V – 00003.6 – Personal Space.

  Rising to my feet, I pushed away from the comfortable sofa and lit a cigarette as I walked toward the staff room's exit, my ears twitching at the soft sound of breaths on the other side of the door.

  Inhaling deeply on the cancer stick, I rubbed the bridge of my nose with my fingers and opened the door, revealing a small group of teens with their ears pressed against the wall—eavesdropping in perhaps the most cartoonish fashion imaginable. I would’ve laughed at how Goonies-esque the situation was if it didn’t fill me with a terrible rage that they were listening in on my conversation.

  I stepped forward, closing the distance between me and the boy closest to the door in an instant. Twisting, I threw out a backhand—my knuckles hammering into and dragging across his jaw, bouncing his skull off the wall just as he tried to stand up from his kneeling position.

  The teens recoiled, stumbling several steps away in all directions before grabbing at their makeshift weapons. Their fear was palpable in their wary expressions as they stared at me—baseball bats, pipes, and knives subtly trembling in their hands as they took in my monstrous majesty.

  My eyes scanned back and forth, taking in the sight of the group trying to stand their ground against me.

  "You should run," I said dryly, just as one of the boys seemed to gather his courage—his face rapidly flicking through every emotion except understanding—before charging at me. He sprinted forward in a way that felt almost lazy, his bat swinging high, intent on smashing my skull in.

  My arm flashed out, blocking the bat with such force that the aluminium bent around my forearm before being wrenched from his hands and skittering away. With an explosion of motion, my hands were on his collar, lifting him and hurling his body skyward—he slammed into the ceiling with a thud before entering free fall.

  I was on the others before he even hit the ground.

  With a colossal leap, the distance between me and the next boy vanished. My hands raised high, I slammed them down onto his shoulders, making his legs buckle as I smashed him into the floor like a wild animal. He yelped as I hammered him into the tile like an uneven nail.

  Kicking off the ground into another jump, I tensed my body, twisting and flipping through the air in a wide arc. Picking up momentum and speed, my clawed toes shredded the clothing and shoulders of the girl behind me—just before my weight impacted her. I heard as much as felt her shoulders snap and break under the collision as I rode her into the ground.

  Grabbing her throat, I lifted her up and slammed her down on her back, knocking the wind from her lungs. I snarled and screamed in her face, spittle flying from my fangs.

  "Why didn’t you run? Why did you make me do this?"

  She gagged and choked against my grip, struggling to breathe and force out her words as her eyes became bloodshot and her face reddened. “W… we just wanted to see the humanoid monster,” she choked out, her voice a hoarse, wretched thing, as she desperately tried to appease my rage.

  Throwing her down on the floor, I heard her gasp futilely, trying to refill her traumatized lungs as I walked away from the floored teens. I grabbed the nearest dark-colored clothes that looked like they would fit me before spitting out a viscous glob of spit and leaving the clothing store behind me.

  Looking up to the sky, I screamed, my voice a desperate, animalistic howl, a wordless scream of frustration and pent-up emotion as I stalked deeper into the cityscape that disgusted me.

  “Why are they always like this…? Why can’t they just leave us alone?” I mumbled as I kept walking aimlessly, trying to keep a lid on my simmering emotions that seemed to constantly threaten to control me, to make me a hostage of the monster inside.

  Shuffling through the streets, I ignored the occasional person I stumbled past, silently appreciating the wide berth and simultaneously disdainful of the lack of excuses they gave me, until my magical senses tingled, a gentle wave of mana pressed itself into my aura, and I looked up, tracking the current of energy as it bounced off me and back into a man wearing an APD S.W.A.T. uniform.

  I watched his aged and weary face twist as he seemed to stare through me; emotions seemed to bloom on his face, ending in a mixed state between shock and confusion, and then he seemed to realize I was staring at him.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “What the hell are you?” he said quietly, his voice coming easily to my enhanced senses.

  “Forget you saw me.” I said it loudly enough for my voice to easily cross the distance before I started shuffling down the street.

  I heard his breath pick up slightly as I turned away from him, and I sighed internally as I heard him turning to face me again and call out.

  “Stop where you are; under the current martial law, you cannot exit the city, and any persons above level 3 are required to remain within the barracks and cooperate with law enforcement and the military.”

  Loathe as I was to obey any kind of order given by the police, I did indeed stop; twisting on my heels, I felt my claws scraping the paving stones. “How the fuck do you know what level I am?” I almost growled, my voice escaping in a low, venomous tone.

  Taking a few steps towards the officer, I watched his hands dart down to his gun. “Stop right there. Being level five won’t protect you from a forty-five, even if you put every point in vitality.” He sounded confident in his weapon and absolutely certain as his aim steadied on me.

  I considered the cop’s words and knew he was probably right. If birdshot could penetrate my skin, then a bullet from what I was pretty sure was a 1911 would definitely hurt. Stopping a good ten meters away from the officer, I pulled inward and subtly smiled as I felt my core cycle to life—the cold I’d become accustomed to once again invading my chest as the engine of my greatest strength responded with a deathly roar in my soul.

  “Answer me, you fucking pig. How do you know what level I am?”

  The man scowled, levelled his gun at my chest, and cocked it.

  “I know a lot about you, Mr. Bloodstone. I know your level, your class… I even know that you’re somehow still considered human.”

  I raised an eyebrow and cocked my head toward the cop in an animalistic show of curiosity.

  “I’m going to torture you for what I want if you don’t feel like being civil and answering me.”

  The copper’s left eye twitched subtly as his expression turned grim.

  “You don’t scare me, you fucking freak. I know exactly what you are—just some aberrant with a few system titles that turned you into a mutie. We’ve seen it before… even if the ‘Legacy Beast’ thing is new.”

  Moments after the words left his lips, I watched as my system screen forced itself open.

  I stared at the messages as they scrolled across my interface, my thoughts a maelstrom as the cacophony of voices in my mind—seemingly for the first time—almost all agreed.

  “What the fuck did you just do!?” I shouted furiously, pulling on the glyph of torture in my chest, allowing the supernatural power it fed me to tear my body across the distance.

  My claws scratched deep into the concrete as I twisted and pivoted mid-charge, bullets whizzing past and missing thanks to the erratic dance of my approach. My clawed fingers stretched out over the last couple feet, grabbing him by the throat just as the final shots rang out and the gun clicked dry—every bullet having slammed harmlessly into the pavement.

  I lifted his body high before slamming him into the ground. Pebbles and settled debris scattered, dust kicking up as his armor futilely tried to absorb the repeated impacts. Over and over, I pounded his body into the cold, unyielding concrete—until the harsh sound of armor meeting stone gave way to wet, meaty thuds.

  When I stopped, all that remained was a semi-human-shaped splatter and a crater of cracked paving stones.

  “What the fuck,” I half-whispered, half-yelled to myself, trying to silence the rage and anxiety unspooling within me.

  Fuck—everyone knows. It put my name up there. It told everyone who I am. Where I am!

  Mentally, I directed my focus toward the idea of the New Age Pantheon, and the system immediately responded.

  The ominous glowing red screen unfolded before me, constantly expanding—listing random details about me: my race, the rarity of my class, and even my approximate location.

  Why?! I shouted internally before yelling aloud:

  “Why are you telling people all this shit about me?! Fucking stop!”