#ikium

Finally. No one would sell it to her on Tylia. She'd had to go all the way to Ataru and spend a year hunting it down.

She flipped through the pages. The text was the same as always. Not important. Where was it...

There. She checked her preparations. Everything was in order.

The first few words were hard to get out, but then... then it seemed that they were being pulled out of her. She slowed her pace, fighting against the pull. Control.

The candles flared, wax melting so fast it poured down the sides and pooled around them. Something dark burned at the center of each.

She heard a voice. Something she didn't understand. She closed her eyes, the page burned into her memory, as a wind whipped around her. It tried to knock her off-balance. She didn't falter. Control.

Her voice faded into the howl of wind. She kept reciting, kept fighting everything that pulled at her. Control.

She strained to hear the voice. Something unknown in her told her to ignore it- she had no way of knowing if it was instinct or influence. She ignored the impulse instead. It was speaking, she could almost make out the sounds-

No.

"Cylebesavam."

It was her mother's voice.

"Look at me," she had said.

She looked.

The incantation came tumbling out of her mouth. What she saw in front of her was not her mother, but rather a man. Tall, lean, with white hair and crazed eyes and a hungry grin. He flickered, and for a moment she saw something much, much worse.

No. Control. She tried to halt the flow of words pouring out of her, but her mouth moved of its own accord.

And then she was looking at herself, as if in a mirror. Her image looked back with those same eyes, that same smile. She felt something beneath her skin writhe. Her eyes were pinned open- she found she could not even make herself blink. The other her stretched, every joint making a sickening sound as they loosened beyond the bounds of human biology. She watched black ichor fill first her eyes, felt it as it continued through her nerves and veins. She felt it find her heart, pumping through her body.

It is grotesque enough to imagine the sensation of feeling your own blood move through you, let alone feeling it become more and more something so alien, so fundamentally incompatible with your own existence.

Ichor seeped from her left side. She felt every drop move through her skin. The image laughed. Not her laugh. Not a human laugh at all.