I was sitting on top of a skyscraper in the middle of the night sky. The new season drifted scents up into the sky, even this far up. I sent out my pulse sense across the city, visualizing the Autumn I remembered in my mind's eye. The sharp return was almost instant... she was there, but after closer observation, I could sense a difference.

I felt the pulse echoing back from her, showing me exactly where she was with each surge of the power. She was alone, walking… no... moving somehow; her feet didn't seem like they were on the ground. The altitude of where her body did not feel like ground level. The ringing of my enhanced sense locked on her and reported back where she was. But, it felt like it was moving in the air. She was moving towards something… someone... stalking them. Something in the way she moved felt... familiar; something I was used to doing myself. She was watching... lurking... preparing to strike.

I didn't question it for too long, I just started moving... I had to get to her. I had to stop her. If she hurt an innocent person... she might not recover from that... not without a long time of pain and regret.

I jumped from the building after gaining a running start. I shoved off the edge of the rooftop, barrelling into the night sky. I arced away from the building, hurtling in the direction of Autumn… my target.

“Fly!” Myoordrakien’s voice tore through my mind and the night sky around me, a crack of thunder.

I felt pressure coiling in my back like a lightning strike that accompanied the crash of the Primeval's voice. It surged through me, the massive consciousness of Myoordrakien forcing something. Two buds erupted from my back as I dropped through the air. In a heartbeat, two massive wings of black scales unfurled with a destructive aura that thundered into existence. They were born of the enormous reservoir of physical mass in the other world. I felt the primal ability to fly… to tear through the sky like an aerial predator. I felt their connection to my body... I felt complete control over them. I flexed them with the intent to propel myself in Autumn’s direction. I moved them… ready to surge upward into the night.

Then... I plummeted like a Walmart bag filled with rocks. My wings pointed directly upward like a tangled parachute, leaving me flailing to the earth below.

I tried to flip them out, to direct them in a way that would catch the wind and allow me some grace before I hit the street below. I started drifting towards a building, feeling a tiny hope of not smacking the ground.

“Take em’ back, take em’ back, take em’ back…” I urged as I got closer to the pavement. Thankfully, the massive black wings vanished back into my body, coiling back from where they had spawned. Now, it was just my human form on a trajectory to the side of a building.

I reached out and grabbed for the fire escape on the building I drifted towards. I didn't catch it... it caught me. I slammed into the handrail of a high platform. It impacted my abdomen, bending against the force and weight of my body. It fucking hurt. I let out a weird groan-laugh. “Oh shit…”

I flipped over the bar and stayed on my back on the metal grating of the fire escape.

“Flying… might take a while," I admitted out loud to myself… and Myoordrakien.

I felt an internal, mocking laugh, like he was amused I couldn’t do what was so natural to him. I had a lot to learn about this new body and all the power it held within. There was a lot at my disposal, but I lacked the experience to use it... for now.

I knew one thing for certain… flying was not a natural feeling. I remembered the memory shown to me by Myoordrakien. The female predecessor was swooping across the landscape like raining death. She made it look so easy… so smooth. Every move she made in midair was like a symphony of contracting muscle, and smooth soaring. The tremendous flaps of her massive scaled wings rocketed her forward with gales of wind. Every small move she made, every micro-adjustment in her wings placed her on a lethal path with her prey. It was more than second nature to her... it was years of hunting with them at her back. I had a long way to go for that kind of skill.

I made my way down the fire escape... kind of a walk of shame. I was hurrying to get back on track, deforming the metal with my strength as I hurried. I got to ground level and bounded through the night towards Autumn’s echoing ping in my mind’s eye. I was close now. So close that I could hear the scream of a man… then a woman. Autumn was moving in on prey.

As I moved through the dim streets, the area around me sharpened in its grim familiarity. This part of downtown wasn’t for casual wanderers; it reeked of bad times and worse intentions. The people here didn’t offer smiles or small talk… only shadows clinging to alleyways, whispers of deals made in the dark, and the lingering stain of crime.

It was then I noticed the building across the street. Charred soot and blackened streaks clawed out from its windows and doors, remnants of a fire long extinguished but never forgotten. Time and weather had dulled its scars, but not erased them. I knew this place. The memory hit like a warm comfort. This was where I unleashed my fury on the men who had killed Emily Smith. That girl… her name was like a faint whisper in the back of my mind. It marked the beginning of this new part of my dark life... with friends.

Back then, it was simpler. No Primevals, no apocalyptic power thrumming through my veins… that I knew about at least. Just me and the nameless monster I carried inside, roaming the city and choosing targets that fit my own sense of justice. If I had the blade back then... would it have made a difference? Would I have chosen different outcomes? Probably not. Even with its overwhelming force at my disposal, I knew I would still unleash the monster inside more often than not. It felt safer, and more contained than wielding the blade. The blade wasn't something I controlled yet… it was smoke... a fog of lethality that I couldn't fully contain; it was all-consuming, ending life with a whisper of contact. No... my monster was the safer route, a familiar darkness compared to the unrelenting abyss of Death's weapon.

A scream cut through the haze of my walk down memory lane; yanking me back to the present. My pace quickened in the dark of the cool cement sidewalks, moving through the shadows; drawn toward the sounds of horror.

As I turned a corner, slipping into the edge of another street, a sensation swept over me. It wasn't suffocating, but it was powerful… a biting sense of danger blanketing the air like a warning. It didn't deter me, but I felt it. It was the feeling of stepping into a predator's hunting grounds.

I froze, instincts prickling. This wasn't my aura. It wasn't the ominous presence I carried. It was hers. Autumn was here, and she was out for blood.

I reached deep into myself, carefully retracting every tendril of ominous energy, ensuring not even a whisper of my presence leaked into the night. I couldn't let her sense me. If she did, she'd vanish, and I couldn't allow that. The blade stayed locked in its void, and the monstrous reservoir of my Primeval form remained hidden. I needed to be nothing. A shadow among shadows.

The muffled moans of terror guided me, pulling me deeper into the labyrinth of decaying buildings. Turning a corner, I stopped short, struck by the sight before me. Autumn stood between two figures, each trapped in ways that defied explanation. A man lay crumpled at her feet, pinned against a dumpster by her hand... yet she wasn't touching him. Her outstretched arm was pointed at him, an open hand twisted menacingly at his prone form. His face was full of pain. Across from him, a woman hung mid-air, pressed firmly against the opposite wall. No ropes, no visible restraints… just her back flush to the bricks; suspended fifteen feet off the ground like a forgotten garage sale flyer.

A faint red glow pulsed in the shadows where Autumn loomed over the man. They were tucked behind a dumpster that blocked my view. I moved to get a better look at the woman held aloft, floating in the air like she was, and now I couldn't see exactly what was happening to the man. I moved silently, shifting through the darkness for a better vantage point. That's when the sound hit me… a sharp, resonating hiss, like a blade of glass sliding into my brain... cutting me in some unseen way.

The pressure in the air thickened, growing oppressive, and then the man's scream tore through the alley, "STOP!" His voice rose to a peak that matched the hissing inside my skull.

The red glow flared brilliantly, bathing the walls in a sickly light. It cast horrific images across the alley walls as I saw the shadows of a human figure fade into nothing but skeletal lines. His screams faded into silence, and the red light dimmed.

The man's body fell over. The sound of bones clattering onto concrete filled the air. Before I could process the moment, Autumn moved… not with a leap or a step, but a steady, deliberate ascent. She floated upward, her form barely discernible in the shadows, until she reached the woman on the wall. A low hum radiated from her, vibrating through the air like the predatory purr of something ancient... and starving. I opened my Primeval eyes, and I saw her in the darkness.

Her eyes burned a deep reddish-black, darker and hungrier than anything I had seen before. Not even Alex's Primeval-fueled gaze had carried this kind of sinister depth.

Autumn surged forward, closing the final distance with predatory speed. Her brown hair almost stood on end as her body was engulfed in an invisible power that held her aloft. The woman didn't have time to scream, to plead... there were no words, no hesitation. Autumn's glowing eyes deepened, the crimson darkening to a hue that bordered on blackened purple. Lines of shadowy veins pulsed beneath her skin, a grotesque network feeding whatever horrific power she wielded. Then came the glow… this time from the woman. It started faintly, a dim red pulse beneath her skin, but it quickly spread, engulfing her body in a grotesque, burning luminescence like a fire burning within.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

The hissing sound returned, sharper and more invasive, slicing through my thoughts like jagged razors. I watched as the woman’s body began to dissolve into flakes, floating away from her. Her flesh, her muscle, even her blood… it all turned to a fine red mist, disintegrating as though transmuted by some unseen force. The glow intensified as the hissing reached a crescendo, and within seconds, there was nothing left but slick, glistening bones. Whatever remnants clung to the surface had a sickly yellow sheen, the only thing holding the fragile remains together.

All the while the woman’s body was turned to vapor, Autumn inhaled deeply, drawing in the red mist with each breath. It flowed into her, feeding her, empowering her. She exhaled satisfaction, and the bones fell. They hit the ground with a sickening crack, the ribcage splintering on impact, the legs snapping like brittle twigs. The skull rolled, bouncing off the uneven ground until it came to rest at my feet.

Moments ago, this had been a living, breathing woman. Now, she was scattered fragments on the alley floor.

Autumn moved upward, the resonant hum and vibrations fading as she lifted her form higher into the darkness of the night sky. She was moving away… I had to stop her here.

I flexed my monstrous body and shoved off from the ground with detrimental force. The ground cracked and splintered from the explosive shove that catapulted me high into the night air. I used a ledge on the side of the wall to place my feet as my momentum slowed and shoved upwards even higher, never breaking my upward momentum; using the smallest of lips to grip my hands and feet for new surface area to propel myself onward. I passed Autumn's altitude and planted my feet silently on the roof before she made it. She wasn't moving fast through the air, just steadily climbing higher, untouched by anything in her levitating state.

I watched as her head breached the edge of the roof and she floated up, landing her feet silently on the gravel roof. We were standing on the top, about ten stories from the city streets below. I don’t know if she heard me or not, but she didn’t seem to care. I stepped out from the shadows of the roof and began to approach Autumn.

When my foot crunched through the gravel, a snarling glare was directed my way for the tiniest of moments… then there was a brief pause. I thought… that she had finally sensed me. She knew it was me.

Nope. She lunged across the roof at me, flying through the air in an impossible trajectory. It was only possible through the same unseen power. It was like gravity held no authority over her.

Her face was twisted and hungry. Six massive fangs protruded from her gaping maw, two on her bottom canines and four on the top; her lateral incisors as well as the canines. It was new… different than anything I’d seen before.

I raised my left hand, deflecting her claws as they slashed toward me, their jagged edges gleaming faintly in the dim light. My right hand surged upward, clamping around her throat with a force that sent her thrashing body slamming into the side of an air conditioning unit. The thin metal crumpled like paper beneath the impact, the entire structure groaning under the force.

She bucked violently, her feral strength hammering against me. Her glowing, pulsing eyes, a dark, unnatural mix of purplish black, blazed with unrelenting fury. I could feel her strength rising, pushing against my hold, forcing me to take a step back. A sharp, hissing ring pierced the air, a sound that vibrated deep into my skull, and I sensed the faint red glow building at my core.

Then came the pain. It was raw and searing, like being electrocuted and burned alive at the same time. Wisps of skin flaked away from my face, and one thought flashed through my mind… Oh, fuck!

It hurt like hell. I had to clench my teeth to stifle a grunt of pain.

She was terrifyingly strong… borderline Alex-strong. There was something about her power that felt... familiar. Not fully Primeval, but close, like a shadow cast by that same monstrous light.

Her method confirmed it. The way she consumed those two people… it mirrored the way Alex drained that vampire, turning him into a shriveled husk as she siphoned his life through sheer mental force. It was the same consuming hunger I had seen in ancient memory when the Primeval of Hunger inhaled the essence of blood, flesh, and bone itself in the surrounding area. But Autumn left the bones intact, a deviation from the Primeval's all-consuming hunger. Different, yet undeniably similar.

Her strength surged higher with each moment, her deep corrupted eyes bulging as her hissing snarls filled the rooftop. There was nothing human in her gaze… no flicker of recognition, no hesitation. She fought with savage intent, her claws lashing against my grip like an untamed beast trying to break free.

I reached deep within myself, calling upon the Primeval form buried beneath my human facade. The image of who I was shattered, giving way to the monstrous strength I had suppressed. My eyes turned obsidian, and dark talons erupted from my fingertips. My form grew larger… stranger... darker. My clothes twisted and stretched, barely hanging on as rags.

With a guttural snarl, I shoved her deeper into the mangled air conditioning unit, the screech of tearing metal filling the night. My grip tightened around her throat, my claws pressing into her flesh as I tried to suppress the psionic power radiating from her that still tried to claim me. Her body vibrated with power, fighting back with everything she had, but I forced my strength against hers, asserting dominance as the monster within me surged to the surface.

My grotesque voice crawled out of my throat as I tried to make her see, “Autumn!" I yelled into her as she thrashed.

She was almost unrecognizable… feral, driven by pure instinct, as if everything human had been stripped away the moment she woke up in this world, changed. Every movement, every lunge, was a fight for survival, a primal attempt to overpower what she perceived as a greater threat. Her strength didn't plateau; it rose with each passing second, testing every second for escape. It felt like wrestling with a storm… a creature built to survive, to defy, to break free at any cost.

To her, I was the enemy. To me, she was a frenzied creature. A cornered beast thrashing against a helping hand. And yet, despite the raw power I had, holding her down without hurting her felt like trying to contain a parakeet that had the strength of a bull. I could break her, easily. But that wasn’t the goal. I had to be stronger, not destructive.

She came at me again and again, ferocity igniting like wildfire as we tore across the rooftop. Gravel scattered under our feet as we slammed against the AC unit, the ledge, and finally, the small brick structure housing the doorway to the building. Bricks crumbled, the structure collapsing in on itself and leaving a jagged hole that howled with rushing night air. It didn’t matter. I pulled her free of the debris as if she weighed nothing, dragging her outside and slamming her onto the roof’s gravel.

She didn’t stop. Her limbs flailed, claws slicing through the air, her power brimming and chaotic. Every muscle in her body screamed defiance, her wild, glowing purplish-black eyes locked onto mine like twin orbs of fury. Nothing was working. She wouldn’t snap out of it. She was chaos incarnate, rising to meet me with everything she had, and I realized I needed more than just strength.

I couldn't use the Death Blade… too unpredictable, too final. Its power wasn’t something I could risk unleashing so recklessly… even just to shake her out of this. No, that tool stayed locked away in the void. But I had something else. Myoordrakien.

I reached inward, into the churning abyss where his presence dwelled, and let the Primeval aura of Annihilation flood through me. It wasn’t just power… it was dominance. Absolute, undeniable domination. My black eyes burned with that essence as I locked them onto hers, focusing every ounce of intent, every shred of will, on her. Not just the physical power... but the consciousness of the Primeval of Annihilation.

The effect was immediate. Her struggles faltered, her movements stuttering as the weight of our presence crushed down on her like an avalanche.

I could see it in her eyes… the instinctual recoil, the animalistic need to shrink away from something infinitely greater than herself. Her power recoiled, retreating as this new side tried to make itself small, insignificant, and non-threatening. Survival at any cost. That's all she knew at that moment.

And then, through the cracks in her fury, I saw her. The Autumn I knew began to surface, faint and fragile. Her glowing eyes dimmed, the swirling purplish-black fading to red, and then to brown. Her features softened, the feral edge of her face retreating. Her tangled hair fell around her trembling form as recognition flickered like a candlelight in the storm.

I eased my grip but kept my presence steady. My hands loosened as I knelt over her, watching the coiled tension in her muscles slowly fade. My monstrous form didn’t recede yet. I wasn’t ready to let my guard down. Not until I was sure she wouldn’t run. Her body finally stilled beneath me, her breaths ragged but no longer fueled by rage.

“Autumn,” I said, my voice warped and booming. "It's me. You're safe now." Kind of ironic and unbelievable to hear from me in this form... with this voice.

Her clothes were torn and bloody, her hair a tangled mess of debris; grass, twigs, and dirt clinging to it like she'd been surviving in the wilderness. She wasn't just feral; she had been untethered, something beyond human or even the vampires I'd known. Alex had been right… we had no idea what she'd become. What had happened when she woke up? How long had she been out here… alone?

Her body was the same, but beneath her skin, I could feel it… her muscles coiled tight, like steel springs ready to explode. I realized then I was still pinning her to the ground with one hand, my strength weighing down on her like a predator holding its prey before ripping the life from it with its teeth and claws. Her eyes darted up at me, wide and fearful, taking in my massive, monstrous form before I released it.

I had let too much of the Primeval seep out. I was a looming figure on the roof. With a thought, I pulled it all back. My body shifted, shrinking into my human frame, the image of myself I knew best. My claws retracted, my eyes lost their black void, and I was Sam again… still torn and battered, but unmistakably me. The transition between the forms I chose was a much smoother process than ever before. The difference between having a Primeval body, and a human body to channel Myoordrakien's strength was staggering.

Slowly, I eased off her, my hands releasing her as I stood upright. "Autumn," I said softly, my normal voice low and steady. "It's me. Do you remember? Sam..."

She scrambled backward, her hands pushing against the gravel as she retreated until her back hit the ledge. Her eyes held a flicker of recognition, but fear still clouded her face. She was caught between worlds… animal and human, rage and reason.

I stepped forward, careful not to move too fast, not to spook her further. But as I closed the gap, she lifted a hand, palm out. It wasn’t aggressive or panicked… it was a plea. A wordless request from the Autumn I knew.

Wait.

I froze, letting the moment hang in the air. Her trembling hand lowered, but she didn’t move any closer, and neither did I. She needed space, and I could give her that. There was nowhere else I needed to be right then. For now, I stayed where I was, watching her carefully, ready for anything… but hoping for her to come back to me. The real Autumn.