Apex, 2

Step out from white, steel, warm air into spears of water escaping the sky. Drops steal light from street and city, then return to world as glitter and glow. Second skin and second skull clean, white, then both turn black as I move on to step road. Traffic – of prey, of prey that think themselves predators, and of steel and plastic just beyond stream of meat.

Dozen noses of second skull open, smell dread and desperation. Sick poison slipping into nose, onto tongue.

Caustic.

Disgusting.

Fear not of I, but of other nameless things. Countless things.

Dozen noses close. Second eyes and second ears open to the world, see and hear but not taste or smell. Hear toxic red coursing through shriveled flesh.

One hundred red rhythms is discordant orchestra. No common rate. Each product of separate doom.

Eyes focus on one hundred paradoxes. Worlds self contained but interconnected. Fates ricochet off fates. Origin, ray of meat producing more meat. End, corrupted red or of corrupted inside drinking meat of red.

Recursive lines impacting and redirecting themselves and each other. Forming fractal pattern, ultimate mass expression of fear and hate and rage.

Rage and hate and fear of self propel selves down countless individual vectors.

Fear and hate and rage of others angling those into countless more.

Memory of her drips through zero skull, through mind, through self. Fluid voice filling spaces in brain with cold inferno.

“The Kreuz building. Level ten, a restaurant known as Horizon.”

I am on knees, second skull brushing her thigh.

“Do what you will, so long as his head is brought here and you are not followed back.”

Her command brings face into second eyes.

Face of ultimate prey. Thin lips in smirk, brown eyes, tanned but not burned caucasian flesh, black hair, approximate age early forties. Muscles seen under skin. Image hammered into mind with target hunger. Gut twists, starving for his limbs to crack and red to flow free for world to see.

For I to see.

For her to see.

Her hands on second skull, nerves screaming for her true touch.

“Bring it back to me,”

yes, please, please say it mistress,

“and I will touch you, and you will touch me.”

Muscles roar and second skin shifts into blur. I run towards building, four miles twisting route through city. Starving gut and starving skin pull me through current of meat as they make meat noises and feel meat shock. Air shunted into second skull, through first skull and into lungs.

Muscles first burn.

Muscles then cool.

Cool with frozen target hunger.

Ran four miles through twisting phantom path. Left no trail in machine eyes of law and dying nation, only shadows without whispers.

Kreuz building entrance, double sliding composite doors into foyer ten meters cubed. Slate facade floor, siding, with lit water sheets flowing down along walls. Cameras evenly spaced on ceiling. Holographic directory inches off of walls.

Armed prey on both side of entrance, concealed body armor submachine gun and pistol each, see white second skull and second skin, watch motions but stupid and blind.

Want to use claws, kill one and see red flow as other draws weapon. Jump, flip, land and slice hands into useless bone and shreds, open second noses and smell crimson horror and adrenaline slip through fingers and chase after gun to floor. Fold back second skull and bite out throat.

But move towards stairs as meat in center makes noise at me.

“Would you like some assistance finding your destination, sir?”

Mind twitches, annoyed.

Second skin says in letters “NO.”

Reach stairs, climb swiftly as cold target hunger beats in muscle and vein. Spine alive and popping with promise of touching her.

Gums and teeth and hands shake. Body pulses with red flooding throughout, laced with aching, ecstatic power.

Second noses open, first nose smells stairs used by none. Dust and acrid mold leeching out of corners.

Reach twelfth level, open steel doors two point one by one point one meters into carpeted hall four meters squared by twenty long. Holographic panel displays word HORIZON over blue arc in front of doors.

Smell of prey's food. Bird, fish, beef, hundred plus additives. Sounds of clanking metal, glass, sizzling fat and dull words burning with desperation, spite.

Steps forced even. Cold target hunger turns into torture ripping through bones. Red thunders through body, demanding spill and jets and flow of other red.

Red filled with terror. Chemical screams for the nose, aural screams for ears.

Step through folded into wall double doors, eyes hunting as first mouth opens. Tongue licks lips as meat steps forward.

“Welcome to horizon. How many should we seat for your party?

Words ignored, eyes and nose piercing metal and glass grids, meat drinking and eating meat without red.

Mind clicks as threats are found and attack pattern embedded into muscle. So many guns. Cold, limp, clumsy. Imprecise here. Red pulsing and flowing, full of hunger sated and un. Arms and faces relaxed, backs and legs ready to jump into stupid clumsy meat massacre.

Bitterness. Dull senses. Tongues touching meat without tasting, smell in clouds of spice without smelling.

So blind. So limited.

“Sir?”

Heart and limbs ignite, surge with red as target is seen. Cold hunger releases, tongue and mouth wet, as it drinks out of cylinder and stares at me with blind eyes set in slack skull.

Red freezes, then shatters into motion as claws form.

Arm swipes at meat making words at me. He can no longer make words as throat rips open, strips of cartilage and bands of red flowing onto second skin and floor.

Follow through with twist, kneel to ground with legs coiled. Spring into jump over tables at target prey.

Land with spin, rise and grab target's guard's arm, tearing it off of torso through power of leg and arm and momentum. Table, target, self painted with burst of red.

It was beautiful.

Tears form in eyes.

Snap torso opposite direction, take meat and bone to slam into target's face. Falls over in chair onto floor.

Bitter surprise begins to fill room. Screams.

Beautiful screams. Fifty seven voices, each with a different scream.

I wish I could hear each one.

Too late now.

Red surges in the room, the smell, the sound, the sight of flushed meat plump near bursting.

Front flip onto target guard at other side of table, claws ripping into the cheeks, through bone, into eyes.

Land, neck snap. Fingers covered in red flow. Second skin, second skull splattered with red.

Red filled with terror.

Transcendent lightning storms through mind.

Chorus of screams. Running, fleeing, red flowing through meat and into open air.

Release skull, jump to side back next to target. Hunger pulls at my insides.

My eyes see its eyes.

Shock.

Rage

All the strength it thought it had ripped away from it in seconds.

Amassed over eternal labors and endless time.

Torn away.

Despair.

Fingers slice meat in arms and legs before it had a chance to stand. Powerless, sputtering on floor.

It makes words at me. I do not listen.

Its red seeps into shredded clothes and pools on floor.

Second skull folds away.

It sees my smile, my teeth, and my first eyes.

Its face loses its red.

Claws soaked in four flavors of red tear into its meat. It screams delicious screams that drive themselves into my mind. Limbs flap with the screams as I begin to feast.

The meat is lean, organs slick but soaked in chemicals. Bitter taste. Screams much better.

Red soaks us both. Gurgling now.

Ribs snap open.

One last scream.

I tear out its heart, so alive and shaking and pumping red.

Still pumps. Once, twice. Bite taken.

I eat the target's heart as I rip off its skull.

Screams gone. Doors shut, security inbound.

Room filled with the spray and smell of red. Red filled with terror and death. Throat and lungs crawl with pleasure, hunger for target gone, filled with red and meat.

Walk to standing table at entrance, take plastic bag, put head inside.

Second skull folds back closed as I walk to rear window.

Kneel, remove spike attached to cable from back of second skin. Embed spike into ground, kick out glass.

Shatter. Shards mix with rain and drop below, onto heads of meet.

Water splatters. Red splatters and sprays out of wounds.

Stare out at light and steel and glass. Stare at stolen light in water falling to earth. Stare at where dread and loathing and fury writhe and course through countless paradox fates.

Slide down on cable.

Water washes delicious red off of second skin and second skull.

Both blur.

Run home.

Run to her.

Run to her touch.

Apex, 1

(The End Is Here will be resumed after this 2-part short)

Light. Motion. Falling.

Falling to the ground, vision blurred.

Fell on the ground. Vision focusing, smell and taste nothing.

Hear words.

Hear her words.

Feel pain, of hunger and impact. Hunger pulls me tight, into ball. Muscles pulling myself inward, closer to starving pain.

Limbs strong as if after feast. Mouth dry, but not thirsty.

“Wake up Apex.”

Hear her say my name, hear her words drift through my second skull, tease second hunger. Breathe deep, quickly, gasping. No scent.

I can't smell her.

I can hear her but I can't smell her.

Her words again, through second skull and into first, filling first skin with fluid pleasure. Every note of her song wrapping around my muscles, pulling, releasing.

“Wake up my dear, dear Apex. Mistress needs you.”

Eyes focus from blur, morph into her. Eyes filled with tears and pain, like staring into sun. She is my Sun. I can't only look at her.

Eyes shut, head turns, I make low sounds of pain. Pain of too few senses to sense her.

Click open of second skull's dozen mouths, her scent, her true scent, under false smell she wears. Eyes open, refocus, see her, smell her, hear her.

See her, brown, rich, living, like Earth before and beyond concrete deserts and steel and glass canyons.

Smell her, salt and water of oceans too distant.

Hear her, force and ecstasy melted in melody.

Body tenses as she washes into my body, through my eyes and ears and nose. Electric liquid in every inch of body, replacing the red, beating through chest and gut and limbs.

“Stand up Apex. I know you are hungry and you will eat soon. You will hunt soon.”

Roll over to front and push up. Ascend into promises of feast, of meat and red.

Smell her red, under her flesh. Her forbidden red.

I stand as strong deserve to, as weak aspire to. Hunger remains but does not pull in. Only charges, winds up. Limbs ready to snap and release the red of others as muscles flex and tighten.

She turns and I want to taste every inch of her.

Except her red.

White fabric fails to hide her from me. Covers her flesh only to the weak and blind. I want to touch her and pleasure her and protect her and be her strength.

I am pulled to her, through second skin and second skull, as she walks out of silent and sleeping room. Lights white but dim, only walls and floor five meters cube, my bed set into wall we move away from. Cold Machine that deafens and numbs and blinds and repairs clicks and fold away.

Follow her through ten meters long by four meters square of hallway, only doors behind to room and Cold Machine, only doors ahead to her domain. She is the mind of ten thousand arms and legs that scurry and work and make empire within dying nation.

Source of so much noise. So long does empire keep her away from me. Hunger for her becomes pain, wracks and twists body until she touches me or I return to Cold Machine.

Pass through doors, measure two point five meters by one point three by fifty centimeters. Decorative plastic made like wood, curves and flower shapes in yellow-brown, titanium core and locks. Fall closer to her into room eight meters square by four meters high, one other entrance same composition as last. High traction thin fabric floor, dim amber illumination to beige walls with false decorated wood siding. Furniture is soft, we sink into chairs whenever I pleasure her. Eight concealed laser turrets in each corner, hidden in floor and ceiling. Large real wood desk in center of room, with rotating chair.

I move beside her, eyes tracing her movements, focus licking at curves and lines of body. She sits in chair and sings to me.

“Open the door for our guest, Apex.”

Limbs move but still coiled, each motion pleasing me as I obey her. Door opens, in steps single male caucasian, one point seven meters tall, approximately ninety five kilograms, white previously blonde hair, blue eyes, estimated age forty seven years, diabetic, casually aggressive stature, concealed pistol attached to arm slide, ate actual cow thirty four minutes ago, broken humerus before onset of puberty.

Would take one second for him to draw pistol and aim at her. Would also take point five seconds for me to dislocate arm.

He looks at me and sees second skin, spotless white composite flexible smart armor, and second skull, likewise but rigid. He sees me but feels fear. I smell it oozing out of his pores and see it dilate his pupils.

Weak.

Prey.

She gifts him with her attention as I begin to salivate. “Mr. Callaway, welcome. I do apologize for the measures I insisted.”

He turns to her. “It's no problem, not at all ma'am. I understand the need to minimize the chance of certain droppers of eaves.”

Chuckles nervously. American English, midwest accent with traces of south/southwestern.

“On that subject,” and I can not stand to hear him anymore. Words are ignored, tone is conciliatory.

“I assure you, he is my most trusted help. His silence is assured”

Her praise is ecstasy.

Conversation. Negotiation.. His words first amicable, then grow steadily more assertive. She humors him, but I feel in bones that meeting will be short. He comes to grate on her nerves.

Sweat polluted with stimulants drips down his neck. His red begins to flow faster. Her brow lowers as she gleans from him all she needed to know. Her slender, firm fingers rub her chin before she snaps other fingers.

Desire for flesh and her attention spring me into attack. His arm twisted out of socket, nerves pinched, thrown to floor, fist into throat. Microblade out of top of hand into carotid. His red spills free. His red paints his flesh and worthless cloth and my second skin and second skull, filled with fear and shock.

It is the red of prey.

Muscles surge with strength, claws emerge from fingertips.

“Feast,” she releases, words and self and mouth, dry and hungry. His eyes die, becomes it. Becomes meat.

Red flows and sprays, onto carpet to stain and onto my thirsty first flesh. Fingers rend and rip, flesh shredding and bones snapping as I remove meat from bone and consume. Meat laced with fat. Best meat on legs and chest, red spilling and spraying everywhere.

Hunger for meat ends it pile of broken bones and looping entrails. Heart most filling, very tough. Filled with delicious red.

Hunger for her present. Always.

“Very messy, my darling Apex. Also, very very good.”

Her words fill me with soft fire, I turn and smile with lips and teeth covered in red. Own heart beats faster, first skin alive and sparking. Blinding white pulsing through sensitive flesh, fills edge of vision.

“And I have one more for you to hunt down. One more to feast on, so long as you bring his head to me.”

I will be going outside.

I will hunt. For her.

Always for her.