I barked into the night as I turned right on the first corner. It just happened. I could hear its bare feet thundering on the road behind me, and that gave me the jitters. I didn’t have a destination in mind, but I ran fast, stretching my legs as far as I could with every gallop. I only wanted to create some distance from the screamer, but that plan went down the rummy drain when I turned the corner and another sweet mouth-watering odor hit me right on the face. My eyes followed the source of the scent just in time to see another screamer lunging at me from the shadows.

Had it been waiting there all this time? It didn’t matter. My heart told me to stop, but deep down I knew that would be a bad decision. I sped up, lowered my body to the ground, and escaped intact, while it crashed onto the road behind me and growled in annoyance. I smelled the first screamer skirting the corner and pushing past the one that had fallen down.

Dread took hold of me. I knew of no safe place, but sighted an open gate and zipped inside, just as the screamer crashed into the open gate behind me.

My feet thundered over the cold marble floor, and up the white marble stairs that had no railing. They could get very slippery, very easily. I knew because I had fallen from one such stair and almost broken my leg. I had sprained my feet from the fall, and it had hurt for days and days after that.

However, something suddenly dawned upon me when I reached the roof: I was trapped. Walls surrounded me; there was no place to go.

Now what?

The sweet, mouth-watering scent of a screamer reached me before I could think of anything. The sound of its footsteps wasn’t much behind. They were fast, faster than a typical hu-man. They were not much different from a beast.

I grew anxious. My heart pounded in my chest. The heat stirred.

It wasn’t something physical, but a feeling. It was anger, a primal instinct. My sight reddened to a certain extent, but that wasn’t’ enough.

JOIN ME! The voice returned with the heat. It flowed down my veins and expanded them. I screeched from the pain, but strength followed the pain and I lost myself to it. It took over.

The screamers reached the roof and found me. One screamed while the other charged at me.

My muscles grew. They squirmed under my skin, expanding as the heat from my heart touched them, strengthened them. My skin stretched and tore as my bones grew longer or wider or maybe something grew over them. I couldn’t understand. All I knew was that I was suddenly heavier and stronger than the screamer that that rushed at me. I was almost as tall as its waist!

We collided and it staggered back.

My tail swayed behind me, a long thin rope. My ears, my nose, my face, they all pulsed at the same time with my heart.

The screamer was confused and didn’t give up the chance.

Kill it!

Something talked to me.

Kill them all!

I did exactly as the voice said.

I pounced at the screamer that had charged at me. I couldn’t stop once I had transformed. I had changed. My sight had turned completely red. I couldn’t see anything, but I could smell them, the both of them, and those around, far, but approaching, slowly.

My feet had claws. I opened its chest with them. The flesh simply scraped away when I swiped my feet. I grabbed ahold of its ribs and tore them out of its chest. The grey blood that went down my throat felt so great, so delicious. I couldn’t help but munch on the ribs and swallow the mouthful. His organs, the rotting things would have never smelled so delicious and I was hungry, so hungry. I thought I was full, but I was wrong. I had never known hunger before this moment. The heartaches I felt all day were also a kind of hunger. No chance they would have healed just because I had a mouthful of a screamer's rotten organs!

But I wasn’t done yet. I dug my face into its insides as it screamed and tried to get up. However, it couldn’t. I was heavier and stronger than it. While its flesh and muscles were rotting, mine were growing larger, stronger, and denser, as I feasted on its flesh.

And it wasn’t just its ribs that were sweet and savory; its whole body made my mouth water. I wanted its skin, its muscles, its bone, and its blood, its dark, viscous and sludgy blood. I had wolfed down two large mouthfuls out of its insides, half a lung and a part of its still heart when the other one hounded me from the back. It climbed, licked, and bit into the back of my neck.

He took a bite, took flesh, ate a part of me, and moaned.

It didn’t hurt.

I was sure they didn’t hurt either.

I backed away from the screamer on the floor, but the other one kept its grip on me.

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A part of me retuned. And my first action was to chase my tail. It was a fun activity for both me and Kanti. He enjoyed it more than me. He’d always have a laughing fit, following which he’d fall on to the wet grass and I’d jump upon him and start licking his face, from which he’d try to hide.

But done as this thing, this creature that I had become, and the screamer couldn’t keep its grip on my back. It rolled off of me. I launched myself at it the moment it touched the plastered roof. I bit its leg —it was trying to get up— put strength behind my jaw and scrunched. I couldn’t get through his bone, but it broke.

That didn’t help me, however. The screamer called for help; it screamed. The other screamer —the half-eaten part that shouldn’t have gotten up for the life of it— held my long tail in a tight grip and pulled me back.

RIP OFF ITS LEG! KILL IT!

A voice commanded in my head. I followed.

I tried to follow, but the screamer on the ground crunched up and held me from my ears and pulled. They tried to tear me in two.

JOIN ME!

I growled, released the leg, and bit into the screamer's throat. It was softer than its leg. There was a pop of bones breaking and my jaw closed around its neck. The spine broke in two. I jerked my head and tore the screamer's head from the torso. I let go and it fell to the ground lifelessly. The body went right after and it didn’t move after that.

The sweet mouth-watering odor coming from it dimmed rapidly. I wanted to dig into and splurge on its flesh before it was completely gone, but the one holding my tail bit into it, calling my attention. That hurt way more than anything else had until that point. It clawed my face when I turned, breaking its nails, which it didn’t care for.

I wondered later what could have happened if it had claws as sharp as mine, but at that time I jumped at him and clawed him back. I tore his face. The skin easily peeled with my nails. It screamed in annoyance. I pushed down, while it held my neck.

And then we were both on the ground, tussling with each other. I had my face dug into the open cavity of its chest, while it clawed my back, biting my neck and tearing flesh. But it didn’t hurt. Instead, I was in bliss.

The more I ate it the more I recovered, and the more I recovered the stronger I felt. But I also felt something entangling and calling me; it was a heartbeat, a ringing pulse from somewhere far west. It was very insisting, very teasing, laughing at me. I could hear it clearly. It encouraged me to eat, to grow, to lose myself to the bliss. I followed it initially but shivered away from it as the sweet odor slowly turned into a rotten stench and finally opened my eyes. They were already open, but I had been in darkness, couldn’t see anything other than the red blindness caused by my —debatable— anger.

I pushed away from the rotting body just in time as I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, echoing in the emptiness like the beat of a scarred heart.

I believed it was another screamer and got up, covered head to toe in rotten flesh and blood. I pulled back toward the wall, no longer feeling so strong, so endearing.

It was not another screamer, however. There was a sharp inhale of air, and a loud piercing scream. I saw eyes growing panicked and a face turning pale. My heart grew uneasy.

It was Kalki and she didn’t like what she saw. I couldn’t bark at her. I knew what I had done. Only a whine escaped my throat when I tried to plea.

The fear in her eyes reminded me of the day I had accidentally bitten her. Cob had warned me, again and again, to never bite a hu-man, and to never show then your bad side, but I did both. I had shown her my bad side and bitten her. The panic in her eyes and the anger in Kanti's voice had scared me the most. I believed I had lost something important that morning when Kanti didn’t talk to me the entire day afterward. I felt the same panic grew inside me again.

Fear flushed the burning anger from my veins back to my heart where it collected, greater than before thanks to all the feeding. With it, the redness receded from my sight, and I slowly transformed back to my normal height. My skin healed where it had torn from the extra mass that had grown, but I was also left naked and bald as the hair didn’t grow back. I was just happy I returned back to myself.

Kalki skittered back a step as I changed, but kept her unblinking eyes upon me. She tightened her grip on to the long flat bat that she held and it shook in her hands.

Never scare the hu-mans, Cob had told me. They will change the way they look at you and will stop loving you; as they did to me.

I could already see it happening.

Finally, back to normal, I sneezed as a breeze passed by, but it made her stifle. I barked thrice, but that only made her jump in panic. She leaked her scent, then dabbed her eyes and rushed down the stairs in a hurry, creating a trail for me to follow.

I smelled her scent and took a lick: she was in heat. This is why I was hoped Kanti would impregnate her, but he was too shy to act.

There were no more screamers around when I came out of the house and she had the gate closed off the one she occupied. I barked thrice to let her know that I was outside and waited for her to welcome me inside. I was no longer hungry, but it was cold outside. I hoped she’d let me in.

She didn’t.

I moved back to the roof of the under-construction building when even whimpering didn’t work. The night was still young. The bright white ball hung above me, nonchalantly keeping watch on everyone. And I felt abandoned. Sleep didn’t come easy to me that night. The cold grew freezing at around midnight, making me find shelter on the lower floor.

It was warmer inside the building.

I found a place that was relatively free of wind and fell asleep there missing my pack, promising myself that I would go find them tomorrow.

The hu-mans were not trustworthy enough.