Into the Abyss полностью

As soon as he was out of sight of the priest, Tom started to relax. The change hurt still, but not quite so bad. Suddenly, Tom realized he had a problem. His clothes! Already his legs were constricted in the pants, and the shirt had come untucked by his growing taller. He concentrated on halting the process. It wasn’t easy and the breaches creaked as if the stitches were about to give way, and then it stopped. Concentrating on his human form as hard as he could, he felt the clothing get looser again.

Heaving a sigh of relief, he quickly stripped the clothes off into a pile. Finally, Tom thought and let the change occur. He gritted his teeth, but the pain almost felt like pleasure, this time he controlled it a little better. He changed slower, less abruptly. Finally he could completely relax. He was himself, or rather, he corrected sadly, he was his demon self.

This was really bothering him. This horrid demon form just felt so much better. Even now, not under any pressure, just thinking of trapping himself in that flimsy little white bag of flesh that was his old body made him feel uncomfortable. Why? A week ago, he’d have thought that’s all he wanted. Actually, even now, he’d love to go back to his normal old life. At least he thought he did. It was just that his old body was so weak, so flimsy. Actually, he thought, and this really disturbed him, it was rather ugly. Ugly? Like who should talk. This demon form was monstrous, as a human he at least looked normal. Why then, did he all of the sudden find normal so repellent?

Tom rested his head in his hands. Looking down at the pile of clothes on the floor, he thought how lucky he’d been not to rip them to shreds like the Incredible Hulk. A thought struck Tom suddenly. He looked at the clothes, he looked down at his body, his demon body. He was naked! He’d been running around naked all this time as a demon! It had never even occurred to him! Here he’d gone out in public, flown around, hung out with a girl! naked! Even now he was sitting here in the nude, and other than the fact that he didn’t want someone walking in and seeing a demon, he didn’t care if they saw him without any clothes!

Tom was shocked. Not by his nudity, but by the fact that he didn’t care about it, not before, not now. Intellectually, he knew he should be embarrassed to have people see him naked. Well, not exactly embarrassed. He gave a small smile of pride looking down between his legs. Not embarrassed at all.

Humor aside, he should feel uncomfortable naked, he always had before, now he no longer did. It was like he had no shame. Kind of like Adam and Eve before the apple, he thought suddenly. He supposed, though, that at least for the sake of others, he should put something on, even as a demon. Looking down at the clothes however, he remembered how strange they’d felt, even on his sickly, oversensitive human skin. They’d been most uncomfortable. Not as uncomfortable as the thought of wearing something now in demon form, but they hadn’t been pleasant. At the time though, the sensation of needing to blow up had overwhelmed him and he hadn’t noticed the additional discomfort.

He tossed around the idea of a loin cloth, but even that sounded kind of restraining and unnatural. He’d only be wearing it for others, and they hadn’t objected before. Actually, his demonic privates hanging out in the wind probably didn’t disturb humans as much as simply his overall demonic presence did. He guessed it would be kind of like trying to cover up one part of a giant toxic landfill in your backyard with a throw rug. Actually, it was also a moot point for the moment, since he was planning on only going out in public in Edwyrd form. Edwyrd would have no choice, society would demand clothes on him. Not to mention the fact that his tepid looking skin would probably get sun burned and otherwise damaged without clothes.

That was really one of the nice things about his own nice burgundy colored hide. Not only didn’t he get sunburned, he didn’t really feel hot or cold unless he was trying to. He also usually didn’t feel swords, daggers and spears either. Dragon blood and other demons hurt, but not much of anything the humans had thrown at him even bothered him. He almost had to laugh at the guy in Exador’s camp who whacked him with the sword. Poor fellow didn’t stand a chance in hell. Literally.

Tom supposed that if he were to be objective in fact, preferring this demon form wasn’t necessarily totally crazy. So far, he’d been upset about his seeming brainwashed preference for his demon form over his old human body, but what if it was just his common sense? After all, if he really thought about it, why shouldn’t he prefer the demon form?