World Eater

I shoved the keyboard against my monitor stand, the old Samsung monitor jostling around as the thin black keyboard lay in a mangled mess. "God dammit!," I shouted as my hands gripping the follicles of my hair threateningly. This story is giving me freaking nightmares, the complex symphony of thought that went into the wording having evaporated during my hiatus I had taken over the semester of college.

I stood up and walked to the kitchen, opening the fridge and grabbing a can of beer. Frustratingly gulping it down, my mind ignored the fact that not all of it was making it into my mouth's aperture. In classic redneck style, I slammed the poor aluminum can on the granite counter top, the amount that remained pinging against its thin sides. I let out a sigh, 'Words...' I thought as I continued to mull over the plot in my mind, the first bit of the beer seeming to already hit the neurons in my brain and quelled their incessant activity. 'This story is just too hard...' I thought as I went back to my room, plopping into the ancient leather executive chair I had, rolling a couple of feet before my socked feet could act as an appropriate brake.

I turned my attention to the tool of my trade, its smooth black surface was mangled, keys skewn everywhere from its cheap and poorly constructed face. Groaning I tossed it aside, causing more keys to fall. I rolled over to the other computer I had in the room, my gaming desktop and poked around online for a new keyboard. Maybe one of those old ones, the ones with a steel plate in it and were virtually indestructible, like an IBM Model M or something. With me treating the keyboards as of late, that wouldn't be a half bad idea...

Screw it though, the collector's edition of Skyrim arrived in the mail the other day and the game had become nothing but a psychological drug. "Now let's feed my addiction," I said aloud to no one, grabbing the matte black Xbox 360 controller and holding the center button until the lights danced their familiar pattern. With the menu loaded, I selected the disc and loaded up the digital epic.

I grinned as the Bethesda logo floated into view, it's gear-like logo a familiar and treasured sight. The main menu flashed for a brief moment before it disappeared with two taps of the "A" button, replaced by a beautiful 3D model of one of those dragon walls. I looked to mine, resting atop my bookshelf. The Alduin figurine sat menacingly atop, seeming to claim the wall as its own. I looked back, just in time to see the first bits of the province come into view, the blurry textures loading to their higher quality brethren.

My character, as with all games in the series, was custom made by me. He was an Argonian male named Mattiras. He's lizard-like body, grey skin and fairly tall. I had always imagined him as one to grow up in Cyrodill, away from the bizarreness of the Black Marsh. Growing up to be normal before events compelled him to Skyrim and blah-de-blah-de-dah... No one cares about carefully constructed back stories so I won't waste any more breath. Anyway, he's a slick son-of-a-gun with a gold tongue and plenty of matching metal in his coin purse.

With the main quest long behind me, it was down to the Daedric and guild quests, especially the Daedric ones. Doing these often times insane quests for these demigods gives the game some often times humorous variety. For now though, I was just meandering through the game world, bouncing off objective to objective.

With my mind immersed in the game, I failed to notice the collectible statue quietly snapping to life. It's PVC plastic slowly animating as the figurine peered around with it's soul piercing eyes, they glowing red from the powerful forces that were contained within it. With the sound of cracking plastic breaking me out of my trance I wheeled around just to see the figurine train his eyes on me. With me unable to get out of my chair fast enough, I saw the statue glide in and cling to my chest. Almost as soon as it began, the plastic hardened and quickly went limp as it fell off harmlessly, smashing to the hardwood floor below. What was left attached to my chest was something purely sinister.

What was clinging to my chest was something I could only describe a mass of wispy black energy. It's souless red eyes looking my body over before the wyvern shaped blob reared back and penetrated my chest. The energy being worked quickly, crawling in my chest without a single scratch but creating an intense wave of pain that knocked me to my knees.

A sudden, bone chilling wind seemed to blow over me. Standing up, a sudden wave of dizziness akin to standing up to quickly washed over me and forced me to my knees, my lungs taking in deep gasps of air as it and my heart desperately tried to send oxygen to my brain.

The dizziness continued though, spreading to beneath my skin. I looked on in horror as the skin started to stretch and morph as something formed beneath it, my speculation ending when the objects couldn't be contained by my elastic human skin, watching my fair skin it give way to sharp, obsidian plate-like armor. Needless to say, I was just a bit more than just freaked

To my horror, the process spread through out my body, the cotton of my clothes and the flesh of my skin giving way to more and more scales, their sharp surfaces glistening in the incandescent light of my room as the plating continues to form all over.  My shirt disintegrated as scutes flowed down my chest, pointing like daggers before rearranging themselves in a shield shape, protecting my rapidly beating heart and rapidly moving lungs in my chest. Smaller, black scutes  formed down the rest of my body. It wasn't just skin either. where new scales formed, I realized, an additional change happened.

With a loud cracking sound, I watched my hands wrench 180 degrees, reorienting themselves as the fingers fused only to regrow, my thumbs forming into jagged, dagger like claws. My arms snapped and cracked, the hands growing disproportionately as more skin sloughed off painlessly. With the sound and almost equal force of a shotgun, my arms grew, the bone inside stretching out, becoming much lighter yet somehow becoming far stronger than human bones could ever be.

More gunshots erupted as my body lost more of its human shape. My legs shedding the pink and soft skin as jagged obsidian plates erupted from them, shooting upwards, cutting the skin. I could only watch in horror as it sliced off to reveal more of the plates. With two sudden snaps, I felt the bone and muscle structure smash my still human head onto the hardwood floor leaving me disoriented for a brief moment before attempting to use my hands to right myself. Resting awkwardly on what was left of my palms, before watching them grow, pushing me equally to my legs.

In fact, the growth was all over, what was left of my human skin stretched to the point of shredding, doing so in a spectacular cloud of human skin. I had little tome to marvel at it because I felt a quiver in the rest of my body. Feeling muscles twitch and bow on my more human parts of my body. The feelings nestled themselves in my neck, core and head and much like the rest of my body, something big was about to happen.

With bone crunching snaps, I felt and saw my neck launch itself like an inhuman rocket, instantly forming new scales as I felt vertebrae grow and on occasion grind into of existence as my neck gained far more flexibility and became freakishly pensile. As it did, more plates erupted from this smooth obsidian surface and jutted into the air. The liquid "glass" blob that had pushed the changes soon rushed over my head, teasingly leaving my mouth and nose open as my still human lungs struggled to move any quantity of air down my over-sized windpipe.

Rather than take my head and claim victory, I felt an utterly bizarre sensation forming at my rump. Since the blob covered almost all my head, I had to go on feeling, and besides the total alien feelings I was getting, it was disconcerting to say the least to my overwhelmed mind. I could feel tugging and even stranger, feeling from something that was being tugged.

Despite the overwhelmed nature of my mind, I some how knew what it was. I   could feel the spine grow, producing those same light but massive vertebrae that continued to roll out foot by foot. Even stranger was the itchy feeling my now winged hands were useless at getting. I could strangely feel something similar to my neck traveled down its length, those plates erupting from the strange black blob but I could feel them folding  as their surfaces brushed and overlapped to provide the fewest weak places in the plating. The feeling petered out and it's length lay sagging against the ground. The legs, while strong simply couldn't support it's weight.

With my torso and head still overall human in character I begged for something to just come along and end this whole miserable thing. With the shock of the situation passing into depression over my whole situation. I felt another tingle in my chest and I knew that while it was going to end, my outcome didn't look so promising.

I felt my chest inflate like a barrel, added layers of muscle pushed out, the thick plating on the front displacing neatly as the shield shaped bit of black scale. The ribs soon followed, cracking and hollowing out to support the muscle structure that continues to ravage my humanity. Next, the tingling focused on my spine, soon feeling it grown, pulling out the remaining muscle to the breaking point before the process came in and filled in the muscular gaps with it's own creation. I felt the same thing happen to my spine, it growing and spitting, new vertebrae being added that finally ended the cartoony dimensions my body had.

Now being able to stand up, I had this curious desire but a tugging on my face quickly ended that. though I couldn't see it, I sure felt it. I felt it creep inside my mouth and into my nose, in a slow and odd process, it pulled both out simultaneously before melding them. I nearly gagged as it flowed all through out my mouth, coating all of it as the obsidian goo reworked my mouth dissolving anything human in it's path, forming jagged and sinister teeth. And with a final tingle, wrapped up, finally able to call it's massive scaled length. With my massive muzzle hangiong on me I knew that my head would have to undergo more than just a few changes. I gulped, knowing that it wasn't going to end well for the bones in my head.

With loud snaps and pops, the rest of my head was scaled up to match the rest of my body, the once over sized muzzle resting off of it. With even more snaps and pops a pair jagged of horns shot out before hardening into what I could only assume to be that matte obsidian that covered the rest of my body. Yet, I couldn't feel it stop at just two, more of then grew out of of my dehumanized skull. The tingling stopped almost as soon as the horns formed, the seemingly magical substance taking it's time to destroy what was left of my human ears, pulling them out into large, omnidirectional tympanic membranes.

Next came the wave inside of me, my human organs were obviously incapable of running things inside of me. My small human heart suddenly skipped a beat, then another, and another before I could feel it groww, cascading the other organs inside of me. Each breath becoming far easier as the lungs expanded, the diaphragm able to cope with the increased demand. The rest of organs quickly fell into line, molding themselves into the massive operations hubs that would help manage my new, bizarre form.

With the magical substance that had formed making my insides feel all warm, I decided to give my body a look over. Covered in massive overlapping matte black scales, that ran along my entire body giving me this very evil look to them. But I knew when I looked upon the rest of me is when I knew what I was.

Alduin, I thought as the internal changes started to slow, my mouth involuntarily regurgitated the substance. I watched the substance come into view and slithered up to my eyes. I could only sit paralysed as it flowed around my eyes, a tingling feeling signaling the morphing as a black, evil aura whisked around me. To my horror though, it didn't stop there. In a flash, I knew what it was after.

It started as a feeling, a small subconscious desire that slowly started to well up within me. As the substance continued to wrap around the neurons in my brain. As it did, I felt my mind slip. Death, destruction clouded my rationality as my very brain soaked up the magical essence like a sponge. My once human mind let out a solid roar, the sky above snapping like a whip as the clouds yielded as if they would to a nuclear bomb.

Stretching out my body, I shrugged off the destroyed bits of ceramic rooftop and limestone. Stretching my black wings I leap into the air, my body instantly feeling it as I remembered, so powerful, strong... immortal. Nothing to stop me from devouring this pathetic rock and fulfilling my born destiny. This world's day of reckoning has arrived, for I, Alduin, firstborn of the dragon god Akatosh have awoken.