Eternal Consumption

The story opens in the middle of a nightmare. Our Protagonist’s entire room is crawling with insects. Yet when he awakes, they’re gone and only empty bottles surround him. With no booze left at home, Glynn heads to his local pub to get the morning fix he’s already craving.  On his way there he bumps into an aggressive drunk stumbling out of the pub, flailing his arms about as if he’s fighting off some invisible enemy.  Glynn takes little notice, heading straight to the bar where a drink is waiting for him.  He makes small talk with Lawrence, the portly bartender, before the scene is interrupted by the abrupt entrance of  Serafino, an elderly Italian man. He’s come straight from the emergency room by the looks of him - bare-assed underneath a crumpled hospital gown. Glynn quickly descends into his usual drinking routine. Downing glass after glass, until he finally heads to the gents. Reality begins to warp by the time Glynn enters the restroom. Visually, it’s as if he’s back in his nightmare.  As he looks up from the sink he’s now faced with a decaying reflection.  He’s not alone either. Gut-churning slurping sounds echo off the bathroom walls. He pushes a stall door open to reveal a hideous demon, sucking a strange  fluorescent jelly – the life force – from the body of some poor wreck of a man. Glynn becomes its next target and more demons arrive to pin him down.  He struggles to fight them off, but eventually manages to escape back into the pub. The room and its inhabitants are now revealed in this parallel dimension, where the astral vampires prey on the addicted.   A young girl, who Glynn had spotted earlier, is still playing solitaire next to her drinking father. But now, she stands out from everyone else. She’s the only one not drinking. Instead, her skin glows pure and bright, seemingly immune to the threat of the vampires.    The vampires are still hell-bent on devouring Glynn and it doesn’t take long before they’ve caught up with him, chasing him onto the street. He can’t hold them off any longer and this time, he’s  quickly overpowered. Paramedics arrive at the scene, now back to normality, but they’re too late. Glynn’s soul leaves his physical body. For a moment it looks down upon itself before morphing into one of the beasts. All its humanity is gone. In its place, only a feverous hunger remains.