Chapter 03 The Monster Within

"It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me, and I'm feeling good."

- Nina Simone, 'Feeling Good'.

After being dropped off in Chicago by Samantha, Dimitri found an apartment building to live in that was owned by an elderly couple. They provided some much needed hospitality. Dimitri over the two weeks he spent with this couple felt like he was basically adopted by them, although he barely came out of his room he was greeted with smiles and food at the dinner table.

He would just take the food into his room. He attempted to eat it and the taste was bearable but with each time he ate it got worst and worst until he just stood in the room for a week and starved himself not wanting to eat the meat from in the cooler. After recovering a bit of his strength Dimitri hid his things under the bed and went for a walk.

Walking around the neighborhood Dimitri wasn't trying to be noticed but he did need the walk but with a black hoodie on and in a city like Chicago that didn't not put attention on him.

"I was stuck in that appartment for so long being afraid of being recognized as a threat of being a chimera but now it's just because I look like the stereotypical street gangster" Dimitri says to himself while walking to a nearby seven eleven.

He enters the store and takes a look around at the snacks.

"Maybe it won't be that bad if I attempt to eat something. It can't be that bad, I'll buy some of these and try it out"

He takes up the snacks and grabs a few drinks. Exiting the store with two bags after buying them he reaches into the bag and takes out a cream filled cake. Biting in to it the flood of pure disgust lines his entire mouth with what could only be described as the worst tasting vomit inducing sensation ever known. Immediately he vomits and drops to the ground.

"What the fuck that was just a single fucking bit, that was one of my favourite snacks"

Running to the apartment and into his room. Dimitri immediately tries his best to eat some of the snacks and wash it down with some of the drinks he bought earlier, but the end result had all been the same leading him to consistently vomit with each attempt at eating.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck I don't want to eat human flesh. No, why, why why".

Dimitri continually tries with each failing attempt at some way of keeping himself from vomiting over and over again. After a few hours Dimitri lays on the floor defeated and heavily exhausted feeling as if he's on the verge of dying from starvation. Realizing his only way to stop the persistent hunger was to eat the meat from within the cooler he was given, he crawls over to check beneath the bed to take it out but finds it missing.

"The cooler and the duffel bag. Why aren't they here?"

Barely able to find the strength to stand Dimitri gets up and shambles his way over to the old couple room, knocking over most of the items within the hallway on his way there. The old man comes out of the room first to see what the commotion was and sees a panicking and weak Dimitri asking for what happened to his things.

"Look honey, the boy is feening for those drugs and that money. Looks like you already got some withdrawal symptoms. Poor piece of shit."

Dimitri confused ask the old man "what are you talking about? I never had any drugs"

"Oh really you think just because we're old that means we are clueless to your types. From the first day you came in and paid in nothing but cash we noticed that bag was filled with money. Only thing that cooler could've held in it was drugs as well. Obviously you needed a place to stay at to lay low, maybe you're on the run or you're just passing through until you feel like killing us because we saw your face and know your name. Well while you were in your room getting high on your supply we contacted our son and his friends to stage a robbery gone wrong at your room but you left before they came in"

"Yeah now we got to come up with some other story to tell the police. Something like a crazy drugged up boy runs in and tried attacking us but we managed to struggle with him to the floor and it was all in self defense" the old man says as he loads the final few cartridges into a shotgun.

With his heart racing and believing it to be his final moments Dimitri closes his eyes.

Survive

Suddenly Dimitri moves out of the way at the last second with his left shoulder being hit by a few pellets. He lunged forward at the man jumping off of the wall and biting into the mans throat but not before he was shot directly in the abdomen.

Shocked and in a state of panic the old woman runs into her room to find another gun. After frantically searching she found a pistol and turned around as she got tackled into the wall killing her from the impact. Her body slides down the wall while Dimitri taken over by his overwhelming need to survive begins to savagely tear the woman limb from limb eating every part of her. The crunch of each bone and the tearing of the flesh from bone while the walls drip in blood that had been splattered from the messy and gruesome feeding of a fully newborn chimera enjoying it's first feast though not conscious of what he was doing, Dimitri couldn't have felt anymore bliss in that very moment.

- Nitra Gipson, The Real Verdict: My Quest for the Freedom I Never Had

"Sometimes we need to feel bad to know what it's like to feel good..."