Keith shook his head.
"I am not going without mother, despite her behaviour, I love her and I don't want her to be alone in her lasts moments if her mental state kills her."
Show answered with a snarl.
"Heh! We'll go earlier than you think then. Just be ready, the moment I say we must go, we'll leave this village for good. Don't forget to say goodbye to your friend."
Morning came after this conversation.
Merald sat next to him, she caressed his forehead delicately. She addressed a tender glare at Keith. He looked pitiful to her, marked by violence for years and now, probably tormented by last events.
"Good morning Keith."
She said with a whisper.
The boy did not answer. He wanted to find his mother. His ears buzzing with Show's plan. The idea to quit the village, abandon everyone he knew. He politely saluted Picco before heading to his home.
He locked himself inside the house, pushing the table against the door and saw something unusual for a split of second.
"I swear I saw a shiny thread on the floor."
Any time he saw a silver lining, he saw death. Something that would die or had already met its fate. The cat being gone, he hoped to have misseen.
Looking at the wooden floor more carefully he finally let go of the matter, nothing to be seen except a fly.
This was a very big one, green shades covering it, red eyes and a loud buzzing following her trail. She was the one carrying the silver line.
Nothing abnormal for a fly to carry such thing. That is their usual diet and best method of propagation. Keith followed the insect because he wanted the buzzing to end. He waited for an occasion to kill it, just a second to smash it.
He came to his room and raised his head to focus on the target.
Once in his bedroom, he tripped on his bed and fell on the its sheets. Or so he thought.
Keith passed through the floor, tearing apart the bed sheets with the rotten floor's planks. He hit the ground a meter under what he expected, blindfolded and coated by his own sheet.
Cracking sounds could be heard with his struggle and it was added to a new, louder buzzing sound. The spiky thing under him had a weird texture. Plus he could feel small things crawling around, above him.
Rodents?
While panicking he shouted.
"Help me! Show, help!"
The shadow entered the bed sheet and removed it at once.
In his house's crawling space, Keith found himself in his mother's everlasting embrace. She was dead, with nothing but a hole where her mouth fitted.
Her body had stiffened and looked slightly thinner, greener. Keith's heart skipped a beat when he recognised his beloved mother.
When the kid was about to scream, Show shut his mouth tight with a few hands, from the inside and the outside. He then ordered.
"Shut up. Don't attract attention."
A rough humming sound came out from Keith's nose. Strident enough to sound alike torn metal. Every rats ran away.
A flow of tears fell down once more. The flies bumping against his face made it harder to look at. Their swarm was the last thing Keith noticed before being brought back at ground floor by Show.
He could now see silver linings between him and his mother, he supposed her putrid smell had stuck on him, yet he couldn't have a glimpse of its odour. This missing sense caused him to feel incomplete for the first time.
He calmed himself down on the edge of the hole. He barely breathed, he was unconsciously trying to give her silence, for peace of mind. He looked at the ceiling, asking himself why would such things happen, but then his eyes fell on the shadow.
"You knew."
The shadow suddenly split in two. White from its teeth separated the body, that was the widest smile it could give. Show spoke.
"I ate her language, that is why I can speak properly. Tongue, teeth, lips, palate, larynx and vocal cords. That's since yesterday if you noticed. I almost forgot to tell you, she did not suffer, she passed away while holding you, she was very happy. But her ritual failed and the gods stopped her heart."
He said proudly. But his voice changed, to imitate Raima's the next second.
"I can also do this. Let's go say goodbye to Domi today, dear. But first, let's wash our hands properly."
It oozed sarcasm, Keith wanted to get rid of Show. But he could not. He belonged to him.
"We'll go after our next lunch, we won't dwell on this for long."
"How could I feel hunger ever after this?"
Keith's face was devoid of emotion, deep inside his thought crumbled one after the other, he couldn't muster the strength to think straight. He was broken.
The silver lines reached the ceiling. They expanded little by little. they were already all over the room, reaching for the window and the door.
"You don't have to dear, you'll just have to erase evidences, wholeheartedly You better decide yourself faster, once the eggs hatches the larvae will let most digested liquid inside leak, and smell reach neighbourhood."
Utter disgust. That's what Keith's face reflected.
"You want me to eat mother? No way."
Show's expression couldn't be discerned, but his tone remained calm and even became serious, despite his voice being back to the usual one.
"I'll force you otherwise. Just let your whatever meat eater one-minded brain do the work."
Keith was aware he could lost control over his own body, he thought it was Show's doing until now.
"I'll be back. You eat."
For hours, he scratched his head frantically, irritating his skin and peeling of some hair, then he bit off his nails one by one. He could not resolve himself but he knew he'd be in trouble if discovered. He had been in his house for half a day already, Picco might go looking for him.
Show came out of the floor the same time a turmoil drew Keith's attention outside. He saw most of yesterday's villagers and Domi's family running toward the same direction. They went deeper in the village.
Keith felt pain in his stomach. His appetite came back. He asked Show
"What's happening?"
"I bought you time, now let's get started on our own business. The village chief and his assistant are on it too, you shouldn't worry about them."
His stomach grumbling, Keith came back in the crawling space and he kissed his mother's cheek, petrified in the last position he saw her the day he came back home after his kidnapping. He bit a chunk of it and chewed for a long time before swallowing.
It woke up his dark side of the moon and so he frenetically fed.
Show knew it would be difficult to tear apart most things, so he passed a hand through Keith's. The boy didn't even bulge and continued. Their two fused hands gave off a demonic resemblance.
A child with long, sharp nails and a second black hand partially backing his.
He began with her head. Both her eyes exploded in his mouth even though they had dried up a little bit. The skin detached easily from her skull with the help of his index's nail and after gathering all of the hair, he shaped the scalp like a purse and swallowed it whole.
It was as easy as gulping a living fish.
His mother's weak state didn't allow her to sustain a beautiful hair, it wasn't very thick and only about a finger long.
Then he devoured the muscles in her neck, the cartilage from her nose and ears. One of show's hand cut the skull as if it was a cooked vegetable. The bone resistance did not last much. Show muttered a few word each time Keith ate a different part.
"Brain."
The kid broke the parts of the skull with his bare teeth. The bone was as hard as a rock but raw strength Keith fed on made it not last long. His jaw had developed dense and tough muscles. The angle his mouth could open was wider.
He could bite more than ten centimeters length.
Not paying much attention to the flies walking on his skin, nor their larvae he continued. The brain was by far the best part. It was plenty of fat, and it was the nicest meat he ever had. It contained something he couldn't discern yet, a mother's love.
Pleasure invaded his mind and body.
Keith's black eyes blinded his mind from seeing. It bind his reason to the remotest place possible. Nothing could stop his feast.
Once the head gone, he began to eat the torso.
"Breast."
Thanks to Show's help, he could self teach himself how to cut things apart. He also subconsciously learnt about anatomy without paying any attention to his own doing. He went from knowing where the stomach was to every organs in the body.
And so he spent the next two hours. The night fell upon Kodra when Keith came back to his senses, washing his hands and face in the bucket near the entrance.
His two brown eyes stared with astonishment at the shadow who said lowly.
"You did well. Now bury her. We'll see Domi after."
Show gave him four black nails, and Keith pinned his bed sheet above the hole in the room, making it the first coffin of a long story.