The feeling of invisible claws burrowing deep. The feeling of blood nonexistent spilling from your head, eyes, and ears. Of ripped skin never present, burns that never were.

     A demon swims through a poor woman’s veins, though she is unaware of it; only aware of the suffering that followed its arrival. She finds relief in medication. In sleep. But these, too, the demon would desecrate, ruin with the curse of insomnia and an immunity to the painkillers she leaned on.

     It vows to destroy the woman. For what does a demon do if not destroy?

     Stumbling out of her apartment, the woman runs through the heavy rain looking for someone--anyone--that could help her. Tear her apart and remove whatever lay inside her. But no one offered their help. They believed her crazy. Psychotic. Didn’t want to involve themselves in the affairs of a crazy person or an addict or whatever other caricature they made out of her performance.

     If they didn’t ignore her, they offered her pity, a sorrow she never asked for, begged for, cared for. They didn’t understand. Couldn’t. So she ran and ran and ran. Ran until her legs gave out. Ran until she wanted to faint, hoped to faint, prayed she would faint so that the demon would faint with her.

     Ran into an alleyway. Her back sliding downwards against a metal wall hidden by the shadows of night. She needed solitude. Isolation. Needed rest, even if resting gave the demon more time to plot, to sink its bloody claws further in.

     Alone in the dark, save for the flickering neon sign to the right of the alley. A lime green light advertising a ramen shop that had sat in that same spot for decades and looked as if it could fall apart. But still it stood. The city could grow, expand, stand as a technological marvel like it dreamed of doing, but some things within it would never change. 

     She wished for the same luxury. But she knew she was changing. Fast. Eaten alive from the inside, and the longer she sat there—did nothing—the faster the demon gnawed at her flesh at the same frequency as her heartbeat. 

     Faltering. Couldn’t stand up. Weak. Tired.

     Her vision: blurry, fading because she balanced on the knife’s edge between life and death. Beneath the edge lay massive leviathans that stared into her eyes and urged her to jump. She was losing grip on life, fading from reality, but she couldn’t run anymore. Let the demon sand her into the ground. Tired of fighting back.

   The demon took no pleasure in hurting the woman, nor did it feel guilt. It did what it was designed to do. What the Corporation designed it to do. A design that involved piercing her heart, a piercing that left no hole, but a viscous, purple material that spread through her heart, throughout her veins, then infected her brain. It struggled to travel through her body given its volume and mass. But the demon pushed it through. Made sure it explored every vein and artery until no blood remained. Only the unnamed purple material.

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     The woman felt every second. Tried to scream, but could not; lost control of her vocal chords. Wanted to run and flee, but had resigned control of her limbs to the demon.  Prayed to gods she did and didn’t believe in to help, but her beliefs and lack of became ashes in the wind as she faded and the demon replaced her. 

     A demon will always do what it does best: possess. Lay claim to what it can. For that’s what they were designed for.

     Silent, stoic, the woman--or the shell of her controlled by the demon—removed her back from the wall. She let out one last scream. A plea. For others to stay away. To run. A scream joined by a set of two growths emerging from her top-middle back, hatching beneath her skin. Terrible things. They broke her flesh, ripped apart the seams holding her body together. Continued growing. Two protrusions: one on the left, one on the right, both emerging with the same speed, both taking the form of jagged crystals that cut and scraped and ripped at her skin.

     Hopeless, if hope was a concept the dead could feel. Broken, if the dead can be broken.

     As these crystals grew, so, too, did the volume of her unending scream. The pain in it deafened those nearby. Suffering that none around her could understand, nor would they try to. Too dangerous. But some stopped by, watched this woman writhe in agony, yet too scared to step in, intervene, get help.

     But like the trees and grass paved over by the city, the wings stopped growing. The crystals ceased. Relief. Sweet relief. 

     Until they shattered.

     Until the crystals broke apart and revealed a transformation so horrid yet so beautiful.

     What hid under the crystals: wings made of an unknown substance, the same unnamed substance that erased the woman and let the demon take control. Wings that took the form of angel wings made of material that beamed with a metallic glow. Encasing the cursed, blessed wings was a layer of colors, almost ethereal, holographic in nature. Pulses of yellow and red and blue ran across the purple wings. Beautiful colors paid for with the woman’s eyes, colors drained from them and turned a smoky gray.

     The colors made the once-physical wings look almost digital. Clusters of 1’s and 0’s come together, made visible.

     Those who peeked into the alley saw those wings. Wings that appeared to glitch like a TV screen would glitch. As If the wings hadn’t yet grown to their full potential; needed more time.

Many of the onlookers ran. Most knew what they witnessed, wanted to be as far as possible. Some stayed, either paralyzed out of fear or curious about the spectacle in front of them.

All of the ones that stayed were new to the city. Why else would they stay? Why else would they watch the birth of a Watcher?

     Those that stayed saw the Watcher’s wings flap, as if it wanted to run, fly away. But it saw those who stared its way.. Saw the bystanders. Saw those who looked upon it in horror. 

     And so it made examples of them. Flayed them. Used its wings to decapitate, stab, tear. An infant Watcher learning how to kill, how to use the gifts granted to it.

     The once-gray metallic wall turned red, covered in blood. Heads and arms and organs and other viscera littered the alley. The demon left no one alive, spared no one. Was in its nature, to kill and maim. To make an example of those who refused to accept the horrors of the city. To kill those that refused to move on. For that is what it was designed to do.

     Those beautiful, terrifying digitized wings took flight. Joined the other Watchers that watched the city from the skies. A metamorphosis complete.