She had only been wanting to check on me, quickly joining Zeta to talked about their grab-and-stab tactics. I felt a smile creep its way forward. Regardless of what happened with Starden, or with my body, I would conquer it. I stood, activating my helmet and motioning everyone forward. It only took about another hour to clear the rest of the building, adding several stacks of wood from broken down chairs and a few lengths of metal to our stockpile.

When we exited the building, I noticed the darkness beginning to creep over the city. I urged the others to get to B1 before night fell. None of us had stayed outside during night time in the city yet, but I was not eager to discover what other denizens were ready for a piece of us. Once we reached the entrance to the building, I scanned the immediate alleys and the windows of the opposite buildings.

My eyes caught on something on one of the farthest buildings I could see. The edge of the row of buildings ended on a shorter more rounded tiered building and something stood at the top. As my eyes adjusted to the encroaching gloom, the shape came into focus. A definite humanoid form was standing on the roof of the building, a fading ray of light causing a glint to reflect off its eyes. They were staring straight at me.

ALPHA!

I heard the voice in my head, much louder than before. A shiver ran down my spine as I noticed the figure leap into the air, rushing closer.

“Guys! Something is coming!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. I had lingered on the first floor of the building while the others had gone ahead to offload our loot. I was not even sure if they could hear me from the bottom floor. I white-knuckled my pipe wrench, expecting a fight with whatever mutant was rushing forward through the street.

I felt my mind relax for some reason, the grip on my wrench lessening as another ray of light illuminated the creature’s eyes. An unknown part of my brain reacted to that stimulus, drenching me in adrenaline, and causing me to regrip my wrench. My apprehension turned into anger and I yelled in my mind.

NO MORE!

The moment the thought forced itself into my mind, the creature audibly screeched to a halt. Now that it was only a few buildings away I could see that it had an extra pair of arms growing out of the base of its ribcage. The arms that extended from there had reached for the ground and dug themselves in to stop the unnatural advance of the creature. I took a step forward, swinging my wrench up to my shoulder.

I decided to test what I had done to cause it to stop.

Leave.

I thought, focusing wholly on the creature as I had done with my anger. The creature tilted its head to the side, the still darkening world obscuring its features from me. As we stood there for a tense minute regarding each other, the world fell into near complete darkness. The moment we were both out of view from one another, a piercing wail sounded throughout the city block. I could somehow… feel… the presence of the humanoid creature and I knew it had not been the source of the sound.

Even as I realized that I could sense the creature, painful howling thoughts invaded my mind. I doubled over to the ground, holding my head as a pounding agony wormed itself into my brain. The thoughts felt similar to the calling voice I had heard, but these were simply raw unfiltered static instead of a coherent sound. I must have been stifling a scream, because when I felt an arm on my shoulder a guttural roar broke free.

The sound that came out of my mouth should not have been physically possible for a human. Even with my pain drowned mind, I knew. I was mutating. I was a monster.

We are not monsters, but you are not human…

Not anymore…

The voice in my head rang like a clear bell. The roar was cut short, replaced by panting and the realization that my arms were pinned to the ground. I turned to see Delta and Epsilon struggling to hold me to the ground. Seeing that my scream had died down, they dragged my back into B1. I slumped into their hold and they dragged me all the way to the lit room at the top of the building. Gamma and Zeta were waiting impatiently next to Marvin, weapons drawn. I felt a hand against my chest and my helmet retracted.

I winced as I heard the collective gasps of the other Digits. Before Gamma shifted in front of Marvin I managed to catch a glimpse of my face. My once square face and rounded nose had been replaced with impossibly sharp features. As the seconds ticked, I saw the fear and disgust on the Digit’s faces turn into confusion and then finally wonder. I was not sure what was going on, but I wrestled control of my arms and glanced at the polished surface of the circular table to see the final edginess of my face smoothed out into what I recognized as my own face.

I was gapping like a fish out of water until Delta’s gruff tone broke our reverie.

“Would someone care to explain what the actual fuck is going on?”