Gabriel Lector looked down the darkened street, standing in a flickering pool of twilight cast by a streetlight overhead. Similar pools were spaced all the way down the street, becoming fainter as they disappeared in the fog. He drew his long coat around him as he began to move down the street, drifting from one pool of dusk to another.

Ahead of him, Gabriel saw a woman approaching what he guessed to be her car. Shaking his head, he thought of how stupid she was to be out this late, alone in the city.

Apparently the brutes coming up behind her thought the same thing.

They were dressed in an amalgam of chains and studs over a mantle of black leather. With close cropped hair and a variety of tattoos and piercings, they were quite a motley crew. At the sound of boot heels clicking on the pavement behind her, the woman glanced over her Armani-encased shoulder. As she saw the large figures stepping out of the shadows the woman began fumbling with her keys in the lock. Before she could open her car door they had her surrounded.

The trio of men had gotten close to her, their chins jutting out at a threatening angle, their foreheads sloped back. The usual noises of the city seemed to subside as their harsh voices drifted to Gabriel’s ears. His mind began processing two instincts at once: the intelligent one, to flee; and the noble one, to defend.

As his mind was running in circles, Gabriel’s vision seemed to take on a preternatural clarity. His sight focused on the woman’s arm as Gabriel saw the apparent leader, a huge man with the tattoo of a snake crawling up his arm, lay his hands upon her. A scream rent the night air. In Gabriel’s mind, something snapped.

All the hatred of his childhood boiled to the surface, pushing aside the mental dams he had constructed. All the memories of being tormented by bullies bigger than he, of running away and crying under the willows, exploded in a hot, white flash across his vision. With an animal growl, he charged the men. Like lightning, he was upon them. Reaching out, he gripped the leader by the arm and pushed him away from the cowering woman. The man flew a dozen feet and hit a light post with bone-crushing force, sliding limply to the ground. The man’s two compatriots looked upon Gabriel with faces of pure terror. They reached into their coats and pulled out guns. With screams, they fired.

Gabriel’s muscles tensed involuntarily, expecting to feel white-hot pain as the slugs tore through his fragile body. Someone started poking him in the chest. His eyes snapped open in disbelief. His chest was larger. Looking down at his body, he saw coal black skin, rippling muscles, and steel talons. He could feel a tail whipping back and forth behind him. A slight wind caught the wings at his back as they snapped open, a black sheet against a blacker sky.

Focusing on the thugs in front of him, he sprang at them. The only thought in his mind was that of destruction. With an unholy glee he tore into their fragile bodies, the talons gleaming with blood. They fell like paper dolls blown by the wind as a haze blurred across his vision. An indeterminable amount of time later, he became aware of his surroundings once again. Strength flowed through his body. Spying the mangled forms of his foes lying on the sidewalk before him, he threw back his head and howled into the night. He was power. Never again would he run and hide from his tormentors. Gabriel looked down at the woman he had saved and saw her curled into a fetal ball upon the pavement, mumbling in terror to herself.

- / -

Seeing the monster moving towards her, eyes glowing a hellish red, Cassandra raised her hands as if they could protect her from the creature... The creature which had just torn apart a group of men before her eyes. "Please, please… Don’t hurt me… Please…" she mumbled to herself deliriously.

Glancing up at the terrifying face above her, she saw the bestial mien shatter and humanity flare within the bright orbs. As near a look of terror as was possible for that inhuman visage appeared on its face.

- / -

Reality intruded once more on Gabriel’s mind. His breathing was labored as he looked down at the prostrate woman, the innocent woman, who was terrified of him. Gabriel reached out a hand to reassure her and saw the black, clawed hand moving into his vision. Stumbling backwards, he tripped over something behind his legs, long and thin. The tail. As he landed on his back, something cushioned his fall. Those wings. His wings. Gabriel’s scream echoed down the rain soaked street.

- / -

Huddled under a pile of trash in a dank alley, Gabriel shuddered. He was a monster. He was the antichrist. Who was he fooling? He had no idea what he was. He just knew he wasn’t Gabriel Lector any more. Gabriel would not have done what he had done. In his mind, he saw the thug crash into the light post, over and over again. He had never been a violent person. During his childhood he had run from fights whenever he could. Being the smallest kid in his grade led to many such abandoned confrontations. Sure, he had dreamt of going back and beating up the bullies. But those were just idle thoughts conjured up while hiding under the willows, waiting for his heart to stop racing. In his dreams he was some god-like figure, the archetype of virility. Not some hell-spawned creature out of Dungeons and Dragons.

The woman’s face was still etched in his mind. Her cry when the men laid their hands on her, her look of terror when she saw her "rescuer". Not that he could blame her. Not after catching a glimpse of his reflection in a broken mirror further up the alley. Glowing red eyes stared back at him from a fanged face. Large, tattered wings sprouted from his shoulder blades, and steel talons extended from his fingers and toes. His new body rippled with muscle, like a hunter cat, the muscles moving under hairless black skin. He was naked, with no sex apparent: a stygian reptile.

What had happened to him? Was this what he really was? Some twisted soul who could crush people without a thought? A figure to be viewed in terror by all? My god, what had happened?

Thinking back to the fight, Gabriel realized that he had been transformed when he let his emotions escape. When 21 years of hatred slipped from his control it twisted his body into this. A body where he could act upon that hatred, upon his dark side.

But he didn’t want to hurt people. He only wanted to help. But how could he help when he looked like this? Gabriel cried out in despair, his claws ripping furrows in the concrete of the alley. "I don’t want to be like this," he screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice sounding like rusty iron. "I don’t want to be a monster, a thing to be feared! Please, change me back! Change me back..." Gabriel’s cries echoed against an empty sky as, under a pile of refuse, he fell into an exhausted slumber.

- / -

Bright sun filtered through Gabriel’s canopy of offal. He sat up with a start, disoriented. When he saw where he was, the memories came flooding back. Closing his eyes, he held a hand up before his face. As he held his breath, Gabriel opened his eyes, expecting to see some hideous clawed appendage. Instead, it was his normal hand, complete with bitten fingernails and the scar from childhood. Gabriel smiled, "What a beautiful day." The young man had always enjoyed waking to a bright blue sky with white clouds, even if he was lying in a pile of trash. Not that these particular circumstances had happened to him before. Trying to figure out what had happened last night, he decided he must have gotten drunk and collapsed in the alley… So that episode with the lady was just a dream. As he put his hands down to help himself to his feet, his hand rested in a series of shallow grooves in the concrete. Shocked, he fell over again. Claw marks looked back at him.