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As the sun started to set, Cassata drank in the boy's blood. The rush of flavor and intensity coursed through his veins. Raw power surged through him like a blast of electricity. It was exquisite. When he finally sank his teeth into the flesh and muscles, he was overtaken in fury and excitement. In the future, he would need to take greater care of his food and prepare it, but for now and in this state, the taste was perfect.
Very good, Parker.
He heard The Whisper, and now The Whisper would reward him.
Cassata pulled his face from the feast. For a moment, he was appalled by the bloody mess he'd left of the boy's carcass. But his guilt quickly passed when his stomach rumbled again. Cassata went back to his buffet and fed on the boy's liver. It shouldn't have tasted as good as it did.
With each bite, his guilt and apprehension slipped further and further away until the boy was nothing more to him than prey. The Whisper was right. The boy was keeping food from him.
Cassata pulled back from the boy's stomach cavity and struggled to catch his breath. He probably imbibed more than his body was ready to handle. The bile built in his own stomach, and Cassata regurgitated his fresh meal onto the forest floor. A sharp pain twisted his gut and Parker Cassata dropped to his knees, letting loose an earth-shaking bellow.
BBBBBBBRRRRRRRRAAAAAAEEEEEEWWWWWWW
His body heaved and twitched as he again regurgitated the blood and tissue from the bottom of his gullet. Everything he took in to satiate his intense hunger had left him. Cassata shook. Perched on his hands and knees, he struggled to climb back to his half-eaten feast.
Maybe he ate too much, too soon. Maybe he should have prepared his meal rather than letting his emotions run wild, eating the child raw. Whatever the reason, his body wasn't ready, but it didn't stop his stomach from telling him to take more.
Cassata's back convulsed and his neck twisted in an intense spasm. The pain was a release. Once it subsided, Cassata patted himself up and down, making sure he was still in one piece. Something had happened inside of him. The stone may have awoken more than he planned.
Cassata screamed again into the cold night as something flared inside his elbows. His bones began to pull away from his muscles, stretching and tearing the sinew as his arms grew and changed shape. His neck bent and twisted again in an unnatural manner, almost like it spun in a tight circle. His hands dug into the frozen earth. The skin on his long, bony fingers stretched tighter. His jaw clenched, and the flesh near his mouth sucked into his maw, as if all the moisture suddenly drained from his face. As the flesh tightened, his shoulders separated and broadened, shifting his body into a primal stance.
Cassata looked down to hands that, moments earlier, took the life of another child. The hands that reached into the boy's body cavity and feasted upon his remains. They were different, not only metaphorically, but physically. Their shape was longer, more gaunt. The skin was tighter, with a jaundiced color. His fingernails were elongated and sharp. The angular talons reached up to his face and touched his taut cheek. He caressed his exposed teeth, no longer hidden behind fleshy lips.
Cassata's fingers moved to the top of his head. In his pain, he hadn't realized his hair had completely fallen out. A thin layer of yellowish fur pushed its way through the hardened flesh.
When Cassata rose up from the ground, he realized his legs had changed. They were longer, thinner, yet somehow stronger.
The stench that had followed him since Nightmute no longer turned his stomach. It felt right. It was his smell.
The pain in his bones washed away. Parker Cassata was gone. The thing that remained was far worse than any failure of a mob crony could ever be. All that was left was the Wendigo.
And it was hungry.
BBBBBBBRRRRRRRRAAAAAAEEEEEEWWWWWWW!