A white owl landed on the nest.
It was massive—wings spread wide, feathers pale as moonlight, eyes the color of dying embers. It perched on the rim of its home and froze.
The owl stared at the punctured eggs. Amber liquid still dripped from the holes, thick and glistening in the dim light. The creature's head tilted. Once. Twice.
Then it began searching.
Its eyes scanned the trees. The ground. The shadows. Slow. Methodical. Hungry.
Kael held his breath.
He was pressed against the trunk of a giant tree, twenty meters from the nest. His back was flat to the bark. His chest barely moved. His heart hammered so loud he was sure the owl could hear it.
"Remain still. Remain silent. Don't breathe."
He muttered to himself.
The owl's head rotated.
First ninety degrees. Then one hundred eighty. Then all the way around to three hundred and sixty degrees, a full circle, its neck twisting like a screw. Its eyes never stopped moving.
Kael didn't blink.
The owl turned back. Spread its wings. And flew away—following some imagined direction, some instinct that told it the intruder had gone elsewhere.
Kael exhaled.
The air left his lungs in a shaky rush. His legs felt weak. His palms were wet with sweat.
"Wow." A voice sounded
He froze.
"That... that was tense."
The voice was small. Childish. Wrong.
Kael's blood turned cold.
"I wonder how amazing it would be if that owl tasted our skin.". It giggled in a high and sweet tone , dripping with something that wasn't joy.
Kael swallowed. His throat clicked.
"Who are you?" he muttered.
"Ah ah." The voice corrected him, playful, like a teacher scolding a slow student. "Understand English. It's 'who are WE?'"
Kael's eyes darted left. No one. Right. No one.
The voice was coming from inside his head.
"So." The voice played. Stretched the word like taffy. "I am you. But you may call me..."
Kael's lips curved upward.
Not his smile.
The wrong one.
"Crucify." The name hung in the air like smoke.
"Such a sweet name, isn't it?"
Kael was silent.
His mind raced. "What is this? What is happening? Do I have a split personality? Or something else?"
He didn't answer. Didn't move. Didn't acknowledge the voice further.
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He just turned and walked deeper into the forest.The shadows swallowed him whole.
"No... No...Why? WHY?"
Calvin's voice cracked. His hands trembled.
"He died. He fucking died mid-sentence."
He was sitting on a crate in the underground garage. His back was hunched. His reddish-pink hair hung in his face. His headband was crooked.
Tracy stood a few feet away, arms crossed, yellow hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Her face was blank.
"How? How?" Calvin kept going. "I am scared, Tracy. I am really scared."
He reached out and grabbed her hand. Squeezed hard.
Tracy turned her face away. Let him hold on. Didn't squeeze back.
"Damn," she thought. "How did I ever get myself with this guy?"
Calvin sat on a stool now.Tears dripped from his eyes. Not a few. A shower. Streaming down his cheeks, dripping off his chin.
"Look" Tracy pulled her hand free. She stood up straight. "For once, grow up."
Calvin raised his head slowly. His eyes were red. His nose was running.
"Grow up?" His voice was quiet at first. Then it rose. "I should grow up when our life is in danger? Huh?"
He fell back against the crate. Exhausted
"You are all hopeless."
Tracy looked at him for a long moment. Then she turned away.
"What of the new hunter?" she asked.
Calvinwas silent.
She sighed. Walked away.
Calvin stared at her back. Then his eyes unfocused. He was remembering something—someone moving backward during the chaos. Retreating. While everyone else fought or ran or died.
Someone had been walking away.
He hadn't paid attention at the time. Too much danger. Too much screaming.
But now...
"Something is strange," he muttered.
Percy sat with her legs crossed.
The room was high—one of the tallest towers on Geotequar. The ceiling was lost in shadow. The walls were glass. Below her, the dead city sprawled like a corpse.
She looked down.
Geotequar had three planets. Three layers of existence.
The smallest was the Deep Slums. The poorest. The most desperate. Now destroyed.
The second was the Mid-Spires. For working-class citizens. People who still pretended the world made sense.
The third was the Upper Spires. Untouchable. Heaven for elites only.
Percy lived in the Upper Spires. For now.
She moved a chess pawn forward.
Clack!
"So," a voice spoke from across the table. "How is it going?"
The apartment was dark. Neon light bled through the windows—blue and pink and sickly green—reflecting off the chess board. The woman sitting opposite Percy was hard to see. Just shape. Just silhouette. Just crossed legs and gleaming nails.
Percy smiled.
"Going as planned."
She moved another piece—killed the woman's rook. The piece clattered as it fell.
The woman countered. Unexpected. Fast. Her knight cut across the board and took Percy's piece, then slid into position. A warning to the king.
"Hmm," the woman said. "Things may get unpredictable. Be careful."
She laughed. Soft. Controlled.
"Also... the elites will be sending drones to the Deep Slums very soon."
Percy's smile didn't waver.
"And wow!" The woman leaned back. "Zen destroyed a planet today. A faraway colony. An entire race, wiped out."
She sipped her wine.
"Such an interesting wipe out."
Percy chuckled. "He's interested in you."
The woman set her glass down. Her eyes caught the light—deadly, sweet, sharp as a blade.
"Percy. Percy." Her voice dropped. Became silk over steel. "You must win the heart of His Royal Highness. Dorian. The survey corps have made life miserable for our industry."
She picked up her pawn. Held it between two fingers.
"It's time to play a sweet game."
Percy raised her glass. Wine swirled inside—deep red, almost black.
The woman raised hers.
They clinked.
"Cheers to victory."
They both laughed.
Kael sat on a bench in the underground garage. He coughed—loud, wet, convincing.
Hunters walked past. Some stared. Most didn't.
His body was a mess. Scratches. Bruises. Cuts that looked like they came from claws and teeth.
They were self-inflicted.
He had done them himself. In the forest. Before coming back through the portal. So no one would ask questions. So no one would wonder why he had survived when others hadn't.
A few hunters looked at him with disgust. Zale was among them. He glared at Kael, then burst out laughing. A few others joined in.
Kael didn't react.
He placed his hands on the wall. Pushed himself up. His legs trembled—from exhaustion, from hunger, from the biogenes still settling in his veins.
He walked to his room. Placed his hand on the sensor. The doors slid open with a soft hiss. He entered.
Sigh!
The door closed behind him.
Kael straightened up. Cracked his arms. Rolled his shoulders. His body ached—but not from the wounds. From the change. Something was shifting inside him.
He looked down at his legs. They looked normal. But he had seen them swell earlier. Grow thicker. Stronger.
Then reduce.
Like his body was still deciding what it wanted to be.
[5 Speed Biogenes - Abilities] [Sprint Boost: 5 Seconds]
His screen glowed in the darkness of his room.
Kael stared at it.
"I've got a long way to go," he sighed.
His eyes drifted to the bed. The headset lay there—the one Calvin had fixed. He picked it up. Placed it over his ears.
He scrolled through the music. Found an electronic beat. Something with no words. Just rhythm. Just noise.
He pressed play.
The beat dropped. Low and thrumming. It vibrated through his skull, down his neck, into his chest.
Kael nodded.
He stood in front of the mirror on the wall. His reflection stared back—pale, hollow, wrong. He placed his hand on the metal desk below the mirror. Felt the cold steel beneath his palm.
He nodded to every beat.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His eyes closed for a second.
The beat was rising. Building. Reaching for something.
He opened his eyes.
The song was at its peak.
Black!
The lights went off.
The headset went silent as kael stood in absolute darkness. Absolute silence.
He didn't move. Didn't breathe.
One second passed. Two. Three.
The lights flickered back on.
Kael couldn't move.
His reflection in the mirror was smiling.
Not his smile. The wrong smile. The one from the bridge. The one from the vision. The one that didn't belong to him.
He stared at it. Too stunned to blink.
Then his lips moved.
Not his voice.
"You didn't smile for me."
Mara's voice. Small. Younger. Sobbing.
"Now I smile for you."
The smile in the mirror widened.
Kael's blood ran cold.
He didn't know if he had spoken those words.
Or if something else had spoken them through him.
The lights flickered again.
The smile remained.
End of Chapter Seven.