Fury

Agony... the sheer force of the pain overwhelms me, smothering me, killing me faster than the bullet wound in my belly. This, however, is not the source of my torture. No, I assure you, there are far more terrible forms of pain that exist, which can out rival even the sharp, searing metal of mankind’s cruellest invention. I recoil as the flesh in my back starts to rip, pulling apart near my shoulder blades, forming an escape route for the mass of new bone and muscle that is erupting violently and impossibly from my spine.
My neck and eyes strain with effort as I try to focus on the shredded mess that used to be the smooth skin of my back and imagine that from an outsider’s perspective, this would look like something out of a gruesome horror movie. The tips of the protruding and ever expanding bones have the appearance of two unimaginably large, hooked skeletal fingers. After these have fully grown out to an incredible metre each, masses of stretchy, coarse muscle overlap them, covering them completely and bulging with strength.
By now, I can feel their presence; these alien things growing straight out of my back feel like limbs, all too real, stiff and excruciating. The raw meat and bones of this strange new pair are battered and burned by the severity of the rain and wind circling me. My cries are unanswered, my screams unheard.
Soon, I begin to realize that no one can help me while I continue lose more blood and the pain of my back and its new additions intensifies. Now there is a thin membrane of goose-fleshed skin that covers the muscle and bone. This has stopped the burning but introduced me, for the first time, to the near freezing conditions that I am lying weakly in, the heat from my wound having masked it earlier.
The pain in my back is throbbing sharply, its rhythm matching the beat of the gaping hole in my abdomen. Just when I think I can take no more, that I will surely die if this continues for even a second longer, everything is over. All the agony of my transformation dulls and eventually stops; leaving only the throb of my stomach as more blood than I thought possible continues to ebb out of it.
Strangely though, this whole ordeal has granted me new strength and I am able to push myself up into standing. My new limbs to still feel very much a part of me and, without so much as a second thought; I stretch them out straight and far – they have to be at least 2 metres long each from the thick joints protruding from my back, to the soft tips. The black feathers of my freshly grown wings ruffle with the movement and in the wind.

I beat my incredible new wings, slowly at first, but with increasing speed there after. I feel the glorious spurt of adrenaline this causes and the staggering power of my colossal extensions as they catch the air beneath them. All pain forgotten, I give my wings one mighty push, and I am airborne. The elation of my takeoff causes me to forget momentarily, that in order for me stay in the air; I need to keep my wings moving. A sharp plummet back down is enough to make them start again.
The rain continues to shower me from the heavens as I climb higher and higher into the midnight sky. The view is breathtaking. The cold rush of air against my skin feels exquisite, but nothing in comparison to the resistance it creates under the caves of my wings. I can feel the magnitude of their strength, strung like a bow, stretching, the release sending me soaring like an arrow. I breathe in deep, letting the clean, fresh air saturate my lungs, giving me a strange mixture of feelings. More adrenaline, but also euphoria and a feeling of freedom I didn’t know existed. This is strange because I should be terrified, but am not. Flying, (God, I’m flying) seems natural to me, like second nature.
An ecstatic laugh escapes from my tense chest, and I feel my whole body relax, letting my wings carry me, trusting them completely, amazed that it has taken me just short of 10 minutes from the end of my transformation to do so. Remembering this, my thoughts are thrust back to the mortal wound in my belly, which I had remarkably forgotten all about since my takeoff into the stormy night. I reach down and gingerly prod the injury and am amazed to find that it has disappeared. Hardly believing my sense of touch, I test my threshold of pain and press two fingers sharply into my flesh. Nothing, just the feel of the light pressure I exert into my stomach.
Astounded, I let out a huge sigh of relief and wince, expecting the agony to return. Still nothing. This time, I really celebrate and perform spirals and flips in the air, for practice, and just because I can. What an astonishing feeling. So lithe, so light, flying feels like skydiving without the fear and plummet.

Screams in the dark; echoing loudly and clearly below me. Strange, I had heard nothing but the whistling of the wind in my ears since my takeoff until now. A woman’s shrieking rings in my ears and I find myself following the sound, automatically straightening my wings and beginning my descent with a glide.
Her voice, her agony, echoes my own just hours ago and I realise that her pain is what made me hear her and what draws me to her still. I have to help her. I tilt my body forward, folding my wings back, and dive sharply towards the ground. Once I burst through the cloud banks, I can clearly witness the scene below. A woman in her early twenties, pretty, with long dark hair has been reduced to tears and is trying to escape her attacker in the never ending rain. She pleads with him, trying to step past him in the narrow mouth of the alley, dragging a heavy suitcase with her. The man, a bulky guy with a buzz cut and selfish face, blocks her easily, almost twice her size. I hover above uncertainly as the scene unfolds dramatically.
“I can’t let you go Lee, you belong to me. You are my life.”
“Leave me alone Robby! I belong to no one, let me through, we’re done.”
The man, Robby, grunts like an angry pig as the woman makes a fresh attempt at freedom. He blocks her path yet again and this time, grabs her, locking the arms of her thrashing body to his chest. Her legs kick wildly at nothing as she tries to free herself from his tight grip, biting and clawing at the bare skin of his arms.
“Damn it Leah, I won’t let you go – aarrgh!”
Leah’s teeth come down hard on her assailant’s arm. He releases her, checks is wound and howls with rage, using the same arm to strike her brutally across the face. The woman screams again as she hits the ground hard.
The sound awakens something in me, an escalating fury, bottled deep within my core, waiting to be unleashed. I bullet towards the monster standing over this broken woman and land swiftly between them. Catching sight of me, the creature named Robby staggers back in shock, and then sneers.
“This isn’t a Halloween party b***h, now forget what you saw and scram before I leave a mark on your pretty little face as well.”
I step forward and the fury within me speaks with the echo of three different female voices, all conveying the same message in perfect sync. Robby’s face drains of colour and the grin is wiped off his face as we begin to speak.
“Happy the man who keeps his heart pure from guilt and crime! Him we avengers touch not; He treads the path of life secure from us. But woe, woe! To him who has done the deed of secret murder. We, the fearful daughters of Night, fasten ourselves upon his whole being. Thinks he by flight to escape us? We fly still faster in pursuit, twine our snakes around his feet, and bring him to the ground, unwearied we pursue. No pity checks our courage; still on and on, to the end of life We give him no peace nor rest!”
The Furies speak, muttering a curse on the now speechless man in front of me. They help me tap into their power, letting it build, filling me up, until I tremble with a raw and ancient energy. When I can feel the power vibrating under my skin, making me strong, my fury helps me unleash it, summoning snakes which wrap themselves around the now petrified Robby. They curl around his entire body, binding him, squeezing and gagging him, until his wide eyes and flared nostrils are the only part of him I see through the thick coils of scales. I step forward, still facing him and let the blood from his previous victims spill from my eyes. My tears of blood mirror his and I know that he is seeing exactly what I am – the faces of the woman he had murdered in the past because of his obsessions. Sarah, who left him for another man – he beat her to death in a fit of rage. Caroline, buried in park across his house. Violet, stabbed because she didn’t love him. Angela. Kerry. Grace. Anna. I see them all, he sees them all. He bleeds for his crimes. These visions torment him in his final moments while they add fuel to the ever expanding inferno of rage roaring inside me. His fear of what I might do to him next, tortures him as the snakes, still wrapped tightly around him, squeeze once more and his soul is banished to Tartarus.

After the snakes disappear and my tears of blood stops flowing, only Robby’s destroyed body, an unconscious Leah and an exhausted mythological deity remain – wings still attached. I sink to my knees, mind buzzing with confusion. When I came to help, something took control of me, used me. I could see everything that was happening, everything that I was doing but I couldn’t stop. This first encounter with a murderer triggered something in me which probably laid dormant all my life. It seems that my initial transformation – the growth of my wings – was caused by my getting shot, the injustice of my attempted murder. The full transformation occurred when I came to save an innocent, which, I realise now, is my purpose. I am an avenger, a daughter of the Goddess Nyx. I am a Fury and it is my duty to protect the pure and punish the guilty.