I took the last puff from the blunt I had rolled up moments ago while standing on the ledge of a bridge high above the water. It was in the dead of night, and the rural town of Faytvill was too poor to afford any street lights to illuminate the length of the bridge. The only source of light came from the burning weed, a painkiller to help me with the finale I had been planning since my car’s engine burst into a ball of flames.
Ever since birth, I’d felt like a burden. I couldn’t tell you who instilled those feelings into me. Maybe it was my neglectful mother or my deadbeat alcoholic father, or maybe the fact I never had any friends, or how both my siblings abandoned the family only to end up in prison or an insane asylum. The writing was on the wall since I opened my eyes. I just couldn’t accept it until now.
Like everyone who grows up in a dysfunctional household, you try your best to make a name for yourself. Whether it be through college to get a degree, which I tried but couldn’t complete and ended up with $40,000 in debt, or through a lucky break by fleeing those who made your life a living hell. I tried that one too, buying a used car for $3,000 but the engine seized. With the money I had left from the loan I took out for college, I took the old hunk of junk to a mechanic who promised he could fix it for cheaper than buying another used car. Thousands of dollars were gone and still the same result, an ill-fitting head gasket that wasn’t sealed on properly allowed the oil to escape. It finally gave out after I ignored the problem long enough for it to explode. If only the explosion could have left me in that dried-up metal coffin, but instead I survived with nothing but a bag of weed I had purchased with what was left in my savings and a pocket knife I bought for self-defense.
It had been so long since I’d been high. I’d tried going sober and had gone through three weeks of hellish withdrawals after smoking every day of every hour for years on end. I stopped because I thought I could change my life around. You hear about it in so many stories of people who beat their addiction only to become successful afterward. No one tells you about those who stop, only to find themselves in the same rut they were in when they started. I imagine most of them give up and go back to their addictions or end up killing themselves.
I couldn’t help, but smile at the predicament I found myself in, staring at the dark waters below me. I knew the fall wasn’t far enough to kill me. Luckily, I had the knife, its serrated blade sharp enough to cut through my thin pale skin. Flipping its black blade out from the handle it was sheathed in, I closed my eyes and slashed a couple of red ribbon scars horizontally across my wrists. I had dreamt about this moment in my sleep which I suppose prepared me for this moment.
Seconds flew by and I began to lose my balance from the loss of blood. Slowly, I tipped my weightless body over the edge and fell in slow motion. The bridge faded as I plunged into the cool depths below me. Sinking deeper and deeper, the rushing river carried my body across the bank. I wasn’t sure what to expect in the afterlife. Here in the South, there is a lot of talk about almighty God and Heaven. Even if paradise did exist, I wasn’t sure I wanted to end up there. It would have to be an awfully big, crowded place to fit all the billions of people that had died in the past.
No, I wanted to go somewhere that didn’t have anybody. A nice quiet nothingness. That sounded like the perfect place for me, a place with no noise, no conversations with myself, and no burdens to hold onto.
Why didn’t I do this sooner?
As I continued to float downstream, I noticed something swimming in the water. At first, I thought it was a large fish coming to see who was making a mess in their river, but as the figure approached, I realized it was much bigger than any fish I had ever seen. I groaned to myself in frustration. If it was a person coming to save me, they were wasting their time. That’s the last thing I wanted to do, waste someone’s time. Just let me die, please.
Is that too much to ask?
My eyes widened when the figure reached out with its long scaly arms, its sharp claws grabbing my shirt, pulling me closer to its hideous reptilian snout. It opened its mouth to reveal several rows of pointed serrated teeth and proceeded to chomp down on my left arm and waist. I was paralyzed by the shock of its biting force and lay limp within its jaws.
The hulking creature thrashed me around in the waters, turning to swim back from whence it came, its prehensile lizard tail helped to propel its weight through the river as it swam toward a tunnel connected to the sewer network that ran beneath all of Faytvill.
Pulling itself up from the water and into the entrance of the sewers, the creature walked on all fours along the narrow mouth of the tunnels until it could stand upright on its theropod-like hind legs as it entered the extensive labyrinthian maze properly. As a kid, I had been fascinated by the underbelly of the city and spent some days exploring the sewer network, but I always kept close enough to the manhole I had originally crawled in from to avoid getting lost. Stories of alligators lurking in the dark both frightened and excited me, but I could never muster the courage to try and find one on my own.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The beast’s drool dripped along my wounds, coating the cuts with its thick saliva. I was dumbfounded by the fact that I was still alive despite everything that had happened. A sentiment the beast seemed to share as it loosened its grasp on me from the iron-tight grip it had on me in its jaws. I fell into its broad forearms, its claws clasping around my shoulders and legs.
“You’re still kicking?” The beast spoke to me for the first time, its voice raspy, yet oddly feminine.
At first, I didn’t register what it had said, I was still in awe at the fact I had somehow been rescued from what appeared to be an ancient dinosaur. Perhaps I had died and found myself in the underworld. How naive of me to think that only humans appeared in the afterlife. If the saying all dogs go to Heaven was true, why couldn’t dinosaurs?
“Shit, if I don’t kill you now, the transformation probably will, after all, you look pretty weak.” The creature seemed to have a moral dilemma on whether or not it should put me out of my misery. “Damn, I hate killing people like this, why couldn’t you have just been dead already?”
“There’s one!” I could hear the sound of some local hillbilly shouting at the top of his lungs followed by the crackling of bullets piercing the air. Without warning the creature dropped me onto the hard cement floor beneath us, slipping into the dirty green waters running through the sewer’s waterway. Above me, the beast vanished into the darkness as its assailants continued to pursue it.
Floating helpless, I watched as the beast’s saliva began to heal the bite marks and cuts along my skin until a scaly patch had formed over the bloody wounds. I was amazed to find that I could still move, albeit with immense pain shooting through my limbs. I was able to push past it, however, and pull myself out of the murky waters back onto land. My legs were shaky as I found my footing, but I continued to limp away from the sound of the hunters as they chased the monster through its hideout.
Despite my best attempts to stay mobile, the spine-splitting pain became too much for me to bear any longer, and I collapsed against the wall, stumbling to the ground. I watch in horror as the bones in my arms contorted and twisted. My wrists broke apart, bending my fingers into gnarled claws as my fingernails fused with my skin.
The metamorphosis I was undergoing extended to my legs as each of my kneecaps rapidly inverted disfiguring my legs. My spine continued to extend past my rear, creating a malformed tail that grew longer with each agonizing second that passed. I realized whatever the beast had done was causing me to transform into a similar version of it. While I hadn’t feared for my life when I decided to end it by slitting my wrists and falling into the water, I was now terrified more than ever to die a slow, torturous death.
From the darkness, I witnessed another band of hunters pass by, turning the corner of the narrow sewer walkway to find me undergoing a horrendous change. They seemed to take pleasure in my pain as they approached. Whether they were from the same hunting party that had chased the reptilian monster away or a new one, I wasn’t sure.
“P-p-please...” I begged them to help me. I didn’t know how they could help me, but I was in delirium, barely in control of my thoughts and bodily functions.
A balding, potbellied hick wearing a sweat-stained tank top underneath his blue overalls raised the double-barrel shotgun he was carrying to my head, “I’ll git ya some hel’ rite ‘ere.” He let out a sickening laugh, his finger teasing the trigger.
I closed my eyes and waited for the bang, but a sudden roar from behind the hunters turned their attention away from me. Out from the pitch blackness, the creature who had rescued me from a watery grave burst from the water, descending upon the rednecks. I opened my eyes to witness the monster tearing the flesh off the limbs of its newly found prey in an instant, leaving nothing but blood and bones behind. The creature burped after it had consumed its last meal before turning to me. Its eyeless face smiled down at me as it leaned over to pick my trembling body up off the ground.
“W-w-what did y-you do to m-me?” It took every fiber in my body to get the words out.
“Well, I’m sure you’re familiar with the werewolf myths and legends right?” the beast shrugged with the shoulder I wasn’t hunched over. I muttered an affirmation in response, but I must have been unintelligible because the creature continued to explain.
“Similar thing, you survived my bite long enough to become infected, and if you survive long enough, you’ll mutate into a hybrid like me. Don’t worry, about losing your good looks.” The beast let out a roaring laughter. “Hybrids can shapeshift at will, switching between their human, and monster form. After a while the body adjusts to the pain, the first time shifting is always the worst.”
I wanted to ask the creature what its name was, but the process of transforming sent another surge of unbearable pain through my body.
“I suggest taking it easy until we get you some help from my broodmates,” the hybrid advised. “Alice, the wise woman of the brood, is in charge of administering a salve that will help with the final stages of the transformation. Not to scare you, or anything, but you’re still going through the first stage. It only gets worse from here.”
The hybrid let out another fit of laughter before apologizing, “Sorry, I guess I’m not really good at this sort of thing. For what it’s worth, I do hope you survive. Considering you’ve survived this long, I bet you’d be a great addition to the brood. If you survive, look for a woman named Vixy, that’s my name.”
“T-thanks.” Was all I could muster saying before falling unconscious as Vixy carried me into the long darkness.