Old Stuff: The Quest

The chatter has commenced when I make my entrance into the room. The four cacklers bark and squeal at each other in tones that sound both affectionate and competitive. Ugly creatures, these cackling bastards. Withered and rotting, they smell as though made of burning garbage. It's unfortunate, but we're all in the room for the same purpose. Whosoever possesses the final drop of titan's blood can potentially live forever. No guarantees, though. The blood can also bring torment to the bearer and all he's met or will meet. So, here it is I find myself. On yet another quest to find that which I neither want or need. But I intend to make the best of it. Any one of these horrid creatures would do great and terrible things with the blood, and since I find that distasteful it falls on me to kill them all. The blood materializes at the center of the room with a vacuous pop. Damndest thing I ever saw. I expected a bit more flair as in the dream that brought me and undoubtedly the cacklers to this specific time and place. The cacklers all rush towards the crystal sphere containing the blood, clawing and scratching each other like the animals they are. I smile. I've been able to run at the speed of light since I was fifteen years old, taught by my grandfather to slide through the visual spectrum like his father before him. I'm ahead of the cacklers with my hand on the sphere before they even realize what's happening. They all scream and wail in anger as I laugh and spit in their direction. With a final curse, I break open the sphere and pour the blood into my mouth, tasting fully it's bitter iodine. Convulsion, seizure, these words cannot describe the violent contortions that rend and tear my body from within. A burning begins to well inside my stomach. Growing and growing until I can contain it no longer. I open my mouth to scream and the heat erupts like a volcano destroying the fleeing cacklers, the room, the entire building around us. The heat expands further and further until my body disintegrates. In a final act of desperation, I will my spirit back into the visual spectrum. I am now light and color, unable to enter the physical world without a body. The titan's blood has given me eternal life. Not the life I expected, but at least there are no cacklers.