I HOLD HIS TINY HEAD in my hands, the fear in his eyes is delicious. “Are you afraid, little one? Scared of the horror I have bestowed upon your comrades? Look, look at your leader. Yes, him. The one hiding behind his dogs, your brothers dead at his feet. You see how he doesn’t come to rescue you? He is a big one. He should save you, no?”

He doesn’t say anything, just whimpers as I squeeze his fragile skull.

“You bore me. Make yourself useful. Call out to your chieftain. Beg him to save you.” My thumbs push through the eye sockets and into his head. The pathetic excuse for a man flails and screams, calling to his master. But I don’t focus on the wailing creature. I am fixed on the big one, the overlord who stood back and watched me rip his men limb from limb with my bare hands. The screams stop, and the creature in my arms slumps to the ground, my thumbs sliding out of his skull with a satisfying sound. “Come at me. I challenge you.”

He holds my gaze for an eternity. But I already know he won’t face me in single combat this day.

“You are no king. You send your dogs to taste my blood, but you have not the stomach to spill it yourself. Come. Bring your spear and face me. Or are you a coward like the Graciles above?”

The feral chieftain’s chest heaves rapidly—puffs of moist breath escaping his gnarled mouth. He’s large, the result of stolen drugs, no doubt. He should prove a sufficient challenge.

“Yes. Come and prove yourself against me. Are you afraid you will be stamped out under the boot of a superior creature? You should be bowing before me, worm.”

The tribal chief grunts and levels his spear at my head. After a long pause, he shakes the weapon and disappears over the other side of the hill.

“Go then, but I will not forget this day.”

It matters not. I’m free. Free of the chains that bind me. Free from the blithering idiot who keeps me inside. I am the master. Free to do as I choose—to kill if I choose. I’m alive again. It’s survival of the fittest, raw and pure. And these dogs at my feet were not fit to survive.

This massacre was easy in this body. This engineered shell. Such power, such speed. If only the scared little puppet had known what this living engine was capable of. Instead, he hides and cowers inside his own head. Scared of that idiot brother and pining after the whore who hangs about his neck. They will be next. They’ll soon bathe in their own blood, just like these vermin.

It’s been too long. Too much time has passed since the glory days of old. Since the Red Terror. My brethren in the Cheka, they should be with me now. Imagine the pain we could inflict. We would not need the devices of our age. The boiling tar, or spiked barrels. In Gracile form, we could rip the limbs from the bodies of our enemies with our own hands. Yes, much time has passed, but the evil in the world remains the same. The Graciles. A class presiding over the working man. Separated now by biology—in a form they don’t deserve. Centuries have passed, yet Mother Russia needs her Cheka, her Bolsheviks, more than ever. She needs me.

But my time is not yet. I must sit in the dark, between worlds, in a limbo that pulls me apart. Still, like a cancer, I grow stronger inside this pathetic Gracile. Soon I will consume him. Now his consciousness wakes. For now, I must slink back to the anguish inside. My own personal hell. But it won’t be long. Fear weakens him and nourishes me. If you’re afraid of wolves, you shouldn’t go into the woods.

And you, little puppet, are deep in the woods.