"I can't take this anymore!"
Ethan looked up from where he had been sitting.
Mark stood several metres away, his fists clenched tightly at his sides. His expression was frustrated, almost desperate, and there was a tension in his body that Ethan had learned to recognise.
Something was bothering him and had been for a while.
"I can't keep pretending this isn't happening."
Elara looked over from across the room, and Kaela stopped what she was doing and turned toward Mark.
He took a deep breath before looking down at his hands.
"I feel like I'm a bird in a cage."
He slowly opened and closed his fingers.
"There's something inside me. Something that wants out. Every time I try to ignore it, it just gets worse."
His jaw tightened.
"And the more I suppress it, the more I feel like I'm going to fucking explode."
It wasn't exactly hunger.
At least, not the kind that came from an empty stomach.
It was more like an itch buried deep beneath his skin.
