Homeward Chapter 1: Forged

A Tales of Tuomi short story

Pain.  Not the throb of a headache or even the blaze of a broken bone, but an intense and insistent searing of every nerve.  Sleep would have been an escape from the torture, but though she was exhausted, it eluded her.  Instead, she drifted in a semi-lucid void while her blood felt like fire and her body thrashed out of her control.  As she felt her bones contort themselves into new forms beneath screaming muscles she drifted into a memory before the pain.

Snow drifted lazily from steel-hued clouds.  Each flake in an unhurried, but inevitable dance downward to the street below.  Festive decorations in sparkling gold, silver, emerald, and ruby glittered beneath the pristine blanket of white, but no shoppers jostled to see the displays and every sign apologetically announced its shop was closed.  Only a solitary figure trudged through the quickly accumulating snow, hurrying to a door beyond the frosting windows and their treasures.

“Shelter full,” the figure sighed, their breath billowing toward the paper on the door.  A string of expletives followed, lost in the hush of snowfall.  Shifting the bundle of layers she had buried herself under she cursed her manager heartily for his insistence that she work right up until the mandatory closing alert was issued.  Other employees had been allowed to return to their families, but since she had nowhere else to be she had been stuck.  A loud chiming of bells bounced off the deserted streets announcing it to be noon in spite of the deepening gloom feeling later. Resigned, the figure shuffled onward.  It would take hours to get to the next closest shelter without public transit, but it was her only option.

Shops shifted to more industrial buildings as she trudged along unaware she was no longer alone.  She paused briefly at an intersection and heard the crunch of snow behind her.  Startled that anyone else was out in the steadily worsening weather, she turned and saw a shambling figure approaching.  In hindsight, she should have run, but she only saw what appeared to be another homeless unfortunate caught out in the storm.  His clothes were rumpled and stained, possibly from working the factories they were surrounded by.  Unkempt hair poked out from underneath a patched up hat and a beard entwined with a threadbare scarf.  Soon he was beside her and she knew her mistake the moment her eyes met his piercing ice blue gaze.  Quick as a viper a gloved hand grabbed her hand and she felt a sharp prick on her wrist.  Her thoughts and vision blurred and she collapsed soundlessly into the snow.

Awareness trickled in slow as syrup and with it the ever-present pain.  It was easing ever so slightly.  She was back in the present again though she had no way to know how long it had been since that blizzard.  Her surroundings seeped into focus bringing a foul assault to her senses.  She barely fit the metal box she’d been thrown in and the ceiling was so low she doubted she’d be able to stand upright.  The metal floor was unseen beneath the layers of blood and other bodily excretions.  She waited, knowing what the ebbing tide of pain would mean.  Sure enough, the sound of footsteps echoed along the metal corridor.  She closed her eyes and let the figure haul her petite frame onto the cart.  She had tried fighting before the pain had drained her.  A quick jab in the neck and unconsciousness was all it had earned her.

Thick leather soon encased her slender wrists and ankles as the acrid smells of disinfectant and sulfur filled her nose.  The man from the blizzard shuffled around her, murmuring in a language unfamiliar to her.  Gone were the patchy rags, though he still looked unkempt in his stained lab coat.  She kept her eyes firmly closed in this lab now.  It did her no favors to see the mangled remains of things that were far from human though she believed they had once been so.  She could vaguely hear the beastly moans and shrieks from other hallways like the one attached to her cell and wondered if she would soon join them in their howls.  Needles pierced her, injecting unknown substances into her blood.  The pain would drown her again soon as the concoction did whatever it wanted to her cells.  Satisfied hums signaled the end of the latest round of injections and the cart ferried her back down the hall.  The floor was clean for now, washed by a miniature army of drones that came and went unseen.  No living staff aided the madman in his experiments which made escape all the more impossible.  Once deposited in her cage, she quickly devoured the meager meal provided, not because she was hungry, but to preempt the pain she knew was coming.  It was an unidentifiable mush that had barely any taste and she shuddered to think what it could be made of, but it kept her alive for better or worse.

It came as she lay digesting, rolling over her like storm clouds and dragging her into an abyss.  She felt her body convulse helplessly, her arms and legs suddenly lead weights.  She watched through the haze of agony as her hand twisted and bulged.  Everything below her elbow had turned ink black and her muscles bulged easily three times their usual size.  She was sure this would be the end of her as each finger split open at its tip and wickedly sharp claws emerged.

“So much for those piano lessons,” she thought, a slightly manic chuckle escaping her lips.  Her aunt had been mortified when told her dear niece had no interest in learning, a crushing blow to the ostentatious woman.  A glance towards her feet verified that she now sported claws there too, though not as long.  Her legs were also black from the knees down and looked more feline than human now.  An itch began from her fingers and steadily spread across her body.  Frantic for relief, she flailed, rubbing herself against the unfortunately smooth surfaces of her cell.  In her contortions, she smacked her head hard enough to see stars.

Once she regained her senses, she noticed she could no longer see her skin, black or otherwise.  Instead, a thick pelt covered most of her and she couldn’t help but think it was beautiful.  It was a deep amethyst and shimmered with lilac highlights. Spots of iridescent blue were scattered like stars in a pattern reminiscent of the snow leopard she’d seen at a zoo when she was a child.  She had only moments to admire it before she felt as if a knife were digging into her tailbone.  Breathing raggedly through the pain, she saw blood dripping from her back.  Tentatively, she reached behind her, mindful of her three inch new talons.  A small bulge had formed at the base of her spine and was the source of the added pain.  Carefully she brought a single claw to the bulge and slowly pressed into it.  The skin burst like an overripe fruit and blood gushed from the opening.  She realized she should probably be worried about the enormous amount of blood, but all she could feel was relief as all her pain had ceased.  Exhausted, she let her eyes close as true sleep finally claimed her.

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Continue reading: Chapter 2: Tempered

I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of my slightly longer story, Homeward. This is one of a handful of short stories I have based in a world I originally created in 1996. There will be drawings in each chapter, all drawn by me.

I love hearing from my readers so feel free to leave a comment! I’m rather curious what genre you would classify this as. Fantasy? Sci-fi? Both? Neither? Let me know!

Don’t forget to subscribe if you haven’t already, you don’t want to miss what happens in Chapter 2: Tempered.