It Was Always Meant to Be You

All was crumbling apart.

Cassandra was shattering along with her skin-her skin-veins pounding with heat that was not hers, bones vibrating with something ancient, something plainly wicked. The heartbeat of the world through her fingers resonated with the tempest brewing within her-her rhythm far too intense, far too untamed to be human.

She took a gasp-tight, raw-lungs searing breath, as though shoving the air back from her. The shadows engulfed her like a living entity; pressure pressed around her like fingers trying to pull her under.

Her nails glinted on damp ground as the smell of the ground called to her, inviting her to be ensnared for the rest of her decay. Her cells cried out, ripping their membranes asunder and reforming faster than she could draw breath. The body was no longer hers but that of another agent that was ripping itself loose under her skin.

The whisper, then

Quiet, extremely old

"It was always meant to be you"

Her consciousness ebbed and flowed on a breath that was a wisp of smoke writhing under her ribcage and into spaces that only existed within the fractions of time between heartbeats.

Her eyes blurred for a moment-half a flicker, other people's memories spilling secret into the shadows, whispers wrapping across the centuries. Prophecy or curse? She had no idea, and she did not much care, because she was sure that she was not dying. She was becoming.

The moment broke.

A chill ran along her spine, bringing her close as a phantom hand pulled her back from the verge of nothingness. Earth beneath her shifted—no, she shifted—world on the precipice, curving like heat on winter air.

Something was watching

Not just gazing. Waiting.

First, the scent. Metallic, cloying, heavy—blood, thick in the air, curling around her senses like wisps of smoke around hot embers. Not her own.

Cassandra struggled to her feet, her balance askew, her muscle memory lagging behind her instincts. Her entire body thrummed with over-sensitivity, her receptors blaring too hard to keep up simultaneously. Her eyesight cleared before she had even blinked, the darkness no longer pressing against her—she could see them, the figures in the darkness, the motion where there had not been any.

She was not alone

Among the branches of twisted limbs, something towered. Over her. Off to the side. The kind of thing that did not belong amongst the spaces that separated nightmares from reality, but there it was. Waiting for her as if she were some creation it had made but was not finished with yet.

Her heart slowed down. Not from fear, but from something colder, sharper, newer.

Its shadow moved forward, slow, a sigh of challenge breathed onto the quiet after breaths.

She sensed air pressure surrounding her, heavy with something intangible, something which was trying to surface.

And suddenly, within the space of a heartbeat, it struck.

She acted with a rapidity that was new to her, body working on an instinct that did not belong to her—someone else's. A spin, a turn, a step that was foreign but carried a familiarity that testified to a thousand times of repetition.

Her hands intercepted the object in flight.

Her world turned on its axis, stole her breath, and she was certain—

She was no longer weak.

No one compared to her. Deadly

It struck her like a freight train.

Cassandra hardly had time to the blow—suddenly she was fighting, suddenly they were crashing—her body instinctively reacting ahead of her mind.

Her legs went rigid on the ground by reflex, the force of the creature's attack knocking her back, her heels deep-set into the ground. The pressure was too intense, something no ordinary human could possibly , and yet she did not give way.

Her muscles grew tense, strength coursing within her like a wildfire. Far too quickly. Far too forcefully.

She spun—much too fast—turning out of its reach, but her body moved as if she were no longer human. The movement was graceless, fluid, more so than she ever had managed.

The beast growled back, recovering quickly from its surprise, its distorted limbs contorted into impossible forms.

It struck her once again.

Cassandra reacted instinctively. She did not struggle as a human would.

She ducked beneath its claws as they scored across her throat, the shock from the strike crashing past her ear hard enough to rend air apart. Her body had acted before her mind had—twirled, jabbed her elbow into the ribcage of the creature.

It released a shockingly damp gasp—stammering, out in pain.

She hurt it.

For the first time, it penetrated deep into her bones: she was no longer the prey.

She was the predator.

And at her core, there was enjoyment.

Her breathing stabilized. Her heart rate normalized.

Raising its bloodied head, the animal looked at her with a look that turned her stomach—like it could see.

something she didn't.

It smiled afterwards.

Cassandra caught her breath in her throat.

It did not attack a second time. It just stood there, watching her, some unknown look forming on its too-human, incorrect face.

"You think you're the first?"

The words fell like ice along her back, nipping at the borders of something she had not even begun to grasp yet. The way that it phrased it—teasing, knowing—wasn't so much taunting her as telling her something.

Her fists clenched.

And then, before she could question, before she could even respond—

It vanished.

Not taking to flight on wings. Not fleeing in flight from fear.

One blink, one breath.

And the creature disappeared into the woods as if it had not existed at all.

Darkness encircled her, so thick, so thick, as close as the world itself was holding its breath, holding its breath but waiting with her.

Her heart pounded against her ribcage. The energy—this dark malice—seethed beneath her skin, humming menacingly beneath her surface, ready to be unleashed.

And then she suddenly realized that this wasn't finished. Not by a long shot.