The force of Holly's kick had removed the concentration I had from maintaining the bulbed state of my hands. I almost hadn't noticed my hands had returned to normal when I inspected the blood from the gash across my gut (which was just above my belly button). It hadn't occurred to me that my bulbed hands were something that needed consistent concentration to maintain, but the kick from Holly to my stomach had forced me to only think about my inability to breathe.

Holly was already recovering from the shock of being burnt by my bulbed hands and had rolled and started to climb to her feet. She was doing so far too fast for me to be able to recover myself. Her clawed-tipped kick had taken the air out of my lungs. I could hardly breathe let alone defend myself. I tried to imagine my hands bulbing up again but I just couldn't spare enough concentration to will it to happen.

Holly let out a growl that rang painfully in my ears. Any second now she was going to rip me to pieces.

From between Holly's legs I spotted the teenagers that had been her regular devotees to her sessions. Reece and Christopher had powered down from their monstrous states and were back to being their normal selves. They looked on in horror at what was happening, clearly not having expected or intended for things to get so out of hand. Beyond them several more teenagers were sitting on the ground with looks of dismay on their faces.

Among them were Tiffany and Mikayla.

Are they not going to help? I thought.

They could see my life was in danger. They could see what Holly was going to do to me. Yet neither Mikayla or Tiffany were moving from where they were sat on the ground with horrified looks on their faces.

I managed to breathe a lungful of air but that was the limit of what I could do with the short time available to me.

Holly was upright but crouched low, with her huge arms outstretched and the palms of her monstrous hands touching the ground. Blood continued to leak from the three long gashes which had been driven into her face; her big yellow eyes were fixed on me with mad intensity.

I considered rolling, as if floundering on the floor like some worm might help me get away, but the cramped muscles in my stomach and the pain in my back simply weren't willing to accommodate what I was begging my body to do.

The cougar-creature's mouth opened wide, revealing horrible sharp teeth coated in blood, and another ear-piercing cougar's shriek attacked my ears.

Holly's clawed hand stabbed into my shoulder, each claw carving into my flesh. The way her claws first popped through the overalls and then into my skin made me feel like I was a grape being bitten into. I had, despite the tear-inducing pain, a strange clarity of mind in that moment.

I knew there was something, however small, that I could do.

Ears. Pain, I thought.

I let out a scream at the highest pitch at the loudest volume I could muster with my power. I felt a strange swelling feeling take hold of my throat, as the muscles within my throat had reshaped to better let out the scream; as if I was some kind of toad which could expand its throat capacity.

The scream lasted for several seconds before I had no more breath to exhale. Holly immediately yanked the huge mass of her body away from me and put her palms to her ears. A wave of grunts and screams rose in the exercise area from everyone else too, because the shriek had been intense enough that even normal hearing was enough to feel the pain of the sound. The sound hurt my ears too, and felt like someone had pressed a hot needle deep inside my ear canal.

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Holly shook her head and her yellow eyes smarted as if she were struggling to remain conscious. I could only imagine how intensely painful the sound must have been for her.

Some of the blood from Holly's face had fallen onto my mine and was threatening to obscure my vision. I lurched painfully to a sitting position and tried to rub the blood away from my eyes with my right arm. The pain at my right shoulder, between my right pectoral and armpit, was immense.

I sucked in huge huffing breaths because the shriek I had made had taken every last bit of air out of my lungs. I wasn't going to be able to shriek like that again for at least another ten seconds or more. Shrieking had been my unexpected trump card to buy myself some time and with that gone I had nothing else to spare to prevent Holly from murdering me.

She recovered painfully quickly from the pain in her ears. Her long brunette hair whipped round as she fixed her attention on me yet again. Part of me had hoped the shrieking sound along with all of the things I had done to keep her at bay would have given her enough time to reconsider what she was doing. Surely the real Holly hadn't intended for things to get this out of hand.

And now I was going to die. Holly raised back her arm readying the swipe which would end my life. The last thing I was going to see was Tiffany and Mikayla still watching with horror from where they were sitting on the ground. I didn't want the last sentiment I was ever going to have to be one of disappointment and a sense of betrayal but it wasn't really up to me.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

I could feel the slight difference in the air as Holly's claws neared my head. I could feel the sensation of her shadow reaching over my face.

Then I heard a sudden noise like the sound of an electric toothbrush and a sickening crunch and the cougar-creature going completely silent.

My last ditch attempt to save my own life had been to fall back from the swipe at the last moment. I doubted it would have worked but needless I returned onto my back all the same.

What I saw made my whole body convulse from the shock. The Scottish young man from before was standing within arm's reach of Holly, his left plimsoll was an inch away from my face. In his grip was a long piece of wood, like a stake, which he had thrust into the cougar-beast's throat.

The pointed tip of the wood had pierced clean through Holly's throat and out the other side. Blood leaked down the wood, down Holly's body, and down the Scottish young man's arms. I noticed too that the electric toothbrush sound was coming from the Scottish young man. His arms were vibrating along with the piece of wood he had stabbed through Holly's neck.

The were-cougar-creature seemed shocked at what had been done to it for a moment, thrashed pitifully with ever growing weakness, and then life left it completely. The Scottish young man let go off the piece of wood and his hands continued to vibrate. He closed his blood-soaked fists and the vibrating stopped.

The mass of Holly's dead body collapsed to the ground with a hefty thud. Within moments she was no longer the crazed beast she had become, but was back to her entirely normal human self; a young woman dead on the floor with a long piece of wood stuck in her throat. I was grateful she had fallen away from me so I didn't have to see the instant her head slammed onto the ground with horrible finality.

The Scottish Young man was breathing heavily. He looked at me and gave a nod. He didn't look proud of what he had just done, in fact he looked horrified almost as if disgusted with himself. He looked at his bloody hands which were trembling.

It caused me an incredible amount of pain to look over to where Blain was. To my surprise he was standing over Adam who was still in his transformed state, but unconscious. I could see the rising and falling of the creature's chest, telling me it was still alive at least.

Blain was breathing heavy but there was a clear triumph and sense of victory to the way he was standing over Adam. He had decisively beaten the creature down into submission. I noticed Blain's hands of bone were slightly different than when I had first seen them; the knuckles had become larger, like pointed studs. Blain's hands reverted back to normal, first the enlarged blood-stained bone-studs receding, and then the rest of white easing away as if submerging back into Blain's arm.

It was then, as if those outside had been waiting for the end of the fighting, that the double doors to the exercise area finally opened.