Blood is the essence of life,
Offer your pure heart to me
Before I forsaken you
“WHAT? NO! THI-This Cannot be real?” My panicking voice sounded different, with a lighter tone. My body started to sweat and drop frozen at the realization. If I was shaking I wasn't able to notice it. My soul went dead cold with fear, guilt, and shame, by the nightmare that has come true. I tried vigorously to clean the red off from my skin with my robe thinking it was a residual of the potion from the explosion. Then I saw my sharp bck nails. “Nails?” No. “Cws? No no no, oh no.” I shivered and trembled at my voice. My vision was blurry from my teary eyes. I grimaced at what I had become. My clothes fit differently, baggier, and the back of my leg felt something in between.
“No, oh gods no!” I said taking rapid breaths as air failed to reach my lungs. I pulled up the back of my robes and was mortified at my devilish slithering tail, which coiled around my trembling leg. My body felt strange, and I was not sure if it was due to the sudden changes. My tight chest puffed with my heavy breathing when the voices of armed students grew louder. I was unsure of who was even here at this hour, I was certain I was alone.
As the voices got closer in a matter of seconds I realized to whom the voices belonged. They were Oliver and happy to solve anything by fighting Julius's voices. He is always the one to cast fire spells at every problem. The boratory was in shambles, with fires growing and consuming half of the room from my terrible mistake. This must be God's punishment for what I have done, for using my blood. I did not have a moment to even think about how I would expin anything when Oliver yelled “DEMON!” from the top of his lungs. I knew today was going to be the worst day of my life.
I must admit that if Julius were to fight something dangerous, I might have admired his courage. But not today because he wasted no time casting a fire bolt spell in an already bzing room full of chemicals at me. But their terrified faces told me everything, there was no talking out of this. I ducked the first shot and the gss cabinet exploded behind me. Gss shards and the liquid of the potions of all the colors were sent flying across the alchemical boratory. I dashed without a second guess as fast as my body let me, avoiding any mysterious potion remains on the floor, to the broken window. In the heat of the moment, I jumped out of the window, scraping my legs with sharp broken gss, leaving the alchemy boratory abze.
Up in the air, the domain of the god Horizon, the night, and the stars were beautiful. Down was the incoming city where I was falling too fast. Falling took forever meanwhile wind was blowing fast and hard on my skin as I fell into the night sky. “ZEPHYR!!” I called for him with all my might calling for my familiar while falling from the fourth floor of the academy.
Suddenly a bolt of lightning zapped above me and appearing from it Zephyr was summoned. Their cws fed with my magic from the summoning grew rger, grabbing my arm with their monster-sized cws. Zephyr was the size of a vulture, with magic flowing across their huge empowered wings, reducing my fall and nding safely on the streets. I felt my mana reserves in my body greatly decrease from summoning my familiar on quick notice without proper casting and doing such an impossible feat for a crow.
“Zephyr it's me, don’t panic please,” I told my best friend desperately. The bird shrunk down to their original size, cooed, and nuzzled with his feathers against my cheeks. I realized they were trying to dry away the tears that fell like rain from my monstrous face. Tears I did not know I had. My breathing was so heavy and everything felt dizzy, feeling like I was about to fall. I didn't feel my heart anymore, but I was aware of how fast it was beating. Beating, beating, so much. Beating beating by all that has happened. Beating, by the strong emotions everywhere breaking my body. I feel like I'm going to die. No. I'm dying.
Zephyr by magic grew in size again, this time the size of a big dog. They guided me into a dark corner outside the academy yard we nded in. Laying on the cold hard stone tile of a floor, Zephyr rested on top of me spreading their heavy wings. It was hard to calm down. I had a tail that was touching the cold floor, making it hard to stay still and not rip apart from my body. There was another problem with my body, one that I did not dare to check if it was true, but the guilt was there. I didn't know why I was still crying, with so many reasons it was hard to point at. Maybe I didn't need a specific reason to cry? Just like the time when mother was sick, there was so much going on.
Eventually, I managed. Taking the deepest breath ever to get all of the air the god Horizon can give. I exhale giving it back. I pulled myself together and struggled a bit to get back up. I knew my left leg was bleeding, my chest felt weird, my eyes were swollen and my hair was full of bck feathers. I sighed. I look up at the alchemy boratory indulging in fmes, people running and calling for help. My skin is demon red and my tail is looking for warmth. So I ran.
***
My legs ran as fast as the wind to my dorm while Zephyr flew beside me. As I ran tainted blood ran down my legs from the cuts of the broken gss window. I couldn't let anyone see me or the whole city would be with torches and pitchforks on me. It was the middle of the night, mostly everyone was deeply asleep, and only drunks or vagabonds remained awake. The academy’s bell began to ring loudly, signaling danger to the city guards and waking everyone up. The guards' heavy steps cnked their armor, and the shouting grew louder as they closed in on me. The city began waking up to the commotion. Lights were turned on, and doors and windows were opened out of curiosity.
While running back to my dorm Zephyr warned me about any potential problem ahead to avoid, by discreetly screeking. I had a few close calls as the guards searched for me furiously while I hid behind the tavern's trash, waiting a moment to move on. Nobody suspected Zephyr's calls because they were just a simple crow. Only a few meters away from my dorm door I ran into three guards who were obstructing the path. Two of the guards were in steel chainmail with spears and swords. One mage guard in a robe-like gambeson with a wooden quarterstaff. I stopped at their sight and sprinted back when the guards yelled “A Demon! There look! The DEMON was found!!”
Running back the other way, my heart was beating faster now, which led me to suspect I might develop heart problems in the future. If I had any future. I looked back, and the guards were behind my literal tail as it swag peeked out of my robes. Their faces were full of hate and righteous wrath. I quickly pced both my hands on my thighs, to cast a simple minor haste spell increasing my speed and stamina. At that moment one of the guards threw their spears at me, barely missing my head. They caught up to me when I mistook the market streets and barely made a wrong turn leading to a dead end, slipping down. At that moment, the second one trusted his sword scraping my right arm. I let out a gasp of pain when the sharp spear ripped through my skin, feeling like an eternity of pain. Bck blood poured out of the cut in my arm. Zephyr in this moment came to pluck the eyes of the guards. Using that distraction I continued to run for my life.
I ran faster than ever, with my right arm hurting like hell. Meanwhile, the guards were almost catching up to me again, presumably enchanted by their magic. Zephyr then screak telling me to dodge to the right. I did it just in time rolling to the right and onto the floor before a storm of rocks spell the mage gourd must have cast flew past me. I was panicking and unable to think of any spell to get me out of here. The mage guard, although slower than his athletic friends in front of him, was efficient at casting spells. They chanted a spell that I did not manage to hear well enough to know what they were casting and moved their quarterstaff pointing at me. I suddenly felt sleepy, my eyelids were heavy, and my pace was slowing down.
“The Demon slowed down! Kill it before it is too te and escape!” the guard screamed but it only sounded like a blur to me. The rush of adrenaline in me pushed my body to its limits preventing me from falling asleep from the mage guard’s sleep spell. I bit my tongue in a desperate attempt to wake up, barely dodging the guard's attack that I did not even manage to see. My bite hurt way more because I did not expect to have sharp fangs resulting in me swallowing a bit of my blood from the shock of pain. Now I was barely awake with blood running from my mouth and running fast for my life again.
We ran across the city and the people quickly hid inside their homes when they saw me running from the guards and another one joined in the chase. The city was in full chaos, with people screaming that more demons were attacking the city. I did not know if it was true, but I had my problem to deal with right now, as blood continued dripping from my wounds. The guards had little luck trying to hit my agile familiar who was swift as lighting.
“Zephyr stun the guards attacking us!” I commanded my familiar. Zephyr then turned around pointing their beak at the guards charging their lighting affinity mana until sparks soon started to come out of their body. My familiar unleashed their non-lethal lightning bolt in a fsh, zapping and stunning the two guards that were right behind us. The mage guard stopped a bit to check on their squad but kept chasing me soon after. They smmed their quarterstaff into the ground furiously channeling their mana through it, then a magic circle appeared around the staff. I immediately jumped, knowing what spell they had cast, seeing it a bunch of times in the academy. The ground beneath me turned into a giant earth mouth that tried to chomp my feet.
Turning mid-air, I took my chance. From the wand in my left hand, a magic circle appears followed by the blue projectiles of magic, from the arcane barrage spell. The city guards were caught off guard failing to dodge my spell and were hit directly by my attack. Both fell onto the ground and were pushed by the force of all the shots. Oh no. I hope I did not accidentally kill them. Sure, the guards wanted to kill me, but I had no reason to kill them. I went up to the bodies on the floor and checked that they were still breathing. They were fine, just all bruised up and in need of a pay raise for all the trouble.
The rush of adrenaline was over and my body was screaming in pain. My robes were covered in bck stains of blood and the failed demon’s bane liquid. Going back to my dorm I was stealthier and slower this time while holding my bleeding cut in my arm. I covered my face with my hood in the dark and pretended I was only a normal city folk with nothing to hide.
Nope, Nothing at all.
The guards were still looking for me relentlessly, patrolling around the city. Waiting in the dark alley until the coast was clear and Zephyr confirmed it. I managed to finally get back to my dorm after running all night, my body was exhausted. My shaky red hands made it hard to open the door lock and my bck cws graced the metal handle.
“Please let this be a nightmare,” I told myself, taking a moment to stare at my bck cws.
I closed the door, to finally coming to terms with my other problem. The one I have been trying to avoid all this time, trying to deny. Thinking this can get any worst. I was a demoness now.
