"The creature rose slowly. Something had woken it from its deep slumber, and it didn’t want to be roused. It struggled with the transition, determined to return back into the deep, deep state of bliss which he’d just been roused from. Harsh memories of its last awakening flared suddenly in its consciousness. It recoiled with an audible groan then sat down and tried to return back to the rapture.
It had felt so safe there.
It felt threatened. It knew it had been summoned. Its summoner would be cruel and merciless. Its demands would be terrible. It would be forced to kill again. More nightmares. More regrets. More phantasms of sorrow in a once sane mind.
It awoke fully now and opened one of its eyes. It stretched itself to its full length before gazing round its surroundings with both eyes now open. Reading the atmosphere, it knew it was safe. There were no immediate threats. Whoever was its keeper was not currently in its immediate vicinity. But it knew that energy source resided close by. It could sense its malice. Its menace. Its violence. The primeval evil which pervaded that fiend.
However, it knew the source was not even aware it had woken. Not yet. But it would. It would soon and then the torture and the turmoil would return again. The creature would then have to kill again.
It became aware then of other energy sources around it. Humans unware of its existence. Mortals leading mortal lives. Simple minded fools who were trapped in their day to day lives unaware of the slavery which they were enveloped in. Automatons to the mechanical heart beat of manufactured time. The creature could sense them. Its brainwaves could infuse and join with them. Taught long ago to understand its victim and sense its fear and its adrenalin, to heighten the experience, it had retained the ability to become telepathically joined with the human kind.
The creature became aware then of one energy source in particular. One much stronger than any of the other ones it had touched upon. One which was almost as aware as itself. One which had a frequency which was familiar. Indeed the creature knew the frequency ... recognised it instantly.
It reminded it of another time. Of another place. Of another existence.
A time before its captivity, before its assimilation. A time when it was itself human. The creature longed to be human again. It was captured. Trapped in a timeless state as nothing. As no-one. As merely an assimilation to be used on the whim of its keepers. An existence which from the onset that was fraught with harshness, cruelty and misery.
It was had woken completely from its drug induced state now. The powerful energy source nearby acting like a beacon to it. Like a psychic battery from which it was able to pull powerful energies to aid it in its resurgence and recuperation. The ebb and flow of the source became mesmeric, like a heartbeat to it.
Becoming an audible sound in its awareness. A comfort. A need. A recognised signature. A calming sensation began to build and grow then emanate through its perverted being. It was at ease. Strange, forgotten memories seemed to cascade through its consciousness, as it could almost grasp ... sanity. It could almost touch ‘human-ness’ again.
It had begun to remember ... slowly.
It moved and found that its arms were unrestrained. It permitted its eyes to focus on its arms and noted the old weals and scars which adorned both arms. A distant memory of the cause registering in its mind. It winced with an old forgotten memory. Former agony returned. It was instantly scared. Weakened by its responses.
Troubled then by the time it was ... human ...
Copyright Extract taken from 'The Alchemist' by Matthew James
