Attack
He roared and the night went silent, frogs and insects suddenly going quiet as the wolf charged, its head lowered, wicked fangs pointed at you. You tried to dodge, but the fangs opened a deep cut on your neck, it spilled blood and left your vision twisting.
The strange wolf readied for another charge, but ferocity unfolded inside of your mind.
There’s more of you. More thoughts, more ideas, more violence. Your wound closed, but your power was greater than that, it gave you the need to survive, but also to grow. A second head grew out of the base of your neck, bones and sinews and flesh and veins, all rising at once.
Your thoughts multiply, it was you, but at the same time it’s ferocious, it’s violent, and primal in a way you couldn’t replicate. This predator didn’t roar, but hissed menacingly, two long fangs unsheathed in his mouth, dripping with poison like some form of viper.
“Kill,” he hissed lowly, the long neck coiling into a strike position more like a snake.
The wolf charged and now your body moved faster, the grace and agility of a natural-born hunter. You stepped aside and this predator stroke in a burst of speed, the long fangs piercing the corrupted flesh and injecting his poison in barely the blink of an eye.
You followed suite, biting down on the corrupted beast. Your fangs break the flesh with a hideous give, the beast’s blood filled your mouth with a red flavor that was sweeter than any wine, more tantalizing than the best meals you ever had before. The taste was stronger and more real than anything before.
The wolf still screamed as the poison coursing through his veins destroyed his blood, as your powerful fangs broke his flesh. It takes mere moments for the beast to go quiet and you stood over it, victorious, licking the blood out of your muzzle.
Biting down on the still warm flesh was just too good. All the alterations in your body left you starved and, consumed by the desires of the Predator, you eat it raw. There was not even time to care about whatever might have polluted the flesh of this creature. You just pulled free large chunks of it and eagerly devoured it. And you grew, with each bite, with each gulp of the defeated beast you grew in size and power.
You found your way through the forest, across the old trails, and paths only used by animals until you found the temple. Out of place and time, a building of stone and dark iron, half buried in the soggy marshes.
Written by Ashley Natter on 06 April 2021