Chapter 1

My name... It doesn’t matter. The Beasts are all that matter now. They are my family, my friends, my being. Without them, I am nothing.

The Virus changed me, I’m not quite a changed, yet not quite a mutant either. I have become on of the beasts. Powerful creatures thought of as monsters by the humans. I should know, I once thought the same thing.

The first week of the outbreak, I was in a camp. I can’t remember much of it, everything seems so blurry, so... unreal. I remember the mutants invading, thousands of them. Not everybody had found out their abilities yet, and even then, not everybody’s had combat potential.

The mutants attacked at midnight, I remember... I was awake already. I couldn’t sleep. My instincts told me there was danger. I tried to tell the others, but they wouldn’t listen. My family... I only was able to convince my brother. We tried to flee the camp, but the mutants had already attacked.

I remember his leg getting bit by one of them.

“Go! I can’t run with you! You have to survive by yourself.”

“No, I can’t go without you!”

“I’ll only drag you down, the mutants are almost done eating those in the camp, pretty soon they’ll follow us. This is your only chance. Survive.”

Survive.

That one word reverberated through me. It traveled through every bone in my body. Every cell.

It’s his ability. He controlled me. His own sister.

Survive.

Without hesitation, I took off.

I couldn’t slow down, every time I tried, my muscles would start moving on their own, adrenaline would pump into me, and I would go even faster.

It was morning by the time the compulsion wore off.

I curled up by a felled tree in the middle of a forest, and went to sleep.

When I woke up, I realized two things, first, my hair had grown longer, second, there was a giant beast sleeping next to me. I instantly froze

‘fuck fuck fuck...’

It seemed to be a tiger that probably escaped from a zoo. The virus had done incredible things to it’s body. It previously couldn’t have been taller than four feet at shoulder, but now it was somehow as tall as an elephant.

The tiger’s body was wrapped around me in a circle, and it’s whiskers tickled my chin.

I try to look around while at the same time not moving my head.

It seems like i’m in a different place than where I had gone to sleep. As I realized earlier, my hair had also grown unnaturally long. After the virus started infecting people, I cut my hair down to a pixie cut. Now, however, my hair had grown down to my shoulders.

Have I been asleep a really long time? No, that’s ridiculous, I would’ve died by now if that were the case. Was it... my ability? Fast growing hair? It seems pretty stupid, but I’d heard of worse back when I was at the camp. I remember this one guy who had the ability to set himself on fire. Pretty cool, right? Only problem was that he wasn’t immune to his own flames. Not so cool.

I tried to stand up, but as soon as I shifted my weight, the tiger’s eyes popped open.

I instantly shrieked.

Shhh...

I spun my head around, looking for who spoke

Quiet, cub.

My head whipped to face the tiger. It’s eyes looking at me with what looked like a spark of intelligence.

It can’t be...

“A-Are you the one that’s speaking?” I ask it

The tiger looked at me blankly

No, of course not, I thought

Of course not what?

I look at the tiger, now I’m sure it’s the beast that was talking.

Can it read my mind?

Only when you tell it to me

I concentrate for a few seconds

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Can you hear me?

Yes I can, cub

Holy crap, The beast’s aren’t supposed to be able to talk.

They’re, well... they’re beasts. Mindless animals.

But this tiger... It doesn’t even seem hostile towards me, mostly just curious.

What’s your name? I ask it

My name?

Yeah, your name. What should I call you?

When I was in the cage, I was referred to as Jasmine.

The cage... The zoo?

Why can I talk to you? I didn’t know that the beasts were intelligent

Why you can talk to me... I have no idea. You are the first human that has displayed such an ability. When it comes to intelligent beasts, there are few of us. Most of the time we are fighting for territory and hunting rights. The other beasts are mindless animals.

And, the virus did this to you?

If you are referring to the change, then yes.

Interesting...

For most beasts, they only get size and strength, but for a select few, they seem to also gain intelligence. I wonder if this is like the mutants and the changed, where the strong willed gained abilities, and the weak willed turned into the mindless horde. Although it seems like the mindless beasts had less unity than the mutants. They are occasionally in packs, but only as their previous form dictates. Wolves are more likely to be in packs with each other than squirrels, after all.

The talking without talking thing was getting a bit weird, so I tried speaking out loud, and in my mind at the same time.

“Why did you help me?”

You gave off the feeling of another alpha, a smart beast, yet you looked like a human. I was curious.

for some reason at that moment, the shock of remembering what happened to my brother shot through my body.

“Thank you for your help, but I really need to see if my brother is okay, I have to go see if there are any other surviving changed from the camp.”

Your... family?

“Well, only my brother. My parents died soon after the outbreak.”

You are too weak. You will only die.

“Then... can you guide me there?”

Jasmine shook her head.

If I leave, then my territory will be taken over by the gorilla Bobo.

“Then what should I do?”

I will train you. You will become strong. You will fight Bobo with me after you are strong, then you go home.

I smiled “Thank you, but I don’t think I can get very strong, I don’t have a very useful ability, after all.”

Jasmine pointed with her nose towards my hands.

Sharp claws, strong fur, smart mind. You are alpha. Alpha’s are strong.

Claws?

I look down to see that my fingernails were replaced with claws, about three inches long.

How did I not notice that?

My hand instantly shot towards my hair, to find out that my red hair had grown a couple more inches in the time I’d been talking. As soon as my hand moved, I realised how fast I was, my hand had flashed towards my hair in a fraction of a second.

“What do you mean, strong fur?” I asked Jasmine, I didn’t seem to be growing any fur

Hair, it grows long, strong enough to block my claws.

Holy crap, my ability isn’t long hair, it’s becoming an animal.