I managed a laugh, though I was so exhausted I didn't know if I'd be able to stand up. "This is definitely a keeper. Is there an extended warranty available?"
Runt lay back down on top of me, our bodies slick with sweat, and stared into my eyes. His gaze went deep, into my head, my thoughts. Weirdly, I did not feel at all uncomfortable with his intimacy. Instead of shutting down my mind and blocking him, I opened myself up as much as I could and let him see everything. In the first pace, I didn't think I could hide anything from him that he wanted to find out, and secondly, I didn't want to hide anything anyway. I wasn't perfect, Hell, I was far from it. There were things in my life I was ashamed of, things I didn't want anyone else to know. But Runt was a demon - I doubted my 'crimes' amounted to much on his Richter scale.
They didn't. My eyes went wide as I suddenly touched his mind and I nearly screamed. Lucky for me he shut the contact off after just a second, but I was still shivering in his embrace a few minutes later. He kissed my forehead. "Sorry. I thought it was only fair to at least give you a glimpse. You want me to leave?"
I stared up at him. I hadn't known, hadn't guessed at the kind of power he wielded. Yet he had altered the reality of my entire life, changed the world and time itself to make me like this. He had not been so kind to others. In fact, some of his victims had suffered fates that would be in my nightmares for weeks. He had destroyed lives, stolen youth, left people as beasts, plants, even turned one into a steaming pile of sentient horse manure. Yet not all suffered. He had restored health, made the ugly beautiful, provided wealth, and left many of those he encountered happy and far better off.
As my mind sorted through the different victims and benefactors, I came to realize something important. It wasn't Runt so much as the person who dictated what happened. Even the most horrible fate was something from the mind of the victim. A desire to be horse manure? I felt a flicker of curiosity - how could you still be aware? What would it feel like?
A strange sensation, not quite numbness, mixed with warmth and total relaxation started to move up from my feet and flowed quickly up my legs. Pressure and a really weird sense of flattening under Runt's weight. I lifted my head as Runt rose up to his knees, his lower body stained greenish-brown. He was grinning. "Funny how so many people want to know..."
My chest and belly darkened and suddenly became damp and lumpy. I blinked, not realizing what was happening until I raised an arm and it fell apart as a cascade of fresh horse manure. There was just enough time for me to register the taste of horse shit in my mouth before my head joined the rest of my body as manure.
I was totally cut off from the world, yet I had an awareness of self. I was still mostly together, still damp and fresh and warm. I should have been terrified, but something had changed in my mind - I just... was. Eventually I would be mixed with other manure, or spread over a garden, my awareness stretching and thinning until...
I jerked up in the bed with a gasp. Runt was still kneeling over me, a grin on his face. His lower body and the sheet under me were both stained with horse manure, and I could smell it in the air. But when I looked at myself, I was back to the redhead youth. "You turned me into horse shit!"
"Another thing to get out of the way." He looked solemn. "I can do pretty much anything for you or to you. And I think you have figured out that whatever I do is generally tied to what you want. Sometimes people want things that are not so great. You wanted to know what being shit felt like. Now you know. But you didn't want to stay that way. One kid did."
I stared at Runt, a little bewildered, a little confused, and a lot scared. He didn't really have any concepts of right and wrong. There were no rules, no restrictions, and he had the power to do anything. Despite all that, he liked people, he needed contact and interaction. In his own way, he was lonely. Maybe it was still just the window dressing of his body, but I found him attractive even now, and in a weird way, I felt affection. He was watching me, alert and tense.
Reaching out, I pulled him into an embrace, and kissed him on the lips. he was grinning again when I pulled back. I licked the end of his nose. "Just for the record, I don't want to end up as a pile of shit of any variety."
"Duly noted." He made a slight gesture and both of us were clean and dry, as were the sheets. Even the air had lost the rank odor of manure.