Chương 171: Unravelling Beast

Torv leaned against a corpse, his transformed hand clutching his stomach. His innards were pouring out. His eyes widened further than ever before; it felt like they were going to climb out of their sockets. His mother, the Matriarch, had told him stories of Flesh-Shapers when he was young… Stories from her youth, stories that Torv thought were embellished to keep his young and troublesome self and friends in line — he was wrong… he was so, so entirely wrong.

His thoughts rushed through his mind, but simultaneously felt like they were grinding against his inner skull like a rusted saw blade. Humans never truly accepted Lycans, but there was a time, long ago in his youth where he didn't have to live on the run. He raised a claw up above his face; his vision was darkening.

'This is what they were terrified of!?' Torv's eyes slid past his claw to an unravelling child — a beast, no… a monster. Regardless, he felt… pity?

'Why do I feel pity? It… he is killing us!?' His vision began to blur; he couldn't tell if the substance obscuring his sight was his tears — or his own blood.

'Was he going easy on us?' The sides of his face creaked up into a pitiable smile; his ear had been ripped off, along with a portion of his skin. His fate was sealed. There was no saving the dead. He would laugh if he could, but he feared that any sort of jolting movement would send his innards out.

'Hoh, I miss the old times — I miss when the Matriarch was still my mother…' Was this the same feeling of abandonment that his left kin had felt? Did he deserve this?

'I do… deserve this fate.' Svan cried out and flew across Torv's vision. His kin's cries hurt him more than his own wounds. Orri, Vermund… they had already died, helplessly. As if a repulsive insect were near, Torv adamantly averted his gaze from where his brothers were killed; simply observing it would only make it more real that it was. They were all Aspirants; they stood no chance against a Dreamer, a Flesh-Shaper nonetheless, but- 'Why isn't it… Why isn't he transforming like the tales Mother told us?'

Torv glanced to the side and saw the pulped flesh of his brethren, making his heart skip a beat; he clenched his claws around his innards and used the sudden shock to push them back in, ignoring the blinding pain. It was not a remedy for his condition; it simply made his fate less agonizing. He narrowed his eyes, wiping the blood from his brow with his forearm, only spreading it further with his matted fur. Torv tried to let out a defeated sigh, but in the end, all that came out was a bloody, mucus-filled wheeze.

He tried to remember better times, times when the pain wasn't hurting; he recalled the past, how his transformed form was coveted by many of his kin. He was quite the stud in his youth… Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. His eyes darkened.

'My son would have been the same age as that Flesh-Shaper…' Torv mustered his strength and stood up. Even if he wasn't transformed, he would dwarf the little Dreamer, but since he was in his lycan form, he stood closer to 8ft tall, towering over the tiny Flesh-Shaper. The old lycan stumbled over to the Flesh-Shaper; his head was hung, one of his claws held up high, like a student raising their hand for a teacher to call on them; his other claw failed to hold in his spilling organs.

Geirolf charged the Flesh-Shaper; his battle cry came out as a snarl. The young lycan lunged at the Dreamer, pinning him to the ground and trying to bite into his neck.

'How did it come to this… children fighting children.' Torv stumbled over, hovering over Geirolf and the little Flesh-Shaper, both seemingly of the same age. The young Flesh-Shaper ignored Torv standing over him, but the old lycan saw it in his eyes; he stared through Geirolf, with an unbridled fury nestled within. Every chance the young Dreamer got, he would begin travelling towards the center like a moth to a flame. If he was simply left alone, if he simply got what he wanted, he would leave…

His kin could live if they let him go… Torv tried to speak; he tried to say stop, but only whispers left his tongue. The sight around him disgusted him, and he had nothing to say; he himself played a part in the carnage tonight.

'All for our kin…' He was starting to doubt that phrase the Matriarch used: 'All for our kin?' The old man stood above his kin, a child, fighting another desperate child. He didn't want to look behind him, where Orri, Vermund, lay dead. If the fight stopped, at least Geirolf and Svan would live.

'Better alive with scars than dead in the ground… mother used to say that.' Geirolf cried out; the young Dreamer began biting the lycan back, a crude irony. Torv's eyes widened; the young Dreamer started crying too. Dozens of gnarled teeth began sprouting through his lips and gums, piercing through his flesh and biting into Geirolf. His rows of teeth began shifting around, some dislodging and getting stuck in the young lycan, others digging in deeper, trying to rip further into his flesh.

"S..." The word came out as a hiss; his sudden sense of horror intensified; what he saw in front of him was more terrifying than his mother's tales — it was more real than them. His instincts screamed at him. He NEEDED to say something; he needed to say something before it was too late. The young Dreamer was unravelling.

"S-SHTOP!" He fell to his knees, his hands let go of his wound, letting his innards spill out endlessly, and he prostrated himself on his hands.

"PLEASE STOP! WE SURRENDER!" To his surprise, the sounds of visceral gnawing stopped at his plea. Torv looked up and met the rabid gaze of the Flesh-Shaper; his gnarled teeth were still stuck in Geirolf. They looked at each other for what felt like forever; the fury in young Dreamer's eyes didn't fade. The Flesh-Shaper raised his hands to his face and slung his fingers into the nooks of his cheeks. CRICK He tore his jaw off its hinge, leaving it stuck in Geirolf's shoulder. Then he…

no, it stood up, gazed at Torv once more with pitiless eyes, then staggered off without a word.