MORE.
The voice slammed against the walls of my skull, guttural and inhuman.I stumbled into a narrow alley, clutching my head as if I could squeeze it out, but the sound only grew louder, multiplying like feedback inside my brain.
MORE.MORE!MORE!
Each echo tore at my nerves until the world blurred. My knees hit the pavement. The air reeked of rust and rain-soaked trash.
"Shut up!" I shouted, my voice cracking.
And then—silence.
It didn't last.
The hunger came rushing back, savage and merciless, like something chewing through my insides. My chest tightened, my stomach twisting so hard I could barely breathe. I tasted bile, blood, and desperation.
My gaze fell to the coffee cup lying near my feet, toppled over, its contents leaking into the cracks between the concrete. I lunged for it—pathetic, trembling. Even though it was mostly empty, I needed it. Needed that faint warmth, that strange relief it gave me.
I tilted it to my lips, licking every last drop I could find. Bitter. Cold. Metallic. But for a second, the ache eased.
"What the hell is happening to me…"
The words came out like a plea. My hands were shaking uncontrollably, fingers twitching like live wires. Every inch of me felt wrong—my skin too tight, my blood too loud. I had to move. I had to find more coffee. More of whatever was in it that silenced the screaming for a moment.
I pushed myself to my feet, swaying, and started stepping toward Anteiku. First step felt heavy, deliberate, like wading through wet sand. My body ached with a deep, gnawing pulse, like it was devouring itself from the inside.
That's when I smelled it.
Sweet. Warm.Alive.
The scent curled through the alley like invisible smoke, wrapping around my senses, pulling me forward. My breath hitched. My vision tunneled. I didn't even realize I was following it until the morning neon lights of the main road vanished behind me, swallowed by the shadows.
The deeper I went, the stronger it grew—heady and intoxicating. It filled my lungs, my mouth, my thoughts.
Then, suddenly, it changed.
The sweetness curdled.
What hit me next was rot—copper and decay. The smell of blood thick in the air. And there, at the end of the alley, I saw her.
A woman. Young. Maybe a student. Her body sprawled beside a dumpster, half-eaten, limbs twisted at wrong angles.
And crouched above her, feeding, was a ghoul.
He looked almost clean. Too clean.A pressed black suit, polished shoes, not a single wrinkle. Only his mouth betrayed him—slick with blood. A white mask covered the rest of his face, stylized like a ram's skull, the bone etched with fine black lines that shimmered under the dim alley light.
He turned when my foot slipped on the damp pavement.
"Oh," he said, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief that was already red. "Hello."
My body froze. My throat locked.
His gaze landed on me, and something in it—something cold and amused—made my pulse spike.
"Great timing," he said lightly, straightening his tie. "This one was too thin. Hardly any meat on her bones. I'm still starving."
He stepped forward, calm, deliberate. There was no blood on his clothes, no sign of struggle. He might've been leaving a business meeting, if not for the corpse at his feet.
"I was worried I'd have to hunt again tonight," he went on, smiling. "But here you are."
For a moment, I could feel my entire spirit and body go cold.
I turned to run.
For one heartbeat, I thought I might actually escape—then pain exploded through my chest.
I looked down. A dark purple spike had burst through me, twisting, alive, drilling straight through my ribs. My breath came out wet and sharp. Blood spilled over my lips, warm and metallic. I tried to scream, but no sound came.
The ghoul reeled me back effortlessly, like a fisherman with his catch.
"Now, now," he said, voice smooth, almost kind. "You should've known you were dead the moment I saw you. Why run?"
My vision flickered. The edges of the world turned red and dim.
"I promise," he whispered, drawing me close until I could smell the blood on his breath, "I won't waste a single part of you."
I heard my heartbeat—slow, fading. My fingers twitched uselessly.
Then, from somewhere beneath the pain, beneath the fear, I felt it.
NO.
The word wasn't mine.
My right arm jerked upward, moving on its own. The air split with a wet, slicing sound.Suddenly, I was free.
I hit the ground, gasping. My chest was still bleeding—but my arm—
It wasn't my arm anymore.
Black liquid crawled across it, solidifying, hardening into a blade streaked with crimson veins that pulsed like living tissue. It gleamed under the dim streetlight and the Breaking of the morning light, humming softly with energy.
The ghoul screamed, clutching his side. Blood sprayed across the wall. The tendril that had skewered me was no longer attached to him—severed clean.
"What the hell are you?!" he snarled, stumbling backward. "You're not a ghoul! So what the hell are you?!"
I didn't answer. Couldn't.
Something was rising from within me, crawling up from my veins. Black and red matter oozed across my skin, swirling, wrapping around my body, devouring the tendril that was still in my chest. The pain melted into heat. Into power. Into hunger.
More alive than I ever had in my entire life. But at the same time, it wasn't me moving.
It was like watching through glass—every sense sharpened, every nerve awake—but I was only a passenger in my own body.
The black ooze swallowed me whole, wrapping tight, cocooning me like some monstrous chrysalis. I could still see everything, still feel the night air, but my body no longer answered to me. My hands, my legs, my heartbeat—all belonged to it.
I was taller. Broader. Heavy with power that hummed through every cell. The air vibrated with it.
"Why the long face?"The voice that came out wasn't mine. It was deeper, warped, almost playful—echoing from somewhere inside the living shell that had become us.
The ghoul stumbled back, eyes wide beneath his ram mask. Even through it, I could see the tremor in his body, the way his instincts screamed to run.
"Why be scared," the voice continued, low and calm, "when you should already know—you're dead."
Then we moved.
A single lunge—faster than thought. The ghoul sprang upward, trying to vault between the alley walls, desperate for escape. But our arm stretched and split, morphing into a tendril that lashed out like lightning. It caught him mid-jump, wrapped around his leg, and slammed him down.
Concrete cracked beneath the impact. The sound echoed through the alley like a thunderclap.
He coughed blood, dazed, but still managed to raise his arm. A dark spike burst forth—his kagune, a twisting drill of violet muscle—screaming toward us.
Our back rippled. A tendril of our own erupted outward, intercepting his strike mid-air. The two collided with a wet snap, the ghoul's drill shattering under the pressure.
"That's not nice," the creature said through my mouth, voice dripping Mockery.
The tendril coiled tighter, wrapping around the ghoul's arm, and began to consume it—black veins spreading like fire over his skin. His scream filled the alley, ragged and terrified.
"Wait! Stop! Don't kill me!" he begged, thrashing helplessly. "I have money—lots of it! Take it! Just let me go!"
We stepped closer, slow and deliberate, until our shadow swallowed him whole. The black mass lifted him effortlessly by one leg, hanging him upside down before our face like a gutted fish.
With one hand—our hand, but not ours—we tore away his mask. Beneath it, he was just a man. Pale. Young. Eyes wide with a kind of fear that stripped him of everything human.
"Please," he whispered. "Please don't…"
For a moment, something inside me broke through. The rage. The memory. The girl he'd eaten.
And somehow, I spoke. The creature's voice blended with mine, two tones overlapping into one sound.
"Did you stop when she said please?"
He froze. All color drained from his face.
"NO! NO! NO! NO!" he screamed as the tendril pulled him closer, closer—
The world went silent except for the sound of his heartbeat. And then—
Teeth. A single bite.
The head came off clean. Warm blood spilled down our face, thick and metallic, absorbed into the shifting black surface that drank it in eagerly. His body followed, dissolving piece by piece until there was nothing left but the faint hiss of steam rising from the pavement.
When it was done, the air felt still again. The hunger—Gone.
For the first time since the crash, since that thing crawled out of the crater—I wasn't starving.
Only breathing. Only… alive.
I wanted to look at the girl—the one the ghoul had torn apart—and somehow, whatever this thing inside me was, it knew.
We turned together, slow and deliberate.
As I faced her, the black and red substance began to retreat, sliding back beneath my skin in slow waves. The layers Retreating and sinking into nothing, absorbed into every cell of my body until it was just me again.
I was standing there in the alley, half-covered in blood that wasn't mine. My breathing was ragged. The world felt too quiet.
Her body lay still, eyes open to the sky. There was no peace in her face—only terror frozen in the moment it ended.
"I'm so sorry this happened to you," I whispered.
I crouched beside her and gently closed her eyes. It didn't mean much—but at least she could rest now, even if the city wouldn't.
Then I straightened."I know you can hear me," I said to the empty air. "Show yourself."
For a moment, nothing. Only the faint drip of water from a broken pipe nearby.
Then it started—A movement inside me, like something shifting just beneath my ribs. My skin rippled as the black and red substance began to emerge from my back, thick and fluid, taking shape right in front of me.
The tendril hovered, pulsing faintly, until a face began to form at its end—half-solid, half-liquid. Its eyes were milky white, unfocused yet aware. Its jawline was sharp, inhuman, ending in rows of jagged teeth that gleamed like wet glass.
It smiled.
"What are you?" I asked.
Its voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere, a whisper wrapped in vibration."I am… Predator." It paused. "And you are mine."
When it spoke, I should've screamed, or run, or begged.But instead, I felt calm.Utterly calm.
It wasn't hypnosis or fear—it was like something inside me was being soothed. My heartbeat slowed. My mind stopped spinning. Talking to it felt like staring into a reflection that wasn't my own.
"You were in that meteor," I said quietly.
It tilted its head. "Obvious question," it replied, voice almost teasing. "Why not ask what you really want to know?"
It was right. What I really wanted to know was if it planned to kill me.Take me over. Wear my body like a disguise.Or worse—use it to multiply, like in those old horror movies I'd watched as a kid.
But the fear lodged in my throat, and the words wouldn't come.
Then it said, simply—"No."
I blinked. "What?"
"The answer to your question."
"I… I didn't say anything."
"You don't have to," it murmured. "We are one now. I'm in your blood in your head. I know your thoughts, your memories, I know Everything about you."
The face leaned closer, its white eyes glowing faintly."You wanted power," it whispered. "You wanted to stop feeling weak. To stop being hurt."
I swallowed hard. "That doesn't mean I wanted this."
A low sound rumbled from its throat—something between a chuckle and a growl."Maybe not," it said, "but you, I felt your longing, your pain calling me. and now we are one... don't forget that. "
The words sank into me, heavy and cold.
The tendril began to pull back, melting once again into my skin, leaving only a faint shimmer where it disappeared.
And then I was alone again—standing in that quiet, bloodstained alley with nothing but the distant hum of sirens somewhere in the city.
For the first time since the crash, I felt something new.Not hunger.Not fear.
just.....unalone.