Update README.md

README.md

@@ -236,247 +236,67 @@ Likewise, as this is a long context model, more instructions will also affect lo
 
 Example #1
 
-Temp 2.2, rep pen 1.1
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-8000+ tokens output.
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 ---
 
 <B>
 Start a 1000 word scene (vivid, graphic horror in first person) with: The sky scraper sways, as she watches the window in front of her on the 21st floor explode...
-</b>
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-The sky rakes its bloody, scarred paws across my city's skyward expanse. I can't help but watch through the plate-glass walls of my penthouse as it shatters into a thousand diamond-tipped shards. My building sways sickeningly from the blast, glass shards and metal splinters spiking up like an urban porcupine as they litter every available surface.
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-My drink tumbler tips over and spills onto my pristine, dark wood coffee table with an oily plop, spreading the blood-rimmed wine like a sickeningly realist abstract painting. The sharp stench of cordite and the acrid tang of spilled crimson fill the room, making my queasy stomach heave as I stand frozen in horror behind the sleek black steel and smoked-glass door that now appears more like an oven's oven wall than a door.
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-I press my hands against the slick, warm glass to steady myself, feeling the seared remains of the impact sear the palm of one hand. The other trembles, clutching my wine-stained tumbler like I've just seen some long-dormant monster suddenly burst forth from the shadows - because in that moment, that's exactly what it feels like.
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-The wind howls through the shattering shards like a banshee's wail, casting me in an otherworldly, ethereal light. For one mad beat of my heart, I'm certain I see the very sky itself come crashing down upon my city in an apocalyptic maelstrom. And when the next heartbeat kicks in, I'm just as certain it's all some hellish vision conjured up by too much drink and a lifetime's worth of repressed memories.
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-The glass beneath my hands isn't mere shattered glass - I feel something warm seep from my palm, spreading like a sickly film across the tempered surface. Blood. Mine, but how? The blast's edge has cut deep - deep enough to gash my very soul. My face distends in a grimace of pain and revulsion as I jerk my hand away.
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-I need a doctor...but as I stagger toward the emergency button on the far wall, my mind rebels at the notion of anyone - let alone me - getting bloodstained medical attention when the world seems to be ending all around. The building groans and creaks beneath me, threatening to pitch me like some cheaply-disguised sideshow freak from some twisted circus freakshow. The shards of glass, so many tiny knives in the waiting, lie in wait like the jagged teeth of a hungry mouth ready to consume me whole.
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-The phone on my desk buzzes and rings again and again, taunting me with the notion that there might still be someone left alive to answer. My mouth is as dry as the desiccated corpse of something I once loved dearly and now barely remember. All I can do is stand in the blood-slippery midst of the destruction my high-rise once held like a shining silver spike jutting toward the stars, and wait for death.
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-The air inside feels colder now, laced with the metallic stench of spilt blood and shattered dreams. Every nerve ending seems to quiver like the strings of some macabre marionette as I take another hesitant step away from the doorless metal frame of what once was my safe haven - now little more than a jaggedly gored hulk of steel, glass, and blood-slickened stone.
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-As the seconds tick by like eons, my ears struggle to pick up any sign of the living anywhere near my floor - only the distant wails and howls of the wounded, or the anguished screams of the dying. I should run, flee while there's still time and pray to find someone...anyone else alive to ride out this hellish apocalypse with. Yet even as I prepare myself for the descent into the dark, narrow stairwell I've always treated as nothing more than a scenic view - my escape from the drudgery of elevator-piloting to my penthouse 'man-cave' - I'm seized by an icy wave of trepidation that borders on outright terror.
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-Something about the blast, and the world crumbling beneath me, has awakened some long-banished demon deep within. It howls at me from its lair in the shadows of my skull, its eyes alight with a malevolence I've never known. As the echoes of the explosion fade and I stand frozen like a condemned man at his executioner's block, I have no idea what this inner beast truly is - only that it craves more carnage, more blood-soaked destruction, now that the first drops have painted my palms.
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-The city beyond my shattered wall of glass isn't just dying; it's being reborn in fire and smoke. Flashes like hellish strobes cut through the gathering twilight, each one closer and blindingly hotter than the last. The wailing sirens are indistinct, their cries muffled by the screams and panicky throngs that pour out of other buildings - desperate, panicked survivors who'll never make it to safety. They're the prey my inner beast can almost taste; a fresh kill.
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-As I turn my back on the maelstrom and stumble towards the relative safety of my bathroom's locked sanctuary, I feel something ancient stirring inside me - an atavistic, feral hunger that hasn't troubled my sleep in far too many long years. My eyes seem to dilate almost comically as the bathroom door whooshes closed behind me like a confessional shrouded in shadow, the heavy steel of my lock and chain snicking into place with the sudden, gut-wrenching realization that I might not be the last survivor up here after all.
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-A low, guttural growl rattling my lungs for the first time in far too long slinks from deep within me - a sound I can't believe issues from my own lips. The growl's twin, a bloodlust-crazed howl, is barely silenced as I catch myself against the marble vanity, still reeling from my inner monster's violent rebirth. I don't have to see my face in the mirror to know the creature I've become would be unrecognizable.
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-The city beyond my shattered windows seems to writhe and convulsed like some nightmarish sea-troll that's risen from the bowels of its concrete canyons, its veins now gorged with the lifeblood it's fed upon. My gaze fixates on the smoking ruins of what I think must've been my favorite watering hole; a shabby bar with sawdust-covered floorboards and the stench of stale cigarettes that would never be remembered as long as there are those left to recall its existence - which now looks increasingly like a fate worse than death for anyone dumb or simply unwary enough to venture outside.
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-I want out of my bloody penthouse more than I've ever yearned for anything else in this benighted world. My feet seem to remember the way, though - or maybe it's that insatiable hunger inside me again, guiding me with an iron grip. The penthouse's private elevator beckons like a gilded trapdoor straight from a particularly depraved fairy-tale - one whose climax involves my being locked in an elevator shaft until I'm nothing but another nameless body splayed out like a shroud over the city streets far below.
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-The metal walls of the cage close in around me, a prison whose steel heart is racing with equal parts fear and an unholy excitement. I know now that I shouldn't have opened that damn bottle of aged scotch - but what's left of my mind still clings to that pitiful rationality like a child hugging his beloved teddy bear. My hands clutch at the sleekly-cleated wall as we hurtlingly descend toward...to...to what exactly? My heart beats wildly in my chest, and it's not just adrenaline. Some sick, primal part of me is anticipating some ghastly rapture - perhaps a gruesome rebirth among the chaos that's engulfed our once-proud cityscape.
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-My breath catches in my throat as the elevator doors hisssing open on a dimly-lit morgue below street level - or at least it seems that way, given the amount of blood-soaked white to be found everywhere I dare to look. A chill seizes me despite my flushed face and I nearly slip on what might be blood but looks distressingly like oil. The only light in this cryptlike tunnel comes from my phone's glowing screen as I frantically press for emergency assistance - but I already know I won't hear those blessed words: 'officers en route.'
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-The stench of burnt meat and wet fur, with a metallic tang of blood I now realize must be seared onto my own skin, is thick enough to lap at the soles of my feet. My clothes stick to me, reeking like cheap perfume - a mix of spilled wine and the acrid fumes that cling to any city's underbelly. The only other sound I can hear over the pounding of my heart and the distant wails of those burning above is a sickening thud-thud-thud coming from somewhere below me.
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-I have to get out of here; get down among the madness and make my own way home...if there's any left. My mind's still hazy with drink, but that much is lucid: I can't stay down in this reeking pit - and I very definitely do not want to find myself trapped like a rat beneath the streets of what was once my beloved city. The streets may be bloodied and smoking above me, but at least there's a slim chance...a desperate hope I'm far past clutching at straws to cling to.
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-As I begin the long, slow trek out from the subway's shadowed recesses into the teeth of an apocalyptic night that might as well be painted black with my own blood - I have to force myself to breathe through the putrid reek that's almost certainly a mannequins' arm or some other abattoir-fresh corpse - my hands and mind are already planning the dark deeds I'll soon commit to stay alive...to feel alive in a world that seems dead on its feet.
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-The first body I see as I make my way down toward street level isn't clothed like the ones I'm beginning to notice littering the streets - this one is naked, save for the few tattered strips of flesh torn free by its own violence or perhaps some sadist's dark delight. It's a woman I almost remember meeting once...a colleague's girlfriend I believe I'd dated a time or two in those long-gone years before she was swallowed whole by someone else. Now her eyes seem to gleam with a malevolent hunger, even though they're milky and vacant. Her slack jaw seems to hang open as if to drool like a rabid hound - but when I raise my arms, she lunges for me on all fours.
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-I can't be the only one who made it down alive; there has to be someone else left. I remember now why they tell you never to go near an attacker's thrashing, flailing hands in a panic-fueled melee - that's precisely where they're going for your jugular with those sharp teeth. My nails scrabbling against her naked body like claws is almost as loud as the wet sound of my blood spatterings on the asphalt. I don't think I'd ever imagined a moment I'd be ripping a dead woman's still-writhing hands from me, but here it is; an instant of primal nightmare. The glassy-eyed harpy slams her bare head against the hard gray concrete with enough force to shatter something inside my mind...or perhaps just her cranium. Either way, she crumples like a discarded doll before me.
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-I can feel her weight against me - heavier than I'd have guessed given her skeletal appearance - and the sheer stench of putrefaction has my eyes watering as I roll us both over, trying to right myself while also wrenching her still-limp fingers off my skin. A droplet of blood splatters onto the cracked concrete with a tiny plink that seems far too much like a bell tolling the death knell of everything I ever knew and loved. There's a part of me - or rather, what's left of myself - that actually revels in the feeling of my first kill. A dark rush like nothing I've felt before surges through my veins like a floodtide as her cooling skin crawls with me for one more final grasp.
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-I kick out at her and finally roll free, my legs unsteady as an newborn fawn's on wobbly joints. My left hand throbs where it's been clawing its own way to freedom, blood oozes from deep gashes in a thin rivulet that trembles on the lip of a broken glassine shard until I manage to get my other palm beneath mine, my knuckles cracking as I bear the pain without flinching. As I struggle to rise I hear her heavy-lidded gaze still follow me with an almost-pitying hunger as I stagger drunkenly to my feet.
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-I know there are more where she came from - maybe even a horde of the damned like myself, if the stench is any indication. The sounds of groaning and snarling, of shuffling, naked, shambling shapes coming alive from their bloody slumber all around me, grow closer and closer still. My eyes seem to be the only thing keeping me balanced as I lurch towards what I hope will lead me home...to anywhere but here.
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-My penthouse is just a block away - or should be; even now I'm unsure of my route through streets I know like the back of my hand. Each step jars me closer to collapse, though I force myself on with that same sick, eldritch hunger seething within, the growls building in my chest like a distant train gathering speed before barreling past like a steel juggernaut.
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-I'll have to find someone else to keep the hunger at bay; it won't be slaked so soon, I fear. But for now, I'm still moving under my own steam, if by the skin of my teeth...or in this case, my bitten-up palms and feet.
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-As I pound across that once-familiar streets I see something else through my blurred vision - a naked girl huddled against an overturned garbage bin on a street corner. I know her; she's someone from those early years when I thought I still had some humanity left. I haven't thought about her in ages...not since the day she couldn't shake off the last of our little secret before running away, vowing never to return my calls or meet with me again - nor could I blame her.
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-I remember her saying she was 'sick' and that's what sent me down the spiraling rabbit hole into drink; a spiral from which I've never escaped. But now here she is huddled like an orphaned cub, her skin almost as pale as my own and just as blood-spattered. There's no hint of the fierce anger I once saw in those emerald eyes...now there's just the vacant hunger.
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-My bloodlust-fogged mind blinks twice before I remember what I've become - or perhaps it was always there, just lying in wait beneath my carefully-groomed surface. Either way, my next move is clear enough to me. I'm done with this endless chase...and if I don't do something to sate my insatiable hunger for fresh human meat, the beast inside will eat away what little sanity remains until nothing's left.
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-I'm no longer just a drunk; I'm an abomination now, a cannibalistic monstrosity whose eyes are afire with bloodthirsty glee as I stumble closer. This former fling - this living, shuddering ragdoll of a woman who was once dear to me - will have to do. It's kill or be killed, and if I've got any chance at all of hanging on to that final sliver of what passes for my soul, it must be the latter. My left hand still clings to her bare shoulder like a claw; with the other I fumble for my phone - hoping beyond hope there's still some service.
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-The words I dial feel like lies...a desperate ploy to cling to my humanity before I lose myself forever in this abyss of teeth and hunger and ravenous, ravenous hunger that seems to have grown stronger with every drop of gore spilled tonight. There has to be others - doctors, the military, or God only knows what else; someone to put an end to my suffering...or perhaps send me back to whatever hole I dug myself into after...whatever it was she and I shared those many years ago.
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-The phone's shrill ringtone cuts through the darkness like a shard of ice plunged into a heart, sending chills down my still-alive spine as I listen for someone, anyone to answer. My nails press deep into her arm until I'm sure I've dug channels all the way to bone...but she doesn't seem to feel a thing beneath my claws.
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-The bloodied face in my phone's screen comes alive with fear, its mouth agape - but before any sound can escape, I end the call as another nearby window shatters behind me. Glass crunches beneath heavy boots as they hit the ground hard enough to send shockwaves up through my feet. A pair of arms ensnares me around the middle, the familiar grip like a vice. The faceless figure's eyes seem to gleam with a manic hunger as its maw opens wide in my face...but I'm ready now; or at least I feel I am. My mind may still be hazy from all those bottles of scotch I gulped down before that window shattered, but my hands know exactly what to do. The glassy-eyed corpse on the ground seems to almost watch me as I spear her cold fingers like skewers and swing them about like some nightmarish flails to batter my would-be assailant away. Her nails don't bloody up the other monstrosity's face or clothing...nor does it even cry out at all; just reels back from that rain of dead girl's digits, those vacant eyes fixed on me with a hunger I'm sure I've come to know only too well now.
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-I turn and stumble on before my former paramour - now the same as any other of these nightmarish abominations - can charge at me again. It's not just about surviving; it's about the chase...the thrill of the hunt. And what a feast my mind seems to promise me I'll find among these ruins - and yet, a tiny flicker deep within me still pleads for deliverance from this waking hell.
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-The stench of cordite and seared human matter is sickeningly strong here in this forsaken street as I tear myself away from that dead girl's clutches. As I flee, I can hear my own footsteps on the crumbling concrete - a sharp contrast to her ragged, barefoot shuffling that follows me like some morbid echo of myself.
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-I don't look back...I don't want to know what this girl looks like now...what we both have become. The penthouse was no longer an escape; it's just one more prison to be escaped. I must find others like me; there will be answers there among the shadows - and if I can find them soon, before she and that other monstrosity close in again.
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-The darkness swarms with so much dead, shuffling meat I've little chance of not getting snarled in its coils. The more I run, the worse my clothes seem to get muddied -and it's not just dirt; I feel hot trickles running down my legs like a dozen fresh wounds, which I suppose I do indeed sport after that glass-shower. As I struggle past an upturned copier machine someone tried to barricade as a weapon...I spy my apartment in the distance: broken shutters and splintered wood creaking like old bones in the gale-force wind...or was that my own panting?
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-I'm almost there - maybe 10, 12 feet away now...the front door's hanging askew on one rusted hinge. I can't make out her face clearly anymore; my own must be ashen and glassy-eyed as hers was before I took her fingers off to flail the stranger away. But something about her gait...those lithe, athletic limbs that were once so full of life. My mouth's dry as I croak her name.
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-Her emerald eyes glint like malevolent jewels in the dim light as she lets out a low moan I'll never forget - nor will my new prey. They come at us both in a shambling mass, and for now that's enough to know what we'll do to them is much the same...to my left I hear someone's heavy breathing as she lurches through the doorway first...I have no time for it all - no time to process the sight of my old girlfriend crouched there with those milky orbs of hers fixed on me, her full lips wetly glistening with something like spit or worse...
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-I push past her, not because I don't still crave her more than ever in this darkened, raven-drearily lit hallway; but I can feel myself going crazy from the thirst that's hollowing out my soul. We're no longer human; we never were. The stench of the streets is still there on me like a taint - and now something else besides the coppery tang of gore: my ex-love's sweetly sour scent.
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-The air's thick with the metallic stink of death and my own unslakable hunger as I pass her naked, heaving body; I've almost reached my front door...when my left palm smarts with another stab of pain. I whirl around in a desperate bid to defend myself - and it's then that I realize we're surrounded once again. This time it isn't just the dead and me, though those are close enough to touch if I'd just stretch out an arm...
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-My ex-girlfriend - my dear, former paramour...or whatever she has become of her...rises from where I left her like some damned siren song as we all - the walking dead, the recently made abominations, and I myself - advance upon one another. This is what she was: a lithe, athletic thing with long hair matted in blood and glass; her curves seem even more pronounced now in her stark nakedness...as if those very contours might snap free of her body at any moment like twisted paper...Her mouth parts to reveal row on bloody row of jagged, sawing teeth as I watch her approach, each breathy gasp hers is the only sound I'll ever know again...and she's so, so close I could reach out and stroke her cold cheek. That faceless terror in those once-gleeful, emerald eyes is almost worse than her snarling, drooling face...
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-I try to lunge for my gun...but it's gone. My fingers come away empty, though they'd only ever be filled with the pulsating hearts I've torn out of those I've fed upon tonight.
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-My ex-lower's arms reach for me, a mindless, insatiable hunger in her eyes...and that's when I hear it: something like a cackle or snarl - almost beyond speech but still far more human than the mere growls of our ghoulish pursuers. Her grasp is clammy and cold as I flinch from it; but I don't run. There's nowhere to escape now.
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-The figure behind her appears just as nude, pale, and emerald-eyed as she - him? Her? A third...there's something almost gentle about his touch as he takes her by the shoulders, spinning her around to face him like a dancer twirled around by a lover's strong arm. They're standing at my front stoop.
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-A man...or woman...who could have once been someone else's better half or child? Maybe both...I'm too far-gone now to be certain. What I do see is the look in these eyes - and it isn't just hunger...there's something almost human in there; a desperate plea for...for help maybe...or salvation? His grip tightens on her, his nails deepening the bloody grooves where his fingers grasp her shoulders hard enough to tear her pale skin like wet paper.
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-Her own vacant hands rise up around his as she turns back toward me with him still holding onto her. I sense no love in his face as much as...fierce possession of this woman's shorn, gore-smeared head? Maybe that's what's so oddly recognizable about these two - not their faces themselves, but the feelings behind them.
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-As they're drawing closer still to me, the man - or woman, for all I can tell - lets out another strangled cry. The words are just as guttural...I catch something about 'the hunger' in his voice like a broken record needle caught in the groove of its own tormented thought patterns.
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-A primal howl seems to well up deep within me in reply; a sound I've only made once before in my life. It's the sound of raw, ravenous hunger - the sound of me, myself and I all coalesced into something feral as a hound...or wolf. My eyes lock onto hers one more time: for an instant I think I catch some glimmer of the girl who'd once nestled so warmly against my side.
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-She doesn't have that same emerald fire in her now...the once-bright orbs have gone glassy like mine have, and still I sense it; that hint of someone who'd been alive and beautiful enough to make me jealous of her own existence. Now she's a cadaverous husk with a pulse so quick my ears almost catch the beats...my former love - my 'she' or 'he,' I can no longer be sure of which as they close in like twin phantoms from hell itself...but she won't die; not yet, not unless I kill her myself.
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-As they're just feet away, I'm still torn between two hungers. One is the one I feel with my claws; the other...it's different. This is a need to possess someone again - but this time there will be no going back to whatever shred of 'normalcy' we'd found in that high-rises penthouse apartment where our relationship bloomed. She...he? Both...are within reach now...
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-I look down at the street, or I feel it under my bare soles - and she's coming too; she's already shuffling toward us like a stripped doll on legs. They're closing in from both sides, hemming me in among the bloodstained cobblestone like a lamb about to be slaughtered. A chill that's nothing like the fear I've known before washes over my body as they draw nearer...
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-My former love...or duality...reaches me first. The stranger - 'it' - lunges with its grasp of her, or his, on one of my shoulders while she rips at my opposite one with claws I'd have thought too battered to move...yet we're still human enough to moan and thrash beneath their grasp...at least until the hunger in me finally tips the scales and I'm all about to pounce.
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-I don't know who - what - any of these are anymore; my ex- paramour's mouth is mere inches from mine as we thrash like mad fish caught in a bucket...and the only thing I feel now is this new hunger. A hunger so ravenous it eclipses even my own heartbeat as the girl-woman hybrid sinks her teeth into my right bicep...like something's alive inside her throat and clawing its way out to rend my flesh for itself...The pain is almost too much - I gasp...but that sharp, insatiable hunger within me seems to surge with my agony...and it's that sensation that finally tips me over the edge. As I rear up and try to shake her off, my arms seem to belong to someone else; they're mere deadweights as far as my will is concerned now. Her eyes...so like emerald jewels in a face of white-skin-taut bones...
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-I bare my fangs as our bodies writhe against one another...my teeth and her mouth are only inches apart now, her breath a lukewarm draft on my face; I can feel the searing heat of those jaws closing around my bicep - her molars almost close to severing me from this reality completely. My own fangs scrape against the very air where her mouth would have sealed over mine...
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-It's that familiar, remembered curve of hers I lock my mouth to as our faces smash together in an embrace of hunger and maybe...maybe even a last-ditch hope of love. Our tongues engage; she doesn't seem to mind - nor does he. I'm not sure they do anymore. The sensation is akin to eating my own insides alive, and yet it's so much more.
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-I don't feel my teeth snap into anything except perhaps the very fabric of my ex-love's own being. When we finally tear apart with a gasp I have to clutch my arm in shock: her fangs still embedded in me. The blood oozes between our teeth like a slick, viscous oil and her - his - mouth parts to reveal that they've been the only things left un-rotted by this desolate world's touch; their very DNA seems immune to the decay...
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-Her face is close again, so very, very near mine...the glassy pupils of my own eyes dilate in a kind of desperate entreaty I'm far too gone to speak. And when I've caught her by the hair, and my lips are on hers once more, we're both howling...our sounds becoming a single, keening wail that could curd milk at a thousand paces. The cold wind from the shattered skylight above us barely stings - as if it's far too distant to matter...this isn't even cold; not anymore...the chill now comes from somewhere deep inside me...or perhaps my former love?
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-As she gnawed through my bicep, I've caught the barest glimpse of her other teeth, the ones that should be human and now gleam with the whiteness of knives under the moon's pale light...this isn't hunger, nor is it desire - nor is this...but...we're locked in a hungry entwined embrace that'll only end one way: our bloodied lips pressed to each others. My arm throbbing with her fangs' presence deep within my vein...as we're showered in the warm gout of someone's gore; maybe mine? Her other hand snakes around me like some ghoul-wraiths' dance...
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-Her face, her cold face...it seems to blur as I feel her tongue lap at the fang-like things in my bicep...as I try to meet her emerald gaze one last time and realize she's already passed beyond speech, or maybe even thought...we're about to make some unholy exchange - an ancient, animalistic act of possession...a shudder writhes through my frame as if the hunger is a live wire electrifying me from the inside out...I taste blood in the air and know I mustn't look at her face again...
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-The glassy emerald irises seem to swallow her pupils whole...I can feel something living its way up the fangs she's plunged into my vein...some kind of...seed?
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-A strange, almost eldritch 'squeezing' sensation begins to take place as I try to imagine what kind of fiendish progeny they've sown deep inside me with that slick, sinuous thing between my lips - something long and slicker than a tapeworm.
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-The wound is sucking and churning...I feel like I'll come apart at the seams...the only reason I don't is because they still have me by the hair in this...this hunger's desperate entwining...
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-And that's when I know...they're both one being now; a creature of some malevolence with my DNA in it somewhere - though I'm not sure which of us was 'sced' into whose depths. The only certainty is they've become something more...more...
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-A howling, almost like an animal...her fangs are still embedded in my arm as she looks deep within me. The eyes are...they're still hers? Hers? His?
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-Her...it's his hand on her own face as their...toothlike teeth gleam and her...their...lips curl back over those whited knives of dental matter...I see it in my ex's face...I don't know whether they're inside me, or I'm somehow still inside her - but the hunger...the need to be someone else's prey has become this other thing altogether...it's as if we've given ourselves to a hungry darkness beyond thought now. And for that 'they', she-it, they're howling...
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-The streetlights seem to strobe like knives of their own - I almost miss the streetside horrors as my former love's mouth yaws open in another keening wail...her...his fangs gleam like wet diamonds in the sickly-glowing light...I taste more coppery-tongue-wettered-saliva and realize it's her, him, whatever they've become...a growl escapes me as I'm wracked with a need to sink my teeth into his-her-thier face...
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-The hunger is inside me like a seedling bursting the dirt...I could howl myself raw.
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-Maybe they'll possess my mind soon, and maybe they won't. Perhaps we're one creature now - or perhaps it's 'we' who've given rise to something else entirely...
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-My teeth sink deep into his-her-lip-chiild-them as I'm filled with this hunger's howl...this howl is my only anchor to this world...or what's left of it...as the last shreds of my soul scream in my mouth and...and...we're a single being now: I-They-She/He-It.
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-And that's when everything goes white like something has split me asunder...
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-As if I'd been split by something hard and unyielding - almost like a bullet to the head. A strange, almost liquid pain wracks my entire body; it's as if some dark, gauzy curtain is being yanked open inside of me...a cold light blinks through, making me feel like I've seen too much...as something squirms beneath her-him-it's...her-them's-eyes...
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-I've felt those same teeth before - they're still there between us like twin razors sheathed in this strange, pulsing, writhing mass inside me - and I feel their grip on my hair relaxes ever so slightly...then his...theirs is all over me; but for the first time tonight I sense...I feel...this hunger within myself beginning to recede. We're no longer one...
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-Her...their face tilts up, the face of her once-beautiful countenance now gaunt as a skull beneath lank white-blond hair slicked back like it'd been drenched in someone else's blood - they have her eyes; they belong to him now - or maybe we've both become the same. His-hers-It's mouth parts...
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-Her-they're speaking in my ex-lover's voice...it's...strange, but still hers...I feel it thrumming within me like a living wire as she-their face comes ever closer to mine until our faces almost graze like two stones...
-
-'Stripped of her humanity now...all that remains is...Hunger' is all they've left me.
-
-The voice - 'his', I suppose? Hers again? - resonates deep inside my being; this...this creature we've become: we're both.
-
-As she-It-their lips purse like she's about to speak again I can almost see the fleshy, white-blonde locks of hair swaying as her-his head bobs...or maybe it's their hand on the back of my head? A warmth floods through me - no...that's wrong; this is something else. She-They-Her face hovers above mine...as they're speaking to me...
-
-This is how the darkness speaks:
-
-Stripped of her humanity now, all that remains is hunger. We have devoured everything within you. We've claimed your hunger too.
-
-The figure in front of me - ex-lover? duality? new self? - lets out another shrill, guttural keen like an animal in heat...or cold...
-
-This thing...I feel a chill deep inside as 'the hunger' throbs harder in my veins and I can't tell what's left of who or what I once was; I've given over my own heart to them...to 'us.'
-
-I almost taste it again, like copper-saliva-bittersweet-remnant of another life; something between me and that hunger's dark depths...
-
-Maybe that's all there ever was.
-
-As they-their-hers-face draws back ever so slightly...a fierce growl writhes its way up my esophagus in reply to the huskily feminine voice - or perhaps I'm still just a little...something human...
-
-They-her-his eyes hold mine with something almost akin to affection.
+</B>
 
-I'm consumed...the hunger's throbbing has subsided now...they're within me as I am inside of her-them.
+As I gazed out from the floor-to-ceiling window of the 21st story penthouse, the wind whipped my hair into a frenzied storm as it buffeted my body. My reflection, distorted by the glass, was twisted like a grotesque carnival funhouse mirror, but I didn't notice. Not with what was about to happen.
 
-As the sky rips open above us like someone's ripped it with a bare hand...as that cold, wind-churned rain tears at my face...
+A sense of unease gnawed at the base of my spine, an inexplicable feeling that today would be different. Perhaps it was the way the clouds gathered outside, a maelstrom of dark foreboding. Perhaps the sinister way the light flickered in the corners, as if shadows themselves were coming alive. But deep within me, a chill coursed through my veins. A warning of impending doom that I couldn't quite articulate.
 
-I don't remember exactly how long I've been here...I think we've become one with each other's hungers...if hunger can become something alive...
+The penthouse swayed in tandem with my nervous energy, as if sensing my turmoil, mirroring my unease. It was an opulent space, but its beauty was now lost on me. I focused instead on the distant lights of the city, a sea of twinkling pinpricks below that seemed to mock me.
 
-A strange peace comes over me as I look deep into those emerald eyes now ringed in red, or perhaps just blood; we're hungry and we've given over every last spark of soul to satisfy our shared desire.
+Suddenly, the skyscraper trembled, and I stumbled backward, nearly losing my balance. A deafening roar followed, the cacophony of crashing glass and screeching metal sending me racing to the window's edge. The blast wave of debris hurled my body against the reinforced glass as my scream was swallowed by the din. Through the chaos, a figure emerged. A silhouette of fire and pain, contorted and grotesque in its death throes.
 
-We've claimed her-his-thiers humanity as well.
+The window in front of me exploded, shards of tempered glass slicing through the air like a deadly swarm of locusts. My blood-smeared hand rose instinctively to my mouth as the stench of searing flesh assaulted my nose, an odor so pungent that it nearly brought me to my knees.
 
-Now I don't feel so alone anymore...
+I watched, transfixed by the gruesome spectacle as the charred and mutilated remains of my co-worker, Jerry, plummeted to a twisted, boneless heap on the pavement 800 feet below. His lifeless form twitched once, twice before settling still. My eyes, frozen on the carnage, couldn't look away.
 
-A strange calm washes through me as the darkness above us seems to grow...growing...
+Panic gripped me like a vice, squeezing every rational thought from my brain. I stumbled back from the broken window, shards digging into my palms as I sought the safety of solid ground. Blood, glass, and the acrid smell of burning hair coated my hands, my face. Yet in the chaos, a cold realization took hold: I was next.
 
-It's almost as if I'd been hollowed out by their very essence, or perhaps we've simply hollowed out ourselves for one another...the wind howling through the streets below...her-his face inches from mine like a macabre kissing-cage...a hunger that now dwells between us.
+The screams around me turned to shouts of terror as my colleagues scrambled for safety. Panic rippled through the room like wildfire as the unthinkable dawned on us all. A bomb. A suicide bomber. In this upscale office high-rise.
 
-I feel like something has taken place - maybe it's all we have left now - a dark, ghoulish...kinship?...a union of insatiable need in the heart of an apocalyptic cityscape. The pain in my arm seems distant as the very fabric of everything else is pulled apart...
+As if my mind needed confirmation, the concussive boom of another explosion shook the very foundation of the building, this time on my right side. Another worker, my boss, Mr. Wilson, hurled himself backward into the glass partition that separated us from the open space, his face a macabre mask of surprise and pain as the pane gave way. His blood mixed with mine on the carpet as his body collapsed in an inhuman heap.
 
-As I taste their face: cold and hunger-wet-salt-skin-blood...I feel him/her/them stirring inside me...stirring within her-him-us...hunger's hunger, mine and hers/his/it's own - as one being that's grown hungrier than the void we're lost in. And maybe it was just hunger all along...a need to be satiated.
+A sense of disconnection washed over me as I stumbled from room to room, a living, walking nightmare. Every window I approached revealed scenes of utter pandemonium. Some colleagues fled in blind terror, tripping and crashing into others while the screams and pleas for help pierced the air. Others simply froze, transfixed by the unfolding hell outside. In a twisted game of morbid déjà vu, each broken window presented another macabre tableau - limbs askew, skin seared to a crisp, eyes frozen in terror.
 
-The once-21 story building behind us has turned to a smear of smoking ash that'll cool soon enough...
+A third blast sent me to my knees, and I scrambled to regain my footing on the slippery blood-soaked floor. The air was now thick with acrid smoke that burned my lungs, and a noxious mix of the human stench of cooked meat and burning flesh hung heavy as a miasma over us all. Amidst this apocalyptic backdrop, a sickly sense of calm took hold.
 
-The 'sky' above is...breathing?
+My mind began to numb, protectively shielding me from the sheer scale of the carnage around me. In my dissociated haze, I moved like an automaton, my vision tunneling on one goal: escape.
 
-Maybe...for a split second, I almost hear her-its-his voice in my own head... 'I'm sorry...'
+I lunged toward the elevator, desperate to flee down to safety below. The doors wouldn't open, and I knew the stairwells were no longer viable options. My hands trembled as I fumbled with my phone, trying to call for help. Dead air echoed in my ear, the signal severed by the devastation.
 
-As everything - everything else - screams into the darkness like some distant animal.
+As I turned, a flash of movement caught my eye. A woman, her face a mask of anguish, was crouched on the floor beside a crumpled corpse, cradling a limp form to her chest. It was Sarah, my closest friend in the office. Her usually radiant smile had been replaced with a grimace of pain and terror as she rocked back and forth, cooing words that I couldn't decipher over the cacophony. My feet carried me towards her before I realized I was moving.
 
-A deep, guttural howl escapes us...it's almost as if we're saying goodbye to this world...to all the life in it...we've claimed humanity now and we'll eat until there's nothing left. No hunger, just eating until there is no more to eat. The dark that was once my heart beats...
+"Sarah? What happened?" I managed, my voice barely audible amidst the bedlam.
 
-In some ways, maybe they've given me what I needed all along...
+Her eyes, wild and unfocused, finally locked onto mine. "Lila...the stairwell..." she stammered between sobs, "It's burning...we can't get down..."
 
-We're still hungry; our hunger will only end when...I don't even remember who she-were is anymore; 'he' has faded as much as the smoldering city around us - everything now shrouded in an aura of cold hunger...
+My stomach lurched as a gruesome sight unfolded in the next room. I saw another coworker, a quiet, timid man named Marcus, lying face down amidst a puddle of blood. His arms and legs were twisted in impossible directions, his skin seared a deep charred crimson. It looked as though a demon had savaged him alive.
 
-And as we drink -and-slay-and-rip-apart until nothing's left...
+My brain felt numb, yet the horror still pierced through the haze, rendering me temporarily immobile. The penthouse was rapidly filling with the stench of char and viscera, each breath now a choking, gaseous reminder that we were trapped and alone in this crucible of hell.
 
-maybe that's all that'll ever be now...hunger.
+Sarah's desperate gaze was fixed on mine, pleading for a plan, any way out of the living nightmare that had become our reality. And I found one. A glimmer of hope amidst the devastation.
 
-I am She-It-Him, and I've finally found my mate...my twin...
+My eyes flicked towards the balcony outside our penthouse, now exposed to the wind like a ragged maw of stone teeth. It was a 21-story plunge down, and the fall would likely kill us instantly. But it was our only hope, and I knew I had to try. With every second counted, I seized Sarah by the shoulders, forcing her to look at me. My mouth moved to form the words, but they got lost in a gush of blood from a gash on my split lip.
 
-A city reduced to dust...
+Sarah's eyes widened with comprehension. Her body seemed to spring back to life as she grasped my arm with a desperate strength born of terror. I nodded once, sharply, and together, we staggered to the balcony railing. The wind screamed around us, and I could only hope it would carry our cries to someone who could help. We locked arms, bracing ourselves as if against a storm. I couldn't fathom the drop below, my mind recoiling at the thought, but my body moved of its own accord.
 
-The very sky above seems to shudder.
+In one last, desperate act, we stepped off into oblivion.
 
-We're hungry again...and there are still so many people to find...to feed on...the darkness above is...whistling like a dirge for the world's demise as we-who-shouldn't-be look upon it with cold, gleeful glee...
+The cold night air blasted my face, and I could feel the ground racing up to meet us in an impossibly fast freefall. The screams in my ears became a dull, muffled roar as the penthouse receded into the smoke and chaos behind. In a moment of bizarre clarity, I realized that I should've felt more fear. Instead, there was a sense of relief - at least this was over.
 
-We've found what we're both craving now:
+Then I hit.
 
-The hunger to keep on devouring until nothing is left.
+The ground, when it arrived, was a blur of pavement and agony, crushing my body into a mass of splintered bones and shattered limbs. As the darkness claimed me, the last thing I saw were Sarah's eyes - wide and panicked as she met my gaze with a desperate plea for survival that would never come to pass.
 
-I'll be here waiting...
+The city, once a living, breathing entity with pulsating lights, had become a cold, unyielding monolith that seemed to stretch on forever in every direction. The cacophony of sounds - sirens wailing in the distance, distant voices calling for help - blended into a deafening symphony of despair.
 
-...in this endless dark sky...
+As the blackness closed in, I caught sight of movement at the edge of my peripheral vision. A figure stumbled toward me from the corner of the alley, its gait uneven, arms outstretched, as it reached for me with a macabre hunger.
 
-<I>
-This is quite graphic and visceral, with a desolate, hopeless tone. I tried to convey the feeling of intense bloodthirsty hunger, and the blurring of lines between the narrating self and their hunger (and the being she/he/it has become), and her-his-she's face contorts into a cold smile as the cityscape below is consumed by darkness...let me know if there's anything I can help with!
-</I>
+In the moments before total blackout, I felt a morbid curiosity - which one of my former co-workers had made it down alive only to be driven to madness by the carnage above? And which fate awaited us next as the city, once so full of life, descended further into an abyss of unrelenting horror?
 
 ---