Monster
Kat's POV.

SIX YEARS LATER.

Six years in this hell hole. Six fucking years in my little cage with very limited human interaction, one weekly shower and, some brown sludge they call food. I haven’t felt Sikari since the first day here. I wonder what happened to her when I locked her away.

I’m tied to the usual chair he uses. The fucker is cutting me on my stomach with his favorite knife. It hurts a little, but nothing I can’t handle, or often feel. I’ve been cut and burned so many times that my nerve endings have stopped working. I don’t know why the fucker doesn’t realize that. I’m deformed as fuck, from all the broken bones and beatings.

“What are you?” I start to laugh. Pretty sure I’ve gone insane.

“Is that all you got," I ask. "Come on. Where’s the good stuff?” A punch to the face. “Fucking bitch. WHAT ARE YOU?”

He cuts my face from my forehead to my chin, deep and slowly and I feel the skin break and the blood trickle down my face. Well, that’s going to leave a scar. It can join all the others spread all over my fucking body. I’m one big ass scar.

I actually enjoy the pain. I don’t know when that started to happen, but I’m glad. It keeps my mind off Sikari, and it makes me stubborn as hell. Besides, I’m pretty sure no matter how hard I tried, I wouldn’t be able to shift into Sikari. She’s not there anymore.

“Wow, going for the face you fucker? You’re getting creative. Good for you.”

He screams and punches me in the face with his brass knuckles and I hear the familiar crack of a bone breaking. My emotions shut down years ago. I don’t feel anything. I’m hollow and it suits me just fine.

The fucker throws the knife and brass knuckles at the wall and stomps back to his fucking table, bringing out the blowtorch. It brings back memories. When he used to burn the soles of my feet, I would get sent into a cage with other shifters. Wolves, still in their human form, who haven’t caved yet, or the poor ones who have shifted permanently and lost their humanity and gone feral.

The cage made me strong. Fast reflexes and aim. It was a death match. Only one walked out of the cage. They haven’t sent me there in about a year I think, and I miss it. I lost my humanity years ago, so I didn’t flinch when I killed. The first year was tough, but I learned it. It was killing them quickly or watching them get tortured.

The fuckers voice snaps me back in the moment. “Take this.”

He fires up the torch and starts to burn the soles on my feet. At this point, it’s just an annoying sting, and it makes me laugh. I don’t know why but when I feel just a little pain, I laugh. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I FEEL something instead of nothing.

Time to play. “Aww thanks honey. I needed that.” He roars, but it only makes me laugh harder. The wall opposite me is one big mirror. The fucker put it in years ago. Apparently, he thinks, when you see yourself in pain, it will be worse. Asshole.

I look at my reflection and see the blood running down my face, into my eye and mouth. It makes me look insane. But who gives a fuck. The fucker turns off the blowtorch and sighs.

“I give up. I can’t make you do anything. You should have given in and shifted years ago, but you haven’t, so you are of no use to me anymore. I mean look at you...” He makes a motion towards the mirror.

I see my deformed self, covered in blood and bruises and I give him a toothless grin. He shakes his head and sighs again. “I’ll put you out of your misery and feed you to the dogs.” He’s about to cut my throat when out of nowhere, I feel a surge of power and a woman’s voice booms in my head.

“NOO.” Losing control over my body, my bones crack and start to shift into Sikari. That hurts like a motherfucker! “Sikari, noo.” I’m doing everything I can to prevent it, but it’s no use. The restraints breaks and she stands tall in the room.

“We’re ending this now!” Now? Why now and not six years ago?Before the fucker and the guards can react, she rips off the guard’s heads. When she’s about to rip off the fucker’s head, I stop her.

“No Sikari. The fucker is MINE!" I growl and change back into my deformed self.

The fucker is lying on the floor, fear painted on his face. And here I stand, in all my deformed glory, smirking. I know that I have to hurry, but damn, I would have loved to torture the fucker. Grabbing his favorite knife, I turn to face him.

“On your knees.”

“No please...”

“ON YOUR FUCKING KNEES!” He gets on his knees, holding his bloodied face, shaking in fear “Please don’t…” I look at him with dead, emotionless eyes. The kneeling fucker before me is crying like a child. I point the knife in my hand at him.

“Give me one fucking reason why I should let you live?” He looks up at me, pleading, but all I feel is rage and disgust… and a smug sense of happiness. “I... I can be better. I... I will quit and move away...I’ll never…”

What a load of bullshit!

In one quick swift move, I cut his throat just like I've learned and done many, many times before.

“Doubt it.”

Sikari sniggers. “Feel better?”

” Much better. Now, where the fuck have you been? I... I missed you” Even though I only knew her for a couple of hours before I locked her away, it felt like a part of me was ripped away.

“You pushed me so far down that I couldn’t come back. So, I've been waiting. When he was about to kill you, you put your guard down for just a second and I could get through. And it feels good. Now, let’s get out of here.”

“Right. Let me just look at the fucker while he dies.” Turning around, I watch him slowly bleeding out on the floor, and when he’s dead, I sigh in relief. This is a dream come true. Seeing this fucker die somehow sets me free. I don’t know if it’s hope I’m feeling, but it’s something.

“Feel better now?”

Smiling, I nod. “You have no idea.”

She sniggers. “It’s nice to have you back, you know,” I say.

“It’s good to be back. And thank you for protecting me.”

“No problem.” Well, a little. I walk over to the dead guy and start to undress him. “Ahem. You're not in any state to fight. Let me take over” That makes me stubborn as hell. “Yes, I am!”

“Look at yourself. You can’t fight, so let me take over. At least for a while.” I know she’s right, but I hate to admit it. I couldn’t fight, if my life depended on it. I’m to deformed and my muscles feels weak as fuck, but I’ve missed it so much.

“Fine,” I say. She sniggers again, making me roll my eyes. Then she shifts into her tiger form, and I take a short look in the mirror

“Holy fuck. You’ve changed!” I’m big and black with orange glowing stripes that look like they're made of lava. And I’m on fucking fire. I fucking love it.

“Loxi changed me to fit you. Your soul has evolved into something else, so I had to evolve with you.” That makes sense.

“Who is this Goddess, Loxi? With all the people I’ve killed, I get that I belong in hell but who is she?”

“I’ll tell you all about her later, but we need to get the hell out of here!”

“Right” We start running and I feel her power and strength and I swell in it. It’s been so long since I felt this way.

Barreling through the halls, we rip our way through every guard and scientist in the facility. We even eat some of them which I don’t mind. With all the beatings I’ve taken, I have gotten used to the taste of blood, and I like it in some fucked up way.

When we’ve killed everyone, we shift back to my deformed self. I already feel some improvement. “That’s because, every time I shift back, I can put some of your bones properly together.”

“That’s fucking cool… Thanks.”

“Well, we need to put you back together to your former self” That makes me grin. I can’t fucking wait.

I replace a dead guard and strip him of his clothes. It’s way too big for me so I rip up his t-shirt, use it as a belt, fold up the pant legs, and replace another t-shirt to wear. Then I start to search the facility as quickly as I can. I replace 35 kids in what I guess is between 10 and 20 years old. It doesn’t surprise me because I’ve fought them in all ages in the cage. I also replace about 40 feral wolves who I kill on the spot. Being feral is the worst thing that can happen to a wolf, so I put them out of their misery. No need to suffer anymore.

What the fuck. Am I already getting soft?

Sikari sniggers. “I highly doubt that.”

The kids look at me in horror, but they still follow me which pisses me off. Six years of hell without human interaction will do that to you. I just want to be alone and get out of here. I don’t know if there is some alarm going off, alerting other hunters that the facility is under attack, or some shit like that. We gather clothes and weapons in different duffel bags. We also replace some money and car keys that we divide among us. I don’t want a car, so I give mine to someone else. I’ll let Sikari lead me away from here because I need a long fucking nap.

“So, where are you going,” a small group of kids ask me. For fucks sake! “Away from this fucking place”

“Can... Can we come with you," they ask.

I sigh. “No. Go with one of the older ones” I hurry away from them and replace the exit. As soon as I open the door, the sun stings my eyes so bad that it hurts.“ARGH, FUCKING...FUCK.” Sikari somehow fixes my eyes so that it doesn’t hurt so much, and it has an orange kind of tint to it. I’m in some sort of deserted field surrounded by trees. Thank fuck.

Moments after we shift into her, some of the kids come out the door. Some of them scream in shock, others in fear. We roar at them to make sure that they’re not going to follow us, pick up the bag with our teeth, and start running.

Finally alone. I don’t know how long we’ve been running, but I feel my legs hurting, so I slow down and shift back. Slumping down on the forest floor, I sigh.

“I felt it, you know?”

“What the fuck do you mean,” I ask “Your pain. Every single beating, every single slice of the knives, the burns…” I clench my jaw. The last thing I want to think about now is the torture I just escaped from. “Just wanted you to know that you’re not alone.”

“Hm... oh by the way, WHERE THE HELL WAS LOXI THIS WHOLE TIME?”

“She couldn’t get to you because you locked me away, but when you were about to die, you let your guard down for just a moment and then she used all of her powers to push me through."

“Well, that’s something, I guess. But I wanted to die. I wanted it to end. Then you came and rescued me and now I feel... Hope I think.” It’s weird. Feeling. I haven’t felt anything in years.

Tired as fuck, I lay down on the ground to rest. Just a little nap and then we will continue to run. Continue our journey. See where the road takes us. If we can get a somewhat normal life. Living in peace, preferably by ourselves. A nice quiet life.