The first thing Clive noticed after coming to was not the absence of all feeling in his limbs, nor the fact that he had been leant against a tall cliff side with nobody else about. Strangely enough, what caught his attention the most was the rhythmic chirping of the crickets in the grass, blended with the faint smell of campfire smoke on the air. These things seemed bolder and more prominent to his senses, but he was not in the state of mind to wonder why. He couldn't move, though he tried, and his voice had almost left him. Clive was paralysed.
He sat there for ages, wishing he could do something, not just remain inanimate. Long minutes passed, and finally a person tiptoed by quietly, pink dress making a ruffling noise and giving away her presence.
"Virgini…a." He rasped almost inaudibly, voice breaking near the end of his sentence. She immediately sunk to her knees, squinting through the darkness at the drifter.
"He's awake…" She mumbled under her breath, turning around and cupping her hands to her mouth, amplifying her voice. "Guys! He's awake!" She called, breaking the silence of the area.
"…Can't… move…" Clive whispered, his head drooping. Gallows and Jet appeared, one of them with a long woollen blanket draped across their shoulders. They must have been catching up on some lost sleep, or something like that.
Gallows went to Clive's body, straightening him up into a more comfortable posture. He tilted Clive's neck to check for a pulse in the same way Jet had done hours before, finding nothing to directly worry about. "Clive, do you remember what happened?" He asked, giving the sniper's wounded shoulder a squeeze, but getting no reflex actions at all. Maybe he really was paralysed.
The drifter thought back, his last tangible memory being the conversation on the train, then a great big blank space in his recollection, ending up at the awakening into his numbing condition. "No…" He replied after thinking deeply, unsuccessfully trying to shake his head.
"You almost wound my arm off." Said Jet, rolling the joint in his shoulder and remembering the attack. Jet didn't think Clive possessed that kind of strength, it would have taken a lot of it to haul that great big ARM of his all over the wastelands, but even so, nobody had been able to hold him down like that before…
Clive made a dry choking sound, his chest convulsing with the effort. "Thirsty…" He coughed, shivering from something other than cold. Gallows dispensed him with a drink he had secretly prepared earlier, it was a water mixed with ambrosia and holy roots, a special and ancient liquor used to restore lost aural charge. Shane had showed it to him a while ago, and Gallows thanked the Guardians for the blessing of siblings, especially younger brothers.
Virginia thought it best to inform Clive about exactly where they were going and what they were doing, in case the drifter had forgotten. "Um, you had a bit of a paroxysm over at the station and we had to sedate you for a while. We struck a path a little northeast, and we're about at the half-way point to Claiborne and Westwood. Tomorrow we'll take you over to the town's clinic and see what can be done. You just rest now, Clive." She explained softly, not wanting to put too much stress on the drifter's mind.
Clive looked to be processing the new information, overcoming his paralysis just enough to barely nod his head and offer a tiny smile. Gallows threw his blanket over the sick drifter and urged all the others to depart with him, the three walking back to the campfire that was burning vigorously.
Jet plunked himself down, setting his Airget-lamh in his lap. "He's really startin' to freak me out." He said. One who knew Jet as well as his comrades could easily see through the façade, sensing precisely how worried the boy was.
"I'm going to admit this," Said Gallows, sighing, "What he's got isn't natural. I know that, at least." He thought this true. All throughout the night ride, Clive had spent his time propped up against the Baskar's back, out cold. What Gallows could sense, however, was that despite the drifter having been dead to the world for hours, his aura had been acting up like crazy. It would dim out like a candle's glow coming to a slow end, fading gradually until there was barely any trace of soul left in the body. Then suddenly, from out of the blue, Clive's aura would flare up like a small explosion, doubling in it's intensity for a few moments before resuming it's regular state. Every time this happened, Gallows would tense abruptly as Clive's aura grazed his own, it was like standing right outside the range of a strobe light, damn well eerie.
But that was not the worst part. After that, Clive's aura would stabilize, yet it came back a little different than before, changed. For the most part, if had felt as if the friend sitting behind him had slowly become a stranger.
"I feel so helpless…" Muttered Virginia, staring dismally into the fire, "He is suffering and we can't do a thing about it." A gloved hand was placed on her shoulder, and she met the gaze of Jet who was trying desperately not to be an absolute asshole tonight.
"I think," Said Jet, forcing himself to be kind to the girl, "That you should sleep. Things always seem better in the mornin'."
Virginia bit her lip and nodded, unrolling her sleeping bag from her pile of stuff. Jet just lay back, crossing his arms behind his head and watching the grey clouds drift lazily overhead. They were thinning, though, and maybe the stars would come out later tonight. It would be a comfort to them all. Gallows strummed a few chords on his ukulele, a futile attempt to take his mind off how badly he wished he was a better medic. Maybe then he could have been more help. He had tried his best. The rest was up to the Guardians.
xxx
The moon is full… Do you not see it?
… Do you not sense it?
It draws us all back, to our origins, to the beast that exists in the human soul…
Wake up, my love…
Come and see the moon…
… Come and meet your new form…
xxx
Clive's hand twitched, as if it searched for an object that could not be found. Slowly, his eyes slid open, the absolute stillness of the wasteland greeting him as he woke. He did not think, he could not think, all he felt was the low toned thumping of the ark scepter, in his head and in his heart. Forgetting the paralysis that had consumed him, Clive brushed the blanket covering him away, rising to his feet and swaying from his lack of control, but keeping his gaze on the grass. He left his Gungnir ARM and supplies behind, smiling a smile that had no meaning to it.
"I'm coming…" He intoned dreamily, a force coaxing him to stumble away from the campsite, onto the level lush flatlands of Westwood. He walked similar to a man who was heavily drugged, barely aware of where, or why, he was going. Like a marionette, he forced himself a long way away from camp, leaving the other drifters, sleeping peacefully, behind.
The great rock they had camped at disappeared over the horizon as Clive took short, but tenacious steps away from it, finding himself on an endless expanse of grass, perfect horse territory, nothing as far as the eye could see. He almost tripped a few times, feeling horribly out-of-place in his body, just like it was built for someone else.
"I am here… I am here… Heheeheehahahahahahahah…" He slurred in a sing-song voice, ending up in a form of vacant deranged laughter. He raised his hands skyward, seeing the clouds thinning to an almost total transparency. "Show me…" Offhandedly, he removed his glasses, tossing them aside like old garbage. "Show me… the moon!"
On command, the clouds parted, inky black night pasted across the sky. The stars pulsed in their heavens, lovely and awesome, but far away from reach. They merely complimented the dominating article suspended in the overhead space, the big, bright and full moon. It's white light pierced a moonbeam into Clive's consciousness, setting off a hidden trigger deep within the man's body.
Clive collapsed, a tearing rending pain shooting through his nervous system, making the sniper scream in agony. Every cell inside him was on fire, the very fabric of his being ripped to shreds. A thousand pins and needles stabbed every inch of his skin, the clothes he was wearing suddenly becoming tight on his figure. Words could not describe the hurt he felt in his shoulder, the epicenter of the suffering. This was not injury, this was not damage… it was change.
His muscles became misshapen, some losing their strength, others doubling in value, thickening. Bones crunched into a new frame, gaining new shape and purpose. In a last burst of thought from Clive, he yanked his increasingly constricting gloves off before his swiftly broadening hands could destroy the piece of attire. His fingers shortened, each digit gaining a razor-sharp claw and hardening into an impossibly tough substance. A coating of dark shaggy grey fur sprouted all over his body, poking through his clothing. Clive screamed again as the seat of his pants tore, a long bushy appendage pushing its way out of the hole it had made. A tail. He called out in vain for his friends, but they were too far away, sleeping through the night and the frantic cries Clive made to them.
Eventually, the horrific pain receded, leaving the poor abomination of a creature lying prone on the grass. He panted heavily from the exertion the transformation had caused, blinking dark red eyes in confusion. Idly, he drew one claw over his furry muzzle, bearing a set of wickedly hooked fangs. His tail flopped ungracefully around, the creature not quite used to owning one yet. Why was he here? What did he want?
What was his desire?
On cue, the creature's stomach rumbled as a reminder of the long fast he had endured, he now realized precisely how hungry he was. And now, in this form, he knew exactly what he had hungered for during the entire day. It was so simple, why had he not thought of it?
Fresh meat.
A growl, deep and throaty, emerged from the beast, drawing himself up to his four legs and catching the faint scent of human flesh to the north and east. North? He had the flash of a memory cross his mind, the image of three familiar people sleeping soundly and peacefully. No, he would not hunt there. Something prevented him…
But he had to eat, he was starving.
"..Ttttoowwnn… eeaarrst… Krrraabboorrnn…" He snarled in an attempt at English. Yes, he could smell many humans from that direction…
And that meant food.
The pleasant fields of Westwood echoed in the night, a blood-curdling animalistic howl stretching across it's boundaries, mournful and melancholy, bearing the slightest tinge of a tortured human voice.