---------------------------------------------------
II. An Unsettling hatching, Rediscovery of a self.
----------------------------------------------------

The worm. Choking... gagging my breath. Feasting upon my soul with eyes of blood red ruby. Its skin, snow white, segmented, pulsing, drawing my life inward as I watched it from some indescribable dreamlike location within myself, and replacing it with a warm, colorless mucous.

The wretched creature... yes... it's evil was like a slow pull... the gravity of an unknown planet of consciousness...

Onward and onward it seemed to drive, not satisfied with the confines of my mouth but wishing to reach some unknown destination closer to my throat.

Then... then, I felt it. Instinctive... growing...energy...

Yes...along with that one half solidified burst of will I gave form to my terror, loneliness, emotion...

With one swift movement closing my jaw, bringing an end to its loathsome life...

Clamping down on it with my teeth and hearing its hideous cry...

I could hear words as if they were echoing down a long tunnel, randomly muffled and jumbled beyond my half sleeping mind’s recognition, but faintly familiar like the comforting monotone of a foreign language tape...

And cursing , yes, very loud cursing...

"My tongue, my tongue! Why does it always have to be my tongue!"

The voice was somewhat brash and unencumbered as if very used to hearing itself talk.

"Oh settle down now, it’s not that bad..."

This voice, its neighbor, was in comparison a bit mellow around the edges, the soothing counterweight to the first impolite outburst...that voice, my mind searched sleepily, yes, Nathan’s voice...

Oh, so warm...

"Don’t give me that now! I’ve had it, this is the last straw! Every time, every time, I tell you, I play nursemaid for months and months and what do I get in return? This!"

A pause that indicated some sort of unspoken gesture followed.

"Oh, that. Really now, Milo, a mere flesh wound."

An exasperated sigh that could only come with years of bottled adolescent emotion filled the room.

Faintly I began to feel the tingling sensation of blood returning to my hands. The speakers didn’t seem to notice however and continued on in their conversation.

"I don’t care what you say she is, Father, she might as well starve for all I care! I will not be expected to tongue feed her one more minute of my life..."

"Don’t you dare use such an insolent tone about your...!"

Slowly now...

Yes, I felt as if I really could move again, my limbs heavy like granite and my head filled with a cotton that expanded and contracted with every feeble attempt of thought.

Opening my eyes was my first mistake.

My hands reached up to shade my face from the radiance of the sun, the faint weight of a sheet falling away from them.

My vision was only a fraction better when the gruesome image of two rows of demonic teeth upon an unhinged jaw, parted in an inhuman laughter, drove me backward.

The uneasy, uncontrollable feeling of falling off a high bed onto a cold concrete floor was muffled by the layer of cold fabric wrapped around my legs.

When suddenly, in that moment from both everywhere and somewhere very near me, I heard the same scream I heard upon first losing consciousness in Nathan's arms... what seemed like only a moment ago.

But this scream was new, edged with the raw terror and primal rage.

Not a human sound, but a cry of a caged animal just disciplined with an electric rod, laced at its ending with the uncommon mix of an ambulance siren and nails upon a chalkboard.

I felt my own arms clutched around my body, wet with sweat and shaking violently now...

When the form I had seen before spread out large scaled wings from the confines of its towering silhouette.

The sound came again.

More cursing, more half jumbled speech I could not understand.

In that moment I realized the sound was me.

And I didn't care.

"That infernal Supersonic, I never knew they...um, your kind...got it so young..."

"Hold your tongue, Milo. That is our god given first line of protection, one that you deserve! Put those infernal things away... you sent her into shock "

I was cold... so cold... and alone... so alone.

Somehow I seemed suddenly overaware of the pressure of my spinal cord against my other organs as I lay curled up in what I could only guess in my present condition was the corner of some sort of large room. The two walls were the only thing keeping me upright, I realized dimly, when I felt his presence come near.

His smell was intoxicating, as if a scent alone could carry with it the warmth and spiciness of a summer day, the breath of fresh cut wood and aroma of old leather bound library books, thumbed well by the hands of time.

As the weight of his arm came down to encircle my shoulders I felt my body move instinctively toward his chest, my bare legs coming to rest upon his jean covered lap like my body was on security seeking autopilot.

His voice was a low reassuring monotone of sound, half of the wording of which was lost in the haze I felt; as if it was someone else far away who happened to be nuzzling her nose into the well stretched fabric of his T-shirt.

Warmth... home...

"There, there...you are safe, you are with me, you shall never be in need nor want for anything. You can attack me if you wish, kill me, or do whatever your heart desires... but whatever you do, you must not sleep. Stay here with me...and come back to reason first. Then, please let us talk together. That is all I ask you. There there, there there... you are safe and warm..."

What followed next was very difficult to describe, as it seemed to me, at the start, like an elaborate exercise to steal me away from the lulling unspoken melody Nathan's breath and heartbeat continued to make, as though tempting me to the subconscious paradise of sleep.

"What is the capital of Kanto?"

His first question; silly, unimportant, something kindergartners learn before afternoon snack.

For the strangest reason I did not know...

It did not matter. This brand new level of intense feeling did.

"What is the capital of Kanto?"

Again that trivial question; his voice seemed less warm when requesting it from me. Perhaps if I tried to answer, his speech would return to that gentle reassuring hum of before.

"S...a...Saffron."

My voice was odd, sounding cracked and awkward like an unplayed record left for too long in a forgotten attic.

"Good girl." Came the humming tone again.

Yes, oh yes, how I wanted to hear it once more.

And so the bizarre quiz-like requests continued on for what seemed to be hours, or even days.

Perhaps it was really only a few minutes.

Everything from color of the sky, to the sound of a waking Pikachu, all the way down to the finer points of my Pokémon organ rehabilitation training, while all the while my need for reassurance was slowly growing, clearing and reshaping itself into true reasoning emotions.

First a pure calm, then a nagging curiosity, and finally the seeds of a full-blown frustration.

Maybe it was a math questions that finally did it.

I never was really good at math.

"Twenty-four times twenty four ?

"Five hundred seventy six."

"Twenty-six times twenty six ?"

"Six hundred... seventy...This..is..."

"Oh? What was that?"

"This... is...silly!"

I heard something move to the left of us as if a large two-ton sack of potatoes had just been roused from a long nap.

"Hey, a snappy retort! She actually talks. Throw a party already for all I care. Anything would be better than listening to all this mushy 'bring your mind back to reason' stuff..."

The last intended add-on to the speakers comment, something about the mouth he had been feeding for the last few months finally being useful for a change, died away to a grumbling murmur a second later.

Upon glancing upward from my cradled area on his lap (my eyes now fully refocused back to normal) I could see that it was Nathan's own piercing glare of discipline that cut the boy’s commentary dead.

His clear green eyes were surely a force to be reckoned with .

Yes, a boy. While the voice was large it definitely had a younger sound to it, one that I've become well acquainted with in the confines of my pokecenter internship.

I looked up farther, finally summoning the strength within my muscles to turn around fully from the nook of Nathan's embrace.

I found that I was in a small flat, a sort of plain low rent district studio apartment that was popular with poor middle age unattached men (or at least what I had always imagined they would have).

Two large windows allowed golden sunlight to spill into the confines of the humble abode furnished only with a TV, a large double bed (I must have fallen off of that), a refrigerator, and a half-dozen beat up looking dining chairs, all of which were varying degrees of dingy white.

White seems to be a theme here.

I wonder if the owner has a germ phobia? I pondered

Not that I had time to psychoanalyze interior decorating though, as what happened to be sitting, or who happened to be sitting, that is, in one of the chairs was far more, um, interesting...

The first thing that stood out about him, weirdly, was the sheer size of his legs.

Twin homages to whatever higher power had first invented bone cartilage, a single one of his appendages was with the size of both of my upper thighs put together! They bulged out of a pair of faded kneelength camouflage cargo pants, and ended dramatically with a large pair of bare feet overrun with calluses that he was rubbing against the concrete where he sat, impatiently shifting his weight. And what a weight it was!

Stretching out in every direction, from his mass laced arms to his protruding stomach, he looked every bit like the type of teenager I would never want to meet in a dark alley. He could not have weighed less than 300 pounds, and from what I could see of his well-defined deltoids under a tight fitting black coat, not all of that was mere fat.

His young, freckled, red hair rimmed face seemed almost out of place upon its large strong lower jaw line as he eyed me with the look I couldn't read.

For a second I could've sworn his gray eyes turned a ruby red shade in the light.

"Milo, for goodness sakes be personable for once."

Nathan spoke firmly to the teenaged giant I had by now made a point of edging away from.

Dignity was a small price to pay for self-preservation, after all.

"At least try to introduce yourself like a gentleman."

The oversized youth extended a hand with weighted reluctance and squeezed my own shaking fingers within his sausage-like digits.

"Name's Milo, Milo Aldridge. Not that last names have any meaning around here."

He spoke flatly, looking me square in the eye with an intensity that burned an imaginary hole around the vicinity of my forehead.

And then he did something that I wasn't expecting it all.

He smiled.

Now under normal circumstances I might have thought of this is a friendly gesture, if still a little bit sarcastic.

But a normal smile would have stopped far sooner.

In place of it the expanse of Milo's lips around his two rows of surprisingly pearly teeth continued to draw farther and farther back around his jaw line revealing the gruesome sight I had thought was only a dream earlier - a semi circle of what looked like well over 200 brutally sharp canines of an otherworldly predator, the majority of which turned out to be tucked away under the façade of regular human teeth in the front of his mouth, the action of the flexing his buccinator muscles sliding the natural weapons out of unseen bone sockets.

I shrieked in a true knee-jerk reaction, grabbing a handful of Nathan's shirt and nearly kneeing him in a most uncomfortable area in the process.

Note to self: A guys lap is not necessarily the most ideal place to have screaming convulsions.

Milo's voice boomed in laughter now containing an even more ragged edge to its tone.

"Oh that face! I tell you, it never gets old. Yahaha! Well you better get used to it! You’re one of us now..."

I never knew what compelled me to look back at Nathan's face just then but I found I was greeted by the same wide, stormy, violet colored eyes I remembered so clearly from the night of my collapse.

Two canine teeth, though much less fearsome and more delicate and long looking (maybe four inches? Their width couldn't be more than that of a quilting needle) compared to Milos full arsenal, extended out from behind the dummy human ones, resting on the bottom lip of Nathan's now strangely gentle expression.

All my fear and confusion somehow melted into mental silly putty with that single look.

"I know all of this must be a lot for you to take in at once. You have been sleeping for three months after all...you may find your new developing state of mind will help with all of that. But first, before we go any further... this mark here.”

I felt his hand come down to trace the hollow of my neck ever so lightly with a burning touch, while its twin reached for something and came back with small square hand mirror, its glass cracked with spider web like fractures in a corner.

I took the handle of the reflective surface gingerly from him, my hand trembling slightly.

What are you afraid of? My inner monologue teased.

I'm... I'm not afraid...I answered myself slowly. I'm not frightened at all...but I should be more scared...that is what worries me.

The mark was a perfect circle the size of an old fashion ten yen coin, its detailing worthy of the envy of a master tattoo artists. In place of ink, the intricate knot within the circle was made up as near as I could tell of my own small blue capillaries and strangely purple tented scar tissue. It was as if my own body in an attempt to recover from a nearly fatal wound had somehow miraculously reconstructed new blood pathways around the indentation, bowing out to the graceful twist and turns of the artwork. It seemed to be made up of two sections at first, but my eyes were lost when trying to find a point in which the pathways of decorative knot ever truly disconnected.

"It means we will be together for always." Nathan whispered, a breath away from kissing the spot. "It is your wedding ring. Do you like it?"

The light click of the mirror being placed upon the floor made little reverberance in the early evening air as I caught sight of the violet shine in my own eyes.

"Yes."