I don’t exactly know what happened to Maria.
We’ve been friends since we were tiny. When I was five, her family moved to my neighborhood, and from the week we met, we were hooked on each other. We did all the typical kid stuff: imagining we were knights and ladies-in-waiting; playing ‘street soccer’ in the driveway between our houses; mixing ‘potions’ out of mulch and crushed-up leaves; making mudballs and tossing them onto our neighbors’ front doors. We even had this particular game where we’d take grapes out of our refrigerators and try to throw them into the open windows of passing cars.
Alright, so we were jerks.
But, c’mon, it was fun. As time went on, we picked up real hobbies, of course, and Maria found her passion: crafting recipes. Her favorite was a cinnamon-vanilla apple pie; she could peel apples like nobody’s business. She can’t eat pie any more because she doesn’t eat, so she doesn’t bother cooking, but it was great while it lasted. And I mean great.
Anyway, point is, we know each other, and not in the vague ‘we’re neighbors so I see you around sometimes’ way. We were–are--close. We decided to room together when we hit college-age; we’d rubbed off on each other; we were familiar with each others’ habits; and, most importantly, we trusted each other not to sacrifice our friendship to petty disagreements.
We both knew we’d change when we went into university, and we’d talked about it, and we were prepared for it. Maria just changed a bit… more… than we had expected.
These days, on her bad days, her hair feels like dry straw, and her skin is… powdery. Like, if you swipe your fingers down her arm, it’ll come off on your fingertips, kind of like paint. You can dig into her, and she says it doesn’t hurt. But it won’t heal, either. She’s got gouges in her arms and legs now, from bumping into things. She transformed overnight, while she was out on one of her walks. Came back like that.
And, yes, it’s her. It’s definitely her. Same face as before, same posture, same clumsiness. All memories, all personality, completely intact. The eyes are the same–they haven’t gone some kind of evil red, or anything. She’s my best friend, and I know her. You all are a bunch of internet strangers who are probably pretty skeptical of things people write on Reddit, but I promise you, it’s frickin Maria. I’ve known her since I was five. There is no doubt in my mind that it’s her.
(She’s looking over my shoulder as I type this, and she just said ‘awww.’ Yes, Maria, I love you, you douche.)
I think it’s just one of those things. We got dinner together one evening, she went out for her daily evening walk, and when I next saw her, her entire body had become the consistency of chalk.
The middle of the night scares folks for a reason. We all know that every night, on some street corner in the barely-lit out there, people get accosted. People get attacked. People get mugged. People get… changed.
Maria got changed. And she came back hungry.
That night, she crept back in to our dorm, looking like she’d been shot. She was shaking hard, making these small, wounded, sort of - I don’t know - choking sounds? Like, r-h-cchh-t, r-h-cchh-t - like a death rattle, like some sort of weakened bird. I’d never heard anything so - so purely agonized. She sounded close to death. Over and over again, that odd sound, her chest dry heaving, like she was trying to form words, her mouth moving like she was underwater, no human sounds coming out. Her shirt was ripped, and blood trickled from what looked like a bite on her chest. When I saw her, I screamed.
And she grinned.
I flung myself out from between my covers and was at her side in an instant, grabbing her, not even noticing that I was taking off chunks of her skin. I held her and I tried not to scream even louder, because if I started up again, I might never figure out how to stop. And as I, against my best efforts, released some kind of pathetic wail, something–bizarre–happened. I mean, even more bizarre than the everything else.
I watched the bite mark heal itself.
I screamed again. And more color came back to her face.
And yes, I did all the things you’re supposed to do. I got the bandaids out, I put pressure on the (now-vanished) “wound,” I helped her strip off her bloody shirt, and I asked the do-you-have-a-concussion questions and some other ones besides. Had she been sexually assaulted? No. Was she sure? Yes. Had she been attacked? Yes. Was it Jared? No. By a man? No. By a person? I finally asked.
Silence.
By an animal?
Silence.
“Maria,” I said urgently. “Maria, by what?”
She shook her head.
“We need to get you help!”
“It’s past midnight, Jules. The med unit is closed,” she said calmly. I yelled that we should go to the ER. Actually, I yelled something more like, “fucking motherfucking fucking shit fucking shit Maria we need to fucking get you to the shit fucking emergency fuckling room right the fuck now.”
“No,” she said, still completely placid. “I would rather not. I am not bleeding; I have not been abused; I am fully psychologically coherent–Jules.” She took my hand. “Look at me.”
I looked.
And yeah, she was looking better, way better, but I was not convinced. I was manic, convinced she had been brutally assaulted no matter what she claimed. But by this point, she looked like the picture of health. Her cheeks were outright rosy. Hell, she probably looked better than me. I was fully prepared to physically drag her to the ER, but she grasped my arm before I could touch her, and her grip was steel.
She had never had that kind of strength. It was just a touch - a slight tug, like a warning - but I knew she could have ripped my arm out of its socket.
My breath went cold in my gut. For a moment, feeling that inhuman power, I genuinely thought that I would die at my best friend’s hands. And the grip got stronger still.
Then, abruptly, she released me. Apologized. That same voice, the same slightly-hunched-over stance.
“I just need to sleep,” she said softly. “I’m really sorry.”
And without another word, she climbed under her covers, and wouldn’t speak another word.
The next morning, I marched her to the dining hall, but she wouldn’t eat. I tried to get her to the med unit, but she planted her feet and would not go. I gave up, because I physically could not budge her, and I did not want to cause a scene that might force her to re-live the trauma of whatever had happened to her last night.
After asking permission to stay with her (so as not to be a creepy stalker), I stuck by her side, walking with her from place to place. Some misguided attempt to protect her, I guess, even though the attack was over. The entire time she wasn’t in my line of sight, I flexed my fingers and worked hard to unclench my jaw, which had been so tense it was practically frozen. It may seem excessive, but she’s my best friend. When I care for someone, I give it my all. What I wanted, to the core of me, was for her to be safe and well, and I’d do anything to make that happen. So I skipped Bio 201 even though I knew it would bite me in the ass, and emailed ahead to let one of my professors know I’d be missing Intro to Scientific Literature too, and I stayed at Maria’s side.
She didn’t eat or drink for the entire day. I pushed her to, but she refused, using more of that strength against me. Never hurting me! Just stopping me from forcing her to do something she didn’t want to do. I walked at her side uneasily. At one point, she flagged–sighed–and bent over. I leaned down to help her, and she jerked up unnaturally quickly, shouting “BOO!” right in my face.
I yelped, and she laughed and reassured me she was fine. The first time this happened, I was like, okay, silly prank. But the next few times? It became clear she suddenly loved frightening me. And I got worried.
I would soon be more worried still.
Two days passed. I was as jittery as a bird, jumping at everything. Maria began… hiding from me. First, she tucked herself underneath my bed, then inside my tiny closet, then just behind the door of one of my classrooms. Each time she’d jump out, shrieking, and no matter how prepared I tried to me, she’d frighten me half to death.
Immediately afterward, she would apologize. But even as she said the words, she would grin, slow and satisfied, as if I’d just fed her a five course meal.
Over time, I realised that was exactly what was going on.
Maria wasn’t eating or drinking because she was feeding off my fear.
She didn’t want to talk to me about it. Every time I asked, she’d grab me with unnatural strength, and every time she used that strength she’d scare me, and she’d use my fear to get even stronger. Which led to more fear. Which led to more strength. And so on. “Terrified” doesn’t even begin to cover how I felt, every second I spent in her presence. I almost became half-animal, never knowing where she would jump out next.
I couldn’t tell a soul, because who would believe me?
I say I couldn’t tell a soul, but then I spill my guts to a community of a couple million strangers on Reddit. Kind of ironic, huh?
Regardless, I finally got my act the fuck together. I wasn’t going to let my best friend be–consumed--by whatever this was. I decided the only way out was to challenge her. So I stepped right up. The next time she grabbed me, assuming I would bend to her will, I grit my teeth and stood stock-still, and glared at her. I had always been taller than her, and this time I used it.
“Maria,” I spat, contorting my face into what I hoped was a convincing mask of anger, “What. the fuck. is going. on.”
She released me, and sprinted unnaturally fast out the door. Slammed it so hard it cracked.
I sat down on my bed and just cried.
Two hours later, Maria came back. Chalky. Cracks across her cheeks. Breaking hair, hollow eyes. Fingertips disintegrating.
In her right hand was what looked like a shiny apple peeler.
In her left hand was what looked like a bloody strip of skin.
I vomited.
“It was only Jared,” she said, winding the strip of skin around her knuckles. She looked at the floor, then back at me. “But it didn’t work.”
Her voice was the same. It would have been so much better if her voice was different, if it had become raspy, or evil, or cruel. But it was her. It was Maria.
She pursed her lips. “It’s only you.”
She advanced on me, fist out, blood dripping. “It has to be you.”
Before I could even shriek, she pounced on me.
She drove her knee into my chest. All the air left my body, and before I could gasp, he slammed her hand over my mouth. Leaned close to me, so close we were forehead to forehead, so close I could feel her withered eyelashes bat against my skin. She pressed herself against me, her body cold, and she hissed.
It was like she was inhaling. Massively. As if she had been underwater for long minutes and was finally taking in life-giving air.
She ate my fear.
I could see her chalky skin heal; I could see light return to her eyes. My fear didn’t leave; but still, she took it. It revitalized her. It healed her. As I panted and writhed beneath her, trying to shake her off, her fingertips became plump, her cheeks rosy. Her ribs no longer stood out from her chest, and her breaths became deep and even. Her body warmth returned. And across her face, so raw it broke my heart, was sheer, pure relief.
She retreated from me, and she was the Maria I knew.
I had no more doubts after that.
So we talked. I had figured it out, what had changed in her since she received the bite, and we were on equal footing once again. We spoke long into the night, confiding. She told me what had happened that night, and the sort of creature she had become. It was pretty much just what I had guessed, but it felt good to have the truth from her at last.
But. That meant that, while she could startle me, she couldn’t scare me. I knew she wouldn’t hurt me, and she knew I knew. No matter what feats of strength she showed, no matter how many closets she jumped out of, she could not scare me any more. Because now I knew what was going on, and because she was my oldest friend, my dearest friend, Maria.
So she began to starve again.
I think she was almost dead by the time we made the discovery. By the time I made the discovery. Maria can be fed by my fear, and we thought it could only be fear I feel. But it can also be fear I inspire.
I can scare people. And when they’re afraid of me, Maria can feed off that too.
Jared was hospitalized, so he was out of commission. But there were plenty of more people I hated, and that apple peeler was still pretty sharp.
Here’s the crux, and I don’t really know how else to say it. I began to hurt people.
It’s easy enough to get someone alone when you’re a decent actress, but it’s even easier if you have Maria’s iron strength to back you up. It’s also easy enough to hide a knife, or an apple peeler, underneath your clothes. I really only used those two, since they’re small and easily concealable. The knife is immediately comprehensible as a a universal threat; as you can probably guess, I’d barely have to draw blood before a person is whimpering. With the apple peeler, I never have to take much skin; I scrape off a little, and they get the picture. The imagination of the victim does most of the work for me, truth be told. I mean, C’mon, nobody likes the sight of their own blood pouring out of them. Nobody likes to picture themself skinned.
I’ve done it, with people I particularly despise. I’ve dug the blade in, and dragged it, and sheared the skin off people’s shins. I’ve dug so deep I’ve exposed the slimy bones of kneecaps. I’ve sliced off fingers. I’ve snipped up nerves. I’ve even pried out teeth.
Anyone who has slighted one of my friends, anyone who pisses me off, Maria and I can take them out. It’s not necessarily that we will, but, you know, we can.
We both had to drop out of school, citing post-pandemic stress. Frankly, it was easy. Of course both our families hated our fucking guts for doing it, but what else could we do? I had to keep Maria alive.
Anyway, nowadays, we travel. We have a routine, and I’m not going to belabor it by describing it, but we do what we do, and once Maria has what she needs, we sharpen up our blades and we move on. We’ve seen some pretty awesome destinations, and we’re really racking up the frequent flyer miles by now. So far, so good; suspicion hasn’t landed on us yet.
I think about it, sometimes, how it feels for the victims. It’s an interesting thought experiment. How would it feel for you? To be held down as someone peels your skin from you, inch by fleshy inch. Watching bits of your body curve up under the blade in ever-widening loops. The sound it would make. The gleaming greasiness of bone, the slimy slickness of veins, the hot thick smell of exposed organs. Maybe you’d thrash. Maybe twitch. Maybe vomit. Maybe you’d vomit into yourself. And you probably would survive it–for a while—at least until a deep infection set in.
It’s pretty scary, isn’t it?
Maria says thanks.