Chapter 7: The Unthinkable Cure

The creature that had been Elias Vance stood motionless in the center of his devastated apartment, multiple eyes processing the wreckage of his former life through fractured spectrums of perception. Three days had passed since he'd consumed the last recognizable piece of furniture, three days of existing in a state that transcended hunger and approached something like mechanical operation.

His various sensory organs detected the electromagnetic signatures of ships in the harbor below, the metallic tang of their hulls calling to his hybrid metabolism. But something else held his attention—a reflection caught in the one remaining mirror, cracked and hanging askew on the bathroom wall.

The reflection showed a nightmare.

Seven feet of amalgamated biology and technology stared back at him through a dozen different types of eyes. Chitinous plates caught the afternoon light while synthetic fibers pulsed beneath translucent skin. Feathers sprouted from joints reinforced with consumed steel, and bark-like growths created rough patches between areas of scales and fur and exposed circuitry.

But it was the eyes that stopped him cold—not the compound lenses or the heat-sensing pits or the crystalline formations that caught radio waves. It was a single pair of human eyes, green and familiar, buried deep in the left side of what had once been his face. They looked out from the chaos of his transformation with an expression of pure, desperate horror.

Those eyes were still him. Still Elias. Still capable of recognizing what he had become.

"No," he whispered, his voice a harmony of organic and synthetic sounds. "No, no, no..."

The word echoed through his various vocal systems—chittering from insectoid parts, growling from mammalian ones, the electronic buzz of consumed speakers adding artificial resonance. But beneath it all was something unmistakably human, a voice that remembered speaking to friends, laughing with his mother, calling out to boats returning to harbor.

That human voice was drowning.

His feet—now an impossible fusion of hooves, claws, and metallic appendages—carried him to the bathroom mirror. He stared at his reflection, trying to find other traces of Elias Vance in the creature looking back. The shape of his skull, though elongated and sprouting various growths, still held echoes of his mother's bone structure. One shoulder retained patches of his original skin tone beneath the scales and synthetic coverings.

He was still in there, somewhere, fighting to remain human against the tide of consumed materials and alien instincts.

But for how long?

His transformed digestive system was already cataloging the mirror's potential—silver backing, glass substrate, the metal frame holding it to the wall. Part of his consciousness was calculating the nutritional value of the bathroom fixtures, the electromagnetic properties of the copper pipes, the structural reinforcement he could gain from the apartment's remaining wooden beams.

The hunger never stopped. It had evolved beyond physical need into something like a universal solvent, breaking down the barriers between self and environment, between Elias and everything else.

He stumbled away from the mirror, his multiple legs struggling to coordinate movement. In the living room, scattered among the debris of consumed furniture, something caught his attention. A piece of paper, blood-stained and crumpled, wedged between two floorboards.

With fingers that were part flesh, part chitin, part synthetic polymer, he extracted the paper and smoothed it carefully. His own handwriting, though shaky and desperate, was still legible:

STAY HUMAN

He didn't remember writing it, but the blood was his—or what his blood had been before it became the hybrid fluid that now flowed through his veins. The message was simple, direct, a plea from his human consciousness to whatever he might become.

But how? How could he stay human when every instinct, every cellular process, every evolved system in his body was designed to consume and transform? When the very act of existing was an ongoing process of integration and metamorphosis?

The answer came to him with horrifying clarity.

His transformation operated on a simple principle: he became what he ate. Organic matter brought animal characteristics. Synthetic materials added artificial properties. Each substance integrated itself into his being, reshaping him according to its own nature.

If he wanted to be human again, he needed to consume humanity itself.

The thought should have repulsed him, should have triggered every moral instinct he possessed. But those instincts were being drowned out by the practical calculations of his transformed mind. It made perfect sense from a biological standpoint. If consumption led to integration, then consuming human flesh would restore his human characteristics.

It was logical. Efficient. Inevitable.

But it was also monstrous.

His human eyes stared at the blood-stained note while his compound lenses scanned the apartment for alternatives. There had to be another way. Some combination of materials that could restore his original form, some sequence of consumption that could reverse the process.

But even as he searched for alternatives, his evolved sensory systems were already reaching beyond the apartment walls. The harbor below teemed with life—fishermen returning with their catch, dock workers loading cargo, tourists wandering the waterfront. His heat-vision painted them as warm, pulsing targets while his electromagnetic senses detected the bioelectrical signatures of their nervous systems.

Food. Restoration. Humanity.

"No," he said again, but his voice carried less conviction now. The word was becoming a mantra, a desperate repetition that might hold back the inevitable.

But the hunger was patient. It had consumed his apartment, his possessions, his very identity. It could wait for his conscience to follow.

He tried to focus on the note, on the simple command written in his own blood. STAY HUMAN. But what did that mean when humanity itself might require the ultimate transgression? When staying human meant becoming the most inhuman thing imaginable?

His multiple eyes closed, trying to shut out the sensory input that cataloged everything around him as potential sustenance. But even in darkness, his other senses continued their relentless assessment. The electromagnetic fields of the harbor. The chemical traces of human scent carried on the wind. The rhythmic biopatterns of heartbeats and breathing.

A city full of solutions to his problem.

A city full of people who could restore what he had lost.

When his eyes opened again, the human pair was filled with tears—actual salt water, not the hybrid fluids that now comprised most of his body's secretions. But the other eyes, the ones that belonged to predators and hunters and things that had never known mercy, were dry and calculating.

He looked at the note one more time, memorizing the desperate handwriting, the plea from his former self. Then he carefully folded it and placed it in what remained of his jacket pocket—a synthetic blend that had partially integrated with his skin but still served its original function.

The creature that contained Elias Vance moved toward the door, his footsteps leaving acidic impressions in the wood. Outside, the harbor waited with its boats and buildings and the warm, living bodies that might hold the key to his salvation.

He had learned to consume the inedible. Now he would learn whether he could consume the unthinkable.

The door opened with a metallic screech, and the night air carried a thousand different scents to his transformed senses. But beneath them all was the scent he'd been trying to ignore, the one his human consciousness had been fighting against acknowledging.

The scent of people. Of flesh and blood and the biological complexity that might make him human again.

The hunt was about to begin.