Final Truth

Chapter 51: Becoming a Monster

Julia's point of view:

Breathe.

My hands are trembling, eyes wild with horror at the carnage around me.

This is about control, Julia. Control yourself.

I've been pitted against every guard in this prison, forced into fights that I've gruesomely won each time. The guards are still among me, stunned and moaning in horrific pain and heaped on the ground and nearly making me topple over in guilt.

You're okay. Just one more.

I lift my head, finding the horrible golden eyes of my tormentor about ten feet away from me, smirking cruelly at my shame.

"Come to fight me now, Julia? Seems you've had some practice," Henley taunts, gesturing to the fallen prison guards around us.

Don't listen to her. You have to end this.

I take a deep gulp of fear and stand up a little straighter, crossing my arms over my chest as a small way of protecting myself.

Henley laughs, eyes glittering maddeningly.

"You coward. Is this really the same little girl that defeated all these men just moments ago?" She asks.

This isn't real, Julia. It's just a test.

But it felt real. All of it felt impossibly real, looking into the eyes of the guards as my power of control destroyed the inner workings of their bodies and left them broken.

The shame over tormenting the guards, no matter what they might've done to me, presses on my shoulders as if it wanted to sink me to the ground.

"You look a little weak in the knees, Julia. Let me help," Henley says, and before I can react, a wretched but familiar feeling takes over the entirety of my body.

My legs become rod straight and my spine is painfully lengthened, causing my eyes to water in agony.

"Come on, you weakling. Fight back," Henley urges me on, and I can feel my own anger bubbling in my chest, spreading to the rest of my body like poison.

Break free.

A surge of power shoots forward within me, traveling throughout my limbs and ending at my fingertips. It's a feeling akin to heat teetering on the edge between soothing and painful, but once it's done spreading, I find that I have control over my body once again.

"That's better, but it's not good enough if you want to beat me," she says.

Her words simply roll off my back, however, and this time she's the one that's unprepared as I extend a hand in her direction.

Power radiates outward from my palm, and Henley's body instantly shifts to follow my hand. I reel it back in a throwing motion before pitching forward, and she follows that same movement, hurled back against the wall with a painful thud.

She grunts in pain, shakily rising back to her feet while I prepare to knock her back again.

"Nice try...but you know what you have to do," Henley says forebodingly, smirking all the while as my throat suddenly constricts, sending me crashing to the floor as I gasp for air.