...Crashing Down

I can't stop smiling.

Well, not exactly smiling—my entire face is still wrapped in gauze and burned flesh—but mentally, emotionally, I'm grinning like a madman. Holy crap. My quirk awakened. My quirk awakened!!!

I can't stop. I won't stop.

I focus again, locking onto the sensation—the warmth, the pull, the strange, impossible feeling of command. I don't just feel my cells, I control them. It's like looking at a 3D model of my own body and being able to drag pieces around with my mind.

I work in bursts, carefully and methodically. Layer by layer.

Dead skin falls off like old bark. Beneath it, I stitch together skin cells, capillaries, and nerves like I'm knitting my own flesh back into shape. It's disgusting and beautiful at the same time.

Hours pass. Maybe more. I don't know. Time blurs when you're in the zone.

And by the time my brain starts to ache and my thoughts feel like they're made of soup, I've done it—half my skin is repaired. Fifty percent.

It's not perfect. Some patches are better than others. A few are red and raw, like a sunburn. But most of it? Healthy and new.

This is progress. This is hope.

No one's noticed because I'm still covered in bandages like a sad mummy from a Halloween discount bin. The nurses come in, check vitals, change my IVs, and leave. They can't see what I've done. What I'm doing.

I rest for a while, letting the pounding in my head calm down.

I don't know what my quirk is yet. Regeneration? Cell manipulation? Some kind of advanced shapeshifting? Whatever it is, it's mine, and it's working.

But now…

Now comes the hard part.

The eye.

I've been putting it off for hours because it's terrifying. Eyes aren't skin. They're insanely complex. Delicate structures, fluid dynamics, light reception, nerve conduction. It's basically a miniature camera made of jelly. And I'm trying to build one from scratch.

So for now I'll just focus on just one—my left. No need for both. I just need to see. 

I start slowly, mentally constructing every layer: cornea, iris, lens, retina, optic nerve. My head is killing me. The effort is so much worse than the skin. 

It's like defusing a bomb blindfolded—with your hands tied behind your back. But I refuse to give up.

Hours pass. Maybe more.

The hospital lights dim, and the hum of life around me fades. I think it's night now. I'm locked in the process, my entire mind is narrowed down into this singular task.

But after what feels like an eternity…

Light.

It's blurry. Dim. Like looking through very foggy glasses.

But it's light.

I can see.

Just a sliver. Just shadows and movement and the faintest wash of gray-blue—maybe moonlight from the window—but it's enough to make my heart punch through my chest like a jackhammer.

I'm crying again. Just one eye. Just a few tears. But it's enough.

I have sight.

Crappy, blurry, half-working sight…

But I have it again.

I slump back in the bed, grinning like an idiot. I'm exhausted, my body feels like it ran a marathon, but I don't care.

I'm winning.

I'm growing.

I'm—

…wait.

Something's wrong.

A strange… sensation starts to claw its way to my stomach. Not pain. Not nausea.

Something else.

Hunger.

What the hell? I had my IV meal not too long ago. So why am I so hungry?

My whole body is screaming for sustenance. It's a heat crawling inside my chest, a gnawing that twists in my gut like a starving animal.

Then—

A smell.

Wait. What?

I freeze.

That shouldn't be possible. My sense of smell was nearly destroyed in the fire. The nerves cooked, but this? This is sharp and strong. It cuts through the air like a knife. I can't describe it. Sweet, coppery, rich? Kind of but not quite. It's wrong, but right. Foreign, but familiar. 

I try to take a deeper sniff. It hits me like a drug, like I've been starving and just caught a whiff of steak on a grill. It's really good—it's intoxicating.

What the hell is it?

I try to ignore it. It's late. I'm tired. It's probably nothing. A hallucination. A side effect. My nerves rewiring the wrong way.

I try to drown it with thoughts of how badass I am for rebuilding myself from scratch.

But it doesn't stop.

It gets worse. Stronger. My body wants it—no, craves it. Like it's the only thing that matters.

The hunger worms itself into my brain like an itch under my skull.

My stomach growls loudly. My mouth releases more and more drool. My fingers twitch. The scent is flooding my brain like smoke in a sealed room.

No, no, no! What is this?!

I need to find it.

I have to find it.

I don't know what "it" is, but every cell in my body is screaming the same thing.

GO

I throw off the blankets and sit up.

I slide my legs off the bed and try to stand.

Agony erupts from my right leg.

I fall out of the bed with a sickening thud. I hold back a sob. I can't let anyone know I'm awake.

I push myself upright. The pain nearly makes me blackout. My right leg screams at me, shattered and barely holding together.

I focus, rushing through a messy, half-assed repair on my leg. Bones mend. Flesh knits. It's ugly, sloppy, and hurts like hell. 

But I can stand, kind of.

I limp toward the door.

It hurts.

God, it hurts.

But I push through it. 

I peek out of the door.

The hospital is quiet and dimly lit. Late-night shifts mean fewer nurses, fewer prying eyes. I shuffle, step by step, making my way forward like a puppet with half its strings missing and the others frayed to hell. 

I'm still wrapped in bandages and my hospital gown, limping like a horror movie monster through the halls.

If anyone sees me, they'll scream. 

I limp down the hall, heart hammering, following the smell—no, the pull—like a compass needle. I find an elevator. 

I take it down several floors. My reflection flashes in the chrome doors as they close—blurry, misshapen. A ghost of a boy.

The elevator dings softly as I descend.

One floor. Two. Three. Down.

The smell gets stronger.

My heart pounds. My stomach aches. And my fingers twitch like live wires.

Ding.

The doors open to a quiet corridor. It's colder here, and everything smells like bleach and steel.

But under it all… is that scent.

That sickly-sweet rot.

It leads me forward. Down the corridor.

One step at a time.

Then I see it.

At the end of the corridor is a metal door.

Marked in clean, bold black:

MORGUE

My stomach turns. 

Oh no. 

No, no no no.

I think to myself, "What could be in there that's driving me crazy?"

But in the back of my mind, I know.

The craving is getting worse and worse. It's clawing at my brain like a living thing. Like a parasite.

Every part of me is screaming.

To stop. To turn back. But also to open the door and find the source.

I reach for the handle.

It's cold.

I push the door open and step inside.

Metal tables. Refrigerated units. A single overhead light flickering slightly.

I limp toward one of the tables. There's a body bag on top. Unzipped halfway.

The smell is so strong now it chokes me. I start panting. My fingers and arms twitch. I can't think straight. My body is burning, screaming at me to open it. My nerves feel like they're on fire. My skin is tingling. My repaired eye is watering from the strength of the scent.

I have to open it!

My hands move on their own.

I can't stop myself. My mind screams, but my body ignores it.

I peel the zipper the rest of the way down.

The smell hits me harder than ever before.

My brain goes blank.

The hunger explodes.

And then…

I blackout.