At that moment, in a hospital room in the heart of the city, the world went still as the monitor fell silent.
Dr. Aris Thorne watched the flat line hold, unbroken. As if the decision had already been made. Executed without his consent.
He looked at the monitor, expecting an alarm. None came. The volume had been lowered earlier. He knew this. Protocol.
A nurse stood at the foot of the bed while another doctor checked for one last pulse. Aris knew the boy was gone. The doctor checked anyway. The nurse held the clipboard tight to her chest as the doctor placed a hand on Aris’s shoulder. It offered no comfort.
“You did all you could, Aris. I’m sorry,” the doctor said quietly. “Time of death—”
The nurse glanced at her watch. She was about to speak when Aris, head bowed, raised a hand. The doctor stopped.
The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and plastic. Machines still hummed, useless now. His son lay impossibly still beneath the sheets, skin pale against the stark white pillow. Leo’s chest no longer rose. The numbers on the monitor did not change, frozen on old data.
Aris stepped closer and wrapped Leo’s small hand in his own. It was cooling. Not cold yet. There was still time. Not much, but a narrow window before cellular failure became irreversible. He needed more time. A day. Two.
They had denied him.
The doctor turned to the nurse and gave a small nod. She unplugged the monitor. The screen went dark. The doctor gave Aris’s shoulder one final pat.
“We’ll give you a few minutes to say goodbye, Aris.”
They left quietly. He watched the door close, sealing the room in silence.
Alone, Aris knelt at the bedside and watched his son as if expecting him to inhale. The sheet did not move. Neither did Leo’s chest.
After what felt like an eternity, he stood. He adjusted the blanket, though it wasn’t necessary. His hands needed a task. Old habits.
“Heart rate collapsed first,” he murmured, more to the room than to Leo. “Systemic failure followed. Predictable, given the progression.”
His voice fractured on the last word.
The IV line taped to Leo’s arm bothered him. So did the bruising beneath the skin.
He sat in the chair beside the bed, the same one he’d occupied every night for weeks. Months. He placed his hands flat on his thighs and waited for something to happen inside him.
Nothing did.
Eventually, he stood and went to the sink. He washed his hands thoroughly. Fingers. Knuckles. Nails. Rinsed. Dried. Again.
When he turned back, Leo looked smaller. Less like a patient. More like an outcome.
Aris lifted the chart from the foot of the bed and flipped through it slowly, eyes scanning each page.
Costs.
Approvals.
Delays.
He closed the file.
“Recorded,” he said.
***
The silence of the night shattered with Nyx’s scream.
One of Swarn’s projectiles tore into her right shoulder. She hit the ground hard, gasping, trying to call a shadow that wouldn’t come.
Swarn emerged from the darkness. He didn’t charge. He simply ceased to be where he was.
Nyx twisted, searching. One moment he was a shape in the corner, his spine clicking as it elongated. The next—
“This is a real good time tah help me, Spant!” she shouted, turning in a slow, frantic circle. She hated needing him.
Something landed on her chest. Psft.
She looked down. A greenish web of bio-fluid spread across her torso, anchoring her in place. There was no roar. Only that rhythmic clicking as she was dragged backward, prey pulled into the dark.
Nyx clawed at the ground. Anything to slow the pull.
No one said there was gonna be a monster hijacking the shipment too, she thought.
Spant lunged for the web and yanked hard. Swarn staggered and went down.
He helped Nyx to her feet.
“Get out of here,” he said.
From the shadows, Swarn’s limbs shot out like snapping snares.
The serrated ridges of his claws slammed into Spant’s chest.
Swarn leaned close, joints popping as he pressed down. Spant felt the air leave his lungs.
He reached into his utility belt, fingers closing around a round orb.
“Spant!” Link crackled through the comms.
“I’m…fine.”
Swarn squeezed harder. The creature struggled to constrict him. Spant’s body was harder to crush than he realized.
“What are you?” Swarn hissed.
Spant looked around for Nyx. She was nowhere in sight.
He went still, controlling his breathing.
Swarn swayed just a little. Spant braced, feeling the tension in his grip. Swarn’s stance revealed extra joints at his knees.
Spant pulled his legs to his chest, pushing off a nearby tree. Swarn staggered.
Swarn’s legs left the ground. Spant planted his feet and twisted. The grip loosened. He grabbed Swarn and threw him over his shoulder. Swarn crashed into the tree trunk.
“There is police chatter over the air, Spant. They are talking about the shipment,”Link said over the comms.
“Noted," Spant said.
Spant felt a sudden pain in his abdomen. When he looked down, there was a projectile protruding from it. It was trying to dig itself in further. He grunted as he yanked it out. He lifted it to his face and saw the projectile had tiny barbed moving teeth on its tip.
“Got it?” he asked.
Link's crawler zoomed in on the projectile. Scanning every inch of it.
“Got it,” Link said.
Spant looked back at Swarn but he wasn’t there.
“Fast,” he huffed.
The clicking noise began again. He couldn’t pinpoint its exact location, neither could Link.
He aggressively typed on the keyboard.
“The noise is confusing the sensors. They think it is coming from all around you.”
Spant heard a branch snap. He turned toward the snapping noise. The clicking intensified then stopped. The air went still.
“Spant behind you!” Link shouted.
Spant turned. A hunched shadow stood before him. It straightened quickly. Swarn lunged at him. Spant leapt into the air and slammed his foot into Swarn’s misshapen face. Swarn staggered. Spant thrust the projectile into Swarn as his body passed him. Swarn yelled out. He slapped Spant across the back of his head and shoved it into the ground.
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Spant pressed his palms into the dirt. The earth packed tight under his weight. He head exploded upward. His fist caught Swarn under the jaw. Blood sprayed on the ground as Swarn’s head snapped back.
Before Swarn could recoil, Spant twisted his torso, pivoting on his lead foot.
His elbow came down, smashing into Swarn’s collarbone with a hollow crunch.
Swarn made no sound. His eyes rolled back, but his body didn’t collapse.
His neck elongated as tendons snapped beneath the skin.
His right arm—a chitinous limb ending in a curved talon, snapped upward. It caught Spant in the same spot the projectile had struck earlier.
The serrated claw tore into Spant’s side.
Swarn let out a low hiss as he used the grip to anchor himself.
Spant locked both hands around the claw and shoved. It didn’t budge; it was embedded too deep. So he dug his boots into the ground, set his shoulders, and pushed.
The claw resisted. Swarn shifted his weight, driving it farther in. Spant didn’t flinch. He leaned into it inch by inch, forcing the limb back along the path it had torn. The serrated edges scraped against bone and muscle as the claw began to move.
Swarn hissed as Spant wrenched the claw free.
Their grips locked into a brutal tug-of-war.
Swarn snatched at the claw but realized Spant had a tight hold on it.
Swarn’s other arm lashed out.
The claw snapped open and shut.
Each strike missed.
Link could hear the joints popping through the comms.
“Spant. The police are on their way.”
Spant narrowed his eyes.
Swarn pulled in desperation, trying to free himself. For the first time that night, he seemed to panic.
Then something gave.
A wet snap.
His arm separated from his body.
Swarn stared at Spant, who still held the claw, and stumbled backward, nearly toppling.
He yelled in a fit of rage.
Spant dropped to one knee, the strain of the struggle finally catching up with him.
Swarn wobbled. Then rage took him, and he charged at Spant.
Neither man noticed the engine revving.
“Incomin!” Nyx’s voice yelled out.
She had Swarn dead center in the headlight. Nyx gunned Spant’s motorcycle straight at him. The bike slammed into him just as she jumped off.
“Back off, bug. He’s mine."
Nyx hurried to Spant, hauling his arm over her shoulder. “That’s a nasty wound yah got there, hero. Y’all’re losing a lot of blood.” She took Swarn’s arm and tossed it in the bushes.
Spant looked at her. He let her go wrapping an arm around his wound. Police sirens could be heard in the distance. A quiet crackle sound went unnoticed by them.
“He’s not dead. I have to—“ Spant said, limping toward Swarn but stopping.
“He’s gone,” he said, glaring at a one-armed exuvia of Swarn.
Nyx looked on in horror. “It molted!”
Spant walked toward his bike. It was wrecked and wasn’t going anywhere.
***
“Listen,” Nyx said, tearing a piece of fabric and wrapping it around his waist.
“Y’all ain’t goin’ nowhere if we don’t stop the bleedin’.”
“I thought I told you to get away from here.”
Nyx frowned. “Yah welcome, hero.”
“CPD is less than three miles out,” Link said over the comms.
“We’ve got to get out of here. Carrow PD are on their way here," Spant said.
“Ah think there is a crate with some kind of fancy bike inside the trailer.”
Moments later, Carrow PD cars swarmed the scene. Spant tore out of the trailer on the motorcycle, Nyx riding shotgun. Blue lights and sirens faded behind them.
“Link, burn the bike,” Spant said.
With the pressing of a key, Spant’s beat-up motorcycle exploded. The blast drove officers to the ground.
***
The building rose like a concrete scar, hidden by five years of unchecked overgrowth.
To the commuters on the highway, it was a ghost: the remains of a pharma giant that had shuttered in a contamination scandal.
But to the thing that had lived there for years, it was home.
Inside, though the plant had been shut down in haste, the bio-filtration chambers remained intact.
Massive cylindrical tanks. Sealed corridors. Drainage floors designed to handle chemical runoff.
Swarn claimed it not as shelter, but as origin—the place where he had been born.
He rewired the facility by hand, feeding power into the dead lines.
He had stolen biotech and grafted it into the building’s frame.
Swarn exited the woods behind the facility. Although he was bitter, he was relieved to see the forgotten building. He inched his way through the main chamber before collapsing against one of the filtration tanks. Fluid sloshed behind thick glass as he laid his head against it. He glanced at his severed arm. It was already rebuilding itself. Bone extruded first, locking into place. Muscle followed, threading itself around the core. His breaths became less labored as the nerves snapped into place.
Progress came with pain, but the worst of it was nearly done. Swarn opened his remaining claw; it held a strip of fabric he had torn free during the fight—black, reinforced, unfamiliar in composition. Nyx. Not the human brute who had blocked him. Her. The one who moved between shadows. She had stolen the refined bio-agent from under him and left him bleeding on the pavement.
His new fingers curled slowly as skin sealed over them.
“You chose the wrong thing to steal,” he said to the empty chamber.
Traffic roared past the building.
Unaware, they passed over something healing beneath their wheels.
Swarn flexed his fingers. He’d lost a hand before.
The first time, it had been replaced with a claw.
He closed his eyes. He clutched the fabric to his nose and inhaled.
When his eyes reopened, they had a purpose.
***
As Spant rocketed his newly ‘acquired’ wheels down the dirt back road, he kept a steady eye on Nyx. She would frown up at him when their eyes locked in the side mirror. He wasn’t in the mood for conversation at the moment. His abdomen was on fire. So was the rest of his body—a side effect of Pharma’s experimentation.
He waited for her to tell him where to let her off. She never did.
Instead, she cast a shadow; it hooked a branch fifty yards ahead.
“This is where I get off, hero.”
The shadow flung her forward. Spant watched her as she let the shadow go, landing not so gracefully on the road ahead.
“That ankle needs attention,” he said, speeding to a stop, cutting the engine. “So does your hand.”
She looked at it. “Thanks for the concern,” then back at him. “But, it’s fine.”
He could tell by the way she favored her ankle that it wasn’t fine. He stared at her until she shifted.
“What’s goin’ on in that head of yours, hero?" she asked.
“I will tell you the next time I see you," he said.
Shadows crawled up her legs, then her torso before covering her entirely. He only saw her eyes peering at him, blinking once.
“There won’t be a next time,” she said as the shadow vanished.
Spant smiled. He turned the switch. The engine purred to life.
“Heading in,” he said over the comms.
From a treetop not too far away, Nyx watched him drive away. She patted the bulge in the right cargo pocket on her trousers.
“Gotta fix this,” she said, looking at the tear in her cropped hoodie. She hadn’t realized it had torn until that moment.
***
Bella paused at the yellow line, giving the officer on the perimeter her name for the log. After a quick scan of the ground for any clear tire treads, she ducked under the yellow tape. Her eyes swept over the wreckage. There were tracks all over the scene. One in particular caught her attention. They started inside the trailer and led away from the scene. Scorched metal and blackened marks traced the motorcycle’s path. She hated herself for it, but part of her hoped Spant was behind the missing tech.
That old bike of his had been a disaster waiting to happen—breakdowns, tickets, trouble with the law.
This one would keep him moving.
She walked up to the trailer. Other patrol officers were working the perimeter.
The scene was not innocent—there were casualties. The driver had died when the rig flipped. The guards inside the trailer were dead as well.
One had been cocooned. The other, pinned to the metal wall with a stake through his stomach, had survived just long enough to give a statement before he bled out.
His statement had been brief and panicked:
“We were attacked by a creature. Some kind of monster. It wasn’t human.”
Bella walked through the trailer.
Sergeant Krowe walked up to her, scribbling notes frantically.
“Any witnesses, Sparks?”
“No one made it out alive. One guard was able to give a statement before succumbing to his injuries, sir,” Bella said, her gaze hard on the trailer. “Who or whatever it was didn’t just steal—they cleaned house.”
A black sedan squealed into the gravel lot, tires spitting dust. The door swung open.
A sharp-suited Pharma representative stepped out, already scanning the scene.
“Who’s in charge here? I want a full report. Missing items. Casualties. Now.”
Sergeant Krowe’s jaw tightened.
“I am Sergeant Krowe. This is my crime scene,” he said evenly. “Who are you?”
***
The stairs to his eighth-floor apartment had never bothered Andre before tonight. Now every step aggravated his injuries. He only wanted to fall into his bed and pass out.
Andre pretended nothing was wrong as he passed his neighbors. They waved. He waved back. It cost him more than he let on.
He stood at his door, shuffling for his keys.
“Another long day on the job, Andre?”
He turned. His neighbor, two doors down, was standing behind him.
“When are you going to let me take you and Zayden out?” the woman asked.
She curled her fingers into his shirt. Andre eased back.
“With all of the hours my boss has been dumping on me, Brynne, I can’t say.”
Andre heard a click and his apartment door opened behind him.
“Dad, your boss is on the line. Sounds mad… something about Fennigan?” Zayden said.
“Fennigan?” Andre looked at him and rushed into his apartment. “I have to take that call, Brynne. Maybe some other time.” Andre closed the door and locked it before she could pin down a date.
A little later, after ending his call with his boss:
“A coworker has been in an accident. I will have to cover his route tomorrow,” he said.
Andre thanked Zayden.
“Your timing was perfect. I couldn’t shake, Brynne.”
“I heard you in the hall. She’s been waiting for you for at least an hour,” Zayden said, disappearing into his room.
Andre eased onto the sofa. He took a vial from his pants pocket and laid it on the table.
“I managed to get a DNA sample,” he said, pulling off his boots. “I left a sample for Bella in the usual spot. Need to get an idea of who this person was.”
Zayden reentered the room with a medical kit in hand, ready to help patch him up. It wasn’t necessary—he’d already patched himself up before coming home.
Andre collapsed onto the sofa, letting the darkness pull him under.