Veil of Shadows

Within

The Monster Within

The house was alive with tension, its walls groaning as if they too were holding their breath. Celeste's body hummed with the same low, electric buzz in the air. Every step she took echoed in the silence between her and Dean. His back was to her, his stiff posture betraying the frustration that rippled through the room.

She tried to focus on the conversation, on the problem, but every word felt like it was slipping through her fingers. His refusal to open up, his coldness in shutting her out—it hurt in ways she couldn't articulate. The house seemed to react, the walls growing tighter, as though they were feeding off her confusion, her uncertainty.

"You won't talk to me," she said, her voice tight with frustration, though a deeper part of her ached with the unspoken weight of everything they hadn't said. "You won't let me in. How am I supposed to trust you if you keep hiding?"

Dean's voice came low and strained, but sharp nonetheless. "You don't get it, Celeste," he muttered, eyes flickering toward her, but not meeting her gaze. "You don't know what's at stake. If I let you in—if I tell you everything, you'd be running for the hills."

Her chest tightened. "Maybe I already am running," she whispered bitterly, staring at the floor, unable to meet his eyes now. "Maybe I'm running away from a man I don't even know."

The words felt heavy between them. The moment was too much—too raw—and the house's response was swift. The familiar creak of the stairs began in the distance, a slow, deliberate stomp that grew louder with each passing second, like an approaching storm.

Dean's head snapped toward the sound, his whole body going rigid, his gaze locking onto the darkened hallway. "Stay behind me," he said, his voice darkening with an edge she hadn't heard before. "Do not move."

But Celeste's frustration swelled again, a sharp knot in her chest. "No. I'm done being told what to do."

Without waiting for his protest, she marched toward the hallway, her pulse pounding in her throat. The heavy footsteps continued, slow, menacing, growing closer. Then, from the shadows emerged... a white bunny. Its red eyes glinted like twin rubies, unnatural and unsettling in the soft glow of the house's oppressive light. The sight of it froze Celeste in place.

She took a slow, confused step forward. "What the hell?" Her voice faltered. "How did a bunny get in here?"

Dean's expression twisted into something dark, something foreign. His lips parted, and the tension in his body was palpable. "That's no bunny," he growled, his voice low and edged with an unmistakable warning. "Don't touch it. Its not what you think. Stay back, Celeste. I'm serious."

Celeste scoffed, her emotions a storm she couldn't contain. "Oh, of course, another thing you're not going to explain to me. It just a weird, creepy bunny, right?" she said sarcastically, but the words felt empty, hollow. She was beyond angry now—too far gone into her own spiraling thoughts to care.

Before he could stop her, she crouched down, extending her hand. The bunny hopped forward, its red eyes now fixed on her, its little white body almost angelic in contrast to the dark atmosphere. It felt too normal, too innocent, and yet she couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly, dangerously wrong.

When her hand met the soft, warm fur, everything went white.

The rush of icy coldness shot through her, a wave of disorienting whispers tearing at the edges of her mind.

"Unworthy."
"Unhuman."
"A monster."
"You'll never escape."

The words were like knives, cutting through the layers of her mind, opening wounds in her mind and emotions. Her vision blurred and her fingers clenched around the bunny, the warmth of its soft body feeling like the last tether to something real.

The next thing she knew, her grip had tightened to a terrifying strength. The bunny's body twisted unnaturally in her hands, its small form no longer the soft, fragile thing she'd thought it to be. She flipped it onto its back, her fingers digging into its ribs as if she was doing something automatic, something necessary. Her thoughts were no longer her own—there was only hunger, only the dark need to tear and destroy.

With an animalistic hiss, she sank her teeth into its flesh, feeling it rip beneath her lips, the warmth of blood flooding her mouth. The sickening squelch of breaking bone and tearing flesh filled the room. She didn't stop—couldn't stop—as her mouth tore into its delicate limbs, ripping apart each paw, the ears, the soft fur. The blood stained her hands, dripping down her arms, splattering across her clothes.

Each bite was a frenzy, a desperate act, and with every shredded piece of fur and ripped limb, her mind filled with more whispers.

"See what you are? A beast. A thing."
"Not human. Never human."
"Nothing more than what you just devoured."

The taste of blood in her mouth was bitter and choking, but it wasn't enough. She needed more. She needed to consume, to tear. Her stomach twisted in hunger, but it wasn't just for food—it was for something darker, something deeper.

When she finally stopped, she was covered in blood. Her hands were stained, her face slick with the remnants of her brutality. The bunny—no, the demon—lay shredded and lifeless in her hands, its tiny body reduced to a mangled mess of fur and bone.

But as the last shred of sanity flickered within her, the horror of what she had done settled into her chest, choking the breath from her. Her body began to tremble uncontrollably as she collapsed to the floor, tears spilling down her bloodied cheeks.

"What am I?" she whispered through ragged sobs, her voice broken. "What the hell am I?"

The whispers didn't stop—they only grew louder, until they became a constant roar in her mind.

"You're nothing. A monster. A thing unworthy of love. Unworthy of life."

She curled in on herself, hands clutching her head as if she could silence the voices. But the sound of footsteps, heavy and unrelenting, broke through the chaos of her mind. She looked up, her blurred vision focusing on the figure that stood before her. Dean, but not Dean. His demonic form filled the doorway, his body large and ominous.

He knelt beside her with a slow, deliberate movement, his burning gaze softening as he pulled her into his arms. His claws, still sharp and black, were gentle on her bloodstained skin, cradling her as if she was fragile—more fragile than he had ever let her see.

"You're not a monster," he whispered, his voice rough with something deeper than the protective anger she had heard before. "You're not. You're my angel, Celeste. I will never let you believe anything else."

His words were a balm, though her sobs didn't stop. He held her tightly, his claws trembling with the force of his need to protect her, to shelter her from what had just happened, from what she feared she had become.

She clung to him, her bloodied hands grasping at him, finding solace in the dark, monstrous form that held her. The touch of him was grounding. It was real. It was everything that she wasn't. But as she buried her face in his chest, she felt the tension in him slowly loosen, the pressure of the transformation melting away, the claws retracting and the demonic form beginning to fold back into the human one she knew.

As the last remnants of his monstrous form faded, his human eyes—light green, soft and warm—met hers, and for a moment, all the violence in the world ceased to exist. There was only him. There was only her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, still shaken. "I don't know what I've become."

Dean's hand cupped her face, his thumb tracing the blood on her cheek with a tenderness that only deepened the ache in her chest. "You're still you," he murmured, his voice low and filled with certainty.

"You'll always be you."