V – 00002.1 – Misconceptions.
Staring into her face that suddenly held a lot more pity than fear, I was somewhat taken aback. Emotions surged within me, emotions that I barely kept off my face as I struggled to understand my own thoughts while maintaining the ice-cold exterior I was showing to Sasha.
Rage, longing to be understood, Paranoia. My need to inspire terror and fear to protect myself warred with my desire that this can all be undone somehow, that someone could just forgive and redeem me, and suddenly somehow, someway I could walk back into my old life, with my old apartment with the love of my life. That I could just turn my back on the festering wounds in my heart and mind that were spreading each day and feeding my black soul with the poison it needed to dominate my mind and actions.
Clenching my hands together, I felt my claws clack together. The sound had the same effect as a hypnotist's fingers snapping; the fantasy that this could be okay shattered as reality mixed with my emotions.
She is dead, Viktor. Your home is gone, and WE ARE ALONE. Because every single thing you touch turns to fucking ash.
Look at her; she’s not your friend; she’s your goddamn captive; she doesn’t pity you; she doesn’t understand you. All she sees is an opening, something for her to exploit, so you’ll let her go, and she can tell someone to shell your stupid ass.
You’re not some misunderstood kid put in a bad situation; you’re a fucking monster; you’re a walking omen of death. Alice wasn’t helping you become a person; you were feeding off her humanity like a vampire, and it was just enough that you could pretend you weren’t this cold empty thing that turned to murderer and started eating people the moment an opportunity was given to you.
Marcus was right to try and kill you; you were always going to go bad; you’re a powder keg just waiting for something to set you off, and now you're acting like a child, hoping a grownup is just going to show up and somehow miss all the signs of evil and fix everything.
Stop hiding from what we are; take some goddamn responsibility; it’s not the reapers fault, it’s not humanities, it’s not your power that’s addictive... It’s you; you're addicted to your power. All this system has done and losing the people you care about is expose you for what you really are, a monster.
You’ve spent your whole life angry looking for any reason to justify your violent overreactions, and with what’s been in your head lately, I can see it in you—you're just building up to making your life all of the world's fault to justify you doing whatever you want.
“Shut the fuck up!” I shouted, demanding the voices and thoughts be quiet as I looked down on Sasha, who I only just now realized was still talking; her pity-filled expression seemed to mock me as she stopped talking in response to my shout.
I stared down at her, my eye and the corner of my mouth twitching as the voices in my head continued to tear into me. There he is. Go on, take it out on her; that’s what you do best. Satisfy your bloodlust to drown out the voices.
Even as I internally denied what the voice was telling me, trying to refute the fact that I would or ever did do that, I could feel my hand raising unconsciously, fingers flexed and primed to bleed Sasha and make her another in a long line of victims to the rage I’d spent my entire life denying.
“Stop lying to yourself... We’ve always been on your side, Viktor; this is what you are; this is who we are, and we’ll back you. But stop denying and deluding yourself; it’s fucking pathetic.” I shouted so loud it stressed my vocal cords as I was forced to give the voices in my mind a presence in reality.
“What the hell do you want from me? You want me to be some mindless fucking murderer? To isolate myself from the world? I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT FROM ME.”
Reaching out, I grasped Sasha by the throat and lifted her up into the air. “I want you to stop poisoning yourself and holding in everything you feel. Just to pretend you're somewhat normal, I’m in your head, Viktor; I feel everything you do. Look at her, this sniveling piece of shit. I can feel every ounce of your anger and the disgust you feel just having her here in your home.”
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“I FEEL YOUR HATE EVERY TIME YOU LOOK TOWARDS THE CITY AND THINK ABOUT THE PEOPLE THERE. BE HONEST FOR ONCE WITH YOURSELF. TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT RIGHT NOW. Tell me what you want to do when you look into the face of this deceitful fucking animal that’s pretending it feels bad for you.”
Turning my head, I looked into Sasha’s eyes and stared, feeling the disgust at her presence and the anger I felt towards her for coming here for pitying me. ME of all people. Visions of Alice came to me unbidden, seeing her limp form covered in her own blood, her pale, cold skin bereft of warmth as I lowered her into the ground.
The look of pure relief that she wore as she saw the knife miss my throat, not yet realizing our forever had already ended.
The seething hatred I felt with every scoop I took from the earth.
My declaration that day came back to me—the anger and malice I felt for the entire human race for letting her die.
I twisted my hand, jerking it hard to the left, snapping the soldier's neck ninety degrees. I felt the bone in her neck snap and watched her skin stretch distorted as her broken spine pressed into her throat, and then I dropped her to the ground wordlessly.
Finally, you get it. We have every reason we need; you don’t need to try and justify your actions anymore, not to me and certainly not yourself.
Looking down, I could see the despair in her eyes as they slowly lost their light. I felt nothing, not revulsion or pride; the only change I could articulate was that my shoulders felt a little lighter, and the grip around my lungs that made my every breath a struggle these past few weeks relaxed ever so slightly.
Watching the ethereal, translucent mists of death phase into reality from seemingly nowhere and cling to Sasha’s corpse in a moment of impulse, I stretched my hands towards the field of energy and pulled splayed-out fingers that began to close as I tried to pull on the energy with my will.
The muscles in my forearms twitched and tensed alongside my will as my fingers hitched, getting caught mid-contraction.
I snarled softly as the energy clung to Sasha resisting me; it felt different from normal; usually attempting to manipulate energy in an ambient environment would result in it sliding away from my mental grip, but as I visualized and felt myself connecting and pulling to the energy, I could feel it pulling and twisting and writhing like I had a real grip on it, yet it infuriatingly refused me over and over like it was bolted to the cadaver.
Heaving out a sigh, I relaxed my mind and felt my fingers snap shut as whatever force holding them open was released.
Anger hit me in another wave as I lost my distraction. Looking across the log floor, I spotted the perfect vent for my frustrations and leapt into a running stride, winding my foot back, kicked hard, and slamming my foot into Liam’s chest.
Feeling his cracked bones give the rest of the way and cave in, he flew a few feet from me as his breathing shallow, weak breaths faded into nothingness and death claimed him in his sleep.
Removing the invaders, as I had come to think of them, from my home, or at least exorcising their souls from my home, brought me an immeasurable sense of relief, at least for a few moments before my fury pointed me back at the city.
“I can’t keep giving the reapers a free pass just because of whatever possible illnesses are in the city; I need to try and go back.”
"Agreed,” one of the voices in my head answered in the affirmative.
Pulling up my notifications I acknowledged the kill notices and focused my efforts on making some more adjustments for my upcoming plans; scrolling through my mutations list, I found, to my annoyance, I was still short on the enhanced bone density mutation.
[Thick Skin]
[Padded Soles]
[Bone Fangs]
[Barbed Talons]
[Serrated Claws]
[Channeled claws]
[Webbed Digits]
Reading through the latest list, I noticed some interesting additions, despite the fact that I hadn’t gained a new genus in some time. All though the additions were all to my claws.
Huh, I guess now that I have claws I can make mutations to them as well.
"Alright, let’s see what I can afford and is going to be useful; I obviously don’t need shit like webbed toes and fingers.”
[Bone Fangs – Common]
[This mutation alters your gums, jawbone, and teeth to grow and accommodate extremely dense and sharp pointed fangs made of bone.]
[Cost: 50 pounds of bone, 14 pounds of musculature, 8 pounds of viscera.]
Ok, I definitely want that one, but thick skin or padded soles could be pretty great at enhancing my durability... Eh fuck it, they’d be nice but a bit too costly for what they’re offering, and I still really want the skeletal enhancement.
I accepted the mutation prompt and sat down, preparing myself for whatever unpleasantness was about to ass fuck me.
A deep ache took root in my gums as they shifted and writhed in my mouth, and a horrific pain shot through the nerves in my teeth as my jawbone and gums felt as though they were crushing the roots of my teeth.
A few soft involuntary coughs forced themselves from my lungs, which was all the force it took to dislodge my human teeth. My canines, molars, and incisors flew out of my mouth, covered in drool in blood; they clinked softly against the floor like some sort of fucked-up nightmare brought to life.
An absolutely disgusting sensation took place in my jawbone as I felt new teeth growing. The only way I could describe the sensation was to say it felt like someone planted a calcium seed in my jaw where my old teeth were rooted, and it began growing like a tree except in real time.
Long vampiric fangs pushed themselves out from where my original canines were; they grew to their full size, stretching my gums, giving me the worst feeling of teething I’d ever known; my new teeth slid against each other, coming to rest in an interlocking position; and new sharp fangs began surrounding them.
It only took a few minutes until my new teeth had grown in, strongly resembling the teeth and fangs of a wolf that interlocked when closed, making them perfect for piercing and puncturing with the points and crushing between them.
Finally, a thick coating of enamel crawled up my new teeth, coating the bone in an extra layer of protection as my crushing maw mutation added its strength to my newest bone fangs mutation.