Subject Seven by James A. Moore

didn’t matter nearly as much as feeding his face a ton of hot fries and grilled cow.
    The waitress looked a few years older than him, maybe eighteen, with heavily dyed red hair and light makeup. She smiled when she looked at his plate. “Somebody was hungry.”
    â€œStill am. Can I get another?”
    â€œOf course you can! Keep it up, you’re gonna fit into those pants real soon.” She laughed and looked him in the eyes. He wasn’t used to that.
    â€œWell, that’s the idea. Need to build up my body.” He flexed, meaning the gesture as a joke, and was shocked by the size of his arms. No matter how much time had passed, he still had trouble with the changes. Muscles flexed and rippled smoothly and his bicep bulged. It looked damned near as big as his thigh used to be before his world went crazy. He could remember looking in the mirror and brushing his teeth while Mom watched him, her eyes smiling, and went over his homework answers with him.
    The waitress laughed again and patted his arm, her fingers lingering for a second and her eyes taking on a different light. “Don’t change too much, hon. You’re looking pretty good to me.”
    She left to take care of his order before he could open his mouth and say something stupid. The way things were going, he’d never get good with talking to girls. He couldn’t even find his way home.
    He felt the skin on his scalp crawl and looked around at all the tables. People laughed, they talked, they snuck fries from each other’s plates, hell, one couple sat together and read different books as they ate, but they were together . He envied them for that.
    At a few tables other people ate alone, but even they seemed more relaxed than he did. Every nerve in his body was telling him that he was being watched by someone nearby. He looked everywhere, even shifting around enough to see the people behind him, but there was nothing, no one. They couldn’t have cared less about him. He might as well have been invisible.
    Was it someone outside, maybe? He looked out the window, but all he could see was a line of cars with the sun flashing from the windows and windshields. The day was too perfect, and the resulting glare made seeing anything in the cars around him impossible. They could be staring at him and there would be no way he could prove it.
    He could be staring, the bastard who’d locked him away. Or had he? His heart raced at the thought.
    He rose on shaky legs and moved toward the men’s room as the waitress was bringing his next burger. He had to get away, now, before something horrible happened. Before someone broke down the doors or the police came swarming in or something even worse.
    He pushed into the men’s room, drawing in the chemical smell of air fresheners trying to hide the stench of what happened in toilets, and almost knocked a man over in the process.
    â€œHey!” the older man squawked, indignant.
    â€œSorry.” He mumbled the word, already too busy to even acknowledge the man. His voice shook, sounded stranger than ever.
    â€œYou need to watch where the hell you’re going. You almost knocked my teeth out.” The man’s voice grew softer and his face lost its angry edge and grew worried. “Say, are you okay?”
    No! He wasn’t okay! His heart was hammering crazily, his throat was dry and his skin felt like it was baking in an oven.
    He opened his mouth to warn the stranger away because that feeling, it was worse than ever and something was happening, something bad.
    â€œMister—”
    The darkness swallowed him whole, ate his mind and tore him into shreds, and something else came with the darkness, ripping him apart and throwing away the pieces.
    He tried to speak and—
    His head hurt, throbbed with each pulse of his heart, and he knew without even opening his eyes that it had happened again.
    Hunter opened his eyes and stared at the stucco ceiling above