Chapter 2 : 

ᕦ⁠⊙/⁠╲⁠/⁠\/⁠\⁠╱⁠\ NEW DAWN🌕 /⁠╲⁠/⁠\⁠/⁠\⁠╱⁠\⊙⁠ᕤ

“The baby is out.”

“And it’s alive,” the woman spoke in excitement.

“Let me see it,” the man, my father, spoke.

“Wait!” I tried to force the word out. “Let me see…”

I tried again, but no one gave me any attention.

“What gender is the beast?”

“What?” I breathed out.

For a moment, the midwives were quiet.

“It’s a boy,” she said, so fast you could almost miss the words.

The footsteps receded.

Immediately, I woke up.

“Uurrgh…”

I was in pain. I sniffed and sobbed. I was battered. I gathered my strength and rose for my child.

“Restrain her,” I heard from afar, so sharp.

I didn’t mind. I was going for my child.

A gasp escaped me before I could process it.

“What…? What…? No… no…”

I was beginning to heal. I could feel myself piecing together inside as I looked.

Footsteps.

I caught them immediately.

Then a woman came.

Memories flooded in spontaneously.

Incantations.

“Arsiers.”

“Huh… what? Something’s happening.”

I tried to explain. I felt so nauseous, dizzy, uncomfortable. I was precisely heating up inside, outside on my skin.

“Princess… you need to run now!” she commanded.

The woman shook. She was so frightened.

“Why?”

She held me. I tried to wave her off, but I staggered.

Crack.

“Arrrgh! My bones!”

I cried harder this time.

My bones began breaking, but I resisted. I felt overwhelming power bursting inside me. I was heating up, and whatever was happening, whatever this power was, I was going to get my child.

I rose to my feet because I had fallen.

“Look at me, Arsiers. You need to change. Let it in.”

“Let what in?” I questioned.

“I need my child. My baby. And whatever this is, I’m going to get my baby…”

Crack.

It happened again.

All over my body.

“…with it,” I completed my sentence.

Soldiers flooded in.

“Change now!” she screamed as they took me.

My father’s soldiers.

Why?

This many just for me?

A hand grabbed me, and I looked at them both, flitting my face from one to the other and then to the rest.

My rage grew.

Oh, it grew.

Like a lady a man has long missed, I grabbed onto that rage.

My body jolted.

The men fell.

More came in to pin me down.

My body jolted again.

It sprinted.

It broke.

It readjusted.

It broke again.

I landed on all fours on the ground.

I heated up.

My photoreceptors changed.

Magnificent.

So clear.

Blue.

I could see so clearly, brightly…

Then it changed back again.

My photoreceptors flitted between normal and something I couldn’t explain or understand, while my body broke and changed gradually.

The men flew back, shouting like they couldn’t believe what was happening.

They stood in terror, while some kept their stance for any possible attack.

I breathed hard, my voice raspy and dry as I shouted and screamed.

The pain was unbearable.

For God’s sake, I’m a woman and a daughter!

Where is my father?

I heated up until it was instantaneously, spontaneously…

I had changed.

I let out a loud howl, so strong the men shook.

I felt a hunger like never before.

A strong hunger.

Just to tear.

And keep tearing.

Like nothing else mattered.

But there was something.

That something mattered a lot.

Yet the hunger was strong, as if it was my goal.

I had two goals in this new mind of mine:

To tear.

And to take.

Whatever was stolen from me.

And I leaped.

It was so powerful and fast.

Like a thread, I snapped, and darkness swarmed.

It was contradicting.

I saw, but I saw darkness, while I continued to tear through raging men and wailing men as they ran.

And I took their pace.