Yurui The Cursed One

Nobody answers me even as seconds pass.

I look toward Maya. She watches me closely, her brow faintly furrowed as she tries to make sense of whatever she had become of me.

“Maya,” I ask almost pleadingly

“We'll figure something out.” She says, not sounding very confident.

“I didn’t mean to go this far,” I reply, my voice shaking. “I was only trying to transform a little.”

“No, probably not.” She replies coldly and then reaffirms. “We’ll figure something out“

Before I can ask what exactly she means by we'll figure it out, feathers begin spreading across her skin.

I stare at her. No, hell noooo. I really didn’t like where this was going.

“Please don’t tell me you’re about to say what I think you’re about to say.”

“I can’t read minds, you know.“ Maya pauses. “But we are going to solve this.“

Solve.

Here we go, yet again I was nothing more but a problem to be solved.

A grin flashes across Marcus's face. “Ohhh, this is going to be fun.“

Narun takes a step forward, looking a little more excited than I would have liked, while Oba follows behind him with the same unreadable expression as always.

Narun rolls one shoulder and begins changing as well. His body thickens beneath overlapping plates, shoulders widening and back rounding until he starts to resemble an armadillo that was somehow able to walk upright. Oba follows with considerably less ceremony, dark plating locking across his body in heavy overlapping sections.

Marcus starts last, fur spreading along his arms and neck as his face lengthens into a distinctly canine shape.

I look from one of them to the next. Jesus. Put some bars around the room, and we’d practically have a zoo exhibit.

Marcus bares a mouthful of viciously sharp teeth. “You guys ready?”

I barely have time to process the question before Maya drops down right in front of me, hitting the floor with enough force to make me instinctively step back. Her arms have spread into broad wings, but she makes no move to take off as her feet remain firmly planted on the floor.

“We start slow,” she says, looking at me with sudden seriousness, all warmth gone from her expression.

Okay, slow. I like the sound of that, I might not be thrown off the deep end after all.

She points toward the reinforced wall. “Before we begin, move around a little. Get a feel for how your new body moves.”

I look at her nervously.

“Do I have to?” I ask, trying to sound as nonchalant as I can. Truth be told, I am too terrified to move. For all I know, whatever this thing is might have more control over me than I do over it, and another round of transformation may not even be the worst thing that I could trigger.

“Yes,” Maya replies curtly. “Unless your game plan is to transform and act as a statue or a meat wall of sorts, then you are going to have to learn how to move. We also need to figure out exactly what you can do before we put you in the field. Better to find all the surprises here than out there.

When she put it that way, it made perfect sense. I still wasn’t particularly happy about being called a statue or a meat wall, though. Maya’s stock took an immediate dive. Not enough to land her anywhere near my list of people I disliked, but she was suddenly in serious danger of falling off my newly created list of potential friends.

Still, there was nothing else for me to do, so I took the plunge.

There goes nothing.

I ease one foot forward, only to misjudge the distance completely and plant it much farther ahead than intended. I correct myself on the next step, which was much easier when I already knew my reach. The third step was more of the same.

By the fourth step, I am finally starting to get a feel for the extra length in my legs, though my arms still feel almost comically oversized. What unsettles me more is how quickly my body adjusts. I should be stumbling around like a child on stilts, yet the monstrosity that is now my body seems to compensate for every misstep on its own, adjusting the balance almost before I even realize that something was wrong, it was like moving on autopilot.

Narun circles me at a distance. “Any pain ?”

“No,” I reply bluntly

“Hmm, any pressure? Dizziness ?“ He hums.

I glance down at him. “It’s mostly just an annoyance. I can’t really tell if I’m in control or not, and the movement is kind of weird."

Maya nods as if she knew exactly what I was talking about.

She then turns towards Narun and gestures with her arms. “Give her the light course.”

“The light course ?” I ask, my voice shaking.

Marcus lets out a short laugh.

“Don’t worry about it too much. Who knows, you might actually have fun. Just think of it as a little exercise.”

There is something about the way he says it that makes me take a step back.

Narun’s smile turns more serious as he steps into my path.

Maya gives him a look. “Remember, keep it light, don’t overdo it, you don’t wanna mess up the rookie too bad."

“What? Don’t overdo what? What’s going on?” The questions tumble out before I can stop them, panic already creeping into my voice. Narun’s slow approach does nothing to help. There is something deeply unsettling about the way he closes in on me, like a predator stalking its prey.

Maya gives me a brief glance. “He'll come at you slowly. Block him.”

“Come at me?!" I shout out almost frantically, “Are we fighting ?!"

Maya doesn’t respond.

Narun lowers his stance as he enters my range.

“Slowly,” Maya repeats, drawing out the word.

“I heard you the first time around.” He mumbles under his breath.

Nothing about the way he smiles suggests he was intending to take things slow.

I raise my arms, still not entirely sure what I am supposed to do with them. Whatever fighting I had done in the desert or the classroom had been little more than panic and adrenaline taking over, so I fall back on the only reference point I have: The TV. People on TV always keep their hands up. Presumably, there is a good reason for that. I’ve heard plenty of times that defense is the most important thing in a fight. Whether that is actually true, I have no idea, but I don’t exactly have anything better to work with.

In any case, Narun does not give me much time to figure it out as he launches himself forward.

Even knowing he is holding back, there is something deeply unpleasant about watching that much armored mass come barreling straight at me. His shoulders dip, one side turning toward me as he closes the distance in a handful of heavy steps, and for a split second all I can think is that this is going to hurt.

Before I can do anything, my arm swings on its own. I barely see it move. One second Narun is rushing me, and the next my hand crashes into him hard enough to send a jolt through my shoulder. Next thing I know, he is already flying backward.

A fraction of a second later, something slams into the far wall hard enough to shake the room.

I wince. This can’t be good. Maya told us to take it easy, and I might have just broken every bone in his body — if not killed him outright.

Dust and powdered concrete drift through the air where he struck, and when it clears enough for me to see properly, Narun is sitting at the base of a fresh crater with one knee bent beneath him. A thin line of blood has already worked its way from the corner of his mouth, and the armor across his chest is split where my hand caught him.

I freeze.

For a moment, nobody says anything.

My stomach drops.

“Narun?”

He coughs once, glances at the blood on the back of his hand, and starts pushing himself upright.

I move toward him before I even realize I am doing it. “I didn’t mean to—”

“I’m fine.” He replies, wiping his bloodied hand on his pants.

“You’re bleeding! That doesn’t look fine !”

Narun waves me off.

“I told you I’m fine. I go through worse on a daily basis, tis nothing but child’s play for me.“

Noted. These guys are fucking insane. I had spent the last few seconds wondering if I had just killed the guy, and he was already getting back up as if nothing had happened.

He gets back to his feet looking more surprised than hurt, but I barely pay attention. I am still staring at my hand, trying to make sense of what just happened.

I never made the call to hit him. I hadn’t even had time to react. My hand had moved entirely on its own, without so much as a moment of hesitation, and there had been nothing defensive about the way it struck. Whoever—or whatever had made that decision had been perfectly willing to kill Narun.

A chill runs through me at the thought.

The realization that follows it is even more unsettling. Until now, I had been worried about losing control of my body, but what if that wasn’t where it ended? For all I knew, whatever was changing me could reach much deeper than flesh and bone.

And if that were true, how could I even be sure the thoughts in my head were still mine? Maybe I had died somewhere along the way. There had certainly been enough opportunities for it. More than once I had blacked out and woken up with no idea what had happened in between, and suddenly I wasn’t so sure I had merely been unconscious.

No.

I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek.

I am not doing this to myself.

If I’m gonna start doubting my own thoughts, I might as well serve my mind up on a silver platter to whoever is messing with my body as well. That is exactly how one would lose themselves—not all at once, but by surrendering little pieces of certainty until there is nothing left to hold on to. And control is the one thing I am not willing to cede no matter what.

I force my breathing to steady and look back at Narun. The fear is still there, crawling around somewhere beneath everything else, but I shove it aside. Whatever this body is, whatever else might be hiding inside it, what matters is that I am still the one standing here.

For now, that is enough.

I raise my hands again.

I was now one hundred percent ready to see this through to the end. Not only that, but I had every intention of coming out of this the winner.

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