It sang in his veins, throbbed in his throat. It was the monkey on his back he had not strength to shake free of, the dog nipping at his heels and driving him closer and closer to the brink. He was lost in the fog and he just didn't care anymore. Hunger consumed him, no matter what he ate - and he ate whatever he could find, whenever he could find it - it never went away. And sometimes it cleared away, leaving him standing baffled and naked in the eye of the storm, and he was breathless with the agony of seeing what he'd become. But always, always it came crawling back, lighting his tender veins on fire as it flooded them with sheer power and sheer madness.
The beast Milo had become was tall and powerful, with snapping jaws and bulging muscles. A winged abomination composed of too many pieces of too many animals to identify; in those rare moments of clarity even Milo could see how wrong he'd become. But he couldn't fix it, and after some time he'd stopped caring and begun to revel in the atrocity, in his disgrace. The other pirates, infected like he was, were much the same. Most were long gone, plunged completely into the darkness, but others were aware enough to use their raw power and their hate for all things normal. Milo had been used by them so many times he'd stopped resisting, letting them guide his violent hand over whatever target they wished to destroy. Even lost as he was, Milo knew it was wrong, knew all of this was not how it should be. He couldn't fight it, couldn't win, and the grief ate at the part of him that was still human. He worried, too, about the boy he'd infected before he'd even known he was a carrier. Was he alright? Was he alive? Every morning brought with it the terror that he'd find the creature who had once been Lord Jackson Aran slumbering in the caverns with the rest of the beasts.
Milo stood near the mouth of the cavern, watching as the sun rose slowly in the sky. Something was different about today. His heart was heavy in his massive chest, its beats slow and painful against his ribs. Something was going to happen, the animals inside him screamed it. Driven by some instinct he couldn't understand, Milo barrelled down the twisting caves just as fireballs pounded the hideout. He stumbled, unable to keep his footing, and yelped as a large piece of the ceiling collapsed on him. More fire, now mixed with the enraged screams of his fellow pirates, burst before him, but Milo was fading fast.
He woke hours later, clambering out of the debris. Dead bodies littering the room around him. Men and women, humanity restored in their death, at peace at least. But why not him? Why had the gods seen fit to make him suffer?
And then he saw her, making her way through the lines of the dead, recording names and faces so that she could pass along the word to their family. No. No. Not her. Anyone, anything but her. It ripped at him, drove him to back against the cavern wall. He had to escape before he hurt... No, no! Not the madness! It tangled around his mind, made it hazy and warm and full of hate. The growl slid past his lips before he could stop it...
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