Chapter 240 - The Birth of Death part 15

He did not know where he was when he came to. Not at first. It took a moment before it all came back to him, and then he wondered that he was still alive at all.

Khronos rolled onto his side, then pushed himself onto his hands and knees. He groaned. Pain coiled in his guts like a serpent, one skinned with poison barbs. It twined and knotted, stabbing and tearing at his insides. He pushed himself up, stumbled to his feet.

He stood swaying for a moment, doubled over from the pain in his abdomen, then remembered the black egg and whirled around.

The egg, and the column of smoke boiling off of it, was gone. There was a small depression in the ground where it had rested, but no sign of the glistening orb.

He looked up at the sky to gauge how long he had been unconscious. Stars twinkled between patches of cloud. The glowing disc of the moon hovered just above the horizon, dim and orange, yet he could see just as clearly as if it were day!

I'm sure you can imagine the thoughts that must have raced through his mind. He was confused, frightened, in pain. The Strix was still working inside of him, worming its way through his veins, transforming the cells of his body into a matrix of hollow chambers, petrifying him bit by painful bit. The agony was exquisite. Few mortals are able to move while the Strix transforms their body, but Khronos rose, and he began to stumble homeward, groaning and breathing raggedly as white hot agony threaded through his veins.

He knew that the Strix had invaded his body. He did not understand what it was, but he could feel it moving inside of him. He could sense its alien thoughts, just at the edge of his awareness. The eager, hungry nature of them.

It is devouring me from within, he said to himself.

He believed that he was dying, and he didn't want to die. Worse than the thought of dying was the thought of dying alone. He wanted to be among his people. Like all dying men, he wanted his woman. He wanted his mother. So he walked, though each footstep was like treading on jagged rocks, though each movement sent searing agony bolting through his body. He stumbled to the rim of the crater and climbed, even though his arms felt like they were lashed to invisible boulders. He lost his footing and slid down the crumbling slope again and again, but he persevered. When he finally got to the top of the declivity, he laid on his back, staring at the sky as he tried to catch his breath.

His hands were buzzing and he brought them in front of his eyes. His heart jumped at the sight of them. His hands were white as bone now, their texture similar to granite. Smooth, hard, glinting, as if tiny flecks of quartz crystal were imbedded in their surface. His nails were clear and inflexible. And all the cuts and scrapes that he had suffered as he journeyed to this place (of which there were many) had vanished, healed so perfectly there was no sign of them.

He felt an intense pressure on his heart and clutched his chest, groaning aloud. The breath was being squeezed out of him.

Frightened, he leapt to his feet and shambled on, grunting like an animal.

"I… defy you," he snarled.

He stumbled to the place where Tulpac and the others had collapsed, hoping they were still there, but they were gone. They had abandoned him, or perhaps the earth had opened up and devoured them.

At the thought of Tulpac, an intense hunger seized him, and he fell to his knees, clutching his belly. He searched the area around him, hoping to find some stray animal carcass or scrap of food, fantasizing about hot, raw, bloody meat, and tearing into it with his teeth. And then he thought about Tulpac again. The two images were jumbled together in his head, and he saw himself biting into Tulpac's flesh, rending his flesh and sucking the hot juice that came pulsing out of the wounds. He remembered devouring his father's heart, raw and dripping, and his want was so great that he thought he'd go mad.

He leapt to his feet and raced on.