I sat in the back rows, in the farthest seat from control, watching chaos unfold. Everything felt surreal, like witnessing an orchestra of violence conducted by an unseen hand. I couldn’t make sense of it, yet there I was, thrust into the heart of it.

It began with a tragedy—a bloodbath that should never have occurred in a world that knew only peace. There was no reason for war, no cause worth spilling blood over, yet it started. And we, the unwilling and unprepared, were drafted into its unforgiving current.

Now, we all play our roles in this grotesque theater of weapons and flesh. As for me, I’m just a man—an ordinary mortal with no talent, the owner of a body neither designed to fight nor dominate. Yet here I stand, clutching a newly sharpened knife and stumbling through the motions of killing others. The gruesome details of my comrades—no, my acquaintances of barely ten days—being shattered, stabbed, and slaughtered will haunt me. Still, we called each other comrades. Together, we performed in this ghastly play under the cold, cruel lights of the battlefield, a stage selling tickets to a spectacle of mercilessness.

The battlefield itself was indifferent, hosting death as its nightly star. Tonight, my murderer took the stage—a man like me, ordinary, terrified, and teetering on the edge of despair. His eyes, wide with fear and brimming with tears, mirrored my own. His appearance—gear that barely fit, a gun at his belt, a larger one slung across his back, and a sharp object in his trembling hand—struck me as painfully familiar.

He had an unnatural black tooth. I’d heard of those. Bite hard enough, and it releases poison to kill its bearer swiftly and painlessly. A grim tool of escape, devised by assassins for when capture becomes inevitable. A symbol of resolve—or lack thereof—for those who couldn’t muster the strength to bite their own tongue.

He’s crying. He’s crying and running. He’s crying and running toward me, clutching… a sword? No, a long knife… no, it is a sword. Why not use the gun, young man? It’s right there. Then again, none of us—my comrades or I—were given such luxuries. Perhaps he’s trying to play fair? Such foolishness will kill you, my war-friend. As for us? It seems that we were sent here to die, barely armed and unready.

My mind races back to the ironic theater: the man in command laughing with his fellows as if selling tickets. "Tonight's play: Lambs to the slaughterhouse!"

Is it funny? Pathetic? A comedy or a tragedy? I cannot choose.

They—the ones in control—sent a gardener to war. That’s what I was, after all. My complaint isn’t loud because I am complicit. I didn’t pick up the sword when I had the chance. Instead, I chose to be a gardener in the midst of a battlefield, not a warrior safeguarding peace.

And then… SLASH.

The sound of flesh yielding. Warm, smooth… my flesh. The blade slides into me as if my body was meant for it. Pain should follow, shouldn’t it? But there’s nothing. No burning, no sharp sting. It’s oddly… quiet. I’ve cut myself before, slicing my finger with a kitchen knife while preparing meals with my wife. That pain was immediate, searing. Yet now? Now there is nothing.

I try to process the moment. My body doesn’t respond. My limbs won’t move, my face won’t turn. I can’t even close my eyes. But from the corner of my vision, I see him—the young man who stabbed me. He’s fallen, his body impaled on something unnatural.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

A weapon? No, claws. Yes, claws. WAIT! CLAWS? My vision sharpens as I strain to see more. Yes, claws, monstrous and grotesque, tearing through flesh. The young man’s body hangs limp, lifeless. My mind reels. Claws don’t belong on this battlefield. They belong in stories, in nightmares… in monsters.

Then it dawns on me.

The claws are mine.

They protrude from my hands, dripping with the young man’s blood. My hands, twisted and alien, wield these instruments of death. The realization crashes over me like a tidal wave, drowning every thought, every memory, every fragment of my humanity.

What am I?

The symphony of crimson continues, but I now am audience in the body of its conductor.

As for my body…?

My body…

My body has claws! I don’t remember my body being capable of something like this. Panic grips my mind, but the sensation is distant, drowned by the cacophony of chaos around me. As my unresponsive body moves on its own, a scene ripped from a horror movie unfolds before my frozen, unmoving eyes: the claws retract from the young man’s lifeless form, dripping crimson. They don’t stay still for long, though.

Like predatory beasts with minds of their own, the claws lash out again in a relentless search for another victim. They seem to guide me, or perhaps they are the ones in control. I try to refocus, desperate for any clarity, and my gaze catches fleeting glimpses in the battlefield’s pools of blood and rainwater.

Then, I see it.

For a split second, I see myself. The body I once called mine is nowhere to be found. In its place is a mockery of my former form—a grotesque abomination coated in a molten black substance that fails miserably to mimic humanity. Its surface writhes, as though alive, shifting unnaturally with every movement.

And the wings.

Three wings extend from the creature’s back, uneven and misshapen. One appears feathered, almost angelic, but its darkness betrays its purity. The second is leathery, jagged, and monstrous, a devil’s appendage in every sense. The third, smeared in streaks of crimson, resembles a bird’s wing, soaked in the blood of the fallen and stained by the battlefield itself.

I try to close my eyes, but I lost control over the body long, long ago. The head—it has no face. No semblance of human features remains. It’s an ever-shifting mass, twisting grotesquely in an endless cycle, as if taunting my mind to comprehend it.

The body, if it can still be called that, is covered in veins. They pulse with an unnatural rhythm, glowing faintly as though alive, yet there’s no heartbeat—at least not one I can feel. From the gaping wound where the sword pierced my chest, black tendrils sprout, writhing like serpents.

The sword is still there, embedded in my heart—or where my heart should be. Can’t really tell if a heart is there anymore now, but if this information helps, I never felt a heartbeat, not once. Hmm, now that I think about it, I never felt a heartbeat ever since I was born. Perhaps this is the reason why this body… this hideous, wretched thing… it moves as if possessed, tearing through soldiers like a beast unleashed.