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Arc One: Starved Fate ch. 25

  “Sorry…” I began before his words at the end sunk in.

  “Wait…. SACRIFICIAL FLESH HEAL? That was you, wasn’t it? I had a piece of you in my brain this whole time!?” I exclaimed, scrunching up my face in disgust as the implications of the skill’s name sunk in. The twat had the nerve to chuckle in amusement at my discomfort.

  “Quite. And speaking of which….” I heard him say before the tongue in my brain moved over to a spot that felt tender to its touch. I winced as the appendage very gently prodded at different parts of it.

  “Hmmm…. Looks like you are about done healing up there… And doing quite nicely I might add.” He told me as I felt him trim something away that helped a little with the tenderness I was feeling. He gave my brain one last go over before pulling his tongue out of my cranium.

  “How bad was it?” I asked him, not sure if I wanted an answer…. as well as resisting the urge to itch or check my ear canal for slime.

  “You burst several blood vessels in that particular area of your brain. While that wouldn’t have killed you right way because of your fate, I have no doubt you would have been incapacitated until it had healed enough for you to be functional once more. Even then, without my intervention, there was a high chance for it to scar in a way that could have blocked off memories, select emotions, your affinity for your intelligence stat or even the ability to learn certain skills.” He explained to me, and I winced again.

  “That bad huh.” I replied.

  Being reminded of my fights caused me to glance at my mark and I ended up doing a double take. I had remembered vaguely about it fixing my injuries back in the battle with the thumper monster and was wondering why it had seemingly ignored the injury to my brain. I wanted to know if it could tell me why it hadn’t fixed it when it had fixed everything else. What had me doing a double was seeing its eye shut tight and looking for all the world like an ordinary tattoo.

  “Ummm…. What’s wrong with my Mark? If you know that is.” I asked, look up from it to the demon leaning over me.

  “I was starting to wonder when you would notice. I am not certain, but I believe it has gone into a kind of dormancy after what it did to preserve your life. That said and for future note, I am not also in the habit of letting people with Eldritch Marks live when I encounter them. You however are an exception because I know for certain the one that gave you means our world no harm.” He answered, making me swallow a mouthful of nervous spit.

  “That’s… good to know. I suppose you had to eat them when you came across them…. to put them out of their misery and what not.” I replied haplessly and the demon nodded in acknowledgment.

  “You are correct, Samuel. With you here now that may change.” He replied and I nodded in return.

  “Okay. I’ll see what I can do if or when it comes up.” I told him.

  “That is all I ask. I do not relish in devouring the innocent just because I have no other way to save them from their suffering.” He responded and I could hear the pain in his voice.

  “I see…. want to go back to finishing up that skill stuff now?” I asked, feeling a touch awkward and not knowing what else to say.

  “That would be ideal.” He told me and I put my arm down at my side to help things along.

  With an upward flick of a finger, the bindings that had been around my right arm when I first woke up, returned and I once again found myself unable to move. With my body secured to the padded ‘counter’ beneath me, he went back to what he was about to do when I woke up. He placed a claw against my belly, just under my breastbone unlike before, and sunk it into my flesh. It didn’t really hurt any, just a little bit of a sting as it cut into me, but was really surreal to have it go in as deep as it did and not touch any of my original internal organs. Instead, the claw connected to the new mouth like cavity inside of me and cut the stinging line of a new opening for it. I grunted quietly from the pain, but I was able to endure it as the demon slid his claw in a straight line down the middle of my abdomen from just under my breastbone to some place a few inches beyond my belly button.

  What came next was quite a bit harder to endure and I could see just why he had me strapped down as there was a god awful, raw, tingling sensation as the rim of the cut changed. Rows of large interlocking, fanglike teeth, built for rending, tearing, and grinding sprouted with only the outer most ones exposed when the ‘mouth’ was shut. The flesh just under them became stiffer to support them like a flexible jawbone and new muscles and nerves grew in to manipulate them. And just when I thought there was only going to be the one cut and the feeling started to fade, he made two more. They form an X like his that spanned my chest connected the top of my shoulders with the bottom most ribs on either side and the center of it connecting with the top of the first cut.

  I couldn’t help it.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  My body thrashed and bucked and kicked against my restraints out of reflex while various yells, groans, and gasps escaped my original mouth. My new one wasn’t about to be left out of my objections either and its new ‘jaws’ flapped at him as he finished making them. They even snapped at him a few times in annoyance after he was done which he found amusing and I found that I was too tired to care.

  But the weirdness wasn’t quite done with me just yet. The most notable of them was that my lungs felt larger for some reason. Not that I was ungrateful or anything, it did make the large gulps of air I needed to recover from that more effective after all. But it was still weird.

  The next thing I noticed was how my new mouth worked. It felt like I was breathing through it too with most every breath and it would echo the motions of my normal mouth in its own way. Every time I wet my normal mouth, it would do the same, just a moment later. When I swallowed to wet my throat, so did it, only it would time it so it would be on an inhale instead of held breath. My swelling lungs worked in tandem with a weird ripple/flex from my abdominal muscles to push the saliva that was in it into the new throat.

  Lastly, there was the tongue. It was long and ropy just like the demon’s that I had seen so far but several magnitudes larger than them. I also saw that it was red rather than the purple demon’s were the one time I managed to coax it out of my new maw by licking my original mouth’s lips. As turned out, it wasn’t in my throat either but rather hung out in a sheath that existed alongside my throat. The opening to it was just a bit below the top of the esophagus, making it an ideal way to drag unwilling prey into it.

  It was a rather uncomfortable thought for me to contemplate but, along those same lines, I wondered if I could reach into my new stomach with it. To find out, I swallowed it which was surprisingly easy. It also introduced me to a new level of weird when I learned that it more than just long enough. I could feel around the chamber with too. It meant that anything I swallowed, I could possibly take it out just as easily. That didn’t change the fact that the feeling of tickling my own insides with my new tongue was just that weird. It even beat out having a demon lick my fucking brain.

  Now that I was done fiddling with my new insides, I put my tongue back where it belonged. It wasn’t until I had, that I realized that I was lucky I didn’t hurt it when I pulled that little stunt considering what stomachs were built to do. Putting the thought aside, I finally turned my attention back to the demon that was the source of my most recent bout of suffering and round of weirdness.

  “What?” I said curtly when I saw him watching me.

  “How are you doing?” He asked me as if he all he did was poke me.

  “Oh you smarmy, twinkle tooth, shit faced, son of a bitch.” I told him.

  “Is that all?” He asked when I paused.

  “No. Go screw an Eldritch you fucking bastard!” I said to him but not with the mouth I intended to use.

  It was a deep, growly, gurgly voice that came from my new one. It surprised us both and my pinned arms flinched in a knee jerk reaction to cover it up. The mouth also reacted to my surprise, and I felt it lock its teeth together and seal its self-shut.

  “That was… unexpected and very much unintended I assure you, Samuel.” He assured me when he recovered from his own surprise before asking. “Did you mean to say that though?”

  “Yeah, I did. Just not with that mouth. I didn’t even know that was possible either.” I admitted and relaxed when the Demon had a thoughtful rather than angry look on his face.

  “Neither did I. How curious….” He commented as he ran his fingers along my new set of teeth. They didn’t react to the touch and, quite frankly, neither did I. I wasn’t certain what the Demon felt when he touched them but, to me with the mouth sealed, it felt like someone had put wide thick stripes of wax where the lines of interlocked fangs where and his touch was like someone was running their fingers over it.

  “Can we be done yet?” I groaned as my new stomach grumble unhappily about being empty.

  “Almost. I just need to check a few things and then I’ll give you some food.” He told me.

  “You meant the raw meat, right?” I guessed

  “Yes. Now, if you don’t mind?” He asked, tapping a knuckle against my new chompers.

  Normally, I would have turned my nose up at the offer since raw meat back home on the streets generally meant sickness and possibly death. But I was so damn hungry I think I would have only drawn the line at shit, rocks, and dirt when it came to edible things. So, I tried. Admittedly, it wasn’t very hard of a try considering I was just as tired as I was hungry right then, but I did try, and I failed. When I did, the demon nodded in acceptance.

  “I thought as much with you so exhausted by your ordeals. Do not worry. I can get it open myself.” He told me before hooking one his claws into one of the flaps of my new mouth.

  He pulled on it carefully to cause me pain but not enough to cut. Out of a reflex to ease it, my new jaws popped open for him, and he grabbed one of the flaps to hold open as he forces his hand down into my new throat. Then he grabbed the inside of it and pulled himself in.

  Suffice to say, my body did not like that.

  Not.

  One.

  Bit.

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