I suppose I should have expected what was to happen to me. It was only fitting that I be punished, and I can only hope that Mother was spared. After all, she is merely human, and does not know any better. I also suspect that his treatment of her caused some form of feeblemindedness that impaired her thinking. Perhaps his treatment of her caused her to become fixated on Dhrae males, such as myself, or even males of my bloodline. Yes, that must be it, because I cannot bear to think that she was punished for what we did as well.
I lost another three or so days, because when I woke up on Mi I wanted nothing more than to run to the location where I met up with the low man and demand for him to return Mother to me. I almost did it, as well, before I realized that I was just putting her in more danger by doing that. Instead, I went off to the clubs again, only to be reminded of her again when they asked where my new woman was. I ended up drinking myself into a stupor again and losing track of where I was and what I was doing even earlier than I had in the past.
I woke this morning in the house. The human servants were apparently sent out on Chi, when she first disappeared, to look for her. How they managed to miss us when the beast inside me took over, I have no idea, but one woman found me last night, stoned out of my mind, and trying desperately to forget about Mother. She dragged me back, and apparently someone managed to get the whole story out of me before I sobered up.
Because of that, he was waiting for me to wake up. I was naked in a bed, unwashed, and still covered in filth from when I had passed out in a pool of my own vomit during my three day period of obliviousness. I could see his disgust with me clearly, even though his face was blurry from my lack of corrective lenses when I first opened my eyes to look at him. I could even see how awful I looked, reflected in those midnight black eyes of his as he glared at me. I could sense that he knew, and that told me all that I needed to know. I wasn't going to live through the night.
I got no chance to explain myself. I didn't even get the chance to squeak out a frightened yelp of surprise. All I got was the chance to take a single gasping breath before he was on top of me and changing.
Objectively, I know what the transformation of a Dhrae man looks like. I have seen illustrations, and I can feel the beast within myself. My own magic has always told me what my beast looks like, even if he has never shown his face, even during the few times when he has had control of me. But, until today, I had never seen an actual Dhrae transformation, and I would have been better off never having seen one, since seeing it almost always means that you will be the victim.
Unfortunately, I had to watch his transformation. I had to watch the leathery wings that were somewhere between the color of day-old vomit and shoe leather burst out from his back, showering me with the shredded scraps of skin that exploded out as they appeared. I had to watch his eyes as the pupils shuddered and elongated until they were slitted like a cat's. I had to watch his normally black eyes turn to a glowing yellow green color. I had to watch the carefully manicured nails on his hands grow into horrible, gnarled yellow claws.
And I had to watch the fangs come. I had to watch as his top canine teeth elongated, so that he could puncture the skin of his intended victim and drink blood. I had to watch the rest of his teeth sharpen in turn, becoming weapons that he could use to tear out the throat of his enemy and eat the flesh that would give him so much power.
I was terrified, because I knew that his intended victim was myself. I knew that he knew about what I had done with Mother. I knew that he knew about my sins, and that he was the one the gods had sent to punish me. There was no possible way I could get out of it, because his Dhrae blood run thicker than mine, and I had no idea how to bring on a similar transformation in myself. All I could do is struggle underneath his suddenly magnified strength, and hope that it would be quick, and not too painful.
Of course, that was a foolish wish that could never possibly come true.
I felt every nerve in my body catch on fire with pain as he started off with a magical attack, an invisible fire that washed over me and caused pain beyond belief. It was the only magic that he would use in killing me, something I knew instinctively, and its only purpose was to make me flail around more, so that the kill would be more exciting. As the fire burned me without actually burning, I felt him bury his fangs in my neck. Rather than beginning to suck my blood, as most Dhran would do, he followed the fangs with the rest of his teeth and tore a chunk out of my neck.
I felt the blood starting to flow out of me. The pain in my neck far eclipsed the burning in the rest of my body, and I started praying to the gods that I would lose consciousness soon. I wanted to die, or at least stop being aware, before he could make it worse, and certainly before I could watch him swallow the piece of my flesh that he had in his mouth. I was not so lucky, though I gratefully thanked both Dhraea and Elha that I did not have the strength at that point to throw up, since that would only make him worse.
I did not thank any gods for staying conscious for the next five minutes, as I watched and felt him rip more pieces out of my flesh and swallow them. At least I did not have to watch him chew me up as well, though what I was seeing was bad enough. His final blow, or at least the one that finally made me black out so that I wouldn't have to actually experience any more of being killed and eaten, was sliding down the bed, taking the specific pieces of me that had betrayed me so horribly with Mother, and biting them off. The world faded to black just as I watched him grin at me around a mouthful of my manhood.
I know not why I am still around. I am not quite here in reality, but rather just as a spirit. I know that my time here is limited, and that I will not even have enough time to go search for Mother and news of whether she was also punished for our sins. As my final act, I am compiling my record of today, so that the course of my life will be complete, with the sole exception of the far too many days when I was too high to make a record. It is my way of trying to make up for what I have done, in hopes that when my spirit does fade it will not be consigned to hell. I doubt that will happen, as I led a less than virtuous life and committed a horrid sin, but perhaps the gods' punishment of me by sending him to finish me will be enough to make up for what I did.