Chapter 1: Temporal Closet

My life as Patric Mulligan was...mundane, to say the very least.

There was no epic battle for life, no tear-jerking backstory, no bloody revenge arc, and no massive plot twist that may or may not affect the entire multiverse.

While some of my friends used to joke about how I ditched my Toxin symbiote since I had the exact same name as the host for said symbiote in the Marvel universe, I myself was a noob at American comics and didn't care much about it.

That was until I got introduced to the DC universe. Quite literally.

How, you ask? To be honest, I don't know myself.

What I did know, was that I woke up that day like always; tired as hell from the lab work my Master's degree demanded. A whole two years of sleep-deprived nights filled with exhausting austerity before I could get my hands on that accursed Ph.D...but I digress.

Anyway, the point is I woke up in the same bed I slept in. As always, I poured myself a nice, hot, and steamy cup of coffee-enriched liquid happiness to rid myself of my chronic headache. I brushed my teeth, had a cold shower, and reached inside my closet to choose what to wear for that day.

That was when things started going south.

I found something...odd. Something, red and black. Something that screamed of hentai alien tentacle porn.

Being the science-worshipping idiot I was, I just stood there like a dimwitted chimpanzee, refusing to believe the sight my tired eyes so graciously provided. I shut down the thought process of my brain and stood there with the IQ befitting a heavy drug addict, even as the slimy tar-like tentacles reached out from the darkness of my closet and latched onto my arms.

It was then when reality finally caught up and decided to hit my panic button. Screaming, I lashed out with my arms and ran for the door, only for the tar-like substance to cover my entire body at alarming speeds, forcing me back to where it came from.

In this case, inside my closet. I was dragged into my closet in horror movie style, and I knew no more.

'Hungry.'

That was the first thought that plagued my head. My ears were ringing, I felt nauseous, the world itself felt as if it was spinning, and above all, I was starving.

Where am I? How am I still alive? What was that thing? Am I infected? What happened!? What the f-

'HUNGRY!'

A sharp jolt of pain traveled down my spine and into the pits of my stomach. Hunger. So much raw hunger. The starvation was so torturous, so overbearing, it was almost beyond human comprehension. It was primal, volatile, and it yanked up my instincts and held them by the neck.

'WE! ARE! HUNGRY!'

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!", I roared out. I jumped to my feet and scanned my surroundings like a rabid animal.

A dirty alleyway. Cans and garbage littered the ground. A large trash bin. Grafitti all over the brick walls. The smell of vomit, urine, drugs, blood, and sex. Revolting.

"Oi! Hands up! Leave yer wallet on the ground! NOW!"

Several masked men dressed in black rags had rushed into the alleyway, probably alerted by my shouting and thinking that I was an easy target. A drug addict or something. Goddamn thugs. Muggers. Criminals-

'Dinner.'

Yes, din-...what?

"Oi! Last warning there, shithead!"

"Hey, I like his leather jacket. Cool design. Must've cost much."

"Just hit him on the head or shoot him. A waste of time by the looks of it."

"Hmm...he looks pretty enough. You think his asshole is tight?"

Raucous and deprived laughter rang out in the empty streets, polluting my ears with their filth.

'Kill them. Hungry. Dinner. Need nutrition.'

I bit down on my lip so hard it bled. The urge to kill was almost too much. I needed to get out. Right now.

"Oi! I said, gimme yer wallet you fucker!"

A hand reached out and shoved at my shoulder. The smell of cheap beer assaulted my nostrils. I stumbled and fell to the ground. The thugs laughed.

Something was bubbling, growling. Something was slithering beneath my skin. I let out a gasp and shuddered. My eyes rolled back.

A wave of something dark, addictive, and powerful washed over me and relieved me of my shackles...my moral obligations.

It was almost like an orgasm, except, several hundred times more powerful. I was...we were now free.

My jaws popped and opened wide. Impossibly wide.

"What the-"

The thug didn't manage to finish his sentence.

CRUNCH.

My taste pallets exploded in a wondrous rhapsody of tastes and flavors. I roared, tearing into the man's -my prey's- flesh, savoring every texture and every drop.

"Ahh...AHHHHHHHH!"

"H-HELP MEEEEE! A M-MONSTER!"

"No, nononononononononono!"

'Noisy nuisances. More food. Fewer witnesses.'

I agreed. I couldn't agree more. It felt...so right. So fucking right.

Tendrils detached from my body and shot out toward the three fleeing men. Their chests erupted from the inside out, spraying the walls in a lovely shade of red. The smell couldn't have been more appetizing.

I dropped my headless, half-eaten meal. The brains deteriorate fast. I must eat them while they were still fresh.

Raising my hand, I sharpened my fingertips into talons. We needed to make dinner, and sashimi was on the menu tonight.

CRUNCH.

My eyes fluttered open for the second time.

My lips felt...odd. Crusty. My mouth was filled with the taste of iron and raw flesh.

A pulse of pain lashed at my head. I rolled over, groaning.

The smell was horrible. I smelled horrible. I smelled as if I had rolled through a meat processing factory and landed in the sewage.

I gagged. My eyes met several chunks of deformed meat. Except, it wasn't meat. Headless as it was, there was no mistaking the 'meat' wore clothes.

"What the fuck!? Fuck! NO! No, I have nothing to do with this! What the fuck?!"

I sprang back several meters, surprising myself with my newfound power. Another pulse of pain attacked the insides of my skull.

'Dinner. A good dinner. Sashimi. Live sashimi. Yes, we ate-'

"...No. NO!"

I retched and heaved, but nothing came out of my throat. My voice distorted as hazy memories pieced themselves together inside my mind.

'Yes. We did this. We killed them. We ate them.'

"Oh, the voices. This is it. I am officially crazy!", I said to myself. The voice disagreed.

'No. We are not crazy. Calm yourself. Someone is watching us.'

Whatever retort I had died, shriveled up, and apparently decided to have a vacation in the depths of my throat. My mouth was so dry, that it could catch fire. My fingers twitched.

Suddenly, my body lurched forward into a forward roll on its own, followed by a backflip onto the wall. Yes, I was vertically standing on the wall, sue me -but it was another sight that caught my attention.

A golden lasso cracked against the asphalt, leaving behind a trail of sparks as it did. My eyes widened.

"Hello there, young man. We can do this the hard way, or we can do this the easy way."

A tall woman leaped down from the roof and landed knee-first onto the already cracked asphalt, sending cobweb-like fissures through the ground. She stood up with the dignity of a queen as her long black hair flowed behind her back, and with her red and blue costume accentuating her womanly curves and predatory grace, she looked every bit an amazon princess.

Which reminds me...

"Who are you?", I blurted out. "What do you want with me?", I added.

"You can call me Wonder Woman. As for what I want from you..."

She raised one fair eyebrow and gestured towards the half-eaten headless bodies. I blinked.

"You want dead bodies?", I asked. In my defense, I was already freaked out and the stress was getting to my head. Wonder Woman looked vaguely amused if not offended.

"No. I want to question you about what happened here. Also, a few tests to check your...abilities, if you don't mind."

"Huh. Fair enough. Please arrest me and take me away from this insanity."

This time, it was her that blinked back at me in surprise.

"Just like that?", she asked with a skeptical look. I couldn't blame her. This was a gruesome turn of events and most psychotic killers do not give themselves up without a fight.

The thing is, I am not a psycho. Maybe crazy, but not a psycho.

I opened my mouth to say 'Yes'. Hell, my mind was screaming YES. However, my body betrayed me at the worst possible moment.

'NO!'

"NO.", my traitorous mouth spat out.

A few seconds of silence passed by. The tension thickened. I swallowed, hard.

Wonder Woman narrowed her eyes. Her pupils burned a divine gold.

It was at this moment I knew I fucked up.

So, naturally, I did the most sensible thing a responsible adult would do in my situation.

I ran.