The vision struck Aamaya while she was washing a plate, and it dropped from her hand and broke on the cabin floor. Her obsidian eye flashed red. She saw teeth, wet grass, something running through the dark. Then it was gone. She gripped the counter and breathed hard. This kept happening. Ever since the eye turned black, it showed her flashes she couldn't hold long enough to read. She was nineteen, and she still didn't know why she saw these things, or what she was becoming when her skin rippled and her bones tried to change shape. Her black cat sat on the table and watched her with steady yellow eyes. It did not flinch at the broken plate. It never did anymore. Aamaya knelt and pressed her palm to the floorboards. She closed her green eye and forced the black one to stay open. The visions came like water through her fingers. She needed to slow them. She needed to focus. She thought about the cat, calm and still, and she tried to hold that stillness inside herself. A knock hit the door. "Aamaya? You're late calling me. I got worried." It was Alana, her sister, the deputy who checked on her every week. She let herself in before Aamaya could answer. Alana saw the broken plate and the girl on the floor. "Hey. Hey, look at me. What happened?" "Don't touch me," Aamaya said. "Not yet. I almost have it." Alana froze in the doorway, one hand near her belt out of habit, the other reaching for her sister. She didn't understand the eye. She never had. But she stayed. The cat jumped down and pressed against Aamaya's knee. Warm. Present. Something clicked. Aamaya stopped fighting the visions and let them slow around that one warm point. The flashes stretched. She held them. She saw the wet grass again, a grove of trees she knew. She saw dark shapes moving between them on too many legs. She saw their eyes, red like her own pupil. She counted six. Aamaya opened both eyes. Her hands shook, but her mind was clear. "I can read it now," she whispered. "I finally saw it." "Saw what?" Alana crouched beside her, worry cutting her voice. "Creatures. In the grove near here. Six of them, coming." Aamaya looked at her sister. "Tonight. They're coming tonight." Alana's face went hard. "You're sure." "The eye doesn't lie. It just wouldn't let me see. Now it does." Aamaya stood, the cat winding at her feet. For the first time the visions obeyed her. But the first clear thing they gave her was a warning, and she had no idea how to stop what was coming.

Night came fast. Aamaya bolted the cabin door and dragged a chair against it. Her sister Alana, the deputy who checked on her each week, drew her sidearm and stood at the window. The black cat crouched on the table, ears flat, tail still. "You said six," Alana said. She kept her voice level, but her eyes moved across the dark grass outside. "Six," Aamaya said. "They're close now. I can feel them." Something landed on the roof. Claws scraped the wooden shingles. Then a face pressed against the window glass, a small black creature with bat wings and glowing green eyes. It grinned and showed its fangs. Aamaya screamed and stumbled back. The glass shattered inward. The creature squeezed through, followed by two more. Alana fired twice. One dropped. The others scattered across the room, fast and low, snapping at their legs. Aamaya's fear turned hot and strange. Her hands burned. She looked down and saw her nails stretch into black claws. Her gums ached as fangs pushed through. The change she had always fought now came on its own, pulled up by her terror. "Aamaya." Alana grabbed a creature off her shoulder and threw it against the wall. She looked at her sister's claws, at the fangs, at the obsidian eye burning red. She did not flinch. "Good. Use them. I've got your back." That steadied her. Alana wasn't afraid. Aamaya swung. Her claws caught a creature mid-air and tore through it. Black blood sprayed the floorboards. Another lunged and she caught it by the throat, squeezing until it went limp. The cat leapt onto the last one's back, raking its eyes. It shrieked and thrashed. Alana pinned it with her boot and fired. The room went quiet. Aamaya stood over the bodies, breathing hard. Her claws dripped. Her heart pounded. She had counted six. She counted the dead now. Five. "One got away," she said. Her voice came out low and rough, not fully her own. Alana holstered her weapon and gripped her sister's shoulder. "You did it. You made it happen this time." Aamaya looked at her hands. The claws did not retract. She flexed them, waiting for the change to fade, and it stayed. The fear was gone, but the claws remained. She reached for her old fear on purpose and found nothing. Somehow she had crossed a line and could not step back. "Alana," she whispered. "I can't turn it off." Her sister's face tightened. Outside, far across the wet grass, a single set of green eyes watched them from the tree line. It did not come closer. It turned and slipped into the dark, back toward the grove. Aamaya watched it go with her red eye. Whatever she was becoming, one of those things had seen her do it. And now it knew what she was too.

The last creature was gone, but the fight still gripped Aamaya's body. Her claws stayed out. Her fangs pressed against her lip. She stood over the five dead things on the cabin floor and tried to breathe. One had seen her change. It knew what she was. And she didn't. She needed an answer, and the bodies at her feet were the only place left to look. She knelt beside the nearest corpse. Its wings folded like torn paper. She turned it over with a claw. Black blood, small teeth, green eyes gone dull. Nothing about it explained why the last one had stared at her before it fled. Not with fear. With something like knowing. "Careful," Alana said. Her sister crouched beside her, sidearm still warm in its holster. She checked each body the way she'd check a scene, calm and quick. "Look for anything they carried. Marks. Anything." They searched. Aamaya rolled each creature over, one by one. No collars. No signs. No words carved in skin. The bodies told her nothing. She sat back on her heels, still clawed, still not herself. "There's nothing here," she said. Her voice came out rough. "It looked at me like it recognized me. And I can't even find out why." The black cat jumped down from the table. It walked past the corpses without stopping. It went to Aamaya and pressed its head against her clawed hand. She froze. The cat purred, low and steady, rubbing against her fingers as if the claws were nothing new. Something loosened in her chest. The cat wasn't afraid. Alana wasn't afraid. The danger was over, and her body finally understood it. Aamaya felt the ache in her gums fade. Her fangs slid back. She looked down and watched the black claws shrink, curl, and become fingernails again. Her hand shook, but it was her hand. "Aamaya," Alana whispered. "I'm back," Aamaya said. She turned her palms up. Human skin. Human nails. Her breath came easier. "It comes when I'm scared. It goes when I'm safe. That's what it is. A door that only opens under fear." Alana pulled her into a hug. "Then we keep you safe." But Aamaya's mind stayed on the empty answer. The bodies gave her nothing. The change was a defense, she understood that now. It had proven that much. Yet the creature that fled had looked at her like kin, and no dead thing on this floor could tell her why. She stood and looked out the broken window, toward the dark grove. The one that escaped was out there. It had seen her. It knew what she was. If the corpses held no answer, then the living one did. She wiped black blood from her hands and made her choice. "The bodies can't tell us," she said. "But the one that ran can. I have to find it."

Aamaya reached the edge of the grove before dawn. The old trees drooped with dark moss, their boughs hanging low like curtains. She found the creature's tracks in the wet dirt, three claw marks pressed deep. She followed them past the first row of trunks. Then the trail stopped. No prints. No broken branches. Just black bark and silence. The one thing that could tell her what she was had slipped away, and its tracks were already gone cold. She knelt and pressed her bare hand to the last clear print. Her obsidian eye pulled tight in its socket. A flash hit her. She saw the creature crawling under a fallen log, wings folded, red eyes shut. She saw a stream behind it and a split gray boulder. The vision snapped off. She gasped and rocked back on her heels. She knew where it hid now. Her eye had given her the one thing the ground couldn't. But she couldn't go alone, and she knew it. She ran back to the cabin. Alana stood in the doorway, arms crossed. "You're not going out there without me," Alana said. "Get in the truck. We file a report first. I'm not chasing anything until this is on record." Aamaya climbed in. Alana drove them to the county station, its blue sign crisp in the morning light. Inside, a young man sat at the desk. He was tall and blonde, in a white tank top, tattoos covering both arms. Crosses and doves ran from his wrists to his shoulders. He stood and offered his hand. "Jake Dawkins," he said. "New transfer. I'll take your statement." Aamaya forgot the creature for a second. She stared at the ink on his forearms. "Those are... really something," she said. Her cheeks went warm. Alana's head snapped up. "Transfer? Nobody told me we hired anyone." She looked him over, jaw tight. "I work here. I'd know." "Started Monday," Jake said. He pulled a form toward him. "Sheriff signed off. Guess the memo missed you." Alana muttered under her breath and dropped into a chair. Aamaya slid into the seat beside her, still glancing at Jake's arms. He clicked a pen. "So. What happened out at the cabin?" Aamaya opened her mouth. Then she saw it. On his left hand, near the thumb, a small mark inked in black. Two crossed lines, then a curve, the same shape she'd seen carved on nothing yet felt she knew. Her stomach dropped. The creature in her vision had the same mark on its wing. She went quiet. Jake noticed her staring and covered the hand with the other. "It's nothing," he said. But his smile was gone. Aamaya looked at Alana, then back at Jake. She had come here to report a monster. Now she wondered if she'd just found someone who knew exactly what she was.