Chapter 13: Reality

Sensing the newfound silence in the street with his vast repertoire of both human and inhuman senses, Nathan lowered his left arm. As he did, Nathan felt new parts of his body tense and act in his arms and glancing down he could see that the shield had began to compact itself on his wrist.

By the time, the almost mechanical, series of flexes and tenses stopped the shield was now little more than a small thick ridge of the bonelike ivory material he had seen in the hive and on his tendrils.

This was quite the size reduction, given that before the shield had covered everything from above Nathan's knees when placed correctly, and now was little more than a boney protrusion that ran down from the elbow to the wrist.

The ridge was wide, but tapered smoothly into the curve of Nathan's arm and extending no higher than an inch or two in height above his arm at the highest point.

Nathan halted further investigation given the soldiers were still leveling weapons at him, and at any moment could once again open fire. On top of this, Nathan could feel that his tendrils were struggling to drain anything further from the woman and glancing at her he could see clearly why.

The woman looked like a desiccated corpse. An appearance that was only increased in its ghastly-ness by the tattered flesh that signified where her arms had once been.

Glancing away and eagerly attempting to purge the sight from his mind, he made his tendrils drop the body and he heard it tumble to the ground with a clattering thump. Deciding not to push his luck with the clearly confused soldiers, he wordlessly set off for the Bridge back to the hive.

However Nathan did not understand the true scale of events he had set into motion that day, nor the effects they would have on the world and more directly to himself.

For he had now picked up the attention of a multi-national task force built to combat what the media was referring to as 'The Obsidian Plague', as well as the attention of a violent despot that would see Nathan's ability as both a threat and a tool to acquire and use.

Nathan barely paid any attention on his way back, instead running in a kind of autopilot using his instincts to guide him back. His mind was pre-occupied, on digesting the events that had just unfolded he, for good reason or not, had just killed someone.

Sure, that someone was arguably a monster who had at least killed a handful of people that Nathan was directly aware about, probably more. However, did this still make it right what he had done to her.

Despite in the moment hardening his resolve, with the desire to survive and do what he must a part of him still screamed out in protest at what he had done. A few weeks prior to this, Nathan wouldn't of even dreamed of killing someone but also a few weeks ago, Nathan was little more than your typical nine to five office worker.

Only the sensation of walking through a crashing waterfall managed to bring Nathan's reeling mind back to the present, and with it a new thought he was unsure was a good thing -the sense he had just returned home.

Coming back to his senses fully shortly before emerging through the bridge on the hive side, Nathan immediately strode down the stairs and off the bridge plinth as the room wound down from use.

Hivebert could sense it's master's delicate mental state, and so decided to be mute and simply opened the doorways and allowed its master into the bedroom he was headed for.

Nathan sat on the edge of the strange, bone link hammock bed. He let his distinctly inhuman head fall into his hands, and wormed his fingers in to his hair that still remained behind the boney protrusion.

He sat there for a while, making sure to fully come to terms with the action he had taken and the events of the day now he was stationary. After a few minutes, he nodedded and got to his feet with a sigh.

"Hey Hiverbert, don't suppose we have a shower or anything?" Nathan said, for the first time truly noticing his blood soaked clothing.

The answer, was not to Nathan's satisfaction however, however he could feel his tendrils were tired and so despite wanting to, opted not to go hunting for a shower today. Besides, as Hivebert had told him his body no longer excreted sweat or much of any substance without conscious decision.

Nathan did however discover with the conversation that his clothes where actually grown by the hive, and were kind of a parasitic organism attached to him. Consequently, with a bit of practice he could instruct this organism to retract much like his shield.

This ability was important, as the organism would only retract itself, and not extra material such as blood and dirt. The resulting effect was a small cloud of debris falling from Nathan's temporarily nude body and falling to the floor of his room, the floor of which then convulsing in pulses to push the dust and debris to one of the walls of the room where it vanished into the wall.

Once again sensing Nathan's desire, Hivebert pumped a portion of the shade into it's Master's room and shaped it to form a mirror in front of him.

Nathan stared into the mirror, that showed him. A tall, heavily muscular bi-pedal humanoid. With a patch work of black obsidian flesh lining his torso, with a web work of this material stretching out from the patches on to what little human skin remained.

Nathan now noticed that his hands were much the same, the outside flesh the gleaming obsidian black of the hive walls. But his knuckles bore distinctly elevated and pointed protrusions of the bone like material, and the area around them was scaled like his tendrils.

Running his fingers along his sides, he noticed that the regions of skin that had been struck by the woman's spines was rougher, and some even felt like they were forming scales.

His lower body was almost entirely human still. With the exception of the major muscle groups in Nathan's legs, which seemed to be the major points with which the black skin was expanding from.

Nathan stared at himself, allowed it to sink in. This was him now, and he would need to face it one way or another.

He had thrived on the strength, the power, the speed and the senses whatever was happening to him had given him, but now he had to truly look and understand the price it had cost him.

He took his hands up to the boney plate covering the top of his face, tapering off and melding with the flesh just above and around his cheeks and mouth. He let his fingers run along it, tracing its organic lines and smooth face.

As his fingers wandered, he noticed that even if they were directly in front of where his eyes should be, he could see through them if he desired which further drove home the point he was rapidly fleeing from his own humanity.

He glanced one last time over his body in the mirror, before dismissing it. The semi-liquid drifting to the ground and draining out the floor similar to the way water in a sink when the plug is pulled.

After watching the liquid melt away, Nathan fell into the bed beside him his mind tired with the amount of information it needed to digest to day, but despite this sleep did not come quickly, but it did come eventually.