Commission done by @rotjaws
Backstory
[REDACTED] Was by all accounts forgettable, a quiet man with a steady job, small house on the edge of town and a family who loved him. He fixed things when they broke, remembered birthdays, never raised his voice. If you passed him on the street you wouldn't look twice. Everything changed on that walk. It wasn't unusual. [REDACTED] often walked the trails behind his home, enjoying the silence beneath the trees. That afternoon he wondered farther then he had meant to. The forest grew thicker, darker, and unfamiliar. That's when he felt it- A sharp sting along the back of his neck, like a thorn or insect bite. He brushed it off. By nightfall, the fever began. At first it seemed like a normal sickness- sweat, chills a gnawing ache in his bones. But soon came the hunger. Not an ordinary hunger, but something deeper, older. No amount of food could satisfy it. Meat tasted like ash. Water did nothing but burn his throat. Sleep became impossible as something inside him shifted. Stretched. Grew. Day's passed. His family grew concerned. [REDACTED] tried to hide it, locking himself away, insisting it would pass. But the parasite had already taken root. It burrowed deeper. He began to hear it- not as a voice but as a need, A command without words. His body changed subtly at fist. Veins darkened, skin thinned. His reflection became something unfamiliar, something hollowed him out. His full form had shriveled up, his body fat eaten away. It wasn't enough the hunger sharpened. On the seventh night it took control. He doesn't remember everything. Only fragments. The smell. The warmth. The sound of something meaty tearing. When clarity returned he was kneeling in the wreckage of his home, hands soaked in warm blood that wasn't his. The hunger was,,,finally quiet. For a moment. Horrified, broken, he fled into the wood, deeper then before. He ran until his legs gave out, until the world blurred,,,,Until the fog rolled in, thick, unnatural, swallowing everything. He didn't resist when it took him. But by then there was little of him left to be saved.
