw flickering auras of grey loneliness, sickly green envy, deep crimson rage. He saw a smorgasbord of human pain.

And the silent, hungry thing inside him wanted to feast.