Chapter 1 - Life, Death & Rebirth

[WarJack]

At the age of 21, young Jack considered himself as a fairly world-wise guy. With a slim, athletic build, (scrawny, some would say), blue eyes and short, brown hair, Jack considered himself as unnoticeable, the kind of guy that could get lost in a crowd of people.

That was his goal, fading into the background, staying unnoticed. Being invisible.

Death was not in his plans. Not even in the back of his mind. He was floating along on the waves of life and letting fate dictate his course.

No, death was not in his plans. Being in a car accident was not on the top of his list of ‘Things To-Do’ on the 2nd of February, 2015. Unfortunately for Jack, fate has a habit of **** people over.

“So many things left to do... So many things left unseen... Is this how it ends?” Jack questioned, as time ran slow, yet his thoughts ran at a million miles an hour.

The black van that flew around the corner - in the blind spot of Jack’s peripheral vision - had quickly sped off into the night and left Jack lying in an ever increasing pool of his own blood.

The speeding vehicle had smashed into Jack’s side; dislocating his right shoulder, jarring his spinal cord and fracturing several of his ribs, one of which punctured his right lung.

Lying on the ground, breathing harshly and dying from internal wounds, Jack’s thoughts were beginning to slow down. Thoughts of his family, his friends, his life...

He coughed harshly, blood and spittle flying from his mouth, as his eyes began to close.

At 10:32pm, on Monday 2nd of February 2015, Jack took his last breath as a human being, killed by a speeding vehicle.

-

Jack’s eyes flew open. The screech of tires jarring him into awareness. The sirens followed, blaring their loud sound into the cold, dark night. A cold, dark night which felt suspiciously less cold than before.

Attempting to sit up on his elbows, he heard the paramedics making comments as they were retrieving his body from the pavement where he’d landed after being hit by the van.

“Poor bastard” an old, grizzly sounding voice spoke, as he lifted the body’s legs up from the pool of congealed blood that had formed around his corpse.

“Headphones, still playing loud music. He probably wasn’t looking where he was going. Stupid kid” replied a lighter voice, from the unnamed man’s smaller, female colleague.

Meanwhile, Jack was shocked into a stupor.

He wanted to shout at the woman; how **** dare she?! The black van was speeding around a blind corner, had mounted the pavement and smashed into him, sending him flying 20 feet down the road!

But he couldn’t articulate at this point. His body was just lying there, meanwhile, he was lying here, less than 5 feet from his body, watching some paramedics attend his broken corpse.

Jack got to his feet, slightly transparent and in the middle of the road, he listened to these paramedics talk about him so morbidly.

Suddenly, it dawned on him. He was dead. Yet, he wasn’t. It was as if his soul had left his body.

His body had failed him, given up and died. While his spirit had not broken, unwavering in its strength, it had risen where his body had fallen.

-

Cold. Tired. Empty. These feelings hit him like a ton of bricks, bringing him to his knees.

The paramedics had long gone, speeding off into the night, much like the van that killed him had done.

As his knees hit the hard ground, a curious sound echoed into the night, making his eyes widen as his head snapped around, looking for the source of the jangling, clanking sound.

Looking down at his chest, Jack was shocked to find a thick, black chain trailing down from his stomach.

Immediately forgetting how tired he was, Jack reached up and grasped at the black chain. It felt coarse and the material was unrecognisable. Regardless, it was attached to a large object which was stuck in his body. It looked like a plug and was situated at the bottom of his rib-cage.

Disgusted with being chained - and frankly terrified of being chained - Jack tightened his grip on the chain, with both hands and pulled.

With each passing moment, Jack felt the atmosphere building with an ever increasing pressure.

Yet, at the same time, he began to feel increasingly drained. As if he was pulling himself apart, ripping part of his soul away…

!

A brief, but powerful spike of pain jolted through his form. Recognising the critical moment in this activity, Jack ignored the rising pain, his resolve unwavering as he tore the chain from his body.

The instant the end of the chain left his chest, the surrounding pressure amplified dramatically, forcing Jack from his position on his knees, to the floor.

Attempting to curl into a ball, a scream tore from Jack’s throat, into the silent night, as the pain rose to unbearable levels.

Suddenly, Jack’s vision became white. A flood of a gunky, white substance seemed to ooze from his pores, gravitating towards his face, ensnaring his head in a cocoon of the rapidly hardening white gunk.

Surprisingly coherent through the traumatic event, Jack was surprised to find his body increasing in size. Dramatically increasing in size.

Shouting in pain as loudly as he could, his shout turned into a roar, which echoed into the night. The roar was so loud it caused the leaves on the surrounding trees to blow away, as if from a mysterious, invisible wind.

As quickly as it began, it was over. As soon as the pain ended, before Jack had a chance to organise his thoughts, a powerful urge swept through his entire being.

The urge to feed. To hunt. To devour.

At first, Jack warred with these alien feelings internally. But the urge was too strong.

Scrambling to his feet with renewed energy and immediately forgetting about the traumatic ordeal he just faced, Jack bolted forwards.

He could smell them, their scent drifting on the wind. He didn’t know what he could smell, only that he required it. It was as if his entire being depended on it.

With ever increasing amounts of energy available to him, Jack increased his speed, letting loose a powerful roar as he bounded down the country lane he previously been walking and towards the nearest town.

-

A low growl emanated from a small, black, furry body, as its white mask was flooded with blue particles. The being looked up suddenly, his entire body standing on edge, muscles locked and ready to bolt at any given moment.

A roar echoed through the still night, as the Hollow was decapitated. Four of Jack’s five claws slicing through the base of the unnamed being's head, tearing through the back of its neck as he impacted the ground hard, causing the pavement to crack from the force of his landing.

The scent had taken him here, to this being. This being whose head began to evaporate into a cloud of blue particles.

Jack did not care, his head dipped of its own accord, as his now gaping maw latched onto the body of the decapitated being, at the neck where its head had once sat.

Instinctively, he began to feed, to devour the Hollow, absorbing its energies.

His mind began to clear, as power flooded his body, a thousand thoughts hit him as once.

“What am I?! What am I doing?!” and then, “I feel so hungry”.

Jack had never felt like this before. It was a powerful hunger, a craving. An addiction.

He had to consume the blue particles. The energy was intoxicating and he needed more. He lusted for the power that the blue particles provided him with.

Finishing his meal, the body dissipated into thin air, as the last of the blue particles were devoured by the beast that Jack had become.

Hulking forwards on all fours, Jack pressed onwards, his mind-set alternating between a haze of bloodlust and an almost human persona. A scared human persona.

An internal war plagued his mind, only to increase in intensity when he spotted his reflection in the window of a nearby store.

Jack had undergone a seemingly mind-blowing transformation upon his ‘rebirth’.

His 5’ 10” modestly sized, slim, athletic body had turned into a roughly 8 foot tall, hulking form of a beast, straight out of somebody’s worst nightmare.

Thick, leathery black skin had replaced his pale white form, while tufts of coarse, black hair had sprouted from his elbows and stomach downwards, although also present above those places, it was thinner, finer hair that had appeared there.

Jack hadn’t just gotten taller, his entire body had increased in mass. Every appendage was larger, more rigid looking.

His chest had a reflective sheen, giving it an almost scaled appearance. Heavily muscled arms gave way to grizzly, furry hands, while short, sharp claws tipped his fingers, easily 3 inches in length and an inch or so wide.

A large, 4 foot long tail, hovered roughly a foot off the ground. Thick, black leathery skin extended down his back and tail, which curved off at the end, splitting into a ‘T’ shape, except these ends were as sharp as a sword.

Jet black wings had seemed to have sprouted from his shoulder blades. They lay curled inwards, resting against his back and around his sides. Jack focused hard and after a few attempts, they unfurled. Having wings was an odd experience and it took Jack some time to rotate his shoulders in sync with his wings to achieve the desired movement.

Something else about his appearance distracted him. A hole had appeared where the bottom of his rib-cage was. Where he had pulled the ‘plug’ from his body.
Jack seemed to have torn away an entire chunk of his body, leaving a hole behind.

It wasn’t his body that concerned the ‘human’ portion of Jack’s mind however, it was his face.
Or more specifically, the mask that now adorned his face. Bright red eyes peered back at him through small, eye-shaped slits in the pale, white mask.

The mouth section of the monstrous mask had teeth-shaped protrusions sticking out menacingly. Perfect for rending flesh and tearing his prey to pieces.

The mask appeared to be seamlessly connected to his skin, merging with his jawline and fusing just under his chin, up around his ears and along his forehead.

The mask seemed to be riddled with odd, carved, patterned-like shapes; none of which Jack could recognise or decipher.

As Jack looked as himself in the reflection of the shop window, he shuddered at what he saw looking back at him.

It was the face of a demon.

A monster.