DOOM DAYS ✓

Chapter 53: Animal Imitation

Animal Imitation: the ability to mimic animal traits and forms.
Tw: dismemberment, blood, gore, just a bunch of gross shit really.

"Oh my fucking Christ!" Josh shouts.

He dives out of the way as Tyler clamps down on Ashley's leg, shaking his narrow head and tearing it clean off. Blood sprays the air and Ashley's screaming her head off.

She swings an arm, which has formed a large spear, stabbing and scraping near Tyler's thick ass crocodile neck. He lets go of her leg, shaking and distorting until he's a black mamba, tan scales ripped and bloody, coiling around himself, getting ready to strike.

In a disgusting twist of torn skin, loose tendons, and exposed muscle, her left leg regrows back, but it's all wrong. It looks like a skinned cow leg. Josh almost pukes at the sight.

One leg is normal, one an ungodly sight, one arm a large claw, and the other a goddamn sword. Ashley swings an arm, missing Tyler by a huge margin, who whips and darts close enough to her to bite into the junction of her shoulder. She grabs his slithering form and yanks him off of her, knocking him into the nearest car.

When he hits the ground in all fours, he's a towering, blood soaked lion, mane tattered and eyes a terrifyingly beautiful red. Ashley drops to all fours as well and mimics Tyler's movements. The two begin prowl around each other, snarling back and forth.

Tyler snaps his teeth, and she does the same, swiping a claw and scratching his chest. He stumbles back a bit, retaliating but smacked her to the side with one swipe of his paw. She flies and does a couple of rolls before ending up underneath the fox, which now stands still between the theater and the hospital.

Ashley, somehow, pulls herself to her feet, bloody and limping heavily. Both arms crack and morph until they're both large daggers, her skin looking almost metallic.

He watches in horror as the two collide again, fur flying and teeth tearing. They're both covered in so much blood it puts Carrie to shame. Ashley stabs him in the side, and he claws at her shoulder, her arm holding itself together by the tendons. They swing and slash and tear each other apart.

Finally, Ashley falls to the ground, trying desperately to drag herself away from the feral beast that Josh's boyfriend has become.

"H- hel- help," she gurgles.

Josh realizes that even with her powers, she can't hold herself together long. The skin of her face is twisting and pulling taut, trying to fix itself without healing her wounds. One of her eyes is missing. Bones stick out from her torn open chest and whatever's left of her right leg. She looks like ground beef, and that does make Josh puke, wheezing and coughing up blood as she pulls herself away with one hardly it act hand.

She hadn't anticipated the extent of Tyler's power. Hell, Josh didn't expect it either.

He trots up to Ashley now, who's crying and pleading for her life. He lets out a thunderous, bone shaking roar right in her face, and she screams back so loud and so scared that Josh almost feels bad for her. Then, with one paw, Tyler crushes her skull, and her screaming stops. So does her movements.

As much as Ashley deserved what she got, Josh never would've imagined her dying that way, so painfully. Tyler, still in his lion form turns to him, and he freezes, suddenly just as afraid of him. Because there's something unrecognizable in Tyler's eyes, an unhinged, animalistic hunger that is is inhuman that Josh could've mistaken him for a rabid animal.

"T- Tyler," he whispers, his ears flicking in interest. "What did you do?"

Slowly, recognition blooms in his red eyes, and he starts to shrink, standing in the gushy remains of Ashley. Tyler inspects his body, the injuries he incurred as his animal counterparts slowly resealing.

"What happened? Wait-" Tyler looks down at Ashley and his eyes go as wide as humanly possible, suddenly realizing what he did. "I didn't."

"I didn't know you could do that," Josh chuckles nervously, taking a few careful steps towards him.

"Oh, no. No, no, no, no..." Tyler puts his hands on his head, tears welling in his eyes. "Who- who did I-"

"It was Ashley. She tried to kill me."

"This isn't good. This is- oh, fuck!" Tyler's right arm swells, turning into a large tiger paw. He stares at it in horror, his irises turning sunset orange.

"What's going on? Ty, talk to me." Josh reaches for his human arm.

Tyler whips away from him, putting his hands- well, hand and paw- up to put between them. "You can't be near me."

"Why not?"

"Because this- this fucking curse doesn't go away once I use it. I'll hurt you, and I don't want to."

"You won't hurt me," Josh reassures. "You would never."

Still, Tyler shakes his head. His teeth chatter nervously, and Josh sees that they've got thin and deathly sharp.

"I can't control it," he explains. "I- I never could. Every time I tried to use it, I would go into this foggy, uncontrollable animal mindset. I can't- I can't not go into it."

"You didn't this time, right?"

"The fuck you mean I didn't? I killed someone, I fucking obliterated them!"

"Okay, yeah I have to admit that was pretty traumatic, but you were just protecting-"

"No, get away!" Tyler groans loudly, cradling his head. Leathery spikes stab through his suit, scaly and tinted gray-green. A tail curls around his body protectively. Not a furry tail, a scorpion tail, the stinger large enough to decapitate Josh.

"Uh, Medium, we have a situation," Josh calls into the radio, slowly backing up as Tyler warps through different animal forms.

"Did you defeat Frangipane?" She sounds out of breath.

"That is... an understatement. Tyler's going haywire, he used this power that made him turn into a crocodile then a snake and a lion, and now he's-"

"He WHAT?"

Josh can hear her scream even from street level. "I don't know what to do. He won't let me near him."

"Don't get near him. Remember your promise. You promised no matter what, you'd do what I say when the time came, right?"

"I did," he sighs.

"Well, the time is fucking here. Do not. Get close. To him."