Late last night, in the wee hours of the morning, Nicholas found his surroundings to have changed dramatically. From a filthy silk tomb, a tattered bag that'd only been intended to hold a meal through one feast, not dozens, filled with the thick black ichor that was made of his own waste and being a liquefied meal many times over; to a sterile white room in the Academy's medical center. The walls, bed, floor, everything is a pristine white. It still stinks, but trading in the fetid poison for bleach is preferable.
Or it would be if anything registered in the pallid zombie's brain. No glimmer of personality has shone through the wild instinct, but it was a particularly traumatizing experience, to be liquefied and devoured so many times over. Animalistic noises: grunts, growls and hisses, can be heard within the room as the monster within paces, seeking out food to sate his appetite. It stays that way overnight, pacing like a caged beast, until a visitor arrives early in the morning.
A sharp gasp is taken in from the unsuspecting nurse. Of course she'd been made aware that the room's occupant is a on the feral side, a bit less than approachable. But what she wasn't notified what the person that had once worked alongside her has been reduced to. Stark white, emaciated, a snarl twisted on his inhumanly thin face. There's no gleam of Nicholas in those blank eyes, no hint of the mouthy bastard that had once resided there. Something out of a horror movie has replaced him. The fact he's clad in a hospital gown only makes the scene more surreal. That and the inky black haze boiling around his feet like a cheesy fog effect.
"H-hello, Nicholas?" she asks, voice unsteady, startled by his appearance, more notably the vapid look in his eyes. A hand reaches out to show she means no harm, and also as a defensive measure. "I'm h-here to bring you some breakfast and check in on you. H-how are you feeling?" she asks, suspecting the words don't register in his brain: he hasn't even glanced at the plain tray she'd brought along, topped with some mediocre hospital food.
A shambling step is taken towards her. The black smoke grows thicker. She takes a step away but is halted when one of his hands lash out, grabbing at some exposed skin on her arm. The tray falls, clattering on the ground, the plastic bowl and silverware bouncing a couple feet away. The nurse goes limp in his grasp, eyes rolling to the back of her head. She falls with a thud and the pale zombie claims his meal, just not the one she had intended him to take.