The creature's breathing echoed like a broken harmonica. Yue Xi pressed against a rack of soy sauce bottles, the glass chilling through her sweater. What remained of the businessman's tie fluttered from its exposed trachea, the silk stained with something that glowed faintly teal in the emergency lights.
Its remaining eye locked onto her with terrifying focus - the crimson orb wasn't spherical but faceted, refracting her terrified expression into a kaleidoscope of panicked fragments. When it moved, the stench of gangrenous flesh mixed with the acrid tang of industrial cleaner made her gag.
The transformation began with a sickening crack. Vertebrae erupted through rotting fabric like ivory daggers. Its limbs contorted with the wet sound of tearing ligaments, fingers elongating into chitinous talons that scraped grooves in the linoleum. The coup de grâce was the tongue - a three-meter-long monstrosity studded with backward-curving spines, dripping viscous saliva that sizzled where it struck the floor.
"Lumos Maxima!" Yue Xi's incantation tore through the air. The staff's moonstone flared, casting the abomination's shadow monstrously on the ceiling. For a heartbeat, she saw the truth - pulsating cysts along its spine leaking black ichor, the way its ribcage pulsed like a second mouth gasping for air.