Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening! It is time for a new chapter of A Matter of Perspective, and I have been curious to know what people think of this specific chapter.

After this chapter, there is 3 more left until we conclude Part 1! Enjoy!!!

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Chapter 7 - Labyrinth

Lupus stood in the centre of a junction that neighboured his house. Midnight. Darkness. Yet, he saw in the perpetual night.

In the distance, the same road he ran down in the mornings was empty. Only he existed, alongside the pothole-infested street. Only two rows of parked cars on both sides—a clean stretch of concrete between them, perfect for a morning run.

For his convenience, he had already put on his athletic attire: white top, black shorts, and trainers. Lupus did not recall getting dressed for exercise, but that is not what stole his attention. Instead, he focused on how restrictive his outfit was, especially when he noticed his shirt still tugged up past his waist.

On cue, came Tyler’s uninvited utterance: ‘I have observed this prior…involving an Ascendant.’

Douglas’s presence filled the gap. This time, no sound; despite its grin, the fox remained colourless and voiceless. A spectacle inspired by a Twilight Zone episode—the same ones he remembered watching at the orphanage whenever it was his go with the remote. The thought sent a chill through him: Douglas’s appearance suggested a cruel turn.

‘No’. He shook it off and focused on the red fox ahead. ‘Not you,’ he muttered, but Douglas did not react.

Lupus did. He wanted to when he understood that this is a lucid dream and he is the dream master. A dream master with a craving to get even with the fox.

Although it was not the true Douglas, the sight ignited his suppressed frustration. A low growl rumbled in his throat as he leaned forward, lips curled, into a runner’s stance, his eyes fixed on the creature.

A cocktail of dread and anger flooded his bloodstream with adrenaline. Eight claws scraped across the asphalt until he advanced. His toned thighs bulged and propelled him down the deserted road, whilst his arms swung back and forth to slice through the frosty air.

Like a predator eyeing its prey, his eyes fixed on the never-ending avenue ahead.

Only after he had passed twenty cars did he notice it—the houses. With every house he went by, an identical structure birthed over the horizon. The more he ran, the more the road grew to create an endless loop of British architecture.

Yet, the laws governing the dream realm impacted more than structures. Down the street, Douglas continued to maintain the same distance from Lupus.

Frustrated at the dream’s taunting, he quickened his pace. His shoes struck the pavement, his arms swung faster, all to catch the fox that lingered out of reach. Except as he saw the gap close, an electrical surge coursed through him. It cascaded in roiling, ever-expanding waves within his cells. The surge continued through his anatomy as he charged forward down the street.

He ran faster—faster than he had at any time in his waking life. The wind whooshed past his ears until something caught his attention below: a breeze. It brushed beneath his feet. His pace faltered, and he skidded to a stop.

Then, he looked down.

His paws tore open the tips and rims of his shoes. Ripped fabric and rubber hung loose near his sole. Exposed padded toes splayed on the road; clawtips scratching the concrete.

As he looked up, his eyes landed on his thick, sculpted legs straining against his shorts. His shirt felt tighter against his chest and had slid up to expose his abdomen. The fibres on the restricting fabric unravelled.

A slow, creeping realisation settled into his gut. He raised both palms into view, and in the narrow gap between his fingers, Douglas was visible. The fox framed within his grasp. That growth spell gave him the advantage he needed.

‘Remember what he did to you,’ his own voice erupted from the heavens in disgust.

Lupus craned his back to meet the endless grey sky. Staring at the unentertaining heavens to find the source of the voice.

Nothing. Only an indifferent emptiness. A void that made space for his mind to fill with memories of Douglas: their sly remarks of his qualifications, their patronising comments of his views on Vastelerians, and their consistent desire to put his articles down…enough!

His hands balled two trembling fists.

A whisper slithered into his mind, carried by the same voice that had haunted the empty sky: ‘He made you feel small, didn’t he?’

‘Yes…’ Lupus confessed behind gritted teeth. One half of him recoiled in shame along the walk down memory lane; the other half saw red.

‘Why don’t you return the favour?’

Lupus’s eyes narrowed. He rolled his shoulders back, feeling the tight stretch of his shirt fight to contain him. Without another word, he dropped his hands and broke into a sprint.

Although he sensed the concrete’s coarse texture press into his paw pads, he was more fixated on the fox. Identical houses zipped by in rapid succession, but he no longer cared about their repetition.

He cared only to replay his mantra: Be faster, be stronger, be better.

Though Lupus raced through the words in his thoughts, Douglas remained the same maddening distance away. The gap was too large for him to close because of his height; he needed to grow taller.

Eyelids shut, he dug deep into himself. He searched within himself to discover the source of the electrical surge. Lupus honed in on it and used his mantra to steady himself.

He opened his eyes.

Nothing. He remained the same, and Douglas, still far ahead.

Through gritted teeth, he altered the mantra: Be faster, be stronger, be bigger.

Again.

Once more.

And once more.

It looped in his head until his system responded. The same static tingle coiled beneath his body and threaded through his muscles. It started in his rib cage with his heartbeat increasing in tempo before it spread through him.

He didn’t decelerate. He refused to. The mantra continued on, and with each repetition, his form swelled more and more. His legs became heavier, his arms stretched longer, and his chest pushed outwards to tear through his shirt. Lupus wouldn’t hold back, but dug deep into him until his Vastelerian-self won the battle.

With each step, his person ascended. The street shrank around him until the cars and houses resembled toys in contrast. Little by little, he felt his gym wear stretch until the fabric snapped. His clothing struggled to keep the secret of his altering body.

When it gave way to all that new, expanded muscle, torn threads dangled from his frame like vines. His attire dwindled down to a set of boxers that clung to his now-titanic frame. Soon, his every stride, he devoured step after step, bringing him closer to where Douglas was before they scrambled into the only colourful object, a parked red sedan.

Spying the car, he licked his lips, and he strode over to it. By Lupus’s measure, it was a light gait. Petite footsteps along a street that could accommodate one paw at a time. A tender stride pressed into the concrete and picked up a cluster of dust. Well-mannered footfalls that attempted to leave the faintest impression of his presence — at least, that’s what the wolf brushed it off as.

For Douglas, the innocuous act of Lupus walking had the power to crack the lane wide open, one footstep after the other behind him. It exposed bedrock and burst water pipes that spilled out to fill the craters. Footprints replaced sections of the road, far wider and deeper than any pothole drivers had complained about. Potholes were trivial compared to the impressions left by Lupus’s paws.

Avoiding the direct impact of the wolf’s footfalls should have brought Douglas relief, but the resulting shockwave of displaced breeze ensured he felt it. After each concussive blast, compressed air punched the side of his car and brushed the automobile across the driveway.

Douglas scrambled out of his seat to reach for the car keys on the dashboard. He tried to snatch it as the gusts of wind nudged his vehicle off the lane. A subtle disturbance that evolved into something violent. Seismic shockwaves jolted his car off the ground. The vehicle bounced along, up and then down, with the fox inside.

Although Lupus could not make out Douglas’ facial expression, he noticed the car attempt to pull out of the entrance.

Before the car entered the street, Lupus bent down and lowered a hand to snatch it. With a dexterity that betrayed his new size, four meaty wolf digits curled around the steel frame. His fingers shifted the door, which warped until it crumpled shut.

Standing back up, he raised the vehicle to meet his growing grin. “Where do you suppose you’re going?” He cooed, washing the car with his molten breath. “You don’t wanna miss this big story.”

As he held the toylike car aloft and gazed at the doll-sized fox inside, he recalled just how often Douglas had tried to belittle him. Douglas understood how being little felt like.

Still, Douglas made a last-ditch attempt to reclaim control with a blare of the horn, but his irritated thumb crumpled the hood to cut it short. Lupus exhaled, “Now, now, Douglas. It’s very impolite to interrupt someone who can squash you under a digit,” and rested a pinky finger on the car roof to roll it back and forth across his palm.

He never sought this power, but it furnished a chance to bring Douglas retribution. Seeing him squirm was enjoyable; therefore, he employed every theatrical idea. For once, Lupus held control over Douglas.

Unable to resist adding more salt to the wound, Lupus tightened his fingers more to elicit a faint creak of metal from the Sedan. “Look at me, dude, I’m breaking news,” he chuckled and watched Douglas flail against the car windows.

“That’s so adorable, but—” Lupus shifted the vehicle to rest against his left cheek and peeped a single, ocean-blue eye inside. “You realise I can keep you as a trinket, right?” He asked.

Lupus glanced into the front of the car and observed the fox scrambling out of view. That is when the wolf’s giant lips twisted into a smirk once more. “Not a toy, but a fashion statement? You’ll look great on the six o’clock news as my necklace,” he added, squatted, and ripped out a metal fence.

Between two fingers, he contorted the steel to create a makeshift chain. Lupus whistled out a tune as he secured the sedan-attached to his neck. Now that Douglas’ getaway car dangled from his chest, the wolf prepared to take a step.

The seismic booms began anew. The neighbourhood shook in sync with the drumbeat of Lupus’s footsteps. He strolled along the street, mimicking tightrope walking. He persisted, emphasising his strides to send vibrations through his body and sway the vehicle necklace.

Lupus registered it as a casual stroll; Douglas experienced it like a rollercoaster. The sedan pitched back and forth during this journey in front of the wolf’s chest. He held up a paw towards the automobile.

‘Lupus, stop!’ A voice called out to him. Lupus’s head flinched to meet the source and came to a halt.

Silence fell after his next step, including any noise from Douglas’ car. Lupus’s raised hand searched for the Sedan around his neck, but there was nothing. His ears and bushy tail hung limp as he looked from left to right. “Hello?” He listened for a voice, any call. It was empty, just a quiet, desolate neighbourhood.

Lupus straightened his posture and paced ahead between the parked cars. He moved down the narrow road in search of someone, including Douglas…especially Douglas. Although it didn’t stop him from taking in the novelty of his district appearing like an expansive dollhouse set.

Except as that realisation hit, a muffled crunch came from under his shoe.

Once he honed in on the noise, the wind whistled and the clouds spiralled overhead. A storm brewed, and he was in the eye. He looked down while his heart drummed against his ribcage. Beneath his footpad, the street buckled. Cracks spider-webbed outward from where he stood, and when he lifted his leg, he saw it.

A car. Its metal skeleton was a pancake. Every focal point of his foot had crushed it like a tin can atop the cracked concrete.

Lupus’s spirit dropped, and his tail hung limp. He crouched low, eyes narrowed, to examine the debris. With a claw extended towards the ruined form for a sniff, the wolf mumbled, “P-please be alright.” He lowered his head until his nose was touching the wreckage; then, he inhaled.

A familiar sound interrupted his investigation by calling out, “Lupy…”.

Lupus turned his gaze away from the car ruins and toward the voice. Tyler, in colour, stood meters distant.

“Lupy, what did you do to Douglas?” The otter’s tone trembled in a mix of disbelief and fear.

Lupus’s mind scrambled to find a justification for reducing Douglas to an adornment. He desired to go further, to demean the conceited fox, yet the price was seeing Tyler recoil in horror.

“I…I didn’t mean…I’m not that person, I swear!” His vocal chords cracked.

As did the cement beneath when his fingers balled into two fists—one of which struck the cement in anger. An act of frustration that knocked the aquatic mammal off foot. A sight that snapped the canine out of his trance.

“T-Tyler—!” The wolf barked out, not realising that his panicked voice would rattle the otter once more. “S-Sorry, I’m so sorry, are you okay?” he whispered as quietly as he could.

Lupus had to reach him, but he couldn’t. He needed to adapt to his enhanced strength, but the storm did not wait for him. Above, the clouds twisted, spun, and darkened to black. The gale picked up into howling gusts that ruffled what remained of his torn clothes and threatened to almost knock Tyler off foot.

He snapped his head downward toward Tyler. The little otter had already shielded his eyes with a raised arm while the wind pushed him three steps back before Lupus interjected.

Instinct alone, Lupus swung to him—he had to catch him.

Except in the moment his palm neared his friend, another surge of energy crackled through his form. His paw stopped inches above the otter. “Tyler,” Lupus muttered through gritted teeth. “Step away.”

Tyler stepped forward. “Lupy? You’re a–” The wind caught his name and blew it aside. Tyler tried to plead with him, but time was running out for them. “You’re an Ascendant!”

The wolf's frustrated fist came crashing down onto the parked car and shattered the concrete open. A seismic blast knocked the otter onto his side. "I told you I am not an Ascendant!"

Lupus pulled his hand back and paid no notice to the shrapnel pouring down from his fingers. His eyes preferred to lock onto the startled junior journalist, "U-Understood?" He grunted as his body continued to swell.

Under the wolf’s body, the concrete cracked and caved in against his increasing mass. Car alarms erupted alongside the vehicle’s flashing headlights. Fissures burst when Lupus’s claws drilled into the street and dragged towards him.

Lupus sensed the strain beneath his knees, the stretch in his fingers, and the creeping rise in his perspective. “I-I said step back!” Lupus barked, not in anger—but in worry as his chest expanded again. “Please, Tyler, I don’t want to hurt you!”

Another surge burst through Lupus. His spine arched against the force, and his muscles bulged outward to extend his posture. Claws, now the size of traffic cones, scratched forward through the concrete like sand. The sidewalk cracked apart as his widening stance tore into the foundations beneath him.

Behind him, his foot paws dug into the road as it dragged backward. One smashed a row of garden bushes into mulch; the other overturned a car like a toy. The passage of hours mattered not, but he comprehended somewhat. He estimated he had been growing for a few seconds, and in that duration, his frame increased tenfold.

His surge surpassed the Vastelerian height limit of ninety-feet. Lupus still tried to hold it back, but with Tyler in the proximity, he used any remaining strength to growl, “Tyler, please, run,” between gritted teeth.

A brief pause preceded the release of pent-up vigour. He soared past the 100-foot point within ten seconds. With the sky drawing nearer, Lupus’s concern mounted that he might hit the dream’s limit.

In fear, he shut his eyes. “P-Please…stop,” the wolf grunted through clamped fangs, while the energy ripped through his body. Desperate for something, anything, to ground himself, he grasped onto the surface.

When his titanic claws curled inward, they scraped not only across concrete and foliage, but over vehicular steel and houses too. Through the spaces between his tightening fingers, debris spilled through. His expanding fists bulldozed aside everything else. As he grew larger, the infrastructure continued to break down, much like the crackling embers of a campfire.

Lupus listened to it all—metal beams twisting, glass shattering, sirens wailing. The city of London wept beneath him, and he couldn’t shut it out. He curled in on himself to block out the devastation below. “Stop…” he begged again, more than a breath now.

On command, silence fell.

Lupus opened his eyes and braced to meet the consequences of his growth.

Though the nightmare had at least spared him embarrassing shredded underwear, the city was gone. The capital had vanished and left a patch of grass, with a small smear of grey algae beneath his muzzle.

A more thorough look revealed thin wisps of smoke emerging from the spot of moss. He leaned in, squinting, and realised the ‘moss’ was London. He’d become large enough that he could no longer see the capital’s details.

More importantly, Liam and Tyler were down there, but he couldn’t see them, hear them, or hold them. Somewhere in a city that could occupy his fingertip were the friends he needed to help anchor himself.

Dread engulfed him, bringing a teardrop to the corner of his eye, but he fought to suppress it to avoid drowning the people he loved below. Instead, he raised his arm to wipe it away, and shifted his weight again to leave London between his thighs.

Lupus’s body trembled with the urge to react. He longed to let a tear fall, to scream in frustration, but any emotional response would devastate the metropolis.
Desperate, he clenched his eyelids so taut they wrinkled, and balled two fists to compress his massive form.

Yet, it had the opposite effect. The more he willed his body to diminish, the more it expanded. It was as if his very desire to undo the change only made it worse, pulling him further away from the town he sought to return to. A paradoxical dilemma that belonged in a nightmare, but it still felt real. Everything from the wall of unearthed dirt that surrounded his thighs to the scenes of chaos from the city below was all too genuine.

“I—” Lupus paused mid-sentence when he noticed that his voice created a gale of wind strong enough to sweep parts of London aside. So, he shifted his maw to the side, and attempted apologising again. “I’m so sorry. Please, I didn’t mean to do that.” But even that gentler whisper disturbed the capital.

Lupus shifted and rocked the city closer to oblivion.

There was no winning. No matter the caution, steadiness, or stillness, he exceeded the bounds of this realm. He wanted to hear Liam and Tyler’s voices over the silence he forced upon himself, but there was nothing. Somewhere in his shadow, in a city smaller than his finger, were the people he cared about most trying to survive the apocalypse that was him.

Lupus’s snout lowered and eyes narrowed as he tried to make out his street, Liam’s apartment, and his workplace. He desired to see London’s features. The residences and workplaces blurred, resembling crumbs spread upon the landscape.

He raised a trembling hand and extended a digit over the capital. Just one fingertip. He dangled it over London in order to sense something—anything, anyone. Only the smoke brushed along his fur follicles.

His fingertip lowered closer past the haze layer. Again, nothing.

A microscopic touch should signal his nervous system. He craved that spark, unlike the one that put him in this titanic body.

He desired to hold either Liam or Tyler, although they were flea-sized. He would’ve let them stay there forever. On his shoulder, in the ridges of abdomen, or in the fabric cave of his pocket where the elements couldn’t reach them.

The wolf whispered, “Please, what can I do?” a tear prickling the edge of his vision. “... I want to hold you both. I need you-” His voice broke as a teardrop trickled down his cheek. On this occasion, he failed to wipe it before it went toward London.

Lupus arose with identical tears on his visage.

He grasped it was a nightmare. One born from his tormented mind. An amalgamate of his insecurities and recent memories turned into a stage play at his expense.

For a moment he lay still under the covers, thinking about his nightmare. He had hoped to have dreamt of Vastelerians one day, but he never imagined his first one, the Vastelerian, would be him. When he fantasised about putting Douglas in his place, holding him in a hand to intimidate him did not cross his mind. Lupus wondered if this dream was a symptom of Tyler’s Ascendant comment, or something else.

As his head shifted to the side, he caught sight of sun rays bleeding through the window—sunlight again?!

Lupus lowered a finger to unlock his mobile, but did not register his fingerprints. A frustrated grunt expelled from his lips as he typed in his password to look at the phone clock: 8:27 am.

Already? Lupus glanced at the clock. It read the same time.

Confusion clouded his features. He had never slept this late into the day, especially consecutive days in a row, but he brushed it off as he prepared to swing his legs out of the bed.

Yet, his joints ached. His body felt heavier than it should. He blinked against the pale light filtering through the window to ease the dull throb lingering behind his eyes. As his arms stretched out at his sides, a low growl rumbled in his belly.

Lupus’s eyes darted down to his stomach. He wasn’t often this hungry.

Most dawns, he skipped breakfast and relied on coffee until midday. Some mornings, his hunger desired a cereal bar. But today…his appetite demanded a full-course dinner.

‘How am I still hungry?’ Lupus thought to himself. He had devoured an entire large pizza yesterday, and yet his stomach craved more.

As he shifted, a strange sensation from beneath the sheets caught his attention. He soon realised that not all of him was under the bedding. In fact, everything below his ankles dangled off the mattress. Whereas under the bedcovers, more of his body felt the blanket stroke across his coat. Curious, he lifted the edge of the blankets and glanced down.

Stretched tears littered the wolf’s pajamas. Through the night, fabric fissured, battling for superiority with the waning grasp of the thinning strands. On the battlefield, the wolf’s snow-white fur had sprouted out and strained the remaining threads on his shirt and trousers.

As for his paws, they surpassed and dangled off the bed.

His heart skipped a beat. The moment he registered the sight, he flinched. His legs jerked back and dragged the loose blanket along with them.

Panicked, Lupus flinched backward against the bed, causing the mattress and floor to groan in protest. “No, no, no…” he muttered, staring down at his stretched-out limbs and the torn clothes that hung from his ligaments.

Lupus brought his knees to his chest and embraced them with his arms. Mimicking his dream, he curled into a ball, hoping to revert to normal size—to no avail. He breathed, “Impossible,” his eyes clamped shut. “I can’t be one—”

Deprived of sight, his mind flooded with visions of what he had done at the scale of a building...of what he did with that power. He shook his head, hoping this is a nightmare folded over another, and opened his eyes.

However, when he peeked again, his form remained unchanged. If he had been an Ascendant, then…

The wolf peered around his bedroom: smaller desk, closer shelf, and the hidden photo frame. Upon discovering his hand matched the size of his notebook, he understood life’s impermanence.

Again, Lupus denied it; he was not an ascendant.

A knock came from the door. Lupus’s first thought was that Liam had come round before their nature walk, but he would’ve called; he would have exhausted his voicemail storage before 10:00 am.

From behind the door, Liam spoke. “Hello, Lupy, is everything alright?”

It was Liam.

Though he escaped that nightmare, he awoke to a new one.