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The light of the setting sun made the surface of the lake sparkle. Whenever he had some time off, Deryce loved coming up here to fish. The solitude and serenity were exactly what he craved, in contrast to the perpetual noise of the city he lived in. All he could hear in this place was the breeze shifting the tree branches and the cries of the lake's ducks. No honking car horns, no barking dogs, no nonsense. He regretted that he couldn't stay here forever.
He reeled in his line, knowing he'd have to get going soon, but he still lingered a few moments more. The unpolluted sky shifted colors gently as the sun sank lower and lower. He grabbed his cooler, wanting to get back before full dark. Deryce turned to go and--
The idyllic landscape was gone, instead covered in fire and ash. Deryce could hear people screaming around him, he looked in every direction for them but instead all he saw was a hideous creature, slimy and snarling, coming right for him, it pounced upon him and--
Deryce woke up, his heart pounding. It was all just a dream. Or rather, a memory turned nightmare. Nothing was ever that pleasant anymore, he wasn't that lucky. He looked over his surroundings as he waited for his heart rate to go down. It looked like he was in what used to be someone's living room. He had curled up on a tattered old couch. The television set in front of him had a branch pointing through the screen at him. That was one great side effect of the Dark Fog; the plant life had really flourished.
No one was completely sure where the Fog had come from. Some people thought it was residual from the nuclear bombs of wars long past. Others believed the witches themselves had summoned it. All Deryce knew for sure was that it had descended on a few major cities of the world at once. He was in the part of London that it had hit, and that area was quickly sealed off from the rest of the world.
At first the remaining citizens had been lead to believe that they were in a quarantine, only until the Fog lifted. That was until word spread through the grapevine, until everyone found out the official term for their area: dead zone. That was just it: they had all been left for dead by their countrymen. That was about the time the witches made themselves known, and the demons started showing up.
In the three years since the Dark Fog had spread, Deryce had come to the realization that the rest of the world had abandoned the dead zones because they just weren't equipped to deal with what was in them. The people who were left either adapted or died. There wasn't any choice in the matter, but those who survived were fairly resilient. New communities grew in the wreckage of Old London. Farming was coming back into style, partly out of necessity and partly out of ease, since the Fog breathed life into plants like nothing else. Deryce knew that human beings, as a race, were persistent enough to make it through.
He scratched his chin, feeling the permanent stubble that covered the lower part of his face. Grooming wasn't exactly a priority these days, and it wasn't as though he had anyone to impress with his appearance. He stopped suddenly, hearing something shift behind a pile of broken furniture in the room. “Are you gonna come out, or are you gonna make me pull you out of there?” he growled.
The pile of rubble rustled a little more before the culprit stood up. It was a little girl, no older than eight or so, wearing short overalls and an orange striped shirt. Her hair was done up in two braids, and she looked the very picture of innocence. “You sure have good hearing, mister,” she marveled.
Deryce relaxed when he saw it was just a kid. “What are you doing here? Don't you have a family to get back to?” he asked her. He ran a hand through his hair, hoping to smooth it down at least a little bit.
“Looking for eggs,” the girl explained. She held out her hands, showing off her finds. Sure enough, she had four eggs of various species, none of them the standard chicken egg. In this world, you made do with what you could. She stuck them back into the pockets of her overalls and continued staring at him.
“Oh, don't mind me, I'll be out of your way in just a minute,” he grumbled. He stood up and pulled his jacket off the arm of the couch where he had left it that morning. He was never eager to stay too close to areas with people. They always expected things from him, and that never went well.
Judging by the light outside, it was already late afternoon. The sky was always dark since the Fog came, and the days were shorter too. That was okay with him, his new lifestyle forced him to be nocturnal anyways. “You should go home,” he told the little girl, who was still watching him with fascination.
“Can't,” she explained, “the stair broke when I went up.” He groaned inwardly; he already knew how this was going to end up.
“Come on,” he said resignedly, heading for the exit. She followed him obediently out the window, to what remained of a fire escape. The top floors of the apartment building seemed more or less destroyed, while the lower levels stayed intact. It looked like he'd stopped about halfway up. He had thought he would be less likely to be disturbed up there.
The little girl followed behind him until two flights down, sure enough, a step had rusted enough to fall through. Deryce sighed, picked the girl up, and jumped over the broken step quite easily. Once across, he set her down and kept walking. They both made it down to the ground without further incident, and Deryce hoped this was where they would both go their separate ways.
As usual, it didn't matter what he hoped for. She continued to follow him, staying a few paces behind. He resolved to ignore it, sooner or later she'd get bored as kids do and find something better to do.
The already-dim sky got darker and darker. Maybe he had misjudged the time. He was starting to hope the girl would find herself home sooner. children shouldn't be out after dark, he mused aloud, hoping she would take the hint. She said nothing, but finally turned down a separate alleyway. Perhaps they had just been taking the same route the whole time.
In any case, he was glad to have her out of his hair, and not a moment too soon. Full dark was quickly approaching, and he wouldn't be much more fun to be around after that.
Deryce didn't know if the change got easier over time, or if he just got more used to it every night. Not to say that it was easy in the first place, but routine let him know what to expect. Like clockwork, sharp pain tore through his guts and he fell to his knees. His chest burst inside, and expanded. His limbs stretched themselves out in ways that shouldn't be possible. He closed his eyes, feeling nothing but the burn of his flesh tearing and regrowing in an instant.
And then, it was over. He opened his eyes again and saw the night in colors he hadn't been able to before. He snorted, trying to clear the sudden odor of the Fog from his nostrils. There were a lot of things that were easier for him to ignore during the day, but the night was truly his time to shine.
He looked around at his surroundings, trying to gauge which direction to travel in next. As he did, he saw a mostly-intact shop window and was treated to a rare sight for him: his own reflection, looking as he did during his nights.
Deryce knew there was nothing else like him on earth: a giant horned wolf, all ten feet of him as black as night. His green eyes stood out, bright against the rest of his fur. He twitched his smoky tail, watching it billow out. As unnatural as he understood this form to be, he had come to appreciate all he could do with it. It was easier to shut down witches when you were two or three times their size.
His ears instantly perked up as a shrill scream broke through the night. Trouble did not waste any time waiting to happen after dark. That only meant he couldn't afford to, either.
Swifter on four legs than on two, he found the source of the screams. It was the same little girl he had met that afternoon, cornered by a snarling demon. While some of them appeared humanoid, this one looked reptilian and monstrous. It was hideous with its dark scaly skin, bulging eyes, and a too-long neck. It didn't matter much to Deryce what they looked like; they all stank the same.
The girl was terrified, she had gotten herself into an abandoned dumpster by way of trying to take shelter, and was swatting at it with the handle of an old broom. The demon avoided every swipe easily, it was obviously toying with her.
Deryce felt a pang of guilt for being so ready to get rid of her earlier. This guilt quickly turned into anger, and that in turn became a low growl. This got the demon's attention, it stopped tormenting the girl long enough to turn around and face him.
Seizing the opportunity, Deryce pounced. He rammed the demon with his horns, trying to pin it to the ground. The demon hissed and started stretching itself out in impossible ways, trying to coil itself around Deryce. He tried to pin it down but it slithered out from under him and prepared to attack again, but he was ready for it. He jumped and met it in midair, snapping at whatever he could get. He got his teeth around its throat and it flailed and writhed, trying to escape his grip.
He bit down harder, until it stopped moving entirely.
Deryce spat the foul thing out and looked into the dumpster. The girl was still there, huddled in a corner and trembling from fear. She wiped the tears from her eyes in order to look up at him. He made no moves toward her, he knew he would have to show her he didn't mean any harm. For all she knew, he was just another demon. He had to let her come around on her own.
Slowly, she stood up and took a few anxious steps toward him. All he did was watch her. He wouldn't be able to stand it if she started crying again, the noise would be almost painful on his ears. Instead, she reached a hand out and nervously laid it on his snout. When he made no move to bite at her. She decided it was safe enough to start petting him. When she started to giggle, he decided that was enough. No need to get too comfortable, he thought.
The started to climb out of the dumpster, and Deryce positioned himself so that she would land on his back. “That way,” she said, pointing past where she had gotten trapped by the demon. She really was on her way home before. The least he could do now was make sure she got there safely. He started to run, and she sank down into his thick mane, safe and warm where the sharp evening wind couldn't get to her.
Shortly after, he felt her urgently tugging on his fur. He slowed to a stop and before he could even help her, the girl was climbing off his back. He turned around just in time to see her running off through another narrow alley.
This time, it was his turn to follow her. He walked behind her as far as he could go, until she scampered off behind a chain-link fence. Deryce stayed behind, fences usually meant someone was feeling territorial and wouldn't be too keen on having a visitor like him around. He laid down instead and watched, as she ran up to a figure with open arms.
The figure picked her up, and stopped to exchange a few words with her before it walked closer to Deryce. As it got closer, he was able to make it out: it was a man. A very ordinary-looking man, in jeans and a plaid shirt. He was also smiling calmly, which was not a thing many people did when they saw Deryce looking like this.
So, I hear you saved my little sister,the man said. “We're both very grateful to you.” Deryce blinked. Tonight was full of surprises.
He blinked again, surprised at how tired he was. Then again, he had expended a lot of energy fighting and running. He also hadn't eaten much in the last day.
As if following a cue, the man set the girl down and pushed the fence's gate open wide enough for Deryce to comfortably fit through. The man lead him into what used to be a large aluminum shed. It had a few mattresses, a sofa, some lanterns and a cooking fire. The man busied himself attending to a pot over the fire, and Deryce laid himself down nearby it. The shelter and warmth, combined with his exhaustion, sent him to sleep quickly.
When he woke up next, Deryce was a man again. He'd been moved onto a mattress and had a blanket draped over him. He could smell food cooking, and that attracted his interest before anything else. As soon as he pulled the blanket off himself and sat up straight, the man from before handed him a bowl and a battered but functional spoon. The bowl was full of a thick brown stew, the man served himself a bowl from the kettle over the fire. The girl was nowhere to be seen, Deryce assumed she was out foraging again.
He ate his stew silently, not eager to start up a conversation with a complete stranger. He hoped he could thank the man for the food and shelter and move on without incident.
“My sister told me all about what you did for her,” the man spoke first.
“Did she?” Deryce replied, noncommitally.
“She said you helped her out of a collapsing building and saved her from hideous monsters,” he said, with a small smirk on his face. The look on his face told Deryce he knew that some degree of this account was hyperbole.
“I got her over a broken stair and- fought off a demon,” he said. He had stopped himself before the second part of the answer out of habit. Not just anyone could fight, let alone kill a demon singlehandedly. Then again, this man already knew that Deryce was not an average person. There was no sense in hiding what he'd already seen.
The smile was gone from the man's face, replaced by a look of concern. “So... What are you?” he asked. There was hesitance in his voice, there was no easy or polite way to ask something like that and he knew it.
Deryce turned and looked him in the eye for a moment before answering. 的'm a man just like you. “A man with strange luck,” he said. The man opened his mouth to speak again but Deryce interrupted him. “About the time that the Fog came down, I was dating this young lady. Very beautiful and kind, came from an upper-class family, described by more than a few as 'out of my league'. Her brother, he didn't like that very much. More accurately, he didn't like me very much. At all. One of his favorite ways to refer to me was 'that dog'.”
“He was also a witch, one of the first ones to make himself known once this zone was closed off. Even through the chaos of those first few weeks, she and I hadn't separated. So her brother decided that he was going to show the world exactly what kind of beast I was inside.” Here, Deryce grinned wryly.
“The first few nights, I was worried I was going to get killed. If not by him or another witch, by the soldiers near the gates, or by some scared civilians. But it turned out, that shape is pretty damn handy for getting by in a place like this.”
“What about the witch who cursed you?” the man asked.
Deryce laughed dryly. “I continued to avoid dying as he had hoped I would. I learned pretty quickly that where there's life, there's hope. I kept mine and, well... He ran out of hope.”
Both men were silent for a moment as the weight of that statement sank in. Deryce could see the question he was afraid to ask written on the man's face: Did you kill him?
Deryce was never going to deny that he was responsible for that man's death. His love didn't deny it either, and that was why they had parted ways all those years ago. How could she stay with the man who had killed her own brother? Truthfully, he had never expected her to.
It was all probably for the best.
He hadn't heard a word from her since then. Sometimes he found himself wondering if she was even still alive. He doubted it.
Deryce finished his stew in silence and handed the empty bowl back to the man. He got up and walked outside without another word, ready to leave the atmosphere of that room behind. He didn't think he would stay welcome here much longer after that story, in any case.
He didn't get very far, before his ears picked up a noise he recognized. He followed the sound, urgently trying to reach the source of it.
The sound was coming from another, much smaller shed. The door was shut and locked with a padlock. He kicked near the handle of the door a few times, until the handle came loose and he was able to pull it off and push the door open. The noise stopped. From inside the shed, the little girl from before looked up to him with tears and snot dripping down her face.
“He's not really your brother, is he?” Deryce asked.
The girl shook her head. “He sa-said I could go home when I got you here,” she sniffed loudly.
“I'm sorry you had to see this,” a voice said behind Deryce. He turned back around to see the same man standing behind him. His attitude had completely changed. Instead of being nervous and curious, he was cold.
“So what was the point of this?” Deryce asked, cutting to the chase.
“You've started to get a reputation for yourself,” he answered. “Fighting witches and demons wherever you go? You're a problem that needs to be taken care of. I can't have an animal like you getting in my way.”
“And I can't have witches like you sacrificing innocent people!” Deryce shouted back. “Every time you make a deal with a demon, how many more souls get tortured forever? And for what, a false sense of power? You know you're going right down with those demons when you die, too,” he reminded the witch, who just laughed in return.
The familiar pain traveled through Deryce's insides. This time, he relished the feeling. The change happened quickly this time, possibly spurred on by his desire for it. He was instantly growling, on his feet and ready for action.
“The one who made you this way was right, you really are an animal,” the witch laughed. He said a few words in an unfamiliar language and two demons appeared, one on either side of Deryce.
The demons grabbed onto him, pulling him from both sides. He kicked and twisted until one of them lost its grip on him. He spun until the other one was thrown off, and rammed into it full force. The demon was thrown into a wall and fell limply on the ground.
The other demon launched itself at him, clawing and biting. Deryce was ready for the attack and upon the demon's impact, he rolled with it, coming out on top. The demon managed to crawl out from under him and on top of an old rusting car. It jumped off the top of that, ready to attack him again. He waited for the right moment and tilted his head. There was an odd sensation of pressure, but no more movement. He had aimed correctly, the demon had landed on his horn and impaled itself.
Deryce shook the thing off his head and looked back to where the other demon had fallen. The body wasn't there. He followed the scent, still fresh and rank. A scream came from up ahead of him, much deeper than the girl's voice. He ran ahead to find what had caused it.
The witch from before was now cornered by the other demon. It hissed at him angrily in whatever tongue it spoke. Deryce could still tell that it was incredibly displeased with him. The demon had its hands clasped firmly onto the witch's arms. It took a moment for Deryce to realize that its touch was actually burning the man, he could hear it sizzle and smell the odor from where he stood.
The man screamed again, and Deryce noticed that he and the demon were actually sinking, falling lower and lower into the ground. In a few moments, they had fallen through the earth and out of his sight, leaving nothing but scorch marks on the ground.
That man had been too far gone in his greed and desire for power to have ever been saved. This was his due, as it was for every other like him.
The small shed was empty when he went back to check it. The girl must have run away during the fight. He hoped she would find her way home safely this time.
He looked back at the ground where the witch had been taken. He had been called a beast, a dog, an animal, but the truth was that he was better able to help people in this new world like this than he ever would have as just a man. This was what he was supposed to be, he knew now. Alone in the wreckage of Old London, he tilted his head up and let loose a deep howl.