The Perfect Specimen

Alistair can't believe his eyes as he sees the creature before him. "What are you?!" He shouts towards it, but all he receives is a series of cl.i.c.k.i.n.g sounds coming from it's mouth.

The creature senses that it's surprise attack failed and scurries away behind a giant food freezer, out of view of it's prey to set up another attack.

Alistair thinks about what he has seen so far to understand his situation. The beast that just attacked him comes up to the height of his shoulders. However, it was was at least five feet long, with three legs on each side of it.

He immediately recognizes it from one of the books he read on monsters as a c.o.c.kroach. The only thing he doesn't understand is it's size. A c.o.c.kroach is only supposed to be no bigger than an inch. They are also known to colonize with each other, but there is only one here.

He thinks this as he hears the cl.i.c.k.i.n.g noise moving all around him in the darkness, sometimes appearing faintly and others as if it's about to burst his ear drums. He looks as hard as he can at where the sounds coming from but sees nothing out of place.

He decides to turn the light on as he notices that for some reason, the monster is not active in the light. Just as he makes a move towards the light, he feels something slick brush up against his arm. He snaps his attention over to his arm and sees the monster's mandibles slowly closing in around him arm.

He quickly pulls his arm to his c.h.e.s.t as fast possible. However, he was not fast enough as the mandibles clipped his pinkie finger off.

Normally people would notice that there was a missing digit on their hand. Alistair does not feel any physical pain though, he only noticed that there was a space on his hand when he clenched his fist that should not be there.

The monster somehow senses Alistair's intention as he makes his way towards the light switch and scurries as fast as it can to catch up to him, disregarding the finger-food it just received from Alistair.

Alistair gets to the switch just as the monster gets to him, it had adjusted it's mandibles while running at him to as wide as they could go. They fit around Alistair's waist just as it got to him, but when it was about to close it's mouth down on him a blinding light filled the room.

A cacophony of cl.i.c.k.i.n.g noises burst from the monster as the eyes that covered the better portion of its head turn bright red and start bubbling as if they are boiling. Then the monster completely collapsed and a pool of white blood started to form underneath of it.

Alistair does not even have time to process the situation as he finds himself going dizzy at the sight of the blood on the floor. He finds that he is slightly able to retain control of his body this time as he realizes his stomach is trying to take over.

He decides that instead of immediately dining on the monster, he needs to make sure there is no one around watching. "I did make a lot of noise after all, it wouldn't be strange if someone walking by stopped to look." Alistair thought.

He looks out the door into the cafeteria and see's it completely empty, "Well it's also really late so most people are probably sleeping." he concludes. He walks over to the light getting ready to turn it off.

Before he does though, he goes back to pick up his pinkie finger and feels a bizarre ghost feeling in his hand, as if he can still move his pinkie even though it's not connected. He tries to act on this feeling and see's no response from the pinkie finger.

He tries to put the finger back on his hand in a crude attempt at reattachment. He notices that the moment it touches his hand, although it does not reconnect it really does move according to his will!

Shocked by this revelation, he holds his pinkie in his hand and walks back to the light switch and turns off the light as a just in case measure if anyone walks in to see him.

He waits in the darkness for anymore movement from the beast with his finger on the switch if it makes even the slightest move. After making sure no other monster jumped out in a surprise attack at him, he gives up on the self control that has been driving him to the brink of insanity.

He reaches for the corpse and realizes that the legs and back are as hard as iron, unable to even be moved by him. He could not even light the wing off of it's back. What he decides to do after realizing this is to go in from the eyes.

As he enjoys his meal, the spiral inside of his stomach begin it's usual process of absorbing the food, allowing it to satiate Alistair's hunger. Instead of improving his muscles like each other feast had done before, a new development took place.

He could see the changes the monster did immediately. The reason he could see them, is because the changes happened to his vision! He realizes that the darkest corners of the room are now completely visible, even though he had not been in the dark long enough for his eyes to adjust.

After getting this new addition to his eyesight, he decides to test it out immediately. He runs to the light switch in the room and flicks it on. The light ended up blinding him momentarily.

A feeling of being uncomfortable comes from within him as he basks in the light and after making sure he is adjusted to it, he turns them off. Within a second, he is completely acclimated to the dark.

Unbeknownst to himself, he finds that the pinkie finger which had been severed is now completely reattached. Alistair begins making mental notes of everything that is changing and occurring for future reference.

"It seems if a intact body part is taken from my body, it can be put back on as long as I am consuming. My eyesight no longer needs a long delay to adjust to the dark, however the light bothers me slightly. It seems I not only pick up stronger abilities from my food, but there weaknesses too. I will have to find out what other weaknesses I have when I have more time."

These thoughts are not said aloud, only to be a mental note for the future. He looks over at the corpse of the monster and realizes that there is a big problem now.

If the monster is dead, then he can just report that there was a monster making the noise for his mission. However, they are going to see the bite marks left on it's insides. If they do, then it will only be a matter of time before it comes back to Alistair.

After thinking all of this, he goes back to the monster and remembering he can't even lift a part of it he can only think of one thing as he strokes his hand on the slick back exoskeleton of the creature.

"Maybe I can eat this?"