I wasn’t supposed to exist.
Every myth born in the Old Forest comes out kind, glowing, meant to guide humans through the dark.
But me?
I crawled into the world twisted — bones wrong, voice wrong, heart screaming for something I never learned how to hold: mercy.
They said I was a mistake.
A creature the forest itself tried to spit out.
A myth with hunger stitched into my ribs.
So I ran.
I hid.
I watched humans from the shadows — their warmth, their stories, their stupid, fragile hope.
Until the hunger snapped its teeth through my mind and I learned the truth:
I am not like them.
I was never meant to protect them.
I was born to hunt them.
Now the humans whisper about the thing wearing a deer’s skin wrong.
The walking nightmare with too many joints, too-bright eyes, and a voice that mimics theirs just a little too perfectly.
They call me a myth.
A monster.
A warning.
But this is my story —
how a creature born from the wrong legend tore its way into their world…
and how I learned there’s no going back to what I should’ve been.
Not when the woods still want me dead.
Not when humans now fear my name.
Not when the hunger keeps getting louder.

Ahhh… now I'm angry at myself.I let those bastards touch me. Stab me. Take samples. Cut and prod and poke like I was nothing more than meat laid out on a table. And I didn't kill a single one of them.


And then there's the blond again.Just thinking about him ruins the calm. Twists it. Makes it rot. That forced stillness, that fake quiet they thought meant control. No. If I stayed calm, they would never learn a damn thing.


If calm lets them get close, then rage will teach them distance.I break the chains.


Not slowly. Not carefully. I rip through them like they were thin cords pretending to be iron. Metal screams. Bolts snap. Links explode apart and scatter across the floor.Freedom slams into my body all at once.I straighten fully and laugh. Not loud. Not wild. Mocking.


I look around at the mess.Three bodies. Torn. Thrown like trash. Blood smeared across the floor, splashed up the walls, pooled where fear finally ran out.


What a disaster.I tilt my head.Eh. Who cares.They learned something today.


I step toward the glass.She's still there. The woman. The one who watched. The one who talked like I couldn't hear, like I couldn't understand. The one who smiled when they hurt me.I move closer, each step heavy, deliberate. I feel different now. Clearer. Sharper. Like my thoughts finally learned how to line up instead of clawing over each other.I know how to escape.I know how to kill without wasting time.


I glare at her through the glass, then bare my teeth in a slow grin, knives slick with red. I tilt my head and steal her voice, her tone, her certainty."Soon or later," I mimic softly, wrong and dragging, "you will… fucking break."


Chapter 17 - -Self Comtrol-