Trick or Treat!
Through the Fire 05/13
Chapter Five: The Change
by jordan
Trick or Treat!
Through the Fire 05/13
Chapter Five: The Change
by jordan
Memphis, Tennessee
Apartment of Celia Redman
October 18, 9pm
"Tom? Thomas?"
Celia Redman pounded on the bathroom door with the heel of her hand. The tap had been running for half an hour now, and he still hadn't answered her.
"Tom, are you okay?"
Nothing. Just the hard rush of water, a shadow that moved across the light at the bottom of the door.
Inside, Thomas Hagen had his nose pointed down at the bathroom sink, but his gaze was raised to his own reflection in the mirror. His eyes from that angle were narrow half moons, almost all white.
He was crying. Tears were pouring down his face into the sink, leaking away the last of what had been human in him. He watched it with regret, until the regret drained out of him too, and swirled away down the gullet of the white porcelain sink.
"Tom! Are you okay in there, Tom?"
His gaze fixed on itself, amazed. He had a brief flash of memory: Dana Scully. In his mind it was a clear, bright picture. She had been there when the change had begun, when the power had begun to seep into him, replacing cell by cell the thing that had been Tom Hagen with the Other thing. That which had been born in the blood and fostered in some hot red place, now nested in the honeycomb that had been Hagen's brain.
She had touched it. She had touched him. They were...She was...It was her fault. The running water had been her fault.
"Tom? Can I come in, Tom? I'm worried about you."
Hagen dried his face. He thought of Scully standing naked before him, the red patch between her legs. Had this happened already, or was it about to happen? He couldn't tell. He saw himself pushing her down on her back, seizing her ankles, spreading her legs. Wide, wide, wide as his shoulders, wide as his arms would spread out, wider, until the tearing sound began. And the screaming, and the blood.
He smiled.
Celia Redman chose that moment to turn the knob and push the door open. She saw her boyfriend from behind, his head down over the sink, a towel clasped loosely by his side. He was naked. The water was running.
"Tom, are you okay?" She reached around him and turned off the tap.
"I'm fine," he told her. His voice seemed to come from the bottom of some dark, deep place.
"...Tom?" Celia backpedaled towards the door, looking at him in growing, speechless horror as he turned slowly to face her.
What she saw, the thing that lunged suddenly and cut off her scream forever, made her death a welcome release.
Tomorrow: The Gift
