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I take a deep breath, taking in and filling myself with the dusty scent of my home. It would be the last I see of it; I can feel it below my heart and deep into the bone marrow of my spine. I never ignore that feeling. Before, if I had not left when I was told, then I would have found myself pulverized and as dead as the ashes of my old home. I fear for the fabric of my jacket as my knuckles are whiter than a piece of paper, gripping at the fine edges that have worn from the beating of the elements.
When I finally take the courage to grab the door knob, I see black spots and my fingers tingle. The numbness shakes through me and stiffens me like a board of wood. Already, they are here. I should have left when I could. I jerk my hand back and released the steaming brass handle before landing on my backside. Tremors shake through me in odd intervals that send the tips of my hair to stand at attention and I am paralyzed for far too long. They know I am here, they have felt me, I have fallen in their trap and the glass of my bedroom window shatters from down the hall. But I refuse to fight back.
Instead, I force my stiff body to stand. My lungs lurch and I feel a ball of bile sting and push up my throat, but I shove it down with a hard swallow. The wave of nausea brings a spell of dizziness and I barely comprehend the hands that grab for me. But I don't miss the bolt of light springing behind my back with a loud howl in my ear. "Back off! He's mine!" I do not recognize the voice nor do I want to find myself to stay and find out, so I go for the window next to me and break my way through.
I do not want to know of the man responsible for the hell storm of a hurricane outside of my home, but I hear the fighting behind me along with the crash of the few objects I had earned to own. No one would hear or see the commotion; the second hand on my clock had long since stopped and it signaled my urgency to flee. Beams of searing lights roar through the roof of my home and flames lick at the foot of my door, and I could only imagine the damage from inside. A thick mote surrounds my property and the gusting storm pushes the force against me. But I still refuse to fight back; I refuse to become one of them.
Even if the same fate flows thickly through my veins, I absolutely refuse to become a monster with the sole purpose to destroy like they already have.
"It's easier to give in. Over the years, you run knowing you are never really hidden." I do not want to know of who is speaking above me, neither does the wind as it burns the retinas of my eyes. "But when we encounter like this, you still run."
A fat chill drips down my spine like the drops of water falling and washing over my faded form in the center of the chaos. I know exactly what they want. But, again, I refuse.
"I refuse!" I shout.
Against the push, I force myself to take small steps forward and feel the gust cut my jeans and slice through my skin. Warm blood whips around in the mess and wraps itself around my calf, solidifying and showing its anger through a menacing glow. I have no control over what my body does or wants, or what it feels is right against situations like this, so I run to prevent myself from doing the irrational. I run to prevent my transformation.
"Please." I beg to myself, gripping at my arms. "Please, don't."
Kill! Kill! Kill! It chants endlessly, completely clouding over my own thoughts.
Gashes set free the thick essence of me and I gasp at the tiny hands of cells gripping at my skin, begging for my permission to completely overtake. No, I do not want this. A roar with a chorus of earth rumbling grows provoke the transformation and my heart lunges to be free of its restraints. The restraints I have set to avoid losing myself. I have lost any and all sanity once, and I refuse to have to find it again. The blood seeps and oozes its way from my body through the suggested openings I know they are purposely inflicting to make me go mad. I do not want to be mad like the rest of them. I do not want to stop the minutes from ticking, I do not want to be able to overshadow the sun or burn my fingertips, I do not want to cause storms able to tear down structures or cause tsunamis, nor do I want to get into a person's head. I don't want it.
"No!"
The tiny hands retract like they were on springs, tied to my soul, and are sucked back into me. I sigh through my nose and collapse onto my bruised knees.
One day, it coos into my ears from the inside.
"Never!"
"Always and forever! You cannot take it away!" The voice from above roars with a beat of a drum thunder and the lights blind me. "I will have you and you will give me power!"
A roar to the side of my ear has a jump jerking through my bones and through the haze of the exhaustion, and rough hands claw into my shoulder. I felt the urge to flee pound against my heart. "I told you, he is mine!"
They were delusional by their own wrath and I was already too late to run, surely they would chase after me. And with their practiced abilities, I have no chance of a fast escape. I should have left when I could. Damn me for my bastard fears and my inability to fully understand what the phrase 'run for your life' means to my safety. If I had a head against them, then I could already be across the city. Whether it is in the shadows or underground, I needed leverage on hiding. If they can't see me, the scent would back track them by a mile or so and I needed that. But here I was, on the verge of losing myself so easily in front of the very bodies of power wanting me for unspeakable reasons.
I do not want to be taken in the ways they speak of, whatever they are. I wanted nothing more than to be free and not have worries over if I am able to live to see the next sunrise.
I am nothing but an object of power as I am grabbed by a multitude of sized hands. Some searing with heat or drenched with salty mists, and I am tugged and pulled at. This was a deadly game of tug of war and being in the middle could conclude with my limbs being torn from me. I did not know if they really care on keeping me whole, but I preferred to still be able to count all ten fingers and toes along with four limbs and a head atop my shoulders.
A tug to my left, "Take your hands off of him!"
"Back off, mutt!" I was yanked to the right and my face smacked against something solid.
I hated this. It burned the resistance—what little of it I had left— like the thin ties I was using to hold the beast inside of me down. I jerked and could feel the fire scorch through my boiling blood. It wanted out and my refusal only fueled its rage against these monsters that wanted to use it for their own greedy uses. Why couldn't it understand the only reason I am like this is because it would only benefit in aiding in their evil deeds? The sleeve of my jacket was torn from the rest of me and long stripes of my flesh were tossed with it. That allowed my hungry blood to wrap and encase itself around my arm to protect me, but I willed with every last wit in me to force it back into its proper vessel.
"You're wasting him!"
I sucked in a breath as the pressure of bodies pressing against me suddenly releases; I am finally able to breathe. But without care, I find myself on my bloody knees and my hands barely catching the weight of my shoulders. Dirt under me infected my wounds, but that wasn't the problem. Or the blessing I have received. There is no dirt like this, squishy under my fingers. The monsters were gone, my home was gone, and I was nowhere near the city. But I was deep in the shadows of a damp forest. Blood spills from the corners of my mouth and I stain the grass under me. A gash from their greedy claws sputters and convulses on my stomach, and I think to rest. I would not be able to continue like this anyway.
What harm is there to sleep for a little while?
The harm was dreaming. Dreaming was a bad sign and left me uncomfortable in my pile of soft, bloody grass with sweat rolling across my healing wounds. My shoulder bucked and hit me in the ear as I dreamt of a hot tongue with sharp incisors ravishing my neck, not leaving a single inch untouched. Those large hands grabbing me and positioning my limbs in ways I could not fight against. It bent my back in endorphin arches and my muscles twisted and knotted against my stomach.
This dream I have been ashamed of since the beginning of this endless chase, and it tells he is close. He is the reason why I am here and he is expecting a payment when I wake up, but he sticks to haunting my subconscious until I decide to open my eyes again. Maybe never, or maybe at least until my body is clean again. I will open my eyes again after the cuts and gashes stop bleeding, I cannot wait until they have healed completely. If I wait any longer then I will come face to face with the pack of beasts again. And I will owe him more than I already do.
But the voice that whispers to me. I cannot hear what he is saying, but I can feel the trembling bass shake through my whimpers and he pushes the quivering sounds from me. It brings him satisfaction to know that he can reduce me to such a state; a weak mess under his broad body and craving for more.
The dream stops and I spring upwards.
The scrunch of my stomach reopens the wounds but the pain cannot and never will compare to the shame that weighs me down. I scramble to grab hold of something to keep me steady in the world of reality and I find purchase on the thick bark of a tree. The whimpers shake through my throat and my trembling fingers claw into the surface and chip pieces away. I was terrified; he could be watching me now. He is enjoying seeing what he is capable of doing to me and his eyes shoot shudders through me.
I do not smell, see or hear him. But I feel he is there, somewhere.
I have already wasted more than enough time recovering from my nightmare and I pick myself up on quivering legs and my tattered clothes do nothing against the brutal wind. This is the punishment I serve for not listening to the feeling before that chaos could ensue itself, and here I was. Crawling through a dense jungle I did not know about but he knows where I am going as he could jump from in front of me and behind. I think I feel him just an inch behind my back and when I turn my head to look, the feeling dissipates. He is playing with me, and I hate it.
No wealth, no ruin to anything, no silver nor gold will ever satisfy him unless I give him the payment he wants. It could range from killing someone to giving me to him, and he expects it soon as soft whispers ghost into my ear.
I stop in my tracks and stiffen when I hear the first howl of the night signaling predators would soon emerge looking for an easy kill—such as me. The sun had met the horizon too soon and I needed to find some place high for me to hideout until the morning. For me to climb the tallest tree, I would need to release my slowly bleeding abdomen. This time, I cannot will the blood back into place. It hurts too much and my eyes are drooping too much.
The thought of the chore of climbing to safety puts a weight on my shoulders and I slump against the tree, my chest heaving with my labored breaths. Twin howls sound from the near distance and I feel I am running out of time before they find my weak, bleeding form against a tree. But there was nothing I could do instead of just collapsing into warm arms and feeling a short gust of reality shift under my feet.
My legs were pushed to rest against my chest as my back tenses over the feel of muscles pressed against it, and the sound of breathing flutters against my hair. I was about to speak but my lips are sealed shut when I hear the rustling of leaves and low growling below me. He brought us to the highest branch in the tree I collapsed on and he had me in his lap with his large hand covering mine, directly above my stomach. Applying pressure, I gasped as I felt something foreign invade my wound and seep into the fine stitching. He was using his own power to speed up my healing.
I threw my head back onto his shoulder as he forced himself to alter my cells into a thin patch of bruised tissue, and I bit at my lip to slowly let the whimper die in my throat.
"Sssh, love… It's okay just sleep…"