“In this wicked and pitiless world, humans can be crueler than any monster prowling the night.”

  The days came and went, and time lost its meaning. Sometimes masks sawed off his limbs, sometimes they stole his eyes, or ripped his lower jaw clean off its sockets. Wretch found that when he looked at the world, everything seemed distant, as if watching through stained glass. The pain however, stayed close. It cradled him like a mother clutching her child.

  One day he was ordered to grow his tail out, so he did. Why would he not, Jonah had taken the last shred of hope with him. leaving the nights silent.

  Now the only words spoken to him were from the professor. Whispering words of encouragement and praise after each slaughter, as if he was some gifted pupil instead of a caged beast.

  He turned to his memories. Visualizing every detail of the Richter’s home, the only one he’d ever had. He held on to them like straws in the wind.

  Astrid in a white sundress, watering the colorful flowers of the balcony. Edmund smoking his victory pipe with a content smile and eyes in the distance. Elenya holding the struggling cat, Whisky in her arms. The twins whispering secrets across the dinner table.

  But the more he thought of them, the bleaker they became, turning into the same shades of gray as his new sight. He swore to himself that if he ever met them again, he would appreciate their every breath, their every small act of being themselves.

  He looked at the flame within, it was the only thing still burning within him. For countless hours, he’d stared at it, listened to its whispers. Perhaps he was going mad from overuse, as he’d been told one did if you spent it all. Still he’d come to an understanding.

  The Flame was alive.

  And it wanted out. It urged him for violence, to become something horrid.

  What would a creature of the night do?

  The flames of the embers shifted.

  It would get out or get slaughtered trying.

  It was impossible. The bars were too thick. The gaps too narrow. No form he knew could slip through, not even the corpse of Ivan. None could bend the metal, not even the crab claw from Blavssish, Corpse Child. He would fail and they would take another one, Cynthia, Victoria or Ezra.

  Still… an arm could fit through. Not his head though, His face would get crushed, then the shoulders would get caught. And besides, Boris was watching, while the masks checked in periodically.

  “But I don’t need my shoulders,” he whispered through sharp teeth into the dark. “I don’t need my face.”

  His ember, three-fourths full, twitched once more. He looked up at the clock, past the silent prisoners and Jonah’s empty cage. Had the answer always been regeneration and not flesh stealer?

  It was happening tonight.

  When Boris began snoring, Wretch whipped his tail back and forth in the cage, getting used to moving the limb. It was new, only days old but grown to its full length, with thick muscle, long and with rough skin. Then he changed spots of his black bones, turning thin lines in his shoulder blades and ribs to the brittle bones of Milley. Never again would he have his own bones and arms, but he could override it with a new form.

  He waited, watching his flame grow to its maximum capacity, then two black eyes opened in the dark.

  “I am going to try something,” he said in a loud voice.

  Victoria and Cynthia looked down at him with wide-open eyes. Boris gruntled and lifted his head, the dying firelight of the hearth casting shadows across his face.

  “When I first met you, Boris,” Wretch began. “I hated you.”

  Sleep muddled Boris expression as he mumbled.

  “Don’t… speak."

  “Boris, whatever beatings you suffered, they weren’t enough. They should have broken your hands and feet, blinded you with a hot iron. Cracked your skull. Only to spare the world from how hideous you are.” Wretch said in a flat tone.

  For a moment, Boris just sat there. Then anger contorted his face, he gripped the prod from beside the armchair and stomped towards his cage, sputtering something unintelligible under his breath.

  “And that is only your appearance,” Wretch said slumping in his cage. “Inside, you’re so dirty, so foul a rotten corpse would blush.”

  Boris roared, thrusting the sharpened stick forward.

  Wretch’s claw shot out. he caught it in a clawed hand and pulled towards him.

  The fool didn’t let go, stumbling two steps forward.

  Just close enough.

  The tail shot forward through the bars, coiling around Boris throat. The man gagged, kicking and twisting. He was strong but the tail was stronger, inching him closer to the waiting claws extended through the cage.

  At last, Wretch’s black claws gripped the collar of the filthy suit.

  “I don’t care what you have suffered Boris,” Wretch said coldly. “I just want you to die.”

  Boris’ eyes bulged. He tried to answer, but the chokehold didn’t let him. A single claw slid under the coil, slitting his throat in one smooth motion.

  Warm blood sprayed over him as Boris lost color. The man stared at him with wide eyes as blood spurted from his mouth, Wretch stared back into his eyes until he grew limp. The man once named Boris fell to the floor with a thump.

  It was quiet for a moment.

  Then Victoria broke the silence. “Seeing that felt so good!”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Cynthia shuddered. “Was it worth it though, we’ll be punished.”

  “I am getting out tonight,” Wretch whispered, licking the blood off his lips. “Or I am dying.”

  The two prisoners only stared.

  “If I don’t succeed… bite off your tongues.”

  “But, how are you escaping?” Cynthia asked, a crack in her voice.

  Wretch took a deep breath, “I’ll show you.”

  He balled his clawed hands into fists, slamming them against his ribs. An audible snap rang out in the room, he'd changed spots on the black bones to allow them to snap. He continued, methodically. He felt some pain of course, but he had become intimate with pain.

  He hammered on, until his entire rib cage was fractured. Astrid’s anatomy book was still clear in his mind. He’d have to thank her, in this life or the next.

  His claws dissected away the collarbones, continuing to the upper arm and shoulder blades. He regenerated the severed blood vessels as he went, stopping him from bleeding to death. His control of flame and regeneration Blessing incomparable to his first few fumbling uses of the power all those months ago. Soon only thin strings of nerve dangled from his half-amputated arms.

  At last, his tail coiled around an arm, and with a pull, it ripped free. The agony was worse than the saw, but not by much.

  The two black arms fell to the bars in a heap, oozing blood.

  The other two prisoners stared at him, more curious than horrified. He breathed out, though the cracked ribs made it more of dying wheeze. He was running out of time.

  Curling together, his naked feet stomped on the shoulder blades, shattering them with a crunch.

  Now for the hard part.

  He placed his feet against one side of the small cage and the crown of his head on the opposite side, in the gap between the bars. Then, with all his strength, he pushed.

  First to get caught were his eyebrows, the skin peeled into strips, his ears ripped off and sharp teeth cut into his gum as he his head slowly pressed through.

  With a rip of tearing skin, his head slipped past the bars. He gasped, drawing air despite his massacred face, then his eyes lit. The flesh moved, knitting itself together in a symphony of cracks and squirming flesh.

  There was no time to rest, his broken torso couldn’t draw enough air and his vision was blurring.

  Another breath, and he pushed his legs with all his might. The armless torso slammed against the bars. Still he pushed.

  Slowly, he inched through the gap, skin lubricated by blood. His ribcage compressed, broken ribs piercing his lungs. He pressed on in a crescendo of snapping bones and twisting skin.

  Shadows gathered as his vision shrank, silhouettes of harrowing creatures standing beside him, whispering words he couldn’t quite hear. Then, a sudden loss of pressure, he heard a raspy breath being drawn. His head cleared, and he realized it was his own.

  He had passed through far enough that the bars dug into his stomach. He poured flame into his ribs, snapping them back into place in a series of cracks.

  Using the tail, he pushed out his severed arms through the bars, holding them against the open wounds on his shoulders and back. With flame, the flesh writhed like a bag of worms, drawing the severed arm back into place.

  “Keep going,” Cynthia whispered from above, staring down with dark eyes.

  His chest was free, but legs and hip were still trapped. He didn’t wait.

  Using a sharp claw, he cut down over his hips, all the way down to his spine, regenerating the severed blood vessels as he went. Each cut was shallow, but he refused to stop. Digging down just under his intestine until he had severed the spine.

  It sent a jolt of cramping sensations through him and after some more gruesome work, his lower half separated. He was only a torso with two arms now, hanging outside the cage. Just like that, half his flame was spent. It wouldn’t be enough to regenerate the legs and midsections from nothing.

  Hauling what remained of himself onto the top of the rattling cage, he laid there panting, staring up the tower. There were no bars blocking his vision.

  I’m outside the cage. I escaped.

  Along with those thoughts came a sliver of cold guilt, he cherished them for a moment, his own feelings in a void of apathy. Then he went to work, ripping his pelvis in two and pulling the parts out of the cage.

  It was gruesome and bloody, but he didn’t care. After squeezing two shattered and broken legs through the narrow bars, he put them in place, collecting his entrails back into his stomach. His eyes lit as the flame spread through his body and the flesh stitched itself together, the sensation of his legs returning.

  It was supposed to hurt. But laying on the cage with his body stretched, he felt nothing, no happiness or fear.

  He left the small wounds, the torn ear, the scratched skin.

  Victoria let out a chuckle, “I thought the professor was the monster. But look at you, crazy bastard.”

  He rolled off and landed on his feet, stumbling forward as he struggled to recognize the feeling of standing.

  Taking a breath, he raised his blood streaked arms and tilted his head backwards.

  “They couldn’t hold me,” he whispered with closed eyes as his own blood dripped down along his naked body.

  A tiny spark sputtered from his ember and soon more followed, growing into a crescendo before collapsing inwards, bursting into a pulse of heat and whispers through his mind and body.

  I kindled. The fifth time, strange. It used to hurt.

  He breathed out and opened his eyes. Walking forward on unsteady legs, he searched Boris’ pale body, putting on his pants and cutting a hole for his tail. He found a tiny pocket knife and a handful of dried fruit in the coat.

  Wretch lowered Ezra and the other prisoners using a set of heavy wheels connected to the chains. He gave Ezra the knife and the fruit while Victoria and Cynthia received the rest of the clothes.

  A small mirror rested by the armchair. Wretch paused, gazing at the reflection staring back at him.

  Thin, almost skeletal. His eyes, two pitch black orbs over a mouth full of razor-like teeth. The clawed hands were longer than they should have been and a naked tail played behind him. Beneath the skin were strengthened muscles, sinew and black bones.

  More beast than human.

  “Lift me to the cracked glass again?” Ezra asked, voice hoarse from weeks of silence.

  Wretch turned, studying the boy for a moment. Trapped in a cage, emaciated, tortured and broken.

  “Sure,” he said softly.

  He pulled up the cage again, The cracked face of the clock showed half-past five in the morning. He had to be quick, the darkness was his domain now.

  “You should leave us,” Cynthia whispered. “Just go. Find your father, call the officers. As long as one of us lives, they’ll have lost.”

  Wretch was silent for a moment, he could try and climb out the clock, though the metal filigree would prove a challenge, Even if he escaped, what would the Gulschaks do to the others. Did he even want to?

  He felt through his mind. There was no will to find his father, no longing for warmth or sadness of comrades lost. He was empty, an emotionless husk.

  But deep down, something was moving, something hidden. A tiny spark of anger, hurt, hatred. He'd kept it buried but alive through all of it.

  “No.” Wretch whispered.

  He let it well up, wash over him with the flashing memories. The saw. Jonah’s tortured form being carried away. Ezra gazing out the window. The professors grin. The masks.

  “I am going to kill them all.”

  This has been a few rough chapters for the lot of you, I fully understand that. I needed to crush him, pulverize him to dust. Turn him into something else entirely, mind and body. I can only hope it evoked some emotion in you, I know it did for me.

  We are in the top 10 rising stars, unfortunately I had to put my dog down today, but life like any good story has both joy and sadness. I hope the next year will be a happy one for you, no matter if you read this story further or not.

  I'm changing the release-schedule to Friday, Sunday, Tuesday I beg for your oversight in this matter. Five more chapters and we are on to book 2 unless you want to read ahead on the patreon of course.

  Rest in peace.

  Frost, Most loyal of Hounds