James' Fury

Concept idea on how to start my book. Lemme know whatcha think!

Chapter 1

I feel pain flare up my arm as the bones in my hand shatter from the impact of hitting the wall. The same pain quickly follows in my other hand as I bring it crashing down on the impenetrable wall refusing to even crack. I ram the wall with my right shoulder and scream in pain as I feel my collar bone snap. With my right arm now useless I turn and prepare myself for the pain that will follow in my left shoulder.

            “James stop!” I turn and see Malcolm and Zoey staring at me blatant concern on both of their faces. I ignore him and run full force at the wall with my left shoulder. No scream this time as I obliterate the bones contained there.

            “James please this isn’t helping anything.” Says Malcolm.

I can feel the bones in my right arm slowly shifting back into place maybe a minute or two until I can start beating on this cursed wall again.

            “Hit it as hard as you want,” Zoey says. “You’ll never be able to break through it. I know you can feel it. They’ve done something to the walls in this room. They’re practically overflowing with the number of magi used to fortify them.”

Another scream echoes from the other side of the compound and anger swell once more in my heart. I roar something between man and beast before putting all the force I can muster into my right leg and bring it crashing to the wall before me. My femur breaks in half and I scream in agony as the bone rips through my flesh for everyone in the room to see. I hear Zoey gasp in shock but ignore her. My right arms finally healed and I push the bone back through my skin so that it can begin healing again. I’m shaking now. I don’t know if it’s the adrenaline, pain or the sheer amount of anger and anguish I feel but I’m shaking uncontrollably and it just won’t stop. I can hear a low laugh from the back of my head and divert all my power into shutting it up before it can say more. The rooms grew quiet. I can feel both of my friends staring at me. I can smell their fear and concern but I just don’t care. The only thing that matters is the girl at the other end of the compound screaming in agony because I couldn’t protect her.

            “I have to get to her,” I say out loud. “I promised her I would be there. I promised that anything that tried to hurt her would die before my hands.” I wince as my leg regenerates breaking the bone, even more, to heal it properly. 

            “Tearing yourself apart like this isn’t helping anything!” Malcolm says. “We will find a way out and we will save her I promise-”

My anger flares back up and I scream. “Don’t lie to me! If that was the case, we would already be out of this room and I haven’t seen either of you lift a finger!” Malcolm falls quiet and I can hear Zoey start to sob quietly.

            “D****t I need to get my anger under control I’m not making this any better by going off on them.”

I’m about to apologize when I hear the voice in the back of my head pipe up again.

            “How pathetic. Trapped in a cage like some sort of animal.”

            “Shut up!” I say to the voice. “Not even you could get out of this room.”

            Laughter tears through my mind “My dear James, it's horrifying just how wrong you are. For starters, they wouldn’t have been able to put me in this room in the first place.”

            “I’ve had enough of this.” I begin diverting my power to drive the voice back down into the deepest part of my mind. However, his reply stops me dead in tracks.

            “I can help you.”

Nineteen years I’ve lived with this voice in my head. It’s done and said everything it can to try to wrestle control from me. But not once has it ever offered to help. In any other circumstance, I would already have locked him back up behind the magical barriers my father taught me to build. Another scream echoes down the hall even louder and in more pain than before and I can’t say no if he’s going to help me save her.

            “How can you help me,” I ask the voice

            “Stand up.” The voice says to me. I look down at my leg and realize that it is already fully healed. I bring myself to my feet.

            “Now what?”

            “Focus your Magi. The way you do when you’re trying to shut me up. Only instead of pouring it into your mind to form barriers send it to the pit of your stomach and let it build.”

            “I don’t know how to do that.” I protest.

            “I told you id help you, didn’t I? Simply visualize it.”

I imagine my Magi flowing from my head down my chest to sink into my stomach. In shock, I can feel my stomach start to grow warm.

            “Do not fear it.” The voice says soothingly. “You can harness an immense amount of Magi with my aid. More than any other being on this planet could possibly contain without dying.”

The warmth in my stomach grows and seems to expand to fill up even more of my stomach. I focus even harder. No longer just visualizing but willing every shred of Magi in my body to divert to the growing storm in my stomach.

            “Good James.” The voice prompts me. “Now begin to shift into our true form.”

I hesitate at this. When I shift the voice seems to gain even more control and I’ve already allowed it more freedom than I should.

            “Don’t you want to save Hanna?” The voice questions me.

            “Of course I do!” I reply.

            “Then trust me.”

I’ve already come this far and the warmth inside of my stomach was starting to burn. I divert the small amount of Magi needed and begin to turn into my beastly form. I can feel the bones throughout my body break, shift and elongate. My ears grow to a point heightening my hearing and I can now hear Hanna’s pained gasps. I focus on those drawing even more Magi from the anger now growing in me. My nails grow and strengthen to become claws able to rend flesh from bone as easily as a butcher’s knife. My mouth elongates into a snout and my teeth sharpen to canines ready to tear flesh from the very foundation in which it was born. My spine arches and my shoulders broaden to support the hulking mass I have become. I look down at my arms and admire the black fur that now sprouts from my skin coating my entire body.

            “James, what are you doing?” I hear Malcolm ask in concern.

I almost forgot him and Zoey was still here with me.

            “Ignore him.” The voice says. “Divert your attention back to your stomach.”

The warmth that was spreading there now feels like a fireball threatening to burn its way out if it is contained any longer. I feel another presence enter my mind and quickly identify Zoey trying to peer into my head to see what’s going on. I start to divert my Magi to drive her out but am stopped by the voice.

            “Do not waste precious Magi on driving her from your head. Focus on the fire in your stomach and now bring it to your lungs.”

            “Malcolm someone else is talking to him.” I hear Zoey say.

            “James don’t listen to him!” Malcolm cries.

            “Who is that?” Zoey asks.

I ignore the conversation happening just a few feet behind me and do as the voice instructs. I pull the fireball from the pit of my stomach and feel it burn all the way up to my lungs until it feels impossible to breathe because of the fire that’s now raging inside of them.

“What now I ask?” Semi panicked.

The voice is silent for a time and I start to panic. What if this was a trick? A way to get me to kill myself or something worse. Fear starts to overtake me but another scream from Hanna now ringing even louder in my ears due to my heightened senses quickly transforms that fear into a blinding fury. Finally, the voice speaks up.

            “Now roar.” It says.

I feel Zoey disappear from my mind and I roar louder than I ever have before. I can see the walls around me shake and feel the Magi in them dissipate and retreat from the ungodly howl I’m producing. The wall in front of me starts to disintegrate until only a hole remains where the once impenetrable wall stood. I race through the hole with one thing on my mind. Saving Hanna. Two armored guards come around the corner and stare in shock at the massive hole in the wall and the towering mass emerging from it. I can smell their fear and see the panic in their eyes as they raise their weapons to me.

            “Tear them apart.” The voice laughs.

I don’t hesitate. The first guard can’t even pull the trigger before my claws send his head rolling across the floor. The second drops his gun and tries to run. I roar and pounce on him ripping his shoulder away with my teeth and then tearing him in half at the waist. I turn to the way the guards came from and race down the hall. I emerge in a large room surrounded by more than fifty armed men and a massive turret at the top of a stairwell.

            “Open fire!” One of the guards yell and a hail of bullets come cascading down on me. I barely make it behind a wall as the floor is torn apart at the sheer amount of firepower coming from the men. I look down at my arm and see blood falling from it.

            “D****t, there’s no way I’m getting past that thing”

            “Focus your Magi James. Divert it to your fur and it shall become titanium. Their pitiful excuse for weapons won’t even be able to scratch you.”

I drown out the thundering sounds all around me and do as I was instructed. I can feel my fur begin to harden as I drive all the Magi I can muster into every hair on my body. I stick an arm out to test and quickly pull it back as what feels like a thousand bullets ping into it. Upon further examination, though it seems to have worked. My arm is fine; I wasn’t even scratched!

            “I told you I’m helping you.” The voice says quite smug.

I ignore it and slowly walk out into the middle of the room. My body vibrates as bullets rain on me from all directions but slowly one by one they stop as they realize they’re having no effect.

A panic soldier yells out “Sir this thing isn’t going down!”

I can’t help but smile at the panic and fear I can smell spreading across the giant room. Another burst from the giant machine gun thuds into me and I roar in rage at the insolent fool behind it. I lunge to the top of the stairwell clearing the eighty or so steps with ease. I rip the gun from its foundation and with a deafening roar bring it down on the soldier who once wielded it. It falls to my side dripping in blood. Gunfire erupts from all sides as the panicked men desperately try to bring me down. I can hear the voice laughing as I painted the walls with their blood. I ignore their cries for mercy and don’t stop slashing and biting until my heartbeat is the only one left in the room.

I look back to where the machine gun once stood and notice a pair of double doors behind it. I slosh back through the mound of dead bodies and slowly open it. I’m now standing in a white room theirs five men hugging the outer walls in white coats. I bring my attention to the center of the room where a gurney lay along with several metal trays containing bloody tools and electrodes. On the gurney was Hanna in a bloodied medical gown. She was black and blue cuts covered her body. Her eyes opened and they were bloodshot from the massive amount of stress she had undergone. Her eyes slowly focused on me and in a broken cracked voice she whispered

“James?”  Her eyes close again. Passed out from the trauma of the situation I let her fall into. My rage was incomprehensible. I stood to shake and slowly turned to see every one of their faces before I tore them to shreds. This doesn’t end with simply killing them. I have to tear this entire facility to the ground. Burying whoever had a part in this with it.

“I want you to help me kill them all,” I said to the voice.

A long silence followed as the tension and fear grew in the room. Then with a chuckle, the voice responded.

“Then let go and I will do it for you.”

So I let go and I could hear the howl of triumph from the being I had been advised for so long to never even listen to. And I just handed it complete control. I could hear the screams of the men in the room but I wasn’t in control of what was happening to them. My vision started to blacken and I drifted off into nothingness.