“What’s going on down there, Bridgette!?” said a voice through the reporter’s earpiece.

  She ran as screams of citizens rang through the street. She threw herself behind a wall, looking over her shoulder at the scene.

  She raised her microphone. “A person was attacked!”

  Bridgette's lip curled in horror as the person on the ground clawed at their face, their entire body shaking. Bridgette’s eyes widened. The person’s back was moving in ways a person’s back shouldn’t. It was as if something was trying to break through the skin.

  “Something is happening!” she shouted hoarsely.

  “What! What’s going on?”

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  The person on the ground yowled— the awful almost inhuman sound echoed throughout the square.

  The thing in their back broke through. Bridgette’s mouth fell open.

  Wings. Those are wings.

  Devil-like wings had sprouted from their back, their skin having been ripped apart and splayed. Blood dripped from the wing's tips and trickled down their spine. The now winged person– no, monster, stood— it’s screams quieting.

  “It’s not human,” Bridgette breathed.

  “What isn’t?”

  As if it could pinpoint her, that monster’s head snapped toward Bridgette, its black eyes glaring into hers. Her heart stopped and she froze.

  “Oh–”

  The thing bounded forward at breakneck speeds. It sprinted at her as if it were a wild beast. It's clawed hand reached out to grab her.

  “What is it? What is it, Bridgette!?”

  “It’s a–”

  The hand wrapped around her throat.