With her final words came a sudden flash of every color in the rainbow then my eyes shot open with a start.

  I was alive.

  The dingy room I found myself in held little familiarity. It was poorly lit, the tattered, dirty blanket over the window did a surprisingly good job at keeping the sun out except for a few rays that poured through a smattering of holes. The sun rays illuminated the dust that polluted the air and every surface. Beige walls with a peeling floral wallpaper clung to the walls while the floor appeared to be the “splinteryest” wood planks to have ever been created.

  Likely made by some evil wood splinter demon. Heh.

  My eyes searched around for my boots. I’d rather be caught in a second explosion than put my bare foot on these floors.

  To my dissatisfaction my boots and other effects were placed neatly on a small desk on the opposite side of the room. A great expanse of wooden spears stood between me and my belongings.

  Sitting in soreness as nude as the day I was born did not sound bad, but I needed to get going. It had been two weeks since I completed the terms of my bounty and it had been waiting for me to collect for too long now.

  With a slow, deliberate step the pad of my foot gently came down on the terrible floor. I expected pain instead I felt. Nothing. Nothing at all. My next foot came down and felt the same. I could feel the rough texture of the wood against the skin of my paw pad, yet none of the wood splinters found any purchase. I stood and hopped from one foot to the other. My skin was like an impenetrable iron wall against the wicked splinters.

  Yet, the many scars I’ve collected and worn with honor remained, even the many scars from the shrapnel wounds continued to dot my body. I felt both glad and disappointed that they remained. I won’t have as clean of a new slate as I had hoped, but at least I do not need to get new ones to replace the old.

  I nodded in quiet approval. If I ever meet Mrs. Robot Voice again I owe her an apology for doubting her.

  Opening and closing my hands and flexing my toes I instinctively felt that my body awareness was sharper, more refined. My muscles, honed by years of hard work, training, and working as a bounty hunter felt sore, yet like springs filled with new strength. My eyes picked out more details that I had missed from the mites crawling on the curtain to the small trails in the dust of the desk left by ants. My mind processed all these details quickly completely free of any mental fog or strain.

  Mrs. Robot Voice’s warning felt clear as day now that I felt the power first hand. This feeling was the kind that corrupted the hearts of weak men. I had seen it happen far more times than I would have liked. The bile in my empty stomach churned at the recollection.

  Jimmy Foal immediately disowned all his blood relatives after he got lucky finding a 9 gram nugget at the foot of Abchill mountain. Cried and spat till the ground was wet, how they didn’t deserve a single cent. Everyone in town gossiped about how he tore his family apart due to his greed. After his luck ran out at a card table he then lost his life to the thug he refused to pay out to. Cheater and liar he called him. No one cept’ for the gravedigger showed up to his funeral. In one final “fuck you” his family paid the old gravedigger to bury him right next to his murder. Likely hoping his spirit will continue to torment that of their late father in the afterlife.

  Della Gibson put three holes in her husband with his own revolver for a chance to take ownership of his vast estate in Cypress hills. One in his head, his heart, and the last for his family jewels. The man must have been blind as a bat to miss all the red flags that the woman was brimming with. Yet, as an avid enjoyer of the fairer sex myself, I knew her blouse stretchers were what had the fool blind.

  Commander Walter Hobbs, leader of the Iron Valley regiment, had his numerous, heavy handed advances rejected by a wild girl of the White Horn tribe. To satiate his ego being shattered he ordered her entire tribe gunned down in front of her. She had to watch with tear filled eyes as the love of her life was dragged across the desert floor by riding beetles. The man was heralded as a hero who saved the townsfolk from ruthless hillfolk.

  Few knew of these tales. There have been many days I wished I did not know them either. There have been more days I wished I hadn’t had to be the man who came to collect their heads. Sins always catch up to a man, and I was the one who rang.

  The temperature was going to get turned up all over right when I had been looking forward to a break from heat. But I should've known better. A quiet world meant an empty pocket for men in my profession. Peace times meant no bounties for me to collect anyways. Money, power, and esteem all corrupted the feeble heart of beastmen and humans alike. We were all cut from the same filthy, bloodstained cloth it seems.

  A chill ran down my spine at the thought of those monsters having the power I have now. The amount of pain and suffering they would have been able to inflict on the weak would have likely multiplied tenfold. From what my tightly wound guide had said there will be more folks like me popping up all over the country. A few now, but that number will only increase as the System’s influence draws closer and closer till everyone will be “awakened” as Mrs. Robot Voice put it.

  Heavy, steady thuds-like hooves- on the front porch tore me from my musing. The door swung open revealing a face I had not expected to see-at least not without her hands wrapped around my neck. Benny, the bovine beastwoman, who was my on and off again partner both in a professional and intimate sense.

  Her face held a sneer that I’d only seen leave her face in our more private moments. It was the look that let her scare the world away and all the people in it. Well the look along with her large arms strong enough to swing her patent elephant gun like it weighed nothing and shouldered it like it had the recoil of a pocket pistol. Those broad shoulders atop a filled out chest that threatened to send the buttons of her overalls flying, but the rough denim held firm. Deceptively smooth brown and beige mottled fur covered nearly every inch of her against her bosom. I remember the hours I had spent tracing circles in her fur when the vengeful ghosts kept me up while Benny snored like a busted tractor. Despite the small signs of time on her face she looked the same as I last saw her. All strength and confidence with subtle hints to the soft side she holds tightly from the way her eyelashes fluttered, the gentle smile, and the deep look of wear on her soul.

  “Look at you, Horst,” her sapphire blue eyes slowly crept themselves up my bare form. “Still lookin’ fine as ever cept with a few new scars.”

  My wolf ears flicked at the sweet sound of her silky smooth voice. Her eyes and mine locked on each other’s. With my new enhanced body I could see every breath she took, the twitch of her facial muscles, and the small grey hairs starting to sprout up around her pink nose and snout.

  I stood unmoving as she let herself in, dropped a paper bag onto the shitty table, then walked up to me pressing her soft lips to my forehead. Not having realized I had been holding my breath, I inhaled deeply, taking in her scent with my nostrils and with a few flicks of my serpentine tongue.

  Sweaty, a bit dusty, with a signature undercurrent of strawberries. A scent I would never forget. Uncontrollably my serpentine tail started swaying back and forth due to the comfortable familiarity causing my rattlesnake rattle to chitter.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  “Still the same tells, huh? It’s a good thing you never like gambling. You’d lose your shirt off your hide in a single hand!” Benny chuckled at her own joke. “I’m very happy you are back on your feet, Horst.” She kissed my serpent snout and put her heavy hands on my shoulders.

  “It’ll take more than a small explosion of my own idiotic making to take me out. You of all people should know that,” I managed to spit out before clamming back up.

  Damn. I knew I missed her. I did not know I missed her this much.

  “Heh. Only you would say something like that.”

  Her rough hands traced the marks left on my body by said explosion.

  “Looks like you healed well. Too well. I knew you healed faster than normal, but this is not that. When we finally found you, death had you in his jaws. Maybe four minutes before he bit down and took your soul to the place of the damned.”

  Her eyes locked onto mine with her full lips pressed into a thin line. I knew there was more she’d like to say. But, she won’t. Same as always.

  Without much mental deliberation I told her about what happened. Everything. From what I had been up to meandering around Blackstone, making easy pocket money challenging wannabe quick shooters of their allowance, to the Mayor asking me to take care of an uppity gang of badgers. How I had dispatched them with brutal efficiency was my way. Told her how I had found a strange stone in the gang leader’s satchel I had planned on getting looked at by a jeweler or possibly a blacksmith. Then how overconfidence combined with a heaping spoonful of idiotacy landed me on death’s plate, filled with holes and lead.

  Her face had been impassive throughout the entire story only making small inquiries, such as the amount the Mayor had agreed to pay me for the job. When I got to the part about hearing voices while the last wisps of life poured out of me onto the wooden floor then to be sucked into my subconscious where I had an interesting conversation with the mysterious, chaste robot voice. The impassive look twisted into one of disbelief. Her questions ceased and her attention sharpened to a knife point as she observed my every move. She leaned in, her height making her feel like a great boulder about to roll right over me. A boulder with a hell of a rear end and the chest to match, but a boulder nonetheless

  “-and then I woke up here in this dusty ass room naked as the day I was born. I really hope you were the one to undress me by the way.” During my recounting of events we had both taken a seat, me on the edge of the dirty bed and her on the only wooden chair.

  Benny said nothing for a few minutes. Just sitting there while I watched her eyes flick around the room, to me, then to the wall on repeat. I could almost see the thoughts she wrestled with written behind her eyes.

  She stood, stepped toward me and punched me-hard-on the shoulder. It was the kind of hit I’d seen her give folks who had a bit too much liquid courage and thought they’d get away with squeeze, because the way she dresses means she is just asking for it. I never pitied those fools. I only hoped that when their tongue ran over their gum where several teeth used to be they’d think twice before doing anything stupid again.

  Her large knuckles connected with the side of my deltoid. Instead of being sent tumbling off the bed onto the splintery floor from hell. I was only moved slightly from the force. I felt no pain either; it was like the force was absorbed into my muscles.

  My mind raced at the new information. Was I completely immune to damage? What were the limits? Could I- WHACK! A heavy fist connected with my snout with enough force to send me backwards, hitting my head on the wall besides the bed.

  I gathered my wits back quicker than I had expected another perk of the enhanced physique I had been blessed with by the oh so lovely Mrs. Robot Voice. But, my snout still hurt like it had met the wrong end of a beetle’s foot.

  “Now what the hell was that for?!” I shouted at Benny. She watched me with her arms crossed and a strange smile plastered to her face.

  “For one we are now even for that steaming pile you left me to deal with last time I saw you, remember?” she said with a pressed brow.

  I did in fact remember. I did not want to remember. In all honesty she’s letting me go easy with a single punch to the face. Lord knows I deserve worse.

  “Fair.”

  “Fair. Now second, I am relieved that you haven’t lost your mind and started making up wild fantastical stories. It looks like you are some kind of enhanced being now although still very much mortal if that wallop to your sniffer I gave you is any indication.”

  “You think I’d become some kind of dunce in only a year?”

  “It’s been three years you fool.”

  “You think I’d become some kind of dunce in only three years? My dear Benny, you wound me. I can sure take a punch now, but I have not become so twisted to start believing my flesh can take a slug without so much as being left a bruise,” I said as I tore open the brown bag and helped myself to the bread, cheese, and apples inside.

  Things had been moving rather fast. I had almost forgotten about my bodie’s basic needs. It had received plenty of sleep the last two weeks, but food and water was lacking. Each bit of the juicy apple sent its juice dripping down to my chin and onto the parched table. The dry table perfectly represented the amount of thirst I felt at the moment. Rye bread paired with some unrecognizable wedge cheese mixed in my mouth with every ravenous bite creating a symphony of flavors I’d never had before.

  Thirst. Hunger. Fatigue. These were sensations I was dreadfully familiar with. This time it was on a different level entirely. A random passerby might think I’d never had food ever in my life and this was the first time ever. And I ended up liking it way too much.

  “I figured you would be hungry when you woke up, but if you don’t slow down I’m afraid ya might choke.”

  Benny’s words fell on deaf ears. I continued to devour everything till nothing remained. The food helped satiate my hunger somewhat, but I felt as if I could eat much more. I could only guess that it was due to my near death experience and the enhanced body I now possess.

  “Say how have you been feeding me this entire time since I’ve been unconscious?” I asked with an eyebrow raised.

  “Truthfully, I have not been feeding you this entire time. After the Doc had you patched up as best as he could and left you laying here to recover, while I prayed for a miracle, I had tried on several occasions to get chopped up food into your mouth but you were having nothing of it. I swear it was like you had been turned to stone. You didn’t move at all. You barely breathed either. Hell you didn’t even have a single steamer in your britches the entire time you had been recovering.”

  I could tell from her increasing unease she was still struggling with the situation. I understood why she was stressed. I would be too if I was in her position.

  Finding my ex lover on death’s door, they are akin to a statue while they miraculously recover, and then I find out she also has some kind of enhanced body given to her by a female robotic voice she had spoken to in a dream. It was a lot to shoulder at once. The fact Benny continued to power through all of it and remain here with me was a testament to the infallible will she had in her heart.

  Benny stopped wearing circles on the floor with her insistent pacing and turned to me with her arms still crossed, something she did often when she had a lot on her mind. The light outside poured in through the window behind her giving her a gorgeous aura made of dust.

  “You really thought it had only been a year?”

  She began tapping the ground with a single hood on repeat. This meant she was pissed.

  “I uh. I haven’t exactly been keeping track of time. In my self administered exile I had focused on keeping busy, making money, and staying alive most of all.”

  “When will you learn that you can’t hide away from the world, Horst? I need you to stop blaming yourself for what happened. It took me a long time, but I’m doing better. A whole lot better actually thanks to the help I got from some kind shrinks. Yet, I find you practically dead and still trying to fight the world.”