Devin
Life for me has always had a tendency to give me something I’ve always wanted, and then take it away. I wanted a normal life and a normal family. I had one for a time, but then I was taken from them. I was also a star football player, but even that was taken from me. I had one perfect night with a woman I’ve loved almost all my life, and life took her as well.
Dmitri Mikhailov, Russian mafia boss and billionaire businessman, he was at the root of everything. That night that I left Dee lying in the bathtub, I had received a text from Michael. Dmitri’s goons were back for blood. I couldn’t tell Dee what was happening, so I left.
I arrived at the place Michael specified in his text. It was the parking lot of an abandoned warehouse building. My suspicion was piqued the moment I arrived at the address. I locked the car doors and tried to call him. As the line was ringing, I saw Dmitri’s men emerged from the shadows on all sides. They opened fire almost immediately. I ducked as glass soared through the air and bullets pierced the thin metal of my car.
I unlocked the door and fell out as my body began to shift. I was convinced I would never find out where this power came from, but it had come in handy more than a few times in my life. The shift happened fast, fueled by pure adrenaline as I hit the asphalt. In my gorilla form, their words sounded distant and garbled. I charged toward one of them and felt something hit me in my side.
It wasn’t a bullet, more like a dart. My vision started swimming almost immediately after it hit. The gunfire stopped and my legs fell out from under me. The men started approaching from all sides. I swung out with my fists and knocked a few off their feet. The other retaliated by hitting me with another dart. My vision was fading and there was nothing I could do to stop it. All I could think about was what Dee would think if I disappeared on her.
When I woke up, I was in a cage. Somehow I had remained in my gorilla form. I charged toward the rusted bars and hit them with full force. The sound echoed through the darkness surrounding me. I heard a door slam from my right. The darkness was illuminated by fluorescent lights that temporarily blinded me.
I fell back into the cage as I took in the scene around me. There were other cages lined up around me, going in either direction. All of them were filled with gorillas like myself. They thrashed and roared as the light woke them from their slumbers. A scrawny man dressed in a lab coat strolled down the path between the cages. He didn’t even flinch as they lashed out at him and roared through the bars.
He stopped at my cage and adjusted the thin rimmed glasses on his face.
“How long has it been, Devin? Twenty years? You probably don’t remember me, but I made you. You managed to get away once, but it won’t happened again.”
I turned around as the wall behind my cage slid open, revealing a vent large enough for me to climb through.
“Go on, we have a lot of work to do,” the scientist said.
I had no choice but to listen to him. I tried to shift back into my human form, but I couldn’t. It was as if I had been somehow altered to stay in this form. My human mind was panicking, but my gorilla mind was working on pure instinct. I emerged from the vent into a large enclosure that looked like an indoor zoo exhibit. It had a large tree in the center and several tires tied to ropes that swung from the branches.
An intercom above me crackled to life.
“Today’s round of testing is about to begin. You’ve been in your human form for far too long, so I’ve given you a dose of the shifter serum so you will stay in your animal form. You may not know this, but the longer you stay in your animal form, the more of your humanity you lose. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you shift back before that happens. Now, start by climbing to the top of the tree.”
I turned and looked at the tree in the center of the room. The gorilla in me wanted to obey, if only to avoid pain, but I wasn’t about to become this madman’s puppet.
“Resistance isn’t advised,” the intercom said.
The metal floor beneath my feet surged with electricity. It shot through me like molten lava in my veins. The gorilla mind took over and I scaled the tree with ease.
“There we are, now was that so hard? It looks like your physical dexterity hasn’t suffered too much. That’s good. Now, let’s see how you deal with your fellow shifters.”
All around me I saw vents open on the ground. Other gorillas poured out onto the ground below. They were thumping their chests and roaring up at me in the tree.
“They don’t seem to like you. Normally I would advise communicating, but that’s going to be hard to do when you’re not a gorilla like they are.”
I heard the soft blast of a silenced rifle and saw a dart hit my arm. I suddenly lost control of my form and started shifting back. I fell down through the tree mid-transformation and hit the ground hard as the gorillas gathered around me.
I couldn’t speak as the wind was knocked out of me. The gorillas eyed me with an intense curiosity. I couldn’t tell if they wanted to help me or hurt me.
“You’ll find that these other shifters are incredibly good at listening to orders. For example: kill him!”
The gorillas leapt forward and I climbed to my feet. I was thrashed about by massive bodies and black fur. I furiously tried to push my way through, but I felt their hands wrapping around me. Before they could deal with the finishing blow, a loud piercing siren cut through the noise. They instantly dropped me and retreated back into the vents they had come out of.
I heard the scientist laughing on the intercom.
“Ah yes, that was fun!” Now, back to your cage!” he shouted.
The days went by like this until they turned into months. I didn’t know how long I had been there. One day, after an eternity of torture that they called “tests,” I finally saw someone besides the scientist who had been the bane of my existence. He told me I was coming with him to see the boss.
They blindfolded me and drove to some fancy penthouse suite before they took the blindfold off. When they led me into the room, the lights were off. They came on almost unceremoniously and my jaw dropped.
Sitting in the center of the room, dressed in black lingerie, was Dee. Standing beside her, dressed in nothing but a velvet robe, was the Russian mob boss Dmitri Mikhailov.
“Devin,” he said, “You’re right on time.