Chapter 3 - Second-Person Leech TF


               You awaken so slowly from your troubled sleep that you can hardly tell that you’ve awoken at all. Dipping in and out of blackened slumber and your darkened room, your mind floats in an aether of half-consciousness. Your senses form tethers to the waking world upon which you anchor yourself - registering where your body lies upon your bed. One arm hanging draped over your mattress, the other up and over your head. Despite the even surface of your bed, your back is arched; your legs bowed, with one ankle resting over the opposite shin.
 
               You draw one leg over the other like a bowstring over a violin, throwing it over the edge of your bed lazily - your toes splaying as they feel for the ground, gauging your distance from it. Even with the knowledge, you linger in bed as though adhered. You make the slightest motion to rise - but as you feel the sheets beneath you follow you upward, you ease yourself back down. It, and the blanket upon you, are stuck fast to your body - nocturnal sweat forming a film upon you thicker than you’ve ever recalled having before.
 
               The heat of the room around you is oppressive - bearing down upon you, evoking more sweat, which seems to seep into the mattress beneath you. Distantly, you’re aware of how gross it is - but you aren’t discomforted; quite the opposite. Your mind still hazy, you linger - until you find the appropriate inspiration to finally rise.
 
               Hunger. You feel from your gullet all the way up to your mouth - an emptiness; a yearning - you can even feel yourself drooling. Peeling your face from your pillow, you roll over on the bed; caring not for the blanket in your way, which clings to your legs as you finally ease them down onto the ground. For the first few steps you take, you can feel the blanket pulling away from you - tethered to your flesh by the moisture upon it before finally being shed. Each step is labored - asserting more weight upon your legs with every footfall. It’s only as you reach your door that you realize you aren’t standing upright - more at a hunch.
 
               And yet, your hunger suppresses your curiosity. You push open the door to your room just a crack - the light outside, however minimal, causes you to wince. Your sight, much like your mind, is a haze. Of course - this is your home. Navigating it has become more passive than active - and so you let your body guide you to your kitchen. You don’t open the door any more - but instead, duck your head through the crack, and ease yourself through the crack; slinking through. Your skin glides against the wooden surfaces of the threshold and the door itself - moving smoothly until it reaches your hip. You feel the door bump against it - but rather than impact the bone, simply presses in upon flesh - dimpling in for just a moment before being forced outward.
 
               You pause for a moment once you’ve pushed yourself through - as though to gather yourself. You shut your eyes, and before you open them, your body is on its way to the kitchen - through the hall, one step at a time. You feel as though you’re descending - each step guiding you lower. Rounding a corner, you reflexively brace your hand upon it - and as you pull away, you can feel your sweat clinging to it; bridging your limb and the surface of the wall by slimy ropes. When you’ve rounded the corner, your hand falls limply and lazily to your side.
 
               Your trip - and your descent - comes to a close as you find yourself on your knees before your refrigerator. Reaching upward, you pull the handle - and from it spills a cascade of cold air and bright light. You wince, recoiling backward - so much that your back begins to arch… And even bend backward. You register, as you recoil, an odd texture about your body.
 
               Your form has become even and uneven alike. Your chest seems more recessed - but that isn’t to say flat. Across your flesh, you can see it rippling and bulging at even intervals; ridges having formed. As you return to your prior position, you can see your slim torso bulging as your body collapses into itself; compressing as your attention is once more hijacked by your instincts.
 
               Your arm, as you reach for a head of lettuce on a lower shelf, seems not only to have succumbed to the same fate as your core, but so too has it developed an odd tone; far removed from that which you bore prior. Its surface seems encompassed by a shade of greyish-black, desaturated and unhealthy for a human tone; interrupted by a shade of bright orange too vibrant to be natural. The color spreads like tendrils arching their way across your flesh - something you’re a captive witness to as you bring the lettuce closer to your face.
 
               You peel your lips back to take a bite, but as your teeth sink into it, you feel your lips fall upon it - adhering as you reflexively move to slurp at your heal. As soon as you swallow; you feel your body tense; condensing further as though in revulsion. You feel your face wince - your brow furrowing and nose scrunching; compressing down into nothingness. After a moment, you relax - your teeth release the lettuce, which slams against the ground with a hollow crunch. Your lips hang open - and your teeth remain bared. The sensation is surreal; the latter extending far beyond that which you’re familiar. Spittle; thick and viscous, drools down the slimming surface of your chin, and your eyes - already growing indiscernible among your ridged hide - roam your fridge…
 
               Until you find it.
 
               Luminous from its position underneath a light, mounted on the side of the fridge, is a pitcher without a top. Inside - a bounty of brilliant red. Your muddled mind slogs through your memories as for what it may be - but it grows outpaced by your reflexive connotations with such a color; such a texture - you slaver over it and lean closer. Your arms try to reach out - but are pulled back by a membrane adhering them to your core. You try to lean forward on your knees - but so too are they fixed together; compounded into your thick, soon-to-be-even body.
 
               You stretch out - your neck itself expanding; writhing as your wide, disklike lips yawn open, and-
 
               Knock over the pitcher, spilling it across your body and across the floor.
 
               You aren’t angry. You aren’t frustrated.
 
               You’re just hungry.
 
               Your teeth - having compressed down to a simple, sharp triad, are hidden as your lips fold shut, and you slink away from the fridge.
 
               There isn’t anything inside of it. It’s just cold and bright. Your hunger burns a pit in your gut - an instinct you know not how to sate-
 
               Until you hear a noise.
 
               You twist around, dragging yourself across the tiled floor and leaving a slimy trail through the red liquid covering it. Moving further, you find yourself moving closer to another door. Further from the cold - closer to the noise. A human mind might register it as conversation-
 
But you register it as food.
 