The pulse-emitter felt heavy in my arms, but it wasn't the weight of the metal that made my hands shake. It was the way the air felt around Leon. To the others, he was just being "Leo," but to me, he felt like a storm front,static and pressure that made the hair on my arms stand up.
"I'm heading back to my room," I said, my voice sounding thin even to my own ears. "I'm... a little tired. Need to calibrate the emitters for tomorrow."
Leon stopped his pathetic attempt at braiding Maya's hair. He didn't turn his body..he just twisted his neck at an angle that looked a few degrees too far for a human spine. He looked directly at me. His eyes weren't honey-brown anymore,they were like looking into an oil spill.
I clutched the handle of my weapon harder, my knuckles aching. I felt like a rabbit staring at a hawk.
"Ohhh, boo hoo!," Leon drawled, his voice dripping with a fake, sugary sympathy that sent a shiver down my back. "The big genius is sleepy? Don't let the bedbugs bite, Aaron. Or maybe... they already have?"his tone slowly turning more darker as the sentence ends.
He let out that high-pitched cackle again. Maya and Maverick laughed, but Jay just sat there. I could see the unsure look on his face,the way he was trying to force himself to chat, trying to talk off the unsteady feeling vibrating in his chest. He was desperate to believe the joke, but he was failing.
I didn't wait for another comment. I turned and walked out, my boots echoing too loudly in the hollow hallway.
***
I reached my room and slammed the door, the sound muffled by the heavy scrap-metal plating. I didn't turn on the main light. Instead, I clicked on a small, flickering desk lamp and pulled a tattered, leather-bound journal from a hidden floorboard.
My hands flew across the pages. I wasn't writing poetry anymore. I was drawing symbols,jagged, geometric shapes I had seen in the ancient laboratory logs, the same shapes that the charcoal-colored veins on Leon's neck were beginning to form.
Specimen 0-0, I wrote, my pen tearing through the paper. Transformation is accelerating. The dental structure is serrated. The behavior is predatory but mimicry-based. He is trying to act like 'Leon' to keep us close. To keep us as...
I stopped. I couldn't write the word food.
A wave of sadness hit me so hard I had to lean my forehead against the cold desk. I remembered the boy who taught me how to whistle. I remembered the "Different Blood, Same Sun" oath. My eyes stung, but I couldn't cry. I was too scared for tears. I was looking at the blueprint of my best friend's death, and I was the only one who knew how to read the map.
I stared at the drawing of the black mass I'd seen under his shirt. It looked like a hive. A living, breathing shadow,is he "Leon" or is it just fake..no…no no… I don't know anymore,I beg he's still the Leon that cheered everyone up,but I think I'm slowly coming to realize that he's turning into "something"
"Please be wrong," I whispered to the empty room. "Aaron, please just be a paranoid freak."
But I knew I wasn't. I closed the journal, slid it back into the floorboard, and covered it with a heavy rug. I climbed into bed with my clothes still on, my hand resting on the hilt of my knife. I didn't sleep. I just waited for the sun to come up, hoping the light would make the monsters go away for just one more day.