Damon drifted in darkness, suspended in nothingness. It felt like an eternity, like he was trapped between life and death, floating endlessly in the void. His mind screamed for answers, but the silence around him swallowed his thoughts. He didn't know how long he had been there. Time felt meaningless in the endless black.
Was this death? Was this all there was?
His body didn't exist in the void. He had no hands to feel with, no feet to stand on, just his consciousness floating in the empty expanse. The last thing he remembered was the gunshots, the pain in his chest, and the cold floor of his apartment. After that—this.
Time blurred. Maybe it was years. Maybe just seconds. There was no way to tell. The nothingness stretched on forever, like it wanted to consume him entirely.
Then, something changed.
Slowly, the weightless darkness began to press down on him, pulling him out of the void. He could feel something now—the sensation of cold ground beneath him. His body was heavy, solid. His senses returned, all at once, and with a sharp gasp, his eyes shot open.
Damon blinked against the sudden light, but what he saw made his heart stop.
A wasteland.
The ground was covered in endless corpses—piles upon piles of bodies stacked like mountains, stretching far beyond what his mind could comprehend. Some of the bodies were massive, others small and grotesque. Some had human features, others were warped, twisted things that made his stomach churn. Their limbs were tangled, broken, bloodied, and decayed. Faces stared back at him, frozen in terror, their eyes wide and lifeless.
The air stank of rot and death, thick and suffocating. Every breath he took tasted like decay, and his throat burned as he struggled to breathe through the stench.
"What... is this?" he thought, horror creeping through his mind as he took in the gruesome sight.
But the horror didn't stop. In the distance, shadows moved—monstrous beings that dwarfed the corpses around them. They were locked in combat, massive figures that tore into each other with claws, teeth, and weapons that gleamed in the grey light. The ground trembled beneath them, and the sounds of their battle echoed across the wasteland like distant thunder.
These things were colossal—towering creatures, some with multiple heads, others with wings so large they blocked out the sky. They fought like wild animals, smashing into each other with terrifying force, ripping and tearing in a savage, brutal war. Their roars filled the air, mingling with the endless sound of flesh tearing and bones breaking.
Damon's sharp new eyes could see every detail, every movement in the distance. His vision was unnatural now, clearer and sharper than it had ever been before. He could see the way blood sprayed across the ground as the creatures fought, the way their bodies collapsed into the sea of corpses below. It was as if his senses had been cranked up to an impossible level, making everything too real.
And yet, it was endless. The wasteland stretched on forever in every direction, filled with nothing but bodies and battles that never seemed to end. The sky above was dull, almost colorless, drained of any life or warmth.
Damon shuddered, taking a step forward, his bare feet sinking into the rotting ground beneath him. He glanced down at his own hands—and what he saw sent a chill through his body.
They weren't his hands.
His arms were grey, sickly thin, with long, claw-like fingers. His skin was pulled tight against his bones, making him look like a walking corpse. His fingernails were sharp, unnaturally long, glinting in the faint light.
"What the hell happened to me?" Damon's thoughts spiraled. This wasn't right. This wasn't his body.
He took another shaky step, his new claws scraping against the ground. His body moved, but it felt foreign—like he was trapped inside something that wasn't his own. His muscles were wiry, his frame too thin, but there was a strength there, a hidden power that made him feel strangely… alive.
This is insane, Damon thought, glancing around at the wasteland, at the towering monsters still locked in their eternal fight. Where am I? What is this place?
The corpses around him—some were fresh, others ancient, reduced to nothing but bones. The piles of bodies reached so high they blocked parts of the horizon, creating a maze of death. He could hear the buzzing of flies, the groans of rotting flesh as it collapsed under its own weight.
Is this Hell? Damon had wondered, the words slipping from his lips when he first saw it all.
His mind was racing, but somehow, it didn't scare him. The chaos, the death—it didn't frighten him the way it should. If anything, it felt familiar. Like this world, this wasteland, was somehow right. Like he belonged here.
Damon's thoughts flickered back to the moment he had died. The gangsters. The gunshots. The blood pooling around him. The pain. And yet… no regret.
No, this felt right. In some twisted way, this place felt more real than anything else. Damon had never cared about consequences—about the people he hurt, the lives he destroyed. His father had died at his hands, his life of crime had left a trail of destruction, and when those gangsters had finally killed him, all he felt was a strange satisfaction.
Now, in this wasteland, he felt the same. This was where he belonged.
As Damon's thoughts churned, something flickered before his eyes.
A dark window materialized in front of him, glowing with an eerie, black light. The screen seemed to pulse, floating in the air with words written across it in blood-red letters. Damon's sharp eyes focused on the text as it appeared, filling him with a strange sense of excitement.
[SYSTEM ALERT: NEWBORN DEMON DETECTED]
[Welcome to the Wastelands of the Damned, newborn shapeshifting demon. The trials await.]
[Your power lies in your form, and chaos will shape your path. Rise, Damon Blackwood, and claim your true nature.]
The words hung in the air for a moment before fading, the black window vanishing as suddenly as it had appeared.
Damon stared at the empty space where the window had been. His heart was pounding, but it wasn't fear driving him—it was something else. A dark hunger, a need to understand what he had become.
This was no longer the world he knew. And Damon Blackwood was no longer the man he had been.
He was something far more dangerous.