highkey tired

His mouth is still flooded with metal. When he glances down at his hands, his fingers are covered with dirt, grass-stains, and a shiny-chromatic glow that makes him think of nevron blood. He swallows nervously.

What happened last night?

Aching all over, Verso sits up. His head throbs to thank him for the effort, a stinging pain that shoots all the way to his retinas. His whole body feels like it's been ripped apart and put back together. Verso means that literally. He knows the feeling literally.

"Last night," he mutters to himself. "What happened last night?"

His mind provides him with an unpleasantly dark blankess in response to that question. It's far worse than a hangover.

"Okay," he acknowledges. "What's the last thing I remember?"

He can recall hiking across the Continent with Monoco, at least - that much is clear. It would take a lot to make him forget Monoco's particular strand of purposeful annoyance.

And then there had been a fight, hadn't there? A new type of nevron, something he'd never seen before; a new experiment of Clea Dessendre, he had assumed.

It had been enormous, easily a foot taller than even Monoco; while it had stood on its hind legs, it had been covered with fur, and its teeth had been bared in an eternal snarl. Its wolf-like snout had growled as it attacked them, claws swiping and -

Yes. Verso remembers now. Those claws. They'd hit his shoulder hard, digging in deep, leaving him with a wound that wouldn't heal for days. It had itched and festered more and more with each passing night, as the moon outside got fuller and brighter, until -

In the safety of his hut, Verso's hand snaps to his right shoulder, his fingers tracing the spot where there should be a wound - but, now, he finds only scars. Somewhere in the depths of his missing memories, something has happened to etch those claw-marks into a permanent mark on his skin. Looking down, he can see three ragged scars raking over his shoulder and down his front, a slight chromatic glow lingering in the mess they've made of his flesh.

With a pained groan, Verso shakily climbs to his feet.

"Last night," he mutters again, as he tries to hunt through the broken furniture while desperately hoping he left a change of clothes here the last time he visited. "Come on. What is it? What happened?"

During his search through the hut, he finds a set of marks in the wall near the door: claw marks. They're sliced deep into the wooden panels, nearly breaking all the way through. Hesitantly, Verso reaches out: his fingertips fit one-by-one into the gouges in the wood, and…

running. hunger. food. starving.

It flashes through his mind faster than he can process what he's seeing - what he's remembering.

smell. hunt. need. kill.

Last night comes back to him in fragmented flashes: he has a glimpse of running on four legs, his stomach growling, his snout-like mouth watering, bearing down towards the gestral village having already snapped his way through a back of nevrons, and then-

stop. fight. hurt. defend.

Verso pulls his hand sharply away as he remembers - half-remembers, forgotten little seconds of sensation and horror - Monoco crashing into him, tackling him to the ground, a flailing mass of teeth and fangs and instinct. Is that how he ended up here? Back in the hut?

What happened?

He looks at his hands, caked in the evidence of a night he doesn't remember; the canvas has already taken so much from him, too much. It's already made him in a stranger's image. What horrors does it have planned next?

With his stomach sinking, Verso gives up hunting for clothes inside and shakily opens the wooden door of his hut. It screams on its hinges and the morning light pours upon his pale face.

And, on the door-step, he finds a scavenged Expeditioner's Uniform waiting for him.

And, sitting a rock across the clearing, he finds Monoco.

His friend's arms are crossed, but there's a battle-ready wariness to the way that he's watching Verso, like he's still getting ready for a fight. Even from a distance, Verso can see the tooth marks in Monoco's wooden arms; he can see a long, ragged splinter that looks as if it's been torn by something feral.

"You're alright?" he checks, before hastily scrambling to pick up the uniform and hold it in front of himself - at least it's enough to protect whatever little dignity he still has left in the canvas. "Monoco? Are you hurt? Did I…?"

With a groan, his old friend gets to his feet. When Monoco walks towards him, Verso wonders if he's imagining the limp as he walks.

He knows he's not imagining the thoughtful grunt that Monoco makes once he gets close enough.

"Tell me," Monoco asks solemnly, stopping a respectable distance away from Verso and assessing his threat level, "What do you think would happen if I managed to take a werewolf's foot?"