Rats - om nom nom nom

There they were, chittering in the darkenss. Waiting for him to sleep so they could come and gnaw on his vulnerable flesh. His one good eye scanned the darkness franticly as he huddled in on himself, fearful and frantic. First Shoda was taken from him and now, mouldering in a human dungeon he would be devoured by rats. This WASN'T what was supposed to happen.
He growled, a feral, animalistic sound. Miraculously, the chittering stopped. He didn't dare ease his cramping muscles out of his tightly curled fetal position though. One sign of weakness and they would come. He could feel them. Their tiny rodent brains pressing in on him, wanting, yearning for him to falter so they could feast. Anything for the next meal.
He was loosing his fight with consciousness. He'd have to sleep sometime, he knew. His strength was running out and the dark lady was coming to claim him. One of the rats suddenly grew bold and scurried out from one of their hiding holes. His lips stretched his haggard face in a taut grin and he lunged forward. There! His fingers managed to snag at the end of the bald tail, his cracked and bleeding fingertips brushing against its greasy and matted fur.
The creature screamed in terror, its frantic cry sending its breathren away, off to greaner pastures and a more assured dinner. But Laok wasn't done. He clutched the tiny bulbous body with one emanciated hand and held the still-screaming head tight with the other.
His breath came ragged and halting in his excitement as he sunk, slowly, frustratingly slowly into trance. He didn't even need to stretch out his energies to take the rat. It was already clutched helplessly in his hands. All he needed to do was squeeze and twist. Slowly, eliciting more screams and cries from the hapless creature he twisted, and twisted. He could feel the tiny tendons straining to keep the thing whole until finally, with a barely audiable -snap-, the head twisted all the way around.
He dropped its now lifeless body and leaned over, groaning and coughing. That was Self. Ooooh that was what he needed. If he couldn't have food, he could subside on the Self of lesser creatures. That was the Key. When he'd grabbed the rat he had only meant to twist it and watch its death. Possibly scare the rest off so he could get some sleep. He'd had no idea that the death of the creature, when he was linked with it, would rebound to him, strengthening him, giving his soul nourishment.
His smile streatched even wider as he realised exactly what this meant. He wasn't hungry anymore, he couldn't be starved into submission. They would think that with each passing day he was growing weaker and weaker, and then... and then when their guard was down and the time was right...
His lavender eye slid sideways to regard the tiny, lifeless body laying on the floor of his cell. He wasn't so much different from the rat, when it came down to it. Aaah, but he was different, he was smarter, and he was patient. He could bide his time. He'd lasted this long already, he could surely stand to wait longer, to wait until the very perfect moment.
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The guards were complaining about the smell. Laok could hear them outside his cell door. He didn't even notice the scent of the decaying rats. He actually, truth be told, couldn't understand how they could notice it either. The privies down here were never emptied and he was sure that prisoners died all the time and were allowed to begin to rot before they were removed. The poor sap in the cell across from him had been silent for more than a week.
He supressed a shudder when he realised it could have easily been him that had been silent for more than a week. At least, it would have been him if it weren't for the rats. His eye slid once again to the privy hole were he'd disposed of the rats once he was done with them. Three hundred and twenty five rats so far. He didn't know why he could remember exactly how many he had killed. He had teken the SElf energies from them each, one by one, slowly filling himself, making him whole again. It was like having his thirst quenched by sips over the course of weeks. It was excruciatingly slow but oddly satisfying.
With each fresh death he could feel the rest waiting in the walls, quivering and quaking in terror at what he'd become. He laughed, a cold heartless and chilling sound. It echoed dully off the slimy walls dripping with weeping moss.
He reached out a hand, still gaunt and skeletal despite the enegerzing nourishment he'd absorbed. He extended his Self, searched, and soon found, caught, and pulled. Another fat-bodied, scaly-tailed rat staggered out from the wall. It squealed in terror but came, inexorably forward. Laok smiled, and chuckled deep in the back of his throat.
Seizing the struggling rodent he sank into trance and twisted.
He didn't realise something was different until it was too late. As his hands gripped the soggy fur the rat's eyes flickered and stared AT him. His own Self was tightly wound around the tiny creature, like an octopus wraps around its victim. A small voice in the back of his head screamed in terror as his hands seemed to move with their own volition and the rat's neck snapped.
The tiny noize seemed to echo on, and on, and on. Instead of fading away into nothing it increased in volume, lowering and expanding. It sounded like the ominous ticking of some great clockwork horror thudding on the biggest drumbs of Ebheda.
Laok gasped and fell to the ground, coughing. His heart felt like it would thud out of his chest, but he was powerless to stop it. His hands scraped futilely against the clammy floor of the cell as the thudding grew louder and louder, threatening to engulf the cowering Jothani.
He retched, heaving up the dregs of his stomach, the harsh acid burning all the way up and then all the way back down. His throat throbbed in time with the insufferable thudding. He seized, bucking up and contorting. Hands grasping for some unseen ally.
"Shoda! Help me!" He cried out to the dark, reaching for his one last shining memory. With a sickening crack the bones of his back writhed and he was thrown to the ground again. What was happening? He'd never experienced this much pain befor, not even when they took his eye. He screamed, a gutteral roar that went on and on, but even that was engulfed by the bass thudding.
He roared again, and again, tearing his throat and rending it raw.
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Up the hall the guard on duty had been slowly edging away from the cell at the end of the hall. He didn't know what was in there, it was a cell that was never to be opened, and it didn't have a window. The roaring, gutteral scream came again and the hapless guard lost what was left of his already meager courage, turned, and fled.
Behind him he heard a crash and the whining scream of twisting metal. What was going on? His eyes were wild as he pelted up the stairway. He slipped on the damp treads and fell with a crunch. He had enough time to look behind him and see the monster bearing down on him. He didn't have enough time to register more than its thickly matted fur and one, franticly wrathful lavender eye.