Page 4 of Nightshades

I aim my hands towards the windows, the roots slicing the air, and I charge again. With added pressure from my horn and the roots against the windows, the glass shatters at my feet, and I’m left staring at the man in charge.

The man who tried to take my humanity from me.

Not knowing that I never had any to begin with.

“Not another step or you will get a bullet between your eyes,” he warns.

He’s wearing wrinkled slacks with a shirt that’s half-tucked in. There’s a mustard stain on the left side, proving how disgusting these people are. They never leave this facility.

Whatever this facility is. I’ve never seen it from the outside, and I’ve never seen what the rest of the inside looks like. I’ve been kept in here the entire time, chained for the longest time, until I convinced them I was no threat.

I’ve been preparing for this day from the moment I felt the rage of the nightmare within me.

I step forward, despite his little orders he just gave, and the shards of glass don’t even penetrate my rhino hide.

He licks his lips, taking a staggering step back. His fellow coworkers flee to the exit, and we can’t have any of them escaping before they get what they deserve. I block both doors with roots, then one by one, hold each scientist by their throat, the vise grip on their necks tight enough to leave them gasping for air as their feet dangle off the ground.

The only one left is the man who chained me down, pumped me full of hormones to get my cock hard, and cut the light of my angler fish off over and over again to see if it would regrow.

All in the name of science.

The black cloud surrounding me drifts inside, and the berries begin to bloom. I grin, knowing each and every person in here is about to get poisoned and lose their ability to move.

One by one, their gasps become silent, and their bodies fall limp in the grasp of the roots.

The eerie black smoke enters their bodies through every orifice. Mouth, nostrils, and ears. I’m able to see what they are all afraid of. What their worst fears are.

It finally hits me that the evil fog that escaped me is the nightmare DNA. My worst traits finally have a form, and I couldn’t be more pleased.

Right now, their worst fear, the one way they don’t want to die, all leads back to me.

“Scream.” The nightmare inside me claws at my voice, deepening it to lull them to a sleep-like state.

One by one, each man screams at the top of their lungs when I implant a scene of me hunting them in their heads. A few of the men piss themselves, their legs begging to move, but they can’t.

They will never be able to escape me.

Just like they thought I would never be able to escape them.

I look up at my creator and flash a fang. He is frozen in place. The whites of his eyes shine like the moon with how wide and round they are. Jumping up into the room where they watched me, I land in front of him, smelling the beautiful scent of fear.

I lean in, inhaling the bitterness of the sweat clinging to his skin. He is trembling. His badge hangs from his breast pocket, and I rip it free, reading the name of the man who has pushed me into my greatest form.

“Doctor William Travis.” I’m unimpressed. I crush his card in my fist, the paranormal strength allowing me to turn the plastic into a small ball.

I drop it on the ground, taking one more step closer to the doctor who made me into what I am.

A tear drips down his cheek just as one of my roots wraps around his throat.

“You thought your actions wouldn’t have consequences?” I ask, forcing him to turn around to watch his fellow coworkers die. His knees buckle from the paralysis, and I hold him up, pointing at the man I’m going to kill. “What did he do for you?”

His men are all screaming. Scratches appear on their arms and torso as they try to escape me in their wicked dreams. I’ve been playing catch and release with them.

I am loving the hope they feel when I have them escape me—only to kill it when I get them in my hands again.

“What did he do?” I roar into his ear so loud, his eardrum begins to bleed.

“He is the one who pumped you full of nightshade, extrapolating the DNA sequences needed from the poisonous plant to see what it would do to your body.”