Fated to Break Open

Chapter 3

MAETHYS POV

Pain.

It tore through me before thought did—white, blinding, endless.

I woke screaming.

The sound ripped out of my chest like something alive, raw and uncontrolled, my throat burning as if it were being clawed open from the inside. My eyes flew wide, desperate to find the pain, to locate it, to escape it—but it was everywhere. Inside me. Under my skin. In my bones.

The lights overhead were too bright. Too sharp. They stabbed straight through my skull, splitting behind my eyes. I tried to turn my head away and something cracked—a deep, wet sound that made fresh agony bloom down my spine.

Smells hit me all at once.

Not just strong—violent. Chemical and burning, clawing down my throat and into my lungs. Bitter. Clean. Wrong. My stomach lurched as if I’d been poisoned.

Voices thundered around me.

Too loud. Too close. Each word slammed into my skull like a physical blow, overlapping, echoing, shattering my thoughts before I could hold onto them.

“Hey—hey, calm down. You’re shifting—” a woman’s voice cut in, low and careful.

The words existed, but meaning didn’t. They slid off me, useless.

“Zach, back up,” the woman snapped.

“She’s going to hurt herself,” a man answered.

I gagged, gasped, tried to suck in air—and my chest seized, ribs tightening, stretching, grinding against one another like they were being forced apart.

“She’s not responding!” he yelled.

“All I have are sedatives.”

“Then get them! I’ll get—” The words dropped off. My skull filled with the sounds of cracking and grinding.

Hands moved. Shadows shifted. The world lurched and spun as another scream tore out of me—but it sounded wrong.

Smaller.

Broken.

I didn’t recognize it as mine.

Something inside me answered.

Not words. Impulse. Sound. Panic. A raw, instinctive need that howled through my head like a second voice layered over my own. It didn’t soothe. It didn’t guide.

It screamed.

My spine arched violently as something broke—then broke again. And again. Vertebrae snapping and reshaping in sickening succession, fire racing along my nerves as my body betrayed every rule it had ever followed. Muscles burned as they stretched, pulled longer, thicker, tightening until it felt like my skin might split apart.

I felt myself falling, hitting the ground with a dull thud.

I couldn’t breathe.

My throat closed in on itself, constricting, rearranging. My jaw burned, pressure building until my teeth shifted—roots grinding, enamel sliding, sharp points forcing their way into existence. I tasted blood. Metal. Fear.

I clawed at the surface beneath me, desperate to ground myself, to hold on—

And froze.

Hair.

Brown. Coarse. Not skin.

I lifted my arm—no, my hand—and stared in disbelief at a paw where my fingers should have been. Pads. Claws digging into the floor with a shriek of sound that sent pain exploding through my ears.

A whimper echoed in the room.

It took me a second to realize it came from me.

Footsteps approached.

I snapped my head up, vision blurring, warping—colors too bright, edges too sharp—and saw him. The man who had been speaking. His body was tense, shoulders squared, eyes locked on me as he stepped closer.

“Easy,” he said, voice low. Firm. Commanding.

Something in the tone scraped down my spine.

The air changed.

Pressure rolled off him in waves, heavy and suffocating, making my skin prickle and my chest tighten. He meant to control me. To force me still. To make me submit.

I didn’t understand how I knew that.

I just knew I wouldn’t.

Fear detonated into my final thoughts.

‘Don’t stop!’

I lunged.

The movement surprised even me—power surging through unfamiliar limbs, muscles responding faster than thought. The door burst open, and I was met with even more bright lights and doors.

White walls flashed past in blinding streaks. The lights overhead buzzed and flickered, each sound like glass in my ears. A woman stepped into my path—wide-eyed, frozen—and I collided with her hard enough to send us both sprawling.

I didn’t stop.

I followed my nose.

Air.

Real air.

Sunlight spilled through glass doors ahead, warm and alive, carrying the scent of grass and earth and something right. The stench of this place burned my lungs as I barreled forward, doors swinging violently, slamming into walls with explosive crashes that made me yelp and veer—but I kept going.

The glass entryway loomed.

I didn’t slow.

I hit it with everything I had.

Glass exploded outward in a storm of sound and pain, shards tearing across my hide as I burst through into open space. Sunshine hit my eyes like fire. Grass crushed beneath my paws. Wind ripped through my fur, glorious and terrifying all at once.

I ran.

The tree line waited ahead—dark, thick, promising vanishing. I angled toward it, legs eating up distance faster than I could process—

Then something made me look back.

The man was running after me.

Except—

He took one stride on two legs.

The next—

Four.

Bone and muscle warped seamlessly, his body folding into something massive and fast, red-dark fur flashing in the sun as he surged after me. A bolt of fury and power, locked on my trail.

A predator.

Panic screamed through me, louder than anything before—but beneath it, beneath the terror and confusion and pain, one thought rose clear and unquestioned.

The river.

I had to reach it.