The fires still crackled, but the screaming had stopped.
Morning had come.
But it wasn't light that woke the survivors of Sector 9—it was silence. A brutal, unnatural silence. One that settled into their bones like frost.
The barricades held. Barely. Blood dripped down from the metal reinforcements, staining the ground like a warning. Flies buzzed lazily around the corpses that hadn't been burned. The smell was unforgettable.
Kai stood alone by the edge of the ruined street, the spine shard clutched in his gloved hand.
It pulsed.
Not visually. Not even through sound. But he felt it—in his veins.
[Unknown Item Acquired: Mutagenic Catalyst Fragment]
[Anomaly Class: Incomplete]
The system message had appeared in a dim, sickly green—not the usual sharp white. That alone told him this wasn't a normal item.
He turned it in his fingers. It wasn't tech. It wasn't bone. It was something in-between. Living metal? Parasite alloy? He didn't know.
But it felt wrong.
"Found anything?"
Lina approached from behind. Her face was covered in grime, hair tied back with a strip of gauze. The rebar she carried was bent at the tip—too much use.
Kai didn't look at her.
"This isn't just infection," he muttered. "It's… more."
"More?"
He hesitated. Then gave a faint nod. "I think this… shard… isn't from here. It feels planted."
Lina frowned, but didn't push further. Not yet.
The group had gathered again behind the overturned bus, their makeshift HQ. They were tired. Hungry. Half broken. But they were alive.
Tara lay sweating, her body convulsing lightly under a blanket. Renji sat beside her, silent, still holding his knife as if expecting something to burst through her chest.
Kai placed the shard in the middle of the crate they were using as a table. It pulsed, faintly. Its rhythm didn't match any human pulse.
"What do you think it is?" Riko asked, crouching beside him.
"I don't know yet," he said quietly. "But it's connected to the mutants. That much is clear."
"Think it's tech?" Aarav asked, grimly wiping a bloodstain off his chest plate.
Kai shook his head. "No. It's… something else. Something living. Or once was."
A few seconds of silence passed before anyone spoke.
"What if someone's doing this on purpose?" Lina said finally. "What if the virus didn't just happen?"
Kai's fingers clenched slightly around his knee. "I've thought of that."
No one said it aloud—but they all felt it.
The chaos was too controlled. Too… timely.
That night, Tara worsened. Her skin darkened at the edges, and she began whispering gibberish. Something about eyes in the earth. About silver mouths that spoke without sound.
"She's not turning normal," Lina whispered. "This isn't how it's supposed to go."
Kai sat beside Tara. Her breathing was shallow, eyes twitching under the lids.
"Victor," she croaked once. "He's… he's inside the dark…"
Kai's eyes narrowed.
He hadn't mentioned Victor to her.
And yet—
"Sedate her," he muttered. Riko gave her another injection.
Later, when the others slept or stood watch, Kai sat alone on the roof of a half-collapsed building. The shard was in his hand again.
It pulsed in time with something inside him. Something deeper.
He pulled open his system screen.
[Level: 3]
[Trait: Blood Familiarity]
[Kill Count: 17/25 — Predator's Focus Unlockable]
[Mutation Resistance: 6%]
System Note:"Adaptation in process."
He exhaled slowly.
There was something happening here. Something bigger. He knew it.
The system hadn't come from nowhere.
It felt designed.
Guided.
Not by fate… but by something watching.
He didn't call them gods. Not yet. That word was too heavy.
But he knew—this was no human creation.
Somewhere above, beyond, outside—something was observing.
He looked at the stars.
"I see you too," he whispered.
The stars didn't blink.
But he felt the faint ripple in his system.
[Passive Surveillance Triggered: High-Level Observer Proximity Detected]
Kai blinked.
And in that moment—a flicker in his mind's eye.
A throne. A broken moon. Eyes like dying suns.
Gone as quickly as it came.
He gritted his teeth.
There were higher beings involved. Not just rogue scientists or military failures. Something was feeding off this.
And Victor…
Somehow, he was a piece of it.
Kai didn't know what kind of game he was in.
But he'd survive.
And one day, he'd climb high enough to break whatever sat on that throne.
They prepared to move out before dawn. Lina had mapped a tunnel system below the city—an abandoned metro line that could take them away from Sector 9.
Aarav grunted. "If we go down there, we're blind. We're sitting ducks."
"We stay here, we're dead," Riko replied. "We move, we live."
"Or die somewhere new," Renji muttered.
Kai loaded his gear in silence.
But his eyes never left the shard.
Because it hadn't stopped pulsing.
And in his soul, something whispered:
"One of twelve has seen you."
His blood ran cold.
He didn't know what that meant. Not yet.
But he would.
Just not tonight.
And when he did—he'd be ready.