Legion's Arc

Chapter 1 of 22

Legion once had a name and a body. Now it wore hundreds. A single rat mind stretched across a swarm of bloated bodies, all sharing one hunger, all chasing one hope: the memory of who it used to be. The memory hid inside a scrap of cloth Legion had dragged into the pines. A checked shirt, torn and stained. Legion did not know why the shirt mattered. It only knew the shirt was the last thread pulling it back toward human. If it lost that thread, it would be a monster forever. Hunger came like a tide. When it rose, the rat mind drowned. Rage took over. The swarm bit and tore at anything nearby. Twice already, Legion had woken from a fit with fur in its teeth and no memory. The shirt lay near the swarm, close enough to shred. Legion could feel the hunger climbing again. It had to move the shirt to safety before the next fit hit. The swarm crept toward the cloth. Then a woman's voice cut through the trees. "Mark? Mark, answer me!" Legion froze. Diana stumbled into the clearing, dark hair matted, a small scar white on her cheek. She held a stick like a weapon. Her brown eyes found the swarm, then the shirt on the ground. Her face broke. "That's his," she whispered. "That's Mark's shirt." She dropped the stick and reached for it. Something inside Legion snapped awake. Mark. The name hit the rat mind like light. The shirt was Mark. Legion was Mark. The married man who came for firewood and never came back. The swarm shivered as one. But the hunger did not care. It surged. The rage rose to swallow everything. In seconds the swarm would tear the woman apart and shred the shirt with her. Legion fought. It could not stop the fit. But it could aim it. With the last of its human will, Legion turned the whole swarm away from Diana and hurled its bodies into the pines. The rage broke against tree trunks instead of flesh. Rats bit bark. Rats slammed moss-hung branches. Dozens of small bodies died in the frenzy, and Legion felt each one wink out. When the fit passed, the swarm was smaller. Weaker. But Diana stood untouched, the shirt clutched to her chest, backing away in terror. "What are you?" she breathed. Legion could not answer. It had no mouth for words. It watched her run, and it let her. She carried the shirt with her. The clue was safe now, but it was gone, out of the pines, out of reach. Legion had saved the thread by handing it to the one person who would never guess what held it. To become human again, it would have to follow her. And she would try to kill it on sight.