The Judge

  The bottle broke against her skull. Feet stamped on her, forcing her into the cold concrete. Her ears rang, her nose broke, and she could feel teeth rattling around in her mouth.

  Her dress was dirtied, her makeup had become ruined streaks trailing down her face. One of the skinheads pulled her hair, forcing her head up, before slamming it down into a puddle under a sewer pipe. They jeered at her, harsh laughter ringing out.

  As she lay there, her face in a pool of sewage, men taking enjoyment in her pain, she felt her heart beating harder. It felt like it was trying to leap out of her ribcage, making it hard to breath. She could hear her blood rushing through her body. Her head swam, her vision grew cloudy.

  She had never wanted to be pretty. She’d only wanted to be brave. To be powerful.

  A thrum echoed through her body, and a new ache began at her heart. It beat harder. Her ears were filled with the sound of its beat, like a liquid drum echoing through her head. Her veins cried out in agony as they stuck out against her skin. Her eyes became bloodshot; her skin flushed red.

  A new sound reached her, a combination of cracking bones and crackling static. Her vision was filled with sparks, and glowing lights shot across her eyes. Her head pounded. It reached a crescendo, where her beating heart became one with the fierce sparking in her head. Her blood was filled with lightning as her mind became a roaring inferno.

  The brutes noticed the change when her skin began to bubble. Wherever her blood flowed, her skin simmered. It expanded into red, engorged lumps, which started rupturing, revealing strange crystalline growths. They tore their way out of her skin, like knives ripping through paper. Her whole body was covered by them. Even her eyes did not escape the change, but instead of being torn apart, they instead changed, now looking like they were made of glass.

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  She rose in her new form, not one of flesh and blood, but one of crystal and power. The men were frozen by fear. The woman, who had been unable to fight back just moments before, had undergone a terrifying metamorphosis. She stood there, covered in the viscera of her old form, and glared at them. Then, their once-victim went on the attack.

  There were three men in total, but they were no match for her. She grabbed the first one by the face, the one that had forced her face into that foul-smelling water and forced her power into him. He jittered in place like a marionette in the hands of a child, before collapsing into a twitching mess. His face became stuck in a grimace, covered by cuts and burns.

  The next one snapped out of his hesitation before she got to him and attempted to attack her with a pipe. It broke on her body, and then she was on him. She pulled his arms above his head, in anticipation of shoving her hand into his gut. He screamed as electricity coursed through his body, causing him to feel like someone had taken a chainsaw to his innards. She dropped him like the waste of flesh he is, before moving on to the final one.

  This boy, for he was too young to be a man, simply stood in a puddle of his own urine, fear covering his features. She rested her hands on the side of his head and looked into his eyes. She saw fear, fear of death, fear of pain, fear caused by the being in front of him, but she could not find regret or shame. Guilty, she decided, as power cascaded through her hands.

  The next day, a few bodies were placed in the city morgue. These bodies were covered in lacerations and severe electrical burns. The coroner said that the men had suffered for hours before they died. The only evidence they had was the torn skin and pool of blood belonging to an unknown woman. No new evidence was found, and it became another cold case.