"You dare step into my domain?" her voice was like a poisonous screech that cut through the air, commanding and decreeing.
My legs buckled -weak - and I went down to my knees, the ground cold against my skin as my hands clawed at the dirt as though I could dig my way out of this.
Beneath me, symbols were formed and they glowed with a bright silver light. Surprisingly, it wasn't the light that made me uneasy—it was the way it pulsed. The rhythm was too slow, deliberate and calculated like it was in time with my own heartbeat, counting down toward my doom.
I was trapped. Fully.
I wanted to scream, to run, to fight.
But nothing moved.
There was no escape.
"By blood and curse, you shall be bound," her voice was low, cruel- like the rasp of bone over stone. The air thickened as her hand rose; fingers twisted with age and power.
From her palm, the shadows leapt and dark tendrils of mist wrapped around me, their cold touch sinking into my skin.
A cry of horror escaped my lungs, it didn't sound like me.
It was a raw animal sound.
"Stop..."
The pain of shadows slipping into my skin was deeper than any any human being could bear
Burning. Worse than burning.
Like my very soul was on fire, eating from inside.
My bones…
They were shifting. I could feel them twist, crack and reshape themselves. It wasn't pain- it was violence. My spine curled in unnatural angles, ribs breaking and reforming as if my body had been made of nothing more than fragile glass. And the scream that was growing inside of me got caught in my throat, choking, couldn't stop the agony that consumed me.
I plunged forward in a straight dive, hands scrabbling against dirt, fingernails snapping as they went deep into the earth. My chest heaved, desperate and in ragged gasps, and every one of them felt as though it tore me apart. My heartbeat grew frantic and painful each beat like an explosion in my chest, louder and faster, wilder than any human should endure.
And then-
It came.
The thing inside me.
The monster.
I could feel my body stretch and my skin tightened across muscles that wasn't mine, the bones pulling and reshaping into something new.
Something wrong.
"Please…", I begged, hoarse, raw, no more than a beg for mercy, as my fingers had clawed into the earth for anything to hold on to, anything that would anchor me to something, something to hold onto, something to make it stop.
It was smothering agony. My throat was raw, the scream building again, my vision blurring, flickering in and out of focus. I cried-begged-for it to stop. But there was no stopping it. It was too late.
"You will hunt," she spat, her voice an ice waterfall drowning out the crackling of my body with pain. "You will crave. And you will never know peace."
Those words pierced through what was left of my shattered brain, but no wound greater existed than that given by truth which accompanied these.
I wasn't human. Not a man.
It was this thing.
This thing.
My vision dimmed, and I was aware of nothing except the hunger clawing upward. The change was complete. Claws in dirt, fangs pressing against gums, the onyx swelling to every corner of my consciousness.
The crone leaned over me, a mask twisted in pleasure upon her face, as I knelt, broken, in the dirt.
"This is your fate now, boy." The whisper was a promise, dark and fated. "Run while you still can."
And then, just like that, she was gone.
The shadows that invaded me drew back into nothing, but they were still there. I could feel them inside me, wrapped against my bones, twisting through my veins like some sort of dark poison.
I stumbled to my feet, shaking, my body alien to me-too strong, too inhuman. My senses came alive in ways they shouldn't: my eyes catching every flutter of movement, every shift of shadow. I was scared.
The wind carried scents I couldn't ignore. The scent of the dirt, the barks of trees and above all, the scent of blood.
Rich, thick and alive.
I couldn't hold it back.
This scent drowned out all my thoughts. It pulled me, dragged me forward, this ravenous instinct that had overcome my every move. My claws dug into the earth as I moved, spinning my world, my vision blurring as I hunted for something, anything that would satisfy my hunger.
I ran.
Through trees, over tangled roots, my feet clashing against earth, my breath caught in my throat. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't even care. The only thing that mattered was what lay ahead.
I heard nothing but the pounding pulse beating in my ears, the steady rhythm of my own heartbeat, and the nauseating growl of the hunger clogging my mind and driving my every move. The woods blurred around me as I moved.
I wasn't human anymore.
Ashen was gone. I was something else.
Something ravenous.
The smell of forest earth and decaying things was not rich enough. I needed something, anything, that would staunch this feeling and this hunger inside that gnawed at me. Sharp, jagged claws against my fingers scraping along tree barks as I ran. Muscles burning, my legs felt like lead weights, and yet I forced myself to run harder.
I had to find it.
A flicker of movement caught my eye, a flash of brown through trees. The smell of its presence in that moment: wild and untampered. The identity of this will be known even before the entrance of a line into the realm of vision-the soft scattering of leaves disturbed by tiny feet beating over the same grounds on which an impossible to reach heartbeat can also be found.
I strode through the underbrush, and it took over, some primeval force driving me forward.
My breathing slowed to that low growl in my throat. I wasn't thinking. I was on instinct, propelled by some force beyond my control.
And then- I saw it.
A solitary antelope, grazing serenely, ignorant of the predator watching from the shadows. It was perfect. It was my escape.
I growled low in my throat, closing in-inching closer and closer until my claws dug deep into the dirt and then launched me upwards in one great powerful pounce.
Its eyes were wide with terror as I plunged into it. It tried to escape, but it could not.
Already there, I plunged into its flesh with that sickening wet sound, my teeth tearing into muscle and bone. A scream of the animal echoed through the woods, but no good. My hunger was too great.
I tore into it with a savagery beyond stopping. Blood sated my senses, hot and rich and thick; for an instant the hunger receded. But it didn't stop, the beast was never sated.
I drank it in, piece by piece, until there was nothing, but a mangled corpse left and the crimson earth. And then I just stood, panting, my claws bathed in warmth, yet once again it assailed me.
The hunger was still there.