ANATOMY OF A GIRL

part twelve

After fitness training and a practise match against the junior team, Leo was pretty damn tired. Soccer practice had ended far later than he'd expected, and he was aching to get back to his bed.

"You played well," he told Kenna, the junior team's goalkeeper, as he grabbed his duffel bag off the floor.

"Thanks, Leo," she said with a grin before turning back toward her friends.

Leo turned away from the field and began the long walk back to the dorms. His limbs felt heavy and his muscles burned in a way that was both terrible and beautiful. The sky curled like a wave of grey, blackening at the edges like ash. Clouds seemed to roll toward Belreistkov before his eyes. It was just his luck.

He hastened his walk but his muscles screamed in protest. In just a second, Leo had altered his course and started toward the forest. The shortcut through the edge of the forest would cut ten minutes off the walk, but he tended to avoid it whenever possible, opting to follow the path that wound around the swimming pool. There was something about the trees and endless leaves between him and the sky that made him feel as though he were suffocating. But he decidedly would not be getting stuck in the rain tonight.

He was almost at the forest's boundary — could see the last spatters of daylight up ahead — when he heard leaves crunching under foot. Leo's heart quickened in his chest. He turned toward the sound, which seemed to come from somewhere close behind him. He turned around once more, looking in every direction, but saw nothing but trees. The damned trees surrounded him, branches curling toward him.

Ravens crowed in the distance. He fought the urge to become a raven himself and fly himself the last few hundred metres to the dorms. But that would be ridiculous, so he turned his attention forward and walked once more. (Albeit as fast as his muscles would allow.)

He'd walked another ten metres when he heard the sound once more. Feet dragging against the ground. For what he told himself was the last time, he looked back. He felt relief rush through him like ice water, slowing his heartbeat and soothing his aching bones. Ayden stood, his hands in his pockets, smiling.

Leo approached Ayden. "I about shat in my pants, asshole, what were you doing?"

Ayden came closer and closer yet. This was his best friend, and yet, Leo felt uneasy. Something cold and heavy settled on his shoulders and compressed his chest. The silence around them was only punctured by the crowing of the ravens.

Ayden took a single step forward. Leo was certain he was dreaming, because Ayden's face seemed to be changing. It shifted and contorted, his eyes and lips and nose twisting and turning in on themselves.

Leo couldn't move. His muscles, once pained, were numb. Fear spiked through his chest, pain puncturing his heart.

Ayden's face changed, until it was not the face of his friend. It was his face. Leo's. Ayden's pallid skin became dark, his hair thickening and curling further, eyes blackening. It was as if he was looking into a mirror.

His mirrored counterpart grinned, teeth shining in the newly-arrived moonlight. "Goodnight," he told Leo, before his form started shifting once more.

Was this what others saw when he shifted? Did it make everyone else feel as ill as he did in this moment?

Its face was a whirlpool once more, and before Leo could run, before he could think of running, it grabbed him. Its face was a terrible blackened collection of features. It swung itself onto Leo, pushing him down onto the floor to struggle beneath its weight. In awful flashes, Leo could see his sister struggling against the same weight, avoiding the same razor-like teeth and talons.