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Billy Albion had never been particularly brave. People mistook desperation for courage all the time. They weren’t the same thing. Brave people had choices. Billy had debts.

The apartment around him looked as though somebody had tried very hard to forget it existed. Water stains spread across the ceiling. A single lamp buzzed weakly in one corner. Outside, Calder City’s rain drummed steadily against the cracked window. He sat alone on the edge of a threadbare mattress, turning the small glass vial over between trembling fingers.

The orange liquid caught the light. Beautiful. Wrong. Billy swallowed. He didn’t want to scare or hurt anyone. He just wanted Ronnie Jacobs to stop breaking his nose every Friday outside the bookmakers. He wanted his mom to stop pretending that everything was fine after his father got shot in Hudson. 

He wanted her to stop bringing home men that tried to fill that void by kicking the shit out of both of them. He just wanted to walk home without looking over his shoulder every thirty seconds.

He wanted—He laughed bitterly. Wanted. As though wanting had ever changed anything.

That’s what had brought him to El Jefe in the first place. His wanting. Billy thought being part of his crew would be temporary, thought it would be an easy bit of money. He didn’t expect this. His hand closed around the vial. When Tae had used it, the effects were instant. They were flashy and cool, like something out of a comic book. 

He glanced at his phone and the picture of the man on there. The man from the casino. The one that El Jefe wanted him to stop. 

[color=C21355]“Just once. Just for this”[/color]

The words sounded pathetic spoken aloud. He uncorked it. The smell surprised him because they were not chemical. Instead it smelled Earthy, like rain and fresh cut grass. The scent of damp woodland after a storm. For one impossible moment he was seven years old again, running through the woods with his grandfather, laughing because he’d found deer tracks in the mud.

He smiled and then drank.

Nothing happened.

Billy frowned. [color=C21355]“…that’s it?”[/color]

The warmth arrived a heartbeat later. It spread through his chest first. Pleasant and comforting, like a hot cup of cocoa or like standing a little too close to a fire. Then hotter. Much hotter. His smile disappeared.

[color=C21355]“Oh…”[/color]

The vial slipped from suddenly numb fingers. Glass shattered and the warmth soon became pain. Billy doubled over as something beneath his ribs shifted violently. A crack echoed through the apartment. His own. His spine arched backwards. Another crack. Then another.

[color=C21355]“No…”[/color]

His voice broke halfway through the word. Not emotionally. Physically. His jaw spasmed. Teeth grinding so hard he felt two molars split. His heartbeat accelerated becoming far too fast, was if it was trying to escape his chest. His skin rippled as muscles swelled beneath it, not growing larger so much as rearranging themselves. His shoulders lurched forward with a sickening pop. His arms lengthened. Fingers clawed at the floorboards as his nails thickened into black, blunt hooks.

Billy screamed.

The sound emerged wrong. Too deep. Layered beneath itself. Like another voice had tried speaking at the same time. His knees slammed into the floor. Then bent. Not forwards. Backwards. Bone pressed against skin until flesh split. Blood soaked into the threadbare carpet. He watched in horror as his own legs reformed beneath him, tendons tightening, joints twisting into an anatomy no human body had ever possessed.

[color=C21355]“I don’t want—”[/color]

His throat convulsed. The sentence dissolved into an animal cry that shook dust from the ceiling. Pressure exploded inside his skull. Billy clutched his head. Something sharp pushed outward beneath the skin of his forehead. Once. Twice. The skin tore. Bone emerged. Branching. Growing. Antlers. Not smooth, or elegant. They were jagged ivory, bursting through flesh in violent, uneven forks.

Blood streamed down his face. His vision blurred and then just as quickly sharpened. Too much. He could suddenly see every crack in the opposite wall. Every raindrop racing down the window. Every insect crawling beneath the skirting board. The apartment became unbearable. Every smell intensified. Mould. Dust. Old cooking oil. His own blood. Someone smoking three floors below. A leaking gas pipe somewhere across the street. 

Billy stumbled backwards, crashing into the wall. The impact left a crater. He barely noticed. His breathing came in frantic bursts. No. Not breathing. Scenting. His pupils stretched unnaturally until the world widened around him.

Run. The instinct arrived with terrifying clarity. Run. Nobody can corner you if they can’t catch you. Nobody can hurt you if they never reach you. Run. Billy tried to say his own name. What emerged was a guttural bellow that rattled every window in the building. Somewhere downstairs a neighbour shouted. Another door opened. Footsteps filled the air, coming closer.

Billy panicked. His body moved before thought. One bound carried him the length of the apartment. Another sent him through the window. Glass exploded into the night. For one impossible second the creature hung silhouetted against Calder’s rain-swept skyline.

Tall. Lean. Sinewy. Antlers crowned with blood.
Long, digitigrade legs absorbing the impact as it landed four storeys below without slowing. Then it ran. Not like a man.Not like a wolf. Not like anything nature had ever intended.

It flowed through alleyways in impossible bursts of speed, ricocheting from walls, clearing fences without effort, vanishing into the darkness with the terrified cries of the city echoing behind it.

Far above, unnoticed in the shattered apartment, Billy Albion’s phone vibrated one final time.

A single unread message.

[b]EL JEFE[/b]
[i]Walk your path, hijo.[/i]
The screen went dark.

No one was left to read it.