The girl that walked forward in the dead of night, looking forward but staring past anything before her, only had the one question rattle within her head. A question that she’s echoed for most of her meaningless life:

“What’s wrong with me…” Calypso let it free from her mouth, in a mumble.

Alone on the streets of a town she’s barely known, let alone can all a new home. She refused to learn the names of these old town avenues, let alone where they lead. The pale red, pentagon brick sidewalks that still looked rained on from the day before, the equally shimmering pavement of the streets. The girl stopped by the black, antique street lamps—the orange hue of its dual lights in turn shining off the girl’s short, brown hair.

Calypso told herself to stop once she’s seen a bus stop of some kind, and almost an hour in, she couldn’t even do something so simple right.

Once again, the question’s raised within her aching mind. Calypso wiped at her drenched, pitiful face. Driven by frustration and faintness at the situation she’s cursed herself with, as she leaned against the pole directly at her side.

She felt her sweating, pale skin clung to the insides of her violet jacket, the pink shirt, the plaid skirt, the tights, and the boots. All of it uncomfortable, all of it reminding her at such a rushed hack job it was putting the outfit on, not together.

Her hand, which was already gripping her newly bought book until her nails turned white, was shaking. An escape once, a hobby that allowed her for once to not only turn off her murky mess of a mind—but allowed her to feel things for once. Emotions that didn’t require boring themselves through 100 feet of unexpressive crust, before giving up the fool’s errand. Calypso stupidly thought she’d be at least able to read once she got the stop but. Alas.

But the greatest weight was against her back. The stupid girl already had a slight and noticeable hunch to her dainty frame, and hoisting a massive backpack with everything she’s brought to this town didn’t help her ruined posture. She had to remind herself, to keep looking back at it… Since it was covered in gash marks, the holes grew bigger with the slightest odd move.

Calypso knew though. She couldn’t help thinking about it. It wasn’t the weight of the barely unpacked clothing or items that never left their packaging. It wasn’t the fact she’s a useless body with barely enough energy or positive physical aspects.

It was the metaphorical crush. Trying to bear the honest truth that she was leaving people who cared about her, when that was in very short supply. They took her in. They were the family and friends—loved ones she hadn’t yet alienated. And now she’s spitting in their faces.

Calypso closed her gray eyes, trying in pitiful vain to stop the manifesting, undeserved tears.

“At least…” she muttered, her already croaky voice strained. “At least… I won’t be able to think about this… Or anything anymo—”

Immediately stopping her grim thoughts, Calypso turned herself on a dime. Towards the chill that didn’t just hit her spine, but slammed so hard that it caused her body to react so violently.

Down the street, there was a hulk of a man bathed in shadows. And on closer inspection… His size wasn’t due to physical prowess or bulk necessarily but… His body looked like it’s been stuffed. Brimming with something that has no business being inside of a normal human.

“…Oh no…” Calypso angled herself in a hurry, facing the freak with her free hand jammed into the left pocket of her jacket, walking backward with a tremble. Cursing herself for her aversion to cellphones.

She knew she had nothing in that pocket. It was either faking like she had mace—or using her keys as a makeshift shiv. Calypso liked disappearing in the night due to insomnia and consistently did it within a big city... She knew a creep when she saw one.

This was not the standard creep. Calypso was kidding herself into believing such… But she felt how badly wrong this was.

The man simply walked forward. His arms not only barely moving at his sides, but the left on the verge of bursting, and the right barely matching the length of what a normal arm should be. Gut not just hanging forward, but wobbling with each sluggish movement.

With very audible slushing of liquid, ripping across the empty street.

“Please—let’s jus—” Calypso shook her head in a rageful, mournful fit before shouting at herself for being stupid, even now, failing to gather her words. “Let’s just think about this, please!”

It was due to the girl vowing internally to never let her gaze away from this creature, that Calypso realized yet another harrowing detail about the “man”. The clothes he was wearing were so torn to shreds, hugged so tightly against the bulbous frame, that the razor-thin threads were steadily cutting through the flesh.

Black ooze leaking from the garroted tissue. Mixing into the disgusting sheen of death-colored flesh.

“I’m a college-aged, young woman…” Calypso tried to inject her dry sense of humor into her pleas. “Y-you’ll make headline news here! Depressive girl killed before her time—only came here because of a great personal tragedy, to live with her extended family—WELL LIKED extended family… Imagine what they’ll do to you once they catch you…”

And if the previous red flags weren’t somehow apparent, the lumbering wad of flesh purposefully evaded every single streetlamp that Calypso had passed so far. A grand total of 5-to-6 times of carefully, walking around every single wide radius of light.

Somehow closing the gap between her and it. Effortlessly. Calypso shuddered at the sheer reality being imposed on her.

“I’m serious! You don’t want to do this, I’m begging you at this point!” her voice was always so awkward, and due to being so utterly pathetic, she never knew how to command power when she yelled. “I’ll scream! I’ll scream right now—someone’ll hear and then--!”

With a sudden, sickening squash—Calypso looked down, realizing she was proven wrong.

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It was less remains and more a dried sack of sick. The heel of Calypso’s boot stepped on a flaccid, meaty puddle—and the revelation should’ve made her gag. She stepped away from it, trying to offer some useless last respects for the victim, but as Calypso faced that side of the street… She detected four or seven sacks, littering the place. Some from the windows of the buildings.

Calypso was completely and utterly alone. Nothing can save her at this point.

She shakingly gulped, before whimpering a measly cry. She knew she was going to die.

And the cacophony of flesh tearing, bones crackling, and blood pouting on the ground confirmed that fact for her. Calypso tensed in response, clamping down on her usually-pouty lips and squeezing her tired eyes shut to endure the sounds.

But once it was done, she glanced behind her. The final details of what Calypso traded her life for reared their ugly head.

The Bat’s head was somehow photorealistic and stylized. The tuff of fur, extended ears, the glistening teeth… The beady, black eyes that had no shine, no sense of brilliance of life. Dark and yet the shadows that it was made of had definition, the features clean cut into edges to give a somehow fiercer look.

It raised its leather wings, the span easily stretching past a car from hood to trunk. Unveiling its entire body, which hung the last semblance of humanity left.

The body, hanging upside down like a bat. The monster’s origin point, as the once-walking corpse was cracked open, the black viscous oozed out from these cracks. These goop-like strings being pulled up tightly, which all mash up into the imposing form of the monster. The body, too torn apart to tell who it once was, all could be disgusting features were blurred into facial horror and ruin.

Sans the black, glazed-over eyes, with equally so “tears” streaming upside down his face.

“Damn it…” Calypso uttered softly. “You, this… Me, most of all…”

With that, she took off into a sprint. A sprint that meant precious little, but it was the only option she had control over.

Pressing her novel against her chest, her baggage constantly battering her aching back, Calypso constantly looked behind herself. Knowing if she ran on either side of the street, it would simply fly after her, such an advantage vantage with an open space provides.

She tried again in vain. She had to.

“PLEASE!” Calypso waveringly yelled. “WE DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS!”

Running so briskly and turning the head was easier said than done, and the girl didn’t gain the best view of the Bat. But she did hear the gust of air forced downward, something soaring through the dead night’s air.

And soon enough, felt the wind gusts rattle her bob-styled hair. There was no way out of this.

But something caught the corner of her eye, on the right of her. Calypso instantly trained her head towards the sight—an alleyway. A narrow alleyway she just passed. It was her only chance.

Turning on her rubber heels, stumbling due to the fact, but Calypso managed to turn and booked it towards the alley. She ran in, panting and whimpering as she did, the sweat flying off behind her.

Looking back—she knew it was dumb, but she had to.

The sight of what happened next caused her blood to run cold.

As the Bat circled in the night above the alley, it motioned to dive, tucking its large wings onto its sides to become an arrow arced towards the poor, stupid girl.

Crashing onto her with full force, right onto the ground, everything on her person scattered across the area. The audible slam was accompanied by various cracking of bone.

Calypso screamed. Shrieked. Howled pathetically in pain. Knowing that no one could possibly hear her. Knowing what was likely to happen next, and there was nothing to be done about it.

But she was still able to move. Twitching, barely able to go beyond an inch, but she could still move.

Face-to-face with this thing, as it’s muzzle slowly opened to let the shadow-y drool fall out, chittering in zeal to bare it’s impressive fangs.

“P…Puh…” Calypso couldn’t form words anymore. She tried to raise her hand, showcasing her palm. “Wa…rning… you… Please…”

The Bat reeled back, while digging its claws deep into her shoulders. And slammed her down onto the wet brick that made up the ground. Again. And again. And again.

The impact so hard, it interrupted Calypso’s shouts. Her panicked expression rendered into a daze—then soon blank, her short brown hair flying about, and her normally gray eyes losing their brilliance of life and fading fast.

All Calypso could do in that moment, was twitch.

And the monster sensed that, slowly raising her body upwards, towards itself as it straddled over her. Drooling with physical shadows, it opened its jaw as it chittered gutturally. As if it were laughing.

Only for something impossible to happen, that caused its jaws to fasten shut with unseen force.

Calypso’s shaking hand being that impossible thing.

Gripping from the side of its head, pressing the thumb under the chin and digging her fingers into the cheek.

Drawing black blood.

“I… Warned you…”

Calypso looked at her victim with a sorry expression of fear. Looking at it with eyes of black sclera, glowing amber irises, and a pulsating, changing face.

“Now I won’t be able to stop myself…”

At once, Calypso’s hand sprouted claws from each digit, causing the Bat to shriek in pain yet unable to open its maw to express that agony.

High-pressure black blood showered the once-pathetic human, as she laid still yet constantly moving... And not of her own will.

And with a sudden jerk on her end, Calypso managed to toss the thing she just pleaded to across the alleyway. Arcs and arcs of black blood streamed across as it finally slammed onto its back.

“Aaaaah… Finally…”

The Bat lifted its punctured head in confusion. Its beady eyes searching for an explanation, anything, to make what’s happening make any sense.

But it was only met with laughter. Deep, sensual… Lacking any humanity.

A stained Calypso rose to her feet, drunkenly almost. The girl was drenched in the oily ichor so harshly that she was nothing more than a black silhouette. It didn’t help that her head was angled downward. As if she was stewed in her body tensing, before bulging in size, finally shrinking back.

Her transformation beginning to take shape.

She took a loving look at her claws and took multiple licks at them. Unveiling a set of eggshell white, curved, and bladed digits that was more razors than fingers anymore. But as Calypso flexed them, it showcased that each claw was segmented, designed in a skeletal-like fashion.

“Don’t care if you’re not so yummy or not…” Calypso raised her head, showcasing her face, literally twisted with malice. And bearing her own fangs. “I’ve been stupidly holding back for what felt like fucking millions of eons… Thank you, little dreg. I can finally lose my mind~”

Almost like she planned the timing, various bone spikes ripped through the girl’s frame. Individually, one after the other. With such force, she was jerked about and was so violent, it caused her to get on her hands and knees.

Calypso hugged herself, or whatever was left. Trembling. Huffing out visible, thick mist as she made… Sounds that were everchanging as she was in that moment. If one was generous when they heard it, they’d imagine it was crying… But it was too muffled, low, and frankly zealous to be considered sadness or pain.

But whatever it was, it soon morphed into crazed laughter.

The girl started to shine in a dull, iridescent glow.

Her laughter grew in an uproar, as she started to grow in size. Cackling, as audible cracks rang out in the night, as more blades and bone burst through every surface, creating fresh squelching sounds.

Her laughter shredded into screams, as the glow coated the entire area. Slowly but surely masking her still transforming body. Everything human being torn away.

Soon the shine faded. What the Bat saw before it, as its basic eyes shook with realization… was a much better monster.

All it could see was bone piercing out of the girl's frame and covering it as a twisted mockery of armor. It saw fangs, it saw claws that were several inches long. Dual elbow scythes jutted from what looked to be skinned arms. Shadow of a mane that traveled down the back. A perfect union of human and monster, with all the beastly beauty that resulted from it.

All it could do was simply gawk.

Calypso giggled lowly, as her dark eyes still pierced through sudden darkness. Hauntingly sad, disturbing inhuman.

She leaped forward, towards her early morning breakfast.