Glamverse fic: Monster Within [Adam/Tommy] Prologue
[Master Post]
Prologue
Rocky Mountain range, New Mexico, 1975…
The sound of breathing-his breathing-was the first thing to penetrate the fog in Adam's head. In, out. In, out. Over and over. And then came the pain. Gut-wrenching, searing pain like he'd never felt before.
And still…
In. Out. Never stopping, never even pausing, no matter how much he wished in that moment that it would.
Eventually other things filtered back in. The sound of his heartbeat racing in his ears. The feel of it pounding through his chest. Painful moaning in between each breath he took.
It took him a while to realize the moaning was coming from him.
And still…
The incessant breathing. In. Out. Again and again. He tried to hold his breath but his chest already felt like it was being crushed and he didn't make it more than a couple of heartbeats before he was gasping for air, causing himself more pain.
In and out. Taunting him.
Another noise made it through the haze of pain and confusion holding him hostage. A strange sort of rushing sound. No, that wasn't right. Not rushing. Crackling. No, rolling. That was it. Something heavy and hard rolling over gritty cobblestone. That was the sound. He knew that sound, but he couldn't place it.
At least, not until the smell hit his nose. Fire. The sound was fire, and the smell was melting plastic and burning carpet and wires. And something else. Something putrid. Something that made him want to throw up, even though he didn't think he could manage it with the kind of pain he was in.
Flesh.
That thought, that memory, fished out of his past, hit him hardest of all. The fire smelled like burning flesh. Like the time Jimmy Godin had tripped and stuck his hand in the Bunsen burner in eighth grade chemistry, except so much more. All consuming. All encompassing. And so fucking close it could've been him.
It was him.
The searing pain in his hands and feet and along the side of his face suddenly made sense.
He screamed.
And screamed.
And then he breathed. In. Out. Heart pounding.
He had to move. The thought came suddenly. He wasn't going to stop burning until he moved. He had to get away from the fire trying to consume him an inch at a time. He had to move, no matter how much it hurt.
The first attempt to roll over was a failure. So was the second. Finally, on the third try, he made it. Face down, he stilled. Breathed. Tried not to throw up. Eventually he worked up the nerve to push up on his hands and knees, only to cry out as more pain ripped through his hands. Hands that slipped out from under him as he crashed back down on his stomach.
Whimpering, he forced his eyes open for the first time, attempting to see what he'd slipped on so he could avoid it on the next try. What he saw made his stomach lurch violently. He hadn't slipped on anything on the floor of the plane.
He'd slipped on his own flesh. Burnt, charred flesh that was now hanging from his fingertips. He did throw up, then. Over and over until there was nothing left in his stomach and his chest felt like there was a knife lodged in it. Broken ribs, he realized vaguely.
Eventually, he found the courage to make another attempt, just as the leg of his jeans caught fire, the flames licking at him like a demented lover. He scrambled to his knees, then pushed up on his forearms, holding his hands up off the ground, fingers curled into painful, throbbing fists, clutching at the loose skin.
Carefully, he avoided looking at the dead, burning bodies all around him as he crawled toward the sunlight spilling in through a hole in the cabin of the plane where it had broken apart. It took forever, but finally he made it through, out into the cold mountain air. A mixture of relief and abject misery swirled through him, mixing inside him in an insidious loop that threatened to drive him mad.
Spotting a bank of snow off to one side, he didn't even hesitate before crawling toward it. Desperate for the pain to stop, he shoved his hands in it, then threw back his head and screamed as the pain multiplied by ten. Yanking his hands back out, he collapsed onto his side, belatedly realizing that at some point, the fire trying to eat his jeans off him had gone out.
He lifted his hands in front of his face and stared at them for a long moment, until finally, the shock wore off and he started to cry, deep soul-rending sobs that the snow around him seemed to swallow whole. He wondered what his face looked like if his hands looked like that. He hoped he never found out. If there was a God the way his parents had always insisted there was, the fucker would let him die out here. Let him just go to sleep and drift off and never wake up.
Except, that didn't happen. Instead he felt a strange tingling in his hands and face and feet. Opening his eyes again, he blinked through the tears, trying to assimilate what he was seeing with what he knew was possible and what he knew wasn't. As impossible as it seemed, though, he couldn't deny the pain was lessening with each passing moment.
As he watched, dumbfounded, his hands started to repair themselves; new flesh crept over them slowly but surely, sealing away the raw, exposed muscle and tendons of his burnt palms. Eventually there was more new, healed flesh than not and the charred remains of skin hanging from his fingers dropped off, falling to the ground like blackened bits of paper, stark against the white of the snow.
When the process was complete, when the prickling tingles subsided and his hands were new and pink and smoother than they'd been since he was a baby, Adam lifted them tentatively toward his face, prepared to scream again if it was all some sort of hallucination brought on by the agony he was in. But there was no pain as he touched his face where it had hurt before. Instead, he felt the same new, smooth skin there.
Taking a deep breath, he realized his chest wasn't hurting anymore either. Still wary it was all going to be taken away in an instant, he sat up and stared down at his feet. His shoes were gone-burnt off, he assumed-and the same charred, dead flesh blanketed the ground near his newly smooth feet. There wasn't even any sign of the callouses he'd had ever since he'd worked that shitty diner job while wearing even shittier shoes the summer after his senior year.
And then it hit him. What it all meant. Steve-a guy he'd picked up at a bar in New Orleans to celebrate the recording contract he'd just found out he landed-hadn't been insane after all. He'd been right. The curse, the one dooming Adam to an eternity of loneliness while everyone around him died-especially those he loved-was real.
He curled into a ball in the snow, the cold unable to penetrate the abject terror and helplessness consuming him as he cried for all he'd lost: his life, his family … his future.
[Chapter 1]