The Hunger

“Oh no! it is happening again!” Aaron thought as he bolted awake from his restless slumber. As the somewhat cool, humid air blew through the open window hitting his sweat drenched skin, Aaron shivered. It wasn’t because of the drop of the night’s temperature or a nightmare he was having; it was because he realized that his attempts to control his hunger were failing him fast and he was scared.

             He had first started to feel the hunger shortly after his inheritance made itself present. Aaron did not want to tell anyone about the hunger. What would “normal” people think if they found out about what he had lusted for; no, what he had hungered for? And it was not like he could ask his kind about this. He had come from a long line of prestigious leaders. People who were sought out by not only their kind but others as well to hold the peace of those who lived in the darkness and “normal” people. His kind did not do what Aaron wanted to do when he had felt the hunger, let alone even think that way. Especially any member of the Landis family, his family. While other lesser members of his kind have been known to fall into temptation, the Landis’s were known to be true and steadfast since the beginning of time.

             When Aaron was young, he was not strong enough to pose a danger as he could not act on his urges. But as his inherited gifts became stronger and he became older, he had to find more stronger ways to resist the hunger. In ninth grade, he would run and hide. Getting as far away from the temptation as possible would seem to work. Sometimes it meant going to the library or running to the middle of the woods where even some of the best local trackers would have a hard time finding him. He already had a reputation as being a loner from the rest of his school, now they just thought he was strange which was fine by him.

 As high school progressed, he started growing more accustomed to his body and his strength; he made sure he stayed away from participating in sports or even hanging out with people his own age. His family had told him that it would be difficult for people to understand why he could do what he could. He was fortunate enough that his grandfather Alric looked frail and old. He also portrayed the image of being forgetful.  So, Aaron always told other teens that he had to take care of his grandfather and help out at the bookstore that his grandfather had ran for the last 40 years since he took it over from his own father. The truth was his grandfather was faking illnesses or excuses to shut down the shop early so he could sit on the high council, issuing his judgement to others. Soon even the old dusty books in the bookstore and the ability to lock himself in the basement while his “feeble” grandfather was away, was not enough for Aaron when the hunger started to awaken.

             Aaron had read somewhere about how a famous Hollywood actor who was also labeled “strange” would channel his aggression into something else like acting and creating weird characters for strange movies he had stared in; this gave Aaron hope. While Aaron could not show his face in public or even toy with the idea of acting, he could channel his hunger into something else. When he was seventeen, Aaron had convinced his grandfather to let him join the ranks of the guards. After some debating and multiple attempts of arguing his case to his grandfather, Aaron was granted a chance to try out for a position as a guard. His challenge was facing a changeling named Brock in a fight to where the winner was still standing. Brock was impressive in that he was naturally bigger and stronger than Aaron and after toying with him for a couple of minutes in his human form, Brock changed into a bull then a bear. Coming in for a series of hits then backing away and doing something else. His downfall was when he changed into a lion to finish off Aaron who had successfully shook off everything that was thrown at him by playing defense for at least ten minutes. As Brock in his lion form leapt to come barreling down on Aaron, Aaron jumped up and met him with a right hook. It took just one punch from Aaron to render Brock unconscious without Aaron even having to change into his true form. After that, the guard accepted him, and Aaron used his built-up tension and rage that happened during the episodes of feeling the hunger in issuing out sentences to those that broke the rules.

             There was only one time that Aaron got close to allowing his hunger to take over. It was during the break before his senior year in high school at a camp for young business executives when he met a shy girl who like him, had been forced to take this class in order to keep the family businesses running in the future. They were put together to work on a project and one thing led to the next when only two nights after their first kiss they decided to take it further. The hunger hit and Aaron let it take control until he saw the fear in her eyes, and he realized what was happening and stopped. Luckily for them he had not hurt her besides a few bruises and maybe some emotional scars, but he got lucky, very lucky.

  After that he started to wear a relic, he had found when traveling in Europe with an uncle that was used hundreds of years ago to control monsters that were stronger than what most restraints could hold. He told his uncle that as a guard, he would need it in the event that if they came across something or someone who was stronger than first appeared, they had a way of subduing them. Since it looked like a solid, one-piece necklace; no one ever questioned it and those that knew what it truly was believed his story about it being a form of precaution. The collar worked well and kept his hunger at bay. That was until they met an unruly lupine who was jacked up on steroids and other performance enhancers that his team needed the collar to subdue him. Aaron thought that he would get the collar back once they dropped off their detainee at a cell, but the high council ruled that this lupine needed to be sent across the sea to a place where he could be isolated and controlled by his own kind. So, for the last week, Aaron has not had his security and he thought he was fine until tonight.

             Trying to breathe and regain control, Aaron attacked the problem like an intellect would. What caused the hunger to come back tonight? Why was it so strong? What way could he control it and make it go back into the deep recesses of his soul where it could not rear its ugly head? It did not take long on what caused the hunger to come back and why it was strong. Even though he was at an estate sale, judging the value of a rare collection of books in New Orleans, his past had a way of finding him here miles away from his home.  Her name was Lynne and during high school, he actually was infatuated with her. The only time he did not think about her was during the break before senior year and that did not turn out good.

             Even though they had not seen each other for at least 8 years, Aaron recognized her beauty from across the street as she came out with the rest of the tourists from a historical building. She too, recognized Aaron although it took her a second or two.  As she called his name in recognition, she ran across the street to greet him with a smile on her face. With the group waiting for their guide to finish talking on the phone with about arrangements for lunch, Lynne had the time to make small talk with Aaron and asked if they could have lunch to catch up tomorrow before she left New Orleans to go back to New York where she had moved to. As she left to rejoin her group, she reached out and hugged him. Aaron really wished that she did not do that. That single moment had brough her close enough to where he could smell her hair, feel her heartbeat against his chest. The warmth that emanated from her.

             Even now, ten hours from that meeting, he could still feel and smell her like it just happened. He tried to meditate, exercise, do anything he could think of to stop thinking about Lynne. As the hunger barreled up from his chest, Aaron slowly sunk into the darkness that was the hunger. Soon Aaron no longer had control of his actions. Before Lynne had darted off earlier in the day, she told Aaron where she was staying at. It was a small hotel on the outskirts of the city, He knew its location and where her room was as in the past, he stayed at that hotel. Before he knew it, he was outside on her balcony. This early in the morning, the sun was still down, and no one was out and the hotel, being cheap as it was, had no security besides a camera aimed at the desk which may or may not have worked so no one saw him arrive.

             As Aaron swiftly disengaged the balcony door and entered, Lynne had started to slowly wake up. Aaron barely made a noise as he slowly crept in. To Lynne, what she saw was the shadowy outline of what could have been an angel slowly folding his huge wings that almost touched the ceiling and the floor behind him, making them a bit smaller so he could walk closer to her. As the light from the lamp on her nightstand met the figure coming towards her, she thought that it looked like her old friend who she had seen earlier in the day. Only he seems to be taller and more defined. In a sense he looked beautiful is what she thought, until she saw his eyes. The eyes told a completely different story. “Aaron, is that you? Wha, what are you doing here?” Only the thing, the monster in front of her did not reply, he just kept slowly coming closer to her. A slow growl emanating from his throat. The Aaron she knew was no longer there, only the hunger and the hunger got what it wanted that day.

             Two days later, the trashed hotel room had two visitors, a small woman who looked like she was in her 70s but was really over 200 years old and a grandfatherly figure who was called down because of his knowledge on what the woman had suspected happened in the room. “So, is it your kind Alric?” asked the lady. “Yes and no Marie, what did this was my kind at one point, but now... well now they are something far worse and evil. Trust me when I say, when we find this demon, he will be joining Lucifer in hell. There is no place that this creature will escape that our wrath will not find it” The woman solemnly nodded in agreement. “I just wish that my grandson had not disappeared so soon. If I read message correctly, he left the city to chase down a rare book seller who lived in Mexico only a couple of hours before this attack. He could have possibly found this demon and saved whoever was the owner of the blood found in this room. Have they found her yet?” “No, and the local authorities do not think that she could have survived in the amount of blood found in this room. Funny in that the hotel registry was wiped clean, we don’t even know what her name was.” said the old woman. “That is a mystery” agreed Alric.