The Beast Inside

by Monique Singleton

  I couldn’t care less what the council thought. They obviously had no consideration for my feelings, so why should I bother with theirs. They were intent on using me for their purposes. The finality with which they expected me to just comply with their wishes was astounding. Who did they think they were? I was frankly sick of people manipulating me. If I did this, and it was by no means certain, then it would be on my terms, not theirs.

  Panat could see that I was angry. He seemed to understand.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ I answered. ‘No, I’m not. I came here for answers and it seems that the council is only interested in manipulating me to do their wishes. So much for “Watchers” and not intervening. I’m sick of it. You can all go to hell for all I care. Do your own dirty work.’

  I knew that I wasn’t being fair. Panat had helped me more than he should, ever since I arrived. It wasn’t right to take it out on him. ‘I’m sorry, this is not aimed at you.’ I apologised.

  ‘I know. The council.’ He answered.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes.

  ‘I will understand if you decide not to get involved in this,’ he finally said. ‘I can’t blame you. But the problem is that there is no one else. None of the Watchers can do it, if that was possible then Joseph would have done it himself. He lost his whole extended family in the massacre. He would like nothing better than to have the satisfaction of being the reason for Azazel’s demise. But there is no way he can get anywhere near. It would only mean his own prolonged and terrible death.’

  ‘Because only the other forces can kill him.’ I said.

  ‘Not only that’ he continued. ‘Azazel has certain powers. All the forces do. Yours is the ability to change into the lion. He’s a psychic. He can read other people’s minds. Read their thoughts. Manipulate them even. Mere humans have no defences against him. Not even the enlightened ones like Joseph, at least that’s what we think.’

  ‘How will I stand a chance then?’

  ‘He has no power over the other forces. He cannot read your mind.’ That sounds better. ‘Or so it seems.’ Ok, don’t like the addition.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Your predecessor was able to get close. Close enough to be able to severely wound him. She told the Watchers that his powers didn’t work on her.’

  ‘I sense a “but”.’

  He was quiet. Lost in thought. Determining what he could and could not tell me maybe?

  ‘There is one.’ I listened intently. ‘As Kadhi explained, if the forces get too close to each other they influence one another. In your predecessor’s case the bloodlust was intensified. To boiling point.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then she lost it. Went berserk. Killed everything and everyone in sight.’

  I waited. There was more to come.

  ‘In the resulting madness, she also killed her lover. Her soul-mate.’

  ‘And that is why she killed herself.’ It wasn’t even a question, as understanding flooded over me.

  ‘Yes’ he answered. ‘When the rage subsided, she saw what she had done and fled, hoping to find solace in the jungle. But it didn’t work. Finally, she killed herself, no longer able to live without her love.’

  ‘And will that happen to me too? Lose my mind? Become overwhelmed by the bloodlust?’

  He looked me in the eye and said completely truthfully ’we don’t know.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The tension was quickly nearing boiling point.

  It was mostly the frustration. Coming here was supposed to solve everything. To help her cope with life. Maybe even to start living a normal existence again. But all it had done was add more frustration, more pressure and more questions without answers. She felt trapped.

  ‘Talk to me please.’ Panat was sitting next to her on the bench outside the house she had been assigned.

  She remained silent. He waited patiently. Panat was more or less her constant companion here now in the village. He helped her find her way in the small and sometimes bewildering community. Where possible he answered her questions, though not as much as she would have liked.

  ‘I came here for clarity’ she started. ‘All I have gotten up till now is more frustration, more disappointment and more aggravation.’

  They both looked out over the mountains, the crisp air and white snowy caps were the harbingers of winter. It was beautiful, but Jess couldn’t concentrate on that. She was internally conflicted. What should she do? Stay or leave. And then what?

  ‘I don’t even know why I’m here anymore. I came for answers, and all I have are more questions. The pressure is growing. I’m getting frustrated and mad. You claim to “watch” me, but all I feel is manipulation. Your leaders push me in a direction that I don’t want to go. I feel just as much a prisoner here as when I was in the lab. At least there I knew what they wanted of me. Even if I couldn’t give it to them. There was clarity of sorts there.’

  ‘Because you didn’t have all your gifts then?’ he had a knack for asking the right questions.

  She looked at him. ‘You call them gifts. I call them nightmares.’

  Silence once again settled over them.

  ‘I never asked for these “gifts”, I don’t want them.’ She spoke from the heart. ‘Nobody asked me if I wanted to live forever. I don’t. I feel as though I was ambushed. It’s wrong.’

  She sighed, all the emotions fighting to get out, to find release. The fur broke though in patches, on her back, her hands. Panat noticed, but said nothing. She had to get this out of her system.

  ‘I want to give it back, get rid of all this.’ She held up her hands, the claws extending and receding, the soft ochre fur sporting between her fingers then disappearing just as quickly. ‘I want it to stop.’

  ‘I understand.’ he tried.

  ‘No, you don’t.’ She turned on him, anger overwhelming her. ‘How can you understand? You sit back and watch me, watch what happens. I’m the one who has to live with this, with the change, immortality and the bloodlust.’

  Standing over him she was a formidable presence. He willed himself not to flinch, to stay as calm as he knew he should be.

  ‘I am the one who lives with the memories. People I killed, murdered. People I lost. The reality of what I have become. A murderer. A monster.’

  ‘You are not a monster’ he said softly. ‘You do not kill without prejudice.’

  ‘That’s what you say, to me it feels as though I have no say in the matter. I need to kill to stay anything close to sane. Kill, you hear me. Terminate someone’s life. Someone who maybe has loved ones. Family. Someone who has potential, even though they may not have used it. I don’t give them a chance. I play God—judge, jury and executioner.’

  ‘You only kill those who deserve it, who need to be removed from this world’ he continued. ‘They are the monsters—they terrorise and kill the innocent. You rid the world of the psychopaths and sociopaths.’

  ‘I kill them. I snuff them out as they do others. So what makes what I do different? What dissociates me from them?’ Tears flowed down her face mirroring her sorrow.

  ‘There is justification in what you do.’

  ‘Justification?’ she was aghast, throwing up her arms in frustration. ‘How can a mindless compulsion to kill humans be justified? How can losing control be anything other than abject failure?’

  ‘Then don’t lose control.’ He made it sound so simple.

  Standing upright she stared at him, her silence and seeming control more frightening than the confused half changes that she had portrayed a moment ago. This was calculated. Cold.

  ‘Don’t lose control?’ She whispered back at him. ‘That easy huh?’

  Swallowing hard he continued. ‘In basis, yes.’ He observed her all the time. If she wanted to kill him, she would. There would be no escape. He had opened the cesspool of her emotions, now he needed to follow up. ‘You can control the urges. That, you have already proven.’
r />   ‘But I don’t want to.’ Her voice was still menacingly soft. ‘I want to give in. Get it out of my system.’

  ‘You could do that, but it is a temporary solution at most. After a while the bloodlust will return. Your conscience will once again be in turmoil. You will experience the exact same conflict that you do now, time and time again. You will have no peace.’

  ‘Peace? What do you know of peace?’

  ‘I know that peace is what you aspire to, what you need. Peace of mind and spirit. That will not be achieved by violence or by flight. This is part of you, whether you like it or not. You cannot escape what you have.’

  ‘Or what I am?’

  ‘Or what you are.’

  This was the pivotal moment. She would either let all control slip and kill him and everyone she wanted to, or she would hear him out, and let him help her. But what would it be? Shuddering inside Panat called on his own inner peace to calm his frayed nerves and look into her beautiful but extremely vicious ochre eyes. He could see the violence bordering on insanity. But he also saw the pain. The loss of all that was dear to her. Panat was in awe of this magnificent woman. Her abilities astounded him. But he also pitied her. As she had said, it was not of her choosing. This had been thrust on her. She had to find a way to live with it, because eternity was also part of the curse.

  She lowered her eyes and sat down in the patch of grass under her feet. Defeated.

  ‘I will never find peace’ she said softly. ‘There is none for my kind. I have tried. I have hunted for answers—reasons why I am what I am. To help me accept what I have and what I do. But even here I cannot find that.’

  ‘Answers will not bring you peace.’ He said softly, placing his hand on her shoulder. ‘Peace cannot be given you, it is something you must find within.’

  She lifted her head and looked at his concerned face. ’How?’

  ‘We can help you. This place will help.’

  Closing her eyes, she sighed, frustration gaining hold again.

  ‘Because this is Tibet?’ she asked sarcastically. ‘This is where the enlightened ones show me my road in life. Your council tried that. Didn’t help.’

  ‘No.’ He stayed calm, his hand remaining on her shoulder as an emphasis to his words. ‘There is no such thing as an enlightened path that we can show you. You need to find peace yourself. There is a place inside you that will give you peace. A place that will calm your spirit. You are the only one who knows where that is, and how to get there. All I can do is give you some tools to make contact with your inner self. Your core will lead the way. But first you need to want it.’

  She had quietened down. His words were hitting home. They touched on her last remnants of hope.

  ‘How?’ she whispered.

  ‘There are no answers. You need to surrender to your core, accept what and who you are. That way you will stop fighting yourself. You are your own worst enemy. That must change. Then, and only then will you find your gift of peace. It is in you, you need to let it be.’

  Moving off the bench he knelt in front of her. Placing the other hand on her second shoulder he was silent. Words were no longer necessary. Slowly she let herself bend forwards until her head was buried in the soft fur of his coat up against his chest. He held her as she wept. Softly at first, but gaining momentum. She finally let out the pain. The emotion.

  They sat there for a while. In silence. There was nothing more to say. She had taken the first step.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  I was drained. The emotions had robbed me of all energy. On the up-side, the tension had depleted too.

  I slept. More than twelve hours. Feeling only marginally refreshed, I awoke to a new day. I mulled over Panat’s words in my mind. I needed to find peace within. Accept what I was without answers. Was that even possible?

  I’m the kind of person who always asks “WHY” I need to know what the reason is before I can accept anything. That is my downfall, has been for many years. I need a reason. What if there is no reason? What if I was selected randomly? How would I concede to that? Is it all just an accidental fluke of nature that governs my eternal life now? And if so, how will I live with that?

  The downside of eternal life is that it never ends. There is no escaping it. It’s here forever. And you know what? Forever is a long time. One of the determining factors in a human life is that it is restricted. There will be an end to all that you do. When, is the question, not if. That seems like a restriction. But in the end, it gives you purpose. You want to have lived before you die. It offers a goal. Or at least an incentive. For some it even offers release.

  I don’t have that. Whatever happens now will not end by itself. There is no deadline. No reason why I should pace myself. It is endless. All of it. The good parts, but most of all the bad ones. The nightmares. Where could I find peace in all that?

  But somewhere in all that negativity there was a new spark of hope. That I could maybe achieve a semblance of inner balance. That I could learn to live with me.

  I wanted to find out more. So first, I needed to find Panat.

  After my late breakfast, I set off in search of Panat. He was noticeably absent. This was more or less the first time I had to look for him. One way or the other he had always been close by. Helping me in a discreet way. Not being able to turn around and find him there, made me realise how much I had come to rely on him.

  I found him in the communal building. He saw my turmoil immediately and led me out of the building through the village and out in to the mountain. We found a quiet place where the ground was reasonably level so that we could sit down. The sun warmed us as we lowered ourselves to the hard and cold granite.

  ‘Focus on your breathing’ Panat said softly. ‘In…… and out… … Slowly.’

  I paced my breaths with his voice. Breathed in when he did, and out on queue. His voice was soft and warm, it felt good. He was lengthening the time between breaths. I followed and they became deeper and slower. Slowly I relaxed. I could feel the cold clear mountain air as it flowed through my lungs. It tickled.

  ‘Relax all the muscles around your eyes’ he continued. ‘Your eyelids are too heavy, you can’t open them anymore.’

  Bit by bit, he helped me relax and focus on myself and my body. I could feel everything, the muscles, the nerves, the blood flowing though my veins. It felt good.

  ‘See yourself floating on a river. Let it take you wherever it’s going. Just enjoy the feeling of the water and let it go.’

  Slowly he steered me away from the tension and the more I relaxed, the better I was able to visualise the river. This continued for a while and I lost all idea of time. Could have been ten minutes, but just as easily more than an hour. Time didn’t exist where I was at that moment. Panat stopped talking after a while. Just let me ride the river. I felt the stress and tension ooze out of my body into the river.

  Finally, Panat steered me back into the here-and-now. He softly urged me to open my eyes while still keeping my body and mind relaxed. So I did. It was just as simple as that.

  We sat there in silence. I looked around. Everything seemed much clearer. The clean air, the beautiful blue sky, the snow. It even seemed serene.

  I had tried meditating before. But it had never helped like this. Maybe it was the location, the top of the world. Maybe it was Panat. I don’t know, but whatever it was, it worked. I hadn’t found real peace, but I definitely felt a lot better.

  ‘How do you feel?’ Panat asked.

  ‘Refreshed’ I answered.

  ‘If we do this at least once a day from now onwards, you will be able to find that one place inside that will give you release.’

  ‘Are you hypnotising me?’

  ‘No not really, I’m just helping you relax and visualise your way. It doesn’t have to be a river. It can be a road or whatever you want, it’s your journey. You have control. Visualise that and follow it to a place within. It might take a few days, maybe even a week, but you will find it.

  ‘H
ow will I know that I have found the place?’

  ‘It will all be right. You will feel it, there will be no doubt.’

  Could this really help? I was sceptical, but the pleasant feeling I was experiencing now was an encouragement. I would at least try.

  ‘Let’s try’ Panat proposed. ‘We can start with morning and evening sessions, when the sun comes up and when it goes down. Those are the most spiritual moments.

  I nodded. ‘Thank you.’ He smiled.

  ‘You’re very welcome.’

  He had a nice smile.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  We practiced twice a day, every day.

  It actually took more than a week, nine days to be exact. I put that down to all the pressure that the council was putting on me, trying to persuade me to go after Azazel. The manipulative way they tried to convince me that it was for my own good, got me riled every time. Finally, I exploded and attacked Khadi. Luckily, it was only a verbal attack, but it still made an impression. I guess the rippling fur and the changing features in my face helped.

  The council was a lot more careful after that. Panat told me that they had realised that I would not be pushed into something I didn’t want to do. They were so used to manipulating people that it almost came naturally. At least now they took me seriously. So that was an advancement.

  It did kick my practice back a few days. All serenity was gone. But I was able to regain it quickly. My body was capable of relaxing a lot faster now.

  And then, on a beautiful morning, I let the river take me to its destination—my core being. There I opened the door to the inner peace that Panat had told me about, that is in all of us. I can’t explain what I felt when I finally walked through the door into the space beyond. I felt as though I was there. The place I had been searching for all this time. It wasn’t a specific location, just a space. No walls, infinite in its dimensions. There was no colour, and there were all colours.