Feeding Frenzy

"Safe..." Axel mumbled again, though the word felt hollow as another wave of hunger tore through him. The transformation was accelerating now - he could feel his enhanced form slipping away like water through cupped hands. His senses flickered between superhuman and normal, creating a disorienting strobe effect that made the darkening alley swim before his eyes.

He tried to stand but his legs wouldn't cooperate. The concrete was cool against his cheek as he lay there, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The streetlights were starting to come on, casting long shadows that danced at the edges of his failing vision. At least there weren't any people around. Small mercies.

"Got to... move..." He managed to roll onto his back, staring up at the twilight sky. It was a normal sky - no sickly green tinge, no cosmic horror vibes. Just regular old Earth atmosphere turning purple-orange as the sun set. Beautiful, in its mundane way.

Another hunger pang hit him, this one so intense that it made him curl into a fetal position. His enhanced healing factor was failing completely now, unable to maintain his mutated form without fuel. He could feel his cells cannibalizing themselves, desperately trying to power basic functions. The pain was excruciating, but worse was the creeping weakness. He felt like a battery running dry, each movement requiring more effort than the last.

That's when he saw it - a flicker of movement at the end of the alley. His vision was too unreliable to make out details at first, just a vague shape moving in the growing darkness. But then his enhanced senses surged back momentarily, giving him a crystal-clear view of salvation.

A dog. A chunky bulldog, probably a stray given its unkempt appearance, was nosing through some garbage bags. It hadn't noticed him yet, too focused on whatever scraps it was hunting. The sight of it - of living, moving meat - triggered something primal in Axel's altered biology.

The hunger roared to life, drowning out all other thoughts. His failing senses suddenly sharpened to painful clarity, zeroing in on the animal with predatory focus. He could hear its heartbeat, smell its blood pumping through thick veins, see every twitch of muscle under matted fur. His mouth filled with saliva, teeth aching with need.

The weakness vanished, replaced by savage strength born of desperation. His body, which had been rapidly losing its enhanced form, suddenly snapped back into peak condition. Muscles re-inflated, senses heightened, healing factor surged - all powered by the primal drive to feed.

He moved without conscious thought, crossing the distance between them in complete silence. The dog started to turn, perhaps finally sensing the predator at its back, but it was far too late. Axel's enhanced reflexes had him on the animal before it could make a sound.

His hand clamped around its muzzle, cutting off the beginning of a bark. The other arm wrapped around its barrel chest, pinning its legs. The dog tried to struggle, but Axel's momentary restored strength made its efforts futile. There was a quick, savage motion - he wasn't even sure exactly what he did - and it was over.

The first bite was pure instinct, teeth sinking into still-warm flesh. The taste... God, the taste. It was beyond anything he'd ever experienced. Well aside from one. His enhanced senses transformed every aspect of the meal into an symphony of sensation. The rich, iron tang of blood. The complex layers of flavor in the meat. The satisfying resistance as his teeth tore through muscle and cartilage.

He devoured the animal with mechanical efficiency without a care for anything, his altered biology extracting maximum nutrition from every mouthful. The hunger drove him to consume everything - meat, organs, even crunching through smaller bones. His healing factor surged with each swallow, repairing the damage from his near-starvation state.

It wasn't until the dog was reduced to scattered remains that awareness began to return. The desperate edge of hunger faded, allowing rational thought to resurface. Axel sat back against the alley wall, looking at his blood-covered hands with new eyes.

There was no revulsion. No guilt. No horror at what he'd just done. Those emotions felt... distant. Academic. Like reading about someone else's feelings in a book. Instead, there was satisfaction. Pleasure, even. His body hummed with renewed energy, enhanced form fully restored and stable. He wasn't looking like the Hulk anymore, but he wasn't dying of starvation.

"Well," he said to his crimson-stained fingers, voice steady despite everything. "That happened."

He flexed his hands, watching the play of restored muscle under skin. The weakness was gone, replaced by familiar superhuman strength. His senses were sharp and clear again, picking up details from blocks away. The healing factor was back at full capacity, already closing the few scratches he'd gotten from the dog's futile struggles.

"Right," he muttered, pushing himself to his feet. "Note to self: enhanced form needs fuel. Alive meat is the best fuel. Add that to the growing list of things Mom can never, ever find out about."

The thought of his mother brought reality crashing back. He was still covered in blood and gore - both from his earlier fights and his recent... meal. His clothes were torn and stained beyond salvation. And he still needed to actually get home without being seen.

After catching his breath and letting his enhanced healing factor fully stabilize, Axel crept to the end of the alley. His restored senses picked up distant sirens and the general background noise of the city, but nothing immediately threatening. No screaming civilians who'd witnessed his... dietary choices. No approaching police cars. Just normal evening sounds.

"At least something's going right," he muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The gesture left another streak of blood across his face, but at this point it hardly mattered. He looked like an extra from a slasher film anyway.

Curiosity - and tactical necessity - made him create another small portal to check the nightmare realm. The hunting party that had nearly caught him was gone, presumably having lost interest when their quarry vanished. The twisted version of the alley was empty save for the usual unsettling flora that seemed to infest everything in that world.

"They gave up pretty quick," he observed, keeping the portal small enough to avoid drawing attention from either side. "Maybe they can't track through dimensions. Or maybe they just got bored..."

He was about to close the portal when a thought struck him. The dog's remains were still scattered around him - mostly just bones and bits he hadn't been able to consume, but there was plenty of blood soaked into the concrete. In his restored state, he could smell it clearly - a rich, coppery scent that seemed to fill the alley.

"Wait a minute..." He looked down at his blood-covered clothes, then back at the portal. "The monster gore worked as camouflage because it masked my human scent. But what about regular blood? Would that attract them instead?"

It was a crucial question. His original plan had been to navigate through the nightmare realm to reach home, using the monster-gore camouflage to avoid detection. But now he was covered in fresh blood - very non-monstrous blood. If that attracted the creatures instead of masking him...

"Only one way to find out," he decided, picking up one of the larger bone fragments. It still had some meat and blood on it - not much, but enough for a test. "Scientific method, right? Form hypothesis, test hypothesis, try not to get eaten..."

He tossed the bone through the portal, then quickly shifted position to watch from a different angle. For several long moments, nothing happened. The bone lay there in the twisted alley, a splash of normal red against the otherworldly landscape.

Then something moved at the edge of his enhanced vision.

It started with one - a shambling figure that suddenly stopped, head tilting like a curious dog. Then another appeared, and another. Within seconds, half a dozen monsters had emerged from various hiding spots, all focused on the bloody bone with an intensity that made Axel's skin crawl.

The first creature approached cautiously, its malformed body moving with that unnatural grace he'd come to associate with the more dangerous specimens. It bent down to examine the bone, making a sound that was almost like sniffing. Then it straightened up and let out a noise - not quite a roar, not quite a word - that seemed to vibrate in Axel's enhanced ears.

The response was immediate and terrifying.

Monsters erupted from every shadow, pouring out of buildings and crawling from beneath cars. Dozens of them, then scores, all converging on the bloody offering. They fought each other to get closer, ripping and tearing with mutated limbs in their frenzy to reach the source of the blood. The bone disappeared beneath a writhing mass of twisted flesh and too-many limbs.

"Holy shit," Axel whispered, watching the feeding frenzy with a mixture of fascination and horror. "They're like sharks. Or piranhas. One drop of blood and they just..."

He trailed off as the implications sank in. He'd been planning to walk through that realm, using the streets and alleys as a shortcut home. But now...

"Yeah, that's not happening." He shook his head, watching as more monsters continued to arrive. The bone was long gone, but they were still coming, drawn by the mere hint of blood. "Not unless I want to star in my own zombie apocalypse movie."

The frenzy was spreading now, with monsters fighting each other over even the smallest traces of blood on the ground. Their unnatural sounds echoed through the portal - screeches, roars, and those almost-words that made his teeth itch. More concerning was how coordinated they seemed. These weren't mindless beasts - they were communicating, organizing, establishing some kind of hierarchy around the blood source.

"Right," Axel muttered and closed the portal. "Valuable lesson learned. Blood equals bad. Very, very bad."