Monster

The night was already soaked in blood, and I was… transformed. My body no longer resembling anything human. I towered over the massacre, a hulking form of shadow and death. My skin, a dark, stormy grey, shifted with each breath like rolling clouds before a thunderstorm. Black veins throbbed across my massive, muscular frame, pulsing with the rage and power coursing through me.

My eyes, if they could still be called that, had turned into twin voids, bottomless pits of blackness that swallowed the dim light around me. There was no trace of humanity left in them, just an endless hunger, a darkness that radiated malice. They didn’t reflect the carnage and destruction… they absorbed it, reveled in it. The blood that splattered across my monstrous body slid down in rivers, soaking into the snow at my feet. The warm blood melted the reddening frost into a slush of gore and carnage.

My claws, long, black, and sharp as death itself, gleamed under the faint light, each talon curving like a predator’s, made to rip and tear through flesh with ease. They dripped with the remains of those I’d torn apart, the crimson staining them in a grotesque display of brutality. Every movement I made was a symphony of destruction, my bulk tearing through the snow, each step leaving a bloody crater beneath my feet.

I was a walking nightmare… massive, hulking, drenched in blood, with eyes that promised nothing but death.

Bodies lay broken and mangled at my feet; vampires and their human sycophants alike. The humans… they were the worst. Wannabe bloodsuckers, desperate to prove themselves, luring innocents in like bait to feed the monsters. They disgusted me more than the leeches themselves. At least the vampires were honest about what they were; inhuman predators that hungered for blood. These humans were just cowards, groveling in the hopes of becoming something more… something dark. Fucking assholes.

I tore through them like they were nothing. Not a single care in the world that they were human beings. In my eyes, they were worse than the monsters… they chose this shit. When I saw what they were doing at this party I was unleashed with no care for what came after. I was seeking attention here, that’s why I came, but this was more than I planned. I was fully embracing the monster… the Primeval, Myoordrakien. I let the monster loose, not just opening the cage in my mind, but ripping the fucking door from its mental hinges.

A corrupted human fell at my monstrous feet as others fled or prepared to fight. He had a twisted grin on his face; a begging smile like he thought I’d spare him because he wasn’t a full vampire yet. Maybe he thought I’d take him in as my own servant as the vampires did. He could just jump ship and pledge some kind of loyalty to me… I didn’t play that shit. His grin vanished when I grabbed him by the throat, lifted him off the ground with one hand, and slammed him into the snow. His spine shattered with a sickening crack. The snow beneath him quickly turned red as blood poured from his mouth, his chest heaving in dying gasps. I let him go, no need to end him swiftly. I stepped over him, leaving him to choke on his own blood, not even worth finishing off.

More came at me, a literal swarm backed by thumping dance music. It seemed they weren’t prepared for an attack. They were in the middle of a party, a nighttime rave in the snow of an isolated property. Human victims lay broken and drained of blood, too many to count. A frenzy of panic broke out in the crowd of the guilty when I first approached transformed. They thought their numbers would save them; thought they could overwhelm me. I smiled at the thought. Seeing the fear of my monstrous form overtake some of their will to fight or to run; only to stand still while judgment came.

I swung my dark arm, and my talons tore through the first wave like paper, ripping open throats, splattering the cold night with crimson arcs. Blood sprayed in a fine mist, covering my transformed face, drenching my hands. The smell of iron and death clung to everything. I grunted and roared as I moved violently, every ounce of strength behind every single attack. Never slowing. Never stopping. I only had one thought plague my mind during it all. KILL KILL KILL.

I was in my element.

A woman leech lunged at me from the side, a knife glinting in her hand. She moved fast, but not fast enough. I caught her wrist mid-swing and twisted it until the bone snapped and her arm came off in my murderous grip. Her scream cut through the air as the knife fell from her severed arm. I didn’t give her the mercy of a quick death. Instead, I slammed her face-first into the ground, grinding her skull into the icy dirt until it cracked open like an egg. Blood spilled out, black in the moonlight, mixing with the snow like ink spreading across paper. The thing about vampires was funny, to humans, and other creatures it took very specific things to kill one. They were too fast, too strong. But for me, I wasn’t bound by such limits. Massive brutality worked just fine. That wasn’t possible for most other creatures or hunters. It was for me.

The vampires were trying to retreat now, scrambling over the corpses of their wannabe followers, but I wasn’t about to let them slink away. One of them, a burly brute with glowing red eyes, thought he could make a break for it. I closed the distance in two strides, grabbed him by the hair, and yanked him back hard. He snarled and swung at me, fangs bared, but I rammed my clawed fist into his chest with enough force to splinter every bone inside. My hand punched through flesh and bone, sinking deep until I found his heart. I ripped it out in one savage motion, and his body crumpled in on itself like a ragdoll. I tossed the heart aside, watching it bounce down the slope, leaving a streak of blood behind it.

Behind me, the snow was no longer white. It was drenched in red, a sea of blood slowly creeping down the incline. The ground was littered with bodies; vampires, humans, all mixed together in a grotesque pile, their limbs twisted at unnatural angles, severed extremities cast aside from the chaos of my slashing talons. Blood cascaded over the corpses like a river, pooling at my feet, staining the snow with their arrogance and desperation.

Another human came at me, screaming something about mercy, begging for his life. I didn’t care. I grabbed him by the face, my fingers digging into his flesh, and lifted him high. His screams cut off as I squeezed, feeling his skull cave under the pressure. His body convulsed, legs kicking uselessly, and then his head exploded in a spray of bone and brain matter. His body dropped to the ground, twitching, blood pouring from the stump of his neck like a fountain.

The snow around me was soaked in gore, bodies piled up so high it looked like a slaughterhouse. And still, I kept going. Every time one fell, another took their place, desperate, hungry, foolish. I ripped through them like a storm, claws slicing, teeth gnashing, leaving nothing but death in my wake. Blood ran in rivulets down the slope, soaking into the earth, feeding the frozen ground beneath.

This was what they wanted… chaos, power, immortality. They thought they could earn it by serving monsters. But tonight, they learned the truth: I was the real monster. I was the thing in the dark, the hurricane of vengeful wrath that left nothing but ruin in its path.

By the time it was over, I stood in the center of a battlefield, surrounded by a swamp of blood and a field of corpses. The air was thick with the stench of blood and death. The snow beneath my feet was nothing more than a red slush, a grotesque mix of gore and ice. The blood had spread so far, so wide, that it formed a dark tide, creeping over the snow-covered ground, swallowing everything in its path.

And I hadn’t even broken a sweat.

I slowed my momentum, breathing deeply as I paced over the fresh graveyard in my monstrous form. Three vampires lay broken, but alive across the expanse from me. I looked out at them, waiting to see the hope build in their eyes. In this form, this glimpse of Primeval power, it wouldn’t happen. They were locked in fear and what they didn’t understand.

The rage still pulsed through me, the monstrous form of Primeval power holding tight, reluctant to loosen its grip. My massive frame heaved as I exhaled, steam rising from the heat of the carnage around me. My claws, black and sharp as Death’s own scythe, twitched as if considering one last strike. The vampire stumbled backward, his boots slipping in the pool of blood. His left arm hung limp, dislocated, and partially severed. It hung on by stings of sinew.

I released the rage… and it began. My vision blurred, the black void of my eyes flickering as shadows peeled back. Myoordrakien’s power resisted, pulling against the transformation, but I forced it down. Slowly, agonizingly, my muscles began to contract. The thick, muscular bulk that had towered above the battlefield shrank, the monstrous mass of my frame tightening back into something human. Each ligament, each tendon, twisted painfully as bones cracked and shifted. My claws retracted, the sharp, gleaming tips dulling as my fingers trembled, shrinking back into a more familiar shape. The grey, coarse flesh along my shoulders faded, blending back into my skin like retreating storm clouds.

The snow beneath me, already soaked in blood, felt cold again as my feet shrank, the claws retracting back into human toes. My legs buckled slightly as my height reduced, bringing me down from my towering monstrous form. Each step back toward humanity felt like a struggle, my body protesting with every shift, every pull. The primal power, Myoordrakien’s raw strength, howled within me, desperate to remain free. I felt the Primeval all the way in the fields… Death’s dimension. He wanted to destroy. He did not want to give up his time in the night just yet. I felt the ominous beat of its gargantuan heart, beating fiercely, begging for more death, destruction… and doom.

But I forced him back down. Cramming him into the cage of my soul.

As my chest heaved, the thick, black veins that pulsed across my torso vanished, leaving behind normal human flesh. The void in my eyes faded, the blackness slowly diminishing before the whites returned, leaving my blue irises sharp and cold. Blood dripped from my arms, still stained from the slaughter, but my fingers now resembled hands instead of deadly weapons. I gasped, my breath ragged as the transformation completed, my body soaked in both sweat and the blood of those I had torn apart moments before.

The vampires watched in silent horror, disbelief painted across his face as they saw the monster dissolve into a man again, but the fear remained. I stood before them, smaller, human, but the air still hung thick with the weight of death. They saw my physical form change, but the aura that emanated from within me still lingered.

One of their lips trembled, his fangs slowly retracting, and in that moment, I saw it… the flicker of hope, the dawning realization that he could still run.

"Go," I rasped, my voice raw, still thick with the remnants of the monstrous growl that had accompanied me in my other form.

He didn’t need to be told twice. None of them did. They didn’t question it, didn’t understand it, but they didn’t make the didn’t waste time. The vampires turned and bolted, their feet slipping in the blood-slick snow as they fled, stumbling over the bodies of his fallen comrades in remnant fear. They disappeared into the night, retreating figures swallowed by the trees and shadows, leaving behind nothing but the sound of panicked breaths and the quiet thrum of the blood-soaked ground beneath them.

I watched them go, my body still aching from the shift, the weight of my Primeval bond still pulsing deep within my chest, waiting, always waiting for the next time it would be unleashed.

It was time to move. I needed clothes. My phone. Calls had to be made. All of this, every drop of blood spilled, every calculated step… it was all for one reason: Charles. The oldest vampire I’d ever met, Martin’s creator, and the only one who might be able to give me what I needed. And I needed to find him… desperately. The last few weeks had spiraled out of control. Too much chaos, too many moving parts. I had irons in every fire, but this one, this hunt for Charles was by far the most critical.

The slaughter I’d left behind was a message. One that couldn’t be ignored. I needed Charles, or the Elders lurking in the pits, to take notice of the unchecked killings of vampires in the city. The kind of mess that would rattle the underworld. Especially since I let those three run off, tails between their legs, scurrying back to the depths below to tell their masters about the black-eyed monster still prowling the streets. A deliberate move on my part. The Elders had been led to believe I was dead; a clever lie spun by Charles to get them off my back, and his. But that was then. Now, I needed them to come after me. I wanted them to.

If whispers of a "similar" creature, something like the beast I used to be, something the Elders remembered reached their ears, they were sure to send immortals after me. And maybe, just maybe, Charles would be one of them. He had to be.

I had a mission now, a clear goal: I needed to get into the pits. I needed to reach the deepest, most hidden parts of the world beneath this city. The underworld wasn’t just a myth. I’d spent countless hours crawling through cave systems and sewers beneath the streets, searching for a way in, only to loop back around to the same dead ends, missing the trick, the key to unlocking it. It was like a labyrinth designed to keep people like me out. People who didn’t belong, who weren’t supposed to know it even existed. But I knew it was real. And now I had no choice but to find it.

Death, the force that granted me the power I carried in my blood, had given me a task. Step one was finding the entrance to the pits. Everything else, all the chaos and destruction I’d brought to the surface, was just a means to an end. If I would have stumbled upon these assholes on my own, I would have killed them, obviously. But I had to do this. I had to get down there, confront whatever awaited, and finish the task I was given, so I could finally focus on what came next.

The cold bit at my naked, bloody skin, a gnawing reminder of where I was as I trudged toward the riverbank. The Missouri River stretched out before me, half frozen in patches along the river’s edge, the water beneath churning dark and slow. Ice clung to the borders of the river, jagged shards jutting into the black water like broken teeth. My breath fogged in the air, each exhale fading into the frigid night, but I kept moving. Blood still clung to my skin, freezing in streaks and smears, and I could feel it beginning to itch.

I made my way to the spot by the riverbank where I’d stashed my backpack earlier, hidden beneath a tangle of broken branches and brittle bushes. The area was silent, save for the soft crackle of ice shifting against itself.

I dipped my hands into the icy waters, the cold biting into my fingers like knives. It was sharp, almost electric, as I lowered myself into the river. The shock of the frigid water snapped through me, cutting through the numbness from the night’s violence. My body tensed, muscles coiled tight as the water seeped into every crack and crevice, washing away the blood in slow, swirling tendrils. The dark river turned red as the remnants of battle slid off me, fading into the night current.

I scrubbed my arms, my chest, and my matted hair packed with blood against the dark, slick water. My black eyes reflected on the surface for a moment, and I stared at them, watching as the creature in me was still present, trying to return. I focused and breathed slowly, the monstrous eyes ebbing back into the depths, leaving just my blues again.

“Stay down,” I commanded the Primeval.

Once I was clean, or as close to it as I could get, I climbed out of the water, my body shivering uncontrollably in the cold night air. The wind hit me like a hammer, but I ignored it. I dug through the frozen brush until I found my hidden backpack. Unzipping it, I pulled out a towel and began wiping the last bits of blood and grime from my skin, the motions hurried and mechanical. The freezing temperature made everything feel urgent. It wouldn’t hurt me, my supernatural strength and power too great to be felled by the winter's grip.

I pulled on the jeans first, then the heavy boots, still damp from earlier when I walked here initially. My fingers fumbled slightly as I tugged a clean shirt over my head, the fabric soft against my chilled skin. It felt strange to be clean again after what I’d just done, as if the blood and carnage were part of me now, clinging to me even as I washed it away. But I shoved the feeling down. I needed to stay focused. I pulled my black hoodie on next, followed by my heavy brown jacket. I was back… Sam Roberts, the human face of the Hand of Death walking the earth. The façade I wore as I hid the deep Primeval life force inside my soul. The power of the first Primeval… the strongest… Myoordrakien. Primeval of Destruction, Doom… Death. A walking titan of flesh and bone; a physical incarnation of an aspect of the forming world. For the rest of the Primevals, he was meant to be… the END!

Once I was dressed, I grabbed my phone from the pack and stared at it. Silent. Still waiting. But it wouldn’t be for long. There were calls to be made, strings to pull, and forces to provoke.

I had a fleeting hope that Autumn’s name would flicker across the screen. I knew better.