Heart of the Beast

The forest was alive with screams. Not the kind that echoed in my nightmares—the ones soaked in blood and guilt—but real, visceral cries of terror. Fires crackled in the distance, smoke snaking through the trees like the breath of a wounded beast. The CPG had come in force, their armored silhouettes moving through the hidden mutant settlement with the precision of executioners.

Lillian and I had barely made it past the tree line when the first shots rang out. She gasped, pressing herself against a thick oak, eyes darting toward the source of the chaos. I felt her trembling beside me, and for the first time in years, I considered telling her everything. The truth about me. What I had done. What I was.

But that moment shattered when I saw him. Fletcher stood in the middle of the burning settlement like he belonged there, untouched by the carnage around him. His coat fluttered with the wind, and even from here, I could feel the weight of his presence. A twisted grin stretched across his face as his golden eyes met mine.

"You can feel it, can't you?" His voice slithered into my thoughts like a parasite, bypassing the distance between us. "That pull in your gut, the call of your own kind. Let it in, Barry. The fight is coming, whether you want it or not."

I clenched my jaw. Not here. Not now.

But Fletcher wasn't giving me a choice.

He raised a single hand, and the ground beneath him cracked, twisting as if the very earth recoiled at his touch. A shockwave tore through the settlement, sending debris flying and knocking some CPG agents off their feet. Panic erupted. He was forcing my hand.

I saw a mutant—a young woman with charred skin and molten veins—get tackled by two guards. Another, an elderly man with a reptilian snout, collapsed as a tranquilizer dart struck his neck. The Capitol Patrol Guard was rounding them up like animals. Like me.

I felt the burn beneath my skin, the primal instinct clawing to the surface. They were going to kill them.

"Barry, what do we do?" Lillian's voice cut through the chaos, desperate, pleading.

I turned to her, my chest tight. If I helped them, if I stepped in now, there would be no hiding anymore.

And Fletcher knew it.

He tilted his head, grinning like a devil whispering over a sinner's shoulder.

"Show them, Barry. Show them what you are."

The first CPG agent didn't even see me coming. I moved faster than I should have—faster than any normal man. My fist connected with his chest, sending him flying into a nearby tree. I heard ribs crack. Another guard turned, barely raising his weapon before I ripped it from his hands and slammed him to the ground.

Blood pounded in my ears. Too fast. Too strong.

Lillian saw it.

I caught a glimpse of her wide eyes, her parted lips, the way she clutched her rifle but didn't raise it. Not at me. Not yet.

Fletcher laughed. "That's it."

I ignored him, scanning the battlefield. The mutants were scrambling, some escaping into the forest, others too wounded to run. The CPG was regaining ground. I needed to end this.

Then I saw Captain Stone.

She stood at the edge of the wreckage, watching me. No gun raised, no orders barked. Just watching. Like she already knew.

My heartbeat became a hammer against my ribs. She knew. That moment of hesitation cost me.

Fletcher was suddenly in front of me, a blur of motion. His hand lashed out, striking me across the face. The world tilted. I hit the ground hard, pain flaring across my ribs. My vision swam, the scent of my own blood thick in my nostrils.

I gasped, trying to rise, but his boot pressed down on my chest.

"You fight it so hard," he murmured. "Why?"

I gritted my teeth, struggling against his weight. "Because I'm not you."

Fletcher's smile sharpened. "No," he agreed. "You're worse."

Then he twisted his foot, and my ribs snapped.

I don't remember how I got away. One second, I was beneath Fletcher's heel, his voice taunting me. The next, I was stumbling through the woods, pain carving through my body like molten glass.

Lillian found me first. She knelt beside me, pressing a cloth to my bleeding temple. "Goddamn, Barry…" Her hands shook. "You should be dead."

I swallowed thickly, forcing a weak laugh. "I'm tougher than I look."

She didn't laugh. She just kept applying pressure, her gaze flickering to the wounds on my side. Wounds that were already closing.

I saw the way her fingers tensed. The way her breathing hitched. I turned away. She had seen too much. And if I wasn't careful, soon she'd see everything.

I forced my legs to move. One step. Then another. The pain was gone, but the phantom of it lingered—a sharp memory etched into my bones. The wounds Fletcher gave me had closed, but the scars left behind weren't the kind that faded.

Lillian walked beside me, silent. She hadn't spoken since she saw my wounds heal. Since she realized that what should have killed me barely left a mark.

Ahead, the path wound deeper into the forest, away from the burning wreckage of the outcasts' settlement. But the screams still reached us. The gunfire. The agonized wails of mutants who had never stood a chance.

The CPG was slaughtering them. And we were walking away. I clenched my fists. My claws itched beneath my skin, demanding release. But I couldn't afford another mistake. I had already shown too much. Lillian had seen too much.

"You're worse."

Fletcher's voice echoed in my head.

"Because you could have saved them. And you chose to walk away."

I gritted my teeth, shoving his words aside.

Lillian suddenly stopped. "Barry."

I turned. She was looking back. Back toward the massacre. Her hands curled into fists. "We could help them."

"No," I said quickly.

She stared at me. "No?"

"We can't fight the CPG." I exhaled, trying to steady my voice. "They'll kill us too."

Her expression darkened. "Then what the hell was that back there?"

I knew what she meant. The way I fought. The way I moved. The way I should have been dying in a pool of my own blood, yet here I stood, barely winded.

I opened my mouth—Lie. Make something up. Say anything. But before I could, another explosion rocked the air. Lillian flinched. I did too.

Even from this distance, I saw the orange glow of flames rising over the treetops. The smell of burning flesh filled my nostrils. And underneath it all—the copper sting of blood.

I closed my eyes. I could hear it now. The dying. The outcasts weren't fighters. Their mutations had done nothing but twist their bodies, leaving them deformed, feared, discarded. No powers. No weapons. Just flesh and bone against the CPG's steel and fire. It wasn't a battle. It was an extermination.

Lillian turned back to me. Her eyes burned. "They're killing them all, Barry."

I knew. I knew. But I didn't move. Because if I did—if I went back—there would be no more pretending.

And then, everything I had built in Yuccavale—everything I had tried to become—would be gone.

Lillian took a step closer. "You want to walk away from this?" Her voice was tight, shaking. "After everything?"

I didn't answer.

Because I didn't have one.

Her jaw clenched. "Then I'll go alone."

She turned. I caught her wrist. She inhaled sharply, whipping back toward me. But I wasn't looking at her. I was looking at the treetops—watching the flames crawl higher, licking at the night sky.

Watching the CPG wipe them out. Fletcher was right about one thing. I could have saved them. But I was walking away. Because I was afraid.

Then, a sickening crack split the air. I barely had time to register the sound before the earth beneath us shuddered. The trees groaned, their roots snapping like brittle bones. The very air around me felt wrong—thicker, heavier, tainted with something unnatural.

And then, a voice slithered through the darkness. Low. Inhuman.

"Walking away so soon, Barry?"

Lillian gasped. She heard it too. My blood turned to ice. I knew that voice. I had been dreading it. And now—it was here. Fletcher.

Slowly, I turned. A figure stood at the edge of the burning treeline. Except—it wasn't a man anymore. Fletcher had changed.

His body had elongated, stretched into something grotesque. His limbs were unnatural—too long, too thin, too flexible—his joints bending in ways they shouldn't. His fingers had become clawed appendages, curling and uncurling like they had minds of their own.

And his face—It was no longer human. Tendrils writhed from where his mouth should have been, coiling and uncoiling like a nest of living, pulsing serpents. They dripped with a thick, black substance that sizzled when it hit the ground, eating away at the dirt. His eyes—if they could still be called that—had sunken deep into his skull, glowing with an unnatural, abyssal hunger.

But it was the sound that made my stomach twist. The wet slithering. The unnatural clicking of bones. The deep, gurgling breath that rattled in his throat. He wasn't breathing. He was feeding on the air itself.

Lillian stumbled backward, her breath coming in sharp gasps. "Barry… what is that?"

Fletcher laughed. No. Not a laugh. A vibration. A guttural, echoing distortion that scraped against my skull, like something ancient clawing its way into my mind.

"I told you," he whispered, his voice seeping into the night, crawling under my skin.

His body lurched forward—not walking, not running, but moving in a way that defied logic. His limbs stretched and contracted, propelling him toward us in a sickening, insect-like motion. And then, he lunged.

I barely had time to react before the tendrils exploded from his hands—whipping toward me like razor-edged vines.

I dodged, barely, feeling the air split where they sliced past. The ground hissed where they struck, corroding the earth.

Lillian screamed. I turned just in time to see another tendril whip toward her. No. I moved without thinking—catching it mid-strike.

Pain. The second my fingers closed around the writhing limb, it burned. A searing, unnatural cold that burrowed into my flesh, sinking into my veins like venom.

Fletcher's tendrils weren't just weapons. They were infections. His eyes gleamed as he leaned closer.

"You're not afraid of becoming a monster, Barry."

His voice slithered through my skull.

"You're afraid you already are one."

I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to ignore the searing pain spreading through my arm. I met his gaze. And for the first time in years—I was terrified.

After a momment, something inside me snapped. The pain in my arm was nothing now—just a distant ember compared to the wildfire tearing through my mind. Fletcher's words dug deep, spreading like a parasite in my thoughts.

"You're not afraid of becoming a monster."

"You're afraid you already are one."

The truth I had buried for so long clawed its way to the surface. He was right. And Lillian—she saw it now.

I didn't need to look at her to know. I could hear it in her breath—ragged, trembling. I could feel it in the way she stood, frozen in place.

She wasn't just afraid of Fletcher. She was afraid of me. I could still stop. I could still run. But if I did, she would die.

Fletcher's tendrils snapped forward, hungry to rip her apart. No choice. No turning back. I let go. The change tore through me like a thousand knives carving into flesh.

Bones cracked—snapped. My spine arched, elongating in brutal, unnatural contortions. Ribs split apart, reforming. The pressure in my skull was unbearable—a violent shattering as my jaw stretched, teeth rupturing through soft tissue. Claws pierced through my fingertips, black and gleaming like obsidian.

My skin ripped. Fur spilled out like ink. I wanted to scream. Instead, I howled. The world tilted. I was no longer Barry the sheriff. No longer a man. I am the beast.

And for the first time in years, I let it in. Fletcher halted. His tendrils, once writhing with hunger, hesitated. He hadn't expected this. Neither had Lillian.

I could feel her eyes on me, wide and unbelieving. She had seen the scars, the fleeting hints of my strength—but never this. Not the monster I truly was. The moment stretched into eternity.

Then, Fletcher grinned. "Yes," he whispered, his voice dripping with delight. "That's it, Barry. That's what you are."

I lunged. The impact shook the earth. My claws met flesh, ripping deep into Fletcher's elongated limbs. His body twisted, absorbing the pain like liquid shadow, tendrils snapping around my torso, crushing. The force would have shattered a man's ribs—but I wasn't a man anymore.

I snarled, sinking fangs into the mass of writhing horror. The taste was wrong—thick, bitter, unnatural. Fletcher's laughter gurgled in my ears, even as I tore into him.

We were locked in a brutal, primal struggle—two creatures outside the realm of humanity, neither willing to yield.

And Lillian—She saw everything. I caught a glimpse of her through the chaos. She hadn't run. She should have.

But she stood there, trembling, watching me tear apart a living nightmare with my own claws.

Something in her gaze broke me more than Fletcher ever could. It wasn't just fear. It was recognition.

As if she finally understood what I had been hiding all along. As if she saw me now—and wished she hadn't.

I roared, slamming Fletcher to the ground, his tendrils still clutching, clawing, choking. The battle wasn't over. But neither was the damage I had done.

The world was nothing but claws, teeth, and blood. Fletcher and I tore into each other, primal, relentless. His tendrils wrapped around my throat, squeezing, crushing. I snapped my jaws, feeling the sickening crunch of his unnatural flesh, but he only laughed—his form twisting, reshaping itself with every wound.

It was a nightmare with no end. Then—The gunfire. A single shot at first. Then dozens. Pain.

Not like the searing agony of Fletcher's tendrils or the tearing of transformation—this was sharp, precise. Something cold spread through my body, sinking into my muscles like ice.

I tried to move—failed. My limbs buckled. Fletcher staggered back, convulsing. His monstrous form shuddered, tendrils writhing as the paralysis took hold.

The air, once thick with snarls and roars, fell deathly silent.

Boots.

Dozens of them.

I could hear the metallic clicks of weapons being raised, the hum of CPG energy rifles ready to fire again. And then—her voice. Captain Helena Stone.

"Restrain them," she commanded.

I tried to lift my head, to snarl, to fight—but my body was frozen. The tranquilizer coursed through my veins like poison, stripping me of everything.

Steel cuffs snapped around my wrists. Boots pressed against my back, forcing me down into the dirt. I couldn't even growl.

Fletcher lay beside me, his eldritch form flickering, struggling to hold its shape. For the first time since I met him, his smile was gone.

He wasn't expecting this. Neither was I. Stone stepped forward, her cold, calculating gaze sweeping over me.

She had been hunting me for weeks. And now—She had finally won.