Edward dreamed of strings.
Sick and trembling, they ran from bone to muscle to skin—strung him out like a marionette left too long outside. He didn't know he'd drifted off to sleep, but he was in sweat when he woke, the kind that penetrated through not warmth but pervertiveness.
The apartment was too quiet. Even the hum of the fridge was muffled.
The air was thicker.
He attempted to sit up and winced.
His back ached, but not from sleeping. It was. full. As though someone had reformed his muscles into the same flesh, only tighter. Leaner. Tight in a manner that made his joints crack when he stretched out his arms.
"You slept long," was the voice—deep, warm, way too close.
The Shadow Man was not truly gone. Edward could feel him now even without sound, as ozone before lightning. Residual. Intimate.
"Too long?"
"No. Just. long enough to start the work."
Edward kicked his legs off the bed. His calves throbbed. His fingers, numb. He rubbed at them stupidly and felt the way the tendons shifted just beneath the skin—like someone had sharpened the fibers with wire.
He. He used the restroom. Not to look into the mirror. But he did.
His face was his own. Mostly.
No unhuman image. No fangy grin. Just Edward. A little whispier than usual. The color of skin around his eyes a bit too dark, the pupils maybe a tiny bit too wide.
But not inhuman.
Not yet.
"You see it, don't you?" the Shadow Man whispered. "Subtle. But there. Under the flesh. You are preparing."
"For what?"
A pause. Then:
"Your next night."
Edward's hands tightened on the edge of the sink. "What are you saying?"
"It means you have to walk. Move. Let the change take hold. If you don't move, your body will contort itself. Hurtfully."
He didn't want to hear it. But the ache in his lower back was convincing enough.
He dressed and he left the flat. The city was not yet awake. Traffic lights flashed without purpose in empty intersections. No horns, no jabbering café queues. Just the stillness of buildings watching themselves.
His feet carried him. He did not know where.
Someplace quiet. Somewhere dark. That's what the Shadow Man nudged towards now. Not with words, but with pressure—pressure in the ribs. A leaning.
It took him under the city.
A construction site for a building. Chain-link fence torn wide open. Down cement steps into unfinished tunnelwork. Wet air. The sort that clung to your clothes and left you questioning whether it was sweat or not.
"Why here?"
"Because here it's safe," the voice answered, too quietly.
"From what?"
No answer.
The further he went, the more labored his breathing was. Not faster—deeper. Like his lungs had moved a little. Muscle tension rode alongside him, though didn't relax. It was like his body was doing experiments on itself, probing weight, adjusting fibers.
Then he saw them.
Rats.
Dozens. Spaced out at first, then piled—at the end of a hallway, beside the half-finished concrete wall. A pile of distorted gray bodies, motionless and slimy. Edward stood frozen.
They hadn't been poisoned. Or starved.
Their bodies had been torn. Some had been gutted. Some folded in on themselves as if the bones had melted.
Edward took one step back.
"I didn't do this."
"No," the Shadow Man agreed. "Not yet."
The cold silence that followed made Edward's heart pound faster than it had in days.
"You're lying."
"I'm telling you. If you don't guide this thing. it will walk off on its own."
Edward whirled around. Fast. Down the corridor again, down into the air, away from the location, up into streets that still stubbornly refused to awaken. It wasn't until he was half-way home that he recalled—
His knees didn't hurt. Not the way they used to when climbing stairs. Not the way they always did after a long stroll. The old grinding pain was gone. Replaced by. something springy. Something taut.
He pulled on a thigh muscle in a testy manner. It knotted, not in fat strings—but in long, fibrous strands that curled as much like rope as possible from flesh. He could feel them moving under the skin as he braked at a red light and caught a glimpse of his face in a store window.
No one else would mind.
But he did.
In the apartment, he pulled off his shirt and caressed his chest.
The muscle there had changed. It hadn't grown—but it felt denser. Like the volume was the same, but the substance within had reorganized.
"Compact. Resilient. Efficient," the Shadow Man whispered.
Edward's mouth was dry.
He leaned over the kitchen sink and vomited bile.
"You're not broken," the voice said, like a comfort.
"I'm not me either."