The paradox of needing

A red hot sting, some sort of liquid limbic purple-green tinted blackness spreads, seeps… Swirling darkness drowns him in nothingness, only the sensation of fleeting feelings being ripped from the memories that, too, flee faster than he can catch up, like dreams they float away- faces, fears, love… only keeps a part of him HIM… until they don’t.

Karl toils masterfully, as if painting a dying wish deep into a canvas with the blood of his tattered purple fingers. Note taking, checking pupils and pulse, musing at the changing shapes and sizes of body parts as they transfigure around a new frame for an ancient purpose, an old will… “I remember… They told me you were coming, hmph, I was still broken over my first attempt, though, didn’t know what I wanted anymore. But when you knocked on my door 6 years ago; it all came back together. I knew exactly what you were… what we were going to do with you… such a docile boy, kind, strong, almost a shame it was so pleasant to keep you around, all for the better though I guess, anyone else wasn’t good enough, though I tried… didn’t I? Friends?”

“…”

“In hindsight it was meant to be, I learned my lesson with the last one, unworthy little shit… only the best for my Lord. I guess he’s more forgiving than I, using the body of a broken soul, the notion is almost beyond beautiful… Always with the lessons… Hmhmhmm… it’s nice to finally sit and talk, we never really did, did we, Ebbe?”

Karl drips a bit of this and pumps some of that into Ebbe’s open veins between cutting skin and stretching it back to watch what he wouldn’t be able to otherwise… giddy with excitement at every organ evolving or regressing into a new means of infinite potential. “This time though, theres no excuse, the perfect mixture, the ‘perfect’ base, the perfect timing… if only you could understand how lucky you are, giving your body to resurrect the savior of man kind.”

After a while, he was sure he had done his best work, he takes clamps and pins from vital nerves meant to relax one into submission for ease of transference for the one he’s spent so long trying to bring forth. “Imagine if Ohstevios and the others had managed this, no, I was chosen for this task… so I will be saved… wont I, friends?”

“…”

He takes a deep breath and with his fingers, gently, he pumps the heart that hangs delicately in Ebbe’s exposed chest cavity. Nothing at first, he tries again, and again until… A gasp shakes the airwaves, joints crack, blood turns violent colors under Ebbe’s pale skin… a deep, fresh, powerful, animalistic shriek throws Karl back, a ripple of energy displaces every glint of light and every shadow in the room, imploding, ripping the walls off the load-bearing logs of the longhouse from Ebbe’s body outwards, putting out the last burning embers of Broek’s body in the yard with an aggressive wave of snow that whips through and crashes against the tall trees of the clearing before hissing through them. A hopeful smile appears on the knocked-prone, enfeebled but otherwise un-phased monks lips, “My Lord….”

The body doesn’t respond at first- Karl’s ears begin to bleed, the room rings. Only through moonlight now can he make out the shape heaving as it re-learns to breathe.

“God…?”

Karl bows his head, “If what I’ve done displeases you, I- I assure you I did all that you asked of me, all that they told me too… I only ever wished to serve you, be your most dedicated mouthpiece, to know each prayer actually meant something, to be able to look into your eyes and know, to know that theres more.“ Tears of joy join the sweat, blood, and grime smeared on his face, as he looks up and searches through his rambling...

The body’s eyelids shuffle rapidly before opening ominously, finally, looking down at his body and then to the old man, what’s left of Ebbe hisses approvingly as it wriggles in his braces… whatever humanity was inside him now gone- whatever had replaced it was pure, barely aware chaos… more beast than man now.

Karl seems confused, hurt, embarrassed “maybe you need a moment- I“

The beast begins to thrash uncontrollably, body parts fling about, tubes unsheathe, it makes strange modular noises from his mouth and gurgles, but the beast in it’s current state was not strong enough to do much about anything- it’s muscles begin to flex and twitch- like a rabid animal trying to make peace with a cage. Pain flushes Karl as he tries to find something in it’s face, it’s eyes, that resembled what he had longed for, worked for, killed for… He chuckles nervously, uncomfortably, “I aught to stitch you up first, my faith was faltering in my ability to bring you forth without properly observing… I’m sure you will feel much better soon-“

Karl turns to look to what was left of his ‘friends’ that had littered the floor from the burst… “What do I do-“ They didn’t answer, looking closer, they were gone.

The beast chuckles, it’s body begins to calm.

A day and a night passes, Karl had successfully stitched the beast up but wasn’t able to bring himself to release it… nothing but the lean meat of a few rabbits to sustain it, the beast only gets uglier, hungrier. As if a spell was broken, a chunk of missing reality seems to flood back into Karl, he could barely look into its eyes now, much less the reflection of his own. Is this really…

Another knock at the door.