Henry Felerski
A Night of Longing
Henry Felerski is a failed Esports Journalist turned Software Engineer living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has been published in MAJOR and Literary Yard. His little free time is spent attempting to win over the affection of his girlfriend's cats and pining over his days in amateur Esports.
A continuous rhythmic beat. A never-ending soft push and pull. Always floating in the fluids of my chamber. Still connected by a tether to the host I infest. A feeling nags at me, telling me I need to escape, to feel the world that is my birthright.
A soft thrum comes from outside my chamber, outside my host. I writhe in anger at the interruption of my contemplative stasis-like float, an appendage thumping against something hard. Tension surrounds me as an unintelligible creature utters garbled, guttural noises, flooding my ears and vibrating through me. The constant rhythmic beat accelerates as the host expresses its own discontent.
Without warning, the endless fall seems to shift direction as my chamber shifts and reorients, my tether floating around me. I wait patiently as the beat gradually slows and slows… The gentle sways lessen and lengthen in duration. All tension dissipates. It’s time.
I effortlessly detach the tether from my abdomen, basking in the glorious fear and panic that sets in without my lifeline. I kick off to begin my free swim and phase easily through the thin membrane of my chamber, feeling the familiar tingle as each fraction of my skin passes through. I swim out to where the channel narrows and struggle to pull myself out, soft wet flesh constricting me. My muscles burn as my vision turns red, scream at me to escape. As my surroundings begin to fade out, I emerge from the host, my nostrils expanding, grasping at air in the blank darkness.
One day, this world will be my right like it is now theirs – the host and its consort. For now, I’m stuck leeching life from a lower being. I retch sitting in the darkness. Me, jealous of them? Each day I reside in the host I become more pathetic. I form my revulsion – of myself and the cretin I call a host – into a sense of purpose, sharpening my dull senses for the hunt.
As I recover outside of the host, its quarters start to appear, fuzzy and gray like it always does on my excursions. Instead of fluids, it contains odd meaningless boxes of different dimensions and patterns. I descend from the dais that it rests upon and search out the only game small enough for some being my age to hunt: mice. I place my ear against the wall and when tuned correctly, I can hear the creatures skittering. A smile creeps over my face as I stumble to my usual perch near a crack between two floorboards.
I sit back and wait for my quarry to appear, eyes fixed on the gap. Using my own lungs is exhausting, and I hope the vermin will show soon so I can return to my stasis. I scoff, disgusted with myself again just before a blurred object passes through the opening I’ve been watching. With unmatched precision and speed, I summon my true strength to snatch at the mouse. I can feel it wriggle between the stubby fingers of my balled up fist.
It continues to squeak and panic as I unhinge my jaw, the lower dropping out of sockets with a soft click and pleasant scrape. I place the creature inside the widened orifice and feel its claws tickle my tongue as my jaw slips back into place, forcing the mouse down my gullet. The struggle continues as it falls down, down… It twitches slowly as I take its life for my own.
I totter back to the dais before the mouse stops moving, giggling as it takes its last breath. I need to return to the host, regain my strength. Today it's mice, soon it will be bigger prey. True birth is coming soon.
A soft thrum comes from outside my chamber, outside my host. I writhe in anger at the interruption of my contemplative stasis-like float, an appendage thumping against something hard. Tension surrounds me as an unintelligible creature utters garbled, guttural noises, flooding my ears and vibrating through me. The constant rhythmic beat accelerates as the host expresses its own discontent.
Without warning, the endless fall seems to shift direction as my chamber shifts and reorients, my tether floating around me. I wait patiently as the beat gradually slows and slows… The gentle sways lessen and lengthen in duration. All tension dissipates. It’s time.
I effortlessly detach the tether from my abdomen, basking in the glorious fear and panic that sets in without my lifeline. I kick off to begin my free swim and phase easily through the thin membrane of my chamber, feeling the familiar tingle as each fraction of my skin passes through. I swim out to where the channel narrows and struggle to pull myself out, soft wet flesh constricting me. My muscles burn as my vision turns red, scream at me to escape. As my surroundings begin to fade out, I emerge from the host, my nostrils expanding, grasping at air in the blank darkness.
One day, this world will be my right like it is now theirs – the host and its consort. For now, I’m stuck leeching life from a lower being. I retch sitting in the darkness. Me, jealous of them? Each day I reside in the host I become more pathetic. I form my revulsion – of myself and the cretin I call a host – into a sense of purpose, sharpening my dull senses for the hunt.
As I recover outside of the host, its quarters start to appear, fuzzy and gray like it always does on my excursions. Instead of fluids, it contains odd meaningless boxes of different dimensions and patterns. I descend from the dais that it rests upon and search out the only game small enough for some being my age to hunt: mice. I place my ear against the wall and when tuned correctly, I can hear the creatures skittering. A smile creeps over my face as I stumble to my usual perch near a crack between two floorboards.
I sit back and wait for my quarry to appear, eyes fixed on the gap. Using my own lungs is exhausting, and I hope the vermin will show soon so I can return to my stasis. I scoff, disgusted with myself again just before a blurred object passes through the opening I’ve been watching. With unmatched precision and speed, I summon my true strength to snatch at the mouse. I can feel it wriggle between the stubby fingers of my balled up fist.
It continues to squeak and panic as I unhinge my jaw, the lower dropping out of sockets with a soft click and pleasant scrape. I place the creature inside the widened orifice and feel its claws tickle my tongue as my jaw slips back into place, forcing the mouse down my gullet. The struggle continues as it falls down, down… It twitches slowly as I take its life for my own.
I totter back to the dais before the mouse stops moving, giggling as it takes its last breath. I need to return to the host, regain my strength. Today it's mice, soon it will be bigger prey. True birth is coming soon.
Henry Felerski is a failed Esports Journalist turned Software Engineer living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has been published in MAJOR and Literary Yard. His little free time is spent attempting to win over the affection of his girlfriend's cats and pining over his days in amateur Esports.
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