Deep in the Atchafalaya River Basin a pool of water began to stir.

  The water twisted into a slow whirlpool, picking up speed, spinning faster with every second, pulling at the reeds along the shores like invisible fingers grasping for purchase. The whirlpool spun ceaselessly, the epicenter of the site of a magical awakening. The invisible yet undeniable energy pulsed several miles in all directions, emitting a force so primal that every living thing could feel it humming throughout their bodies. It didn’t ask. It didn’t speak. It evolved everything in its vicinity.

  Electricity sparked randomly, crackling across the surface of the earth, skipping erratically between water, stones, and trees. Branches erupted into flames without warning, shedding embers like falling stars. The air itself grew heavy with an unnatural tension.

  Creatures convulsed as electricity surged through their bodies. The force squished and compressed the bodies of a variety of creepy crawlies, including spiders, mosquitoes, and worms, as if they were trapped in a trash compactor.

  Chaos ensued.

  Within the range of the energy source, birds dropped mid-flight. Deer collapsed in the underbrush as if some unseen hand pressed down on them. The force squeezed until bones broke and biology buckled. Like a massive black hole pulling in star systems, the spiraling eye sucked in alligators, lizards, snakes, and other amphibian life. A black bear family reduced to flailing limbs and panic roars was swallowed whole. Opossums clawed for roots, not finding purchase. Armadillos rolled into balls as their only defense, but they were pulled in like bowling balls down an alley. Coyotes howled and wild pigs squealed, but no mercy would be shown, and none were spared. Bubbles rose where bodies disappeared.

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

  In the cyclone, animal fur bristled and hardened, eyes split and reformed, and limbs elongated and bent in the wrong direction. Insects bulged grotesquely, their carapaces fusing with nearby fauna, beetles clawing into squirrels; spiders threading their way into the muscle fibers of fallen wild hogs.

  The once docile critters of the basin awakened with a new hunger. A new desire to feed they’d never felt in their lifetimes. A new desire to kill. The former feral beasts grasped onto a new craving for violence.

  Even lifeless forms were not exempt from the forging energy. Rocks shivered. Mud moved. Tree limbs began to turn upright, dragging themselves forward with awkward, jerking motions, fusing with other limbs.

  The disassembly process pulled each life apart molecule by molecule, nerve by nerve. The disassembly process was painful as can be imagined, followed by a haphazard reassembly that could have been designed by a four-year-old in art class. Horrible mutations emerged; monstrosities.

  They came out furious and confused, and they were starving.