I don't post on here very much. The last time I posted something was... almost a year ago. Whoa, time flies, doesn't it? This was written using fav. me/d4zuna6 as a prompt. I don't own the picture. :)

No, no it can't happen again, I won't let it. What if they found out? They'd dissect me. But already I can taste the foul, viscous liquid in my mouth. It's swirling around my tongue and forcing itself between my teeth. I try to remember what I'd been told. Breathe deeply and it will go away. Calm down and it will go away. STOP THINKING ABOUT IT and it will go away. But it's like a wasp in my soul and I flinch because I can't stop thinking about it, I can't get it to go away.

If I could try to control the ink, harness it, maybe I'd be okay. But the professor said that my condition was just an illness without a cure. It was only because a bastard I was meant to call Father had decided to do this to me. There were laws against this kind of thing.

You weren't allowed to experiment on newborn babies. You weren't supposed to electrocute toddlers whilst injecting them with foreign DNA. You weren't supposed to leave your child on the doorsteps of a university, in the vain hope that someone will take care of the monster you've created.

And just when I think my anger over a man I hate might've distracted me from the ink, it fills my mouth to the roof. My cheeks are puffed up and I can already tell that a classmate is about to ask why I'm pulling faces. I would answer her if only I could forget about the ink. If I could focus on this damn lecture and pretend for just a moment that I'm interested in it, I'll be fine.

I'm not even within running distance of the professor. He's the only one who knows about the ink, the only one that knows how to stop it crawling around my veins, eventually turning my skin a grey before I start bleeding the liquid from my pores. I'm on a school trip and I'm far from help.

But perhaps I'm close enough to a bathroom. I shuffle through my friends with tight lips and an already greying skin tone that my teacher mistakes for green once I grab her sleeve. I'm known for puking. It's okay, she says. It's all right, the toilet's just down the hallway to the left- no the right! I'm already gone.

The muffled taps of small shoes on carpet is my only external noise. Inside, I'm cracking and snapping and pumping.

My bones are brittle, they're used to being bruised by the ink. Outside my body, it was a useless sticky thing that I hated. Inside, it was as strong as steel, but much more versatile. My muscles have already taken more than they were made for. My skin was convulsing, my blood fighting the ink for space under the flesh and it burned. If only I could breathe. But too much oxygen made the fight for dominance in my bloodstream hurt even more.

There was once a day where my arms had expanded to the width of the professor's leg. But he hadn't worried. He's told me that Popeye's muscles were still bigger than mine. I didn't know who Popeye was, but he'd told me about the old cartoon and spinach and Olive and I'd laughed and the ink had stopped.

I'd laughed.

I needed to laugh now. It couldn't be a giggle. I had to think of something that started the most violent belly laughs I could manage without exploding.

I slam into the toilets, not caring if they're for girls because I only needed the entire room to be empty. A cubicle was too small right now. I'd break the walls down and then I'd have to explain how a teenager my size had managed something this disastrous.

Just wait 'til they saw the mess I make.

I force myself to stand in the middle of the room. You could tell that the place was posh, it was so different to the stench of the place at my high school. At least the university, my home, had some form of hygiene. Here, they had wide mirrors and polished, wooden doors. I make myself look into the mirror and realise that I don't blame my father for dumping me.

I'm a monster.

I can't hold it in any further and from my mouth spews a long dribble of black ink. (The professor said it was the same kind people found in pens, I wouldn't let him use it to write with though. I couldn't have an advantage from this thing. I couldn't make it seem somehow useful.) It's on the floor now and I hope that I'll be able to find enough toilet rolls to clean it up later. But I can't concentrate on that now because my own reflection scares me.

My irises, once a light brown have turned black, just as the whites of my eyes have turned grey, just as my skin has turned pasty white. The insides of my elbows, my wrists and the space around my neck - my pulse points - have begun to turn grey. I can already see the small droplets of ink at the inside of my elbows, it's drying into my rolled-up sleeves.

I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared.

I need the professor. My heart's beating faster now. It's helping the ink circulate and oh shit the pain. I spit and cough up ink. If I laugh now, I'll choke to death. but I'll calm down, won't I? That's how it works. Happy hormones calm you down. Endorphins, I think the professor called them. Or was it serotonin?

Don't choke, please don't die.

Laugh, I tell myself. Something funny. I almost smack my head for answers.

Jokes!

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get away from the monster.

Doctor doctor, I don't think I'm human. You're not.

Knock knock. Who's there? Mon. Mon who? Monster.

And now I laugh.

Because it's funny.

I mean, I'm a monster.

And I'm bleeding ink.

And the ink is on the wall.

And in my veins.

And in my soul.

Ha.

But my skin is grey and so is the outlook. Perhaps someone will come looking for me and all they'll find is the corpse of a monster. But, I died long ago. The only thing left is the ink.