An old ranger station, swallowed by the forest—half-rotten and more mold than wood. One corner of the roof was caved in. Vines crawled through shattered windows. But it had four walls and no fresh corpses inside, so it'd have to do.
I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. It creaked like it hated being touched.
The silence was suffocating… but also kind of comforting.
No more sirens. No more screaming. Just wind through the trees and the hum of the Carnitrix, pulsing faintly on my wrist.
I spent the next couple hours doing what I could. Kicked debris into the corners. Dragged a busted metal desk to block the door. Found a ratty couch that only smelled half like death and moved it near the darkest wall. Wiped the mold off an old cabinet with torn shirt fabric.
It wasn't much.
But it was mine.
Now came the real problem—survival.
I needed food.
I could go full monster—some Carnitrix horrors looked like they could eat bones, souls, and fear if they were hungry enough. But biting into people just for calories? I'd be no better than the things that already roamed this world.
No. I needed to think first.
Fortunately, I had tools.
Before burning the house down, I snagged some phones off the drunk corpses—the ones I hadn't destroyed. They were cracked, half-dead, but data could still be pulled. Maps. Names. Wi-Fi hotspots. Town locations.
Not much, but it gave me a place to start.
I stared at the Carnitrix and raised my wrist. The black and red dial spun with a low growl. I stopped it on a symbol I knew well—small, sharp, genius.
Grey Matter.
The shift was fast. My bones compressed. My limbs shrank. Skin turned dark like oil, and the world suddenly looked massive around me. But inside?
My brain lit up like lightning striking water.
Everything clicked.
I cracked open the phones, yanked the still-functioning components, and pieced together a new device—a miniature computer, small enough to wear like a keychain. To everyone else, it looked like a junky trinket, a useless charm.
To me? It was a portable terminal. A stealth data tool. A key to control information flow in a world where even knowing a name could summon a monster.
And only someone my size could access it fully.
I programmed the shell in a few minutes, encrypted the files, spoofed the GPS. This would help me track local activity. Police chatter. Missing persons. Unexplained disappearances. It would help me hunt when I needed to—and avoid being hunted when it wasn't my turn to play predator.
I even connected the Carnitrix to the computer, installing my own AI into the watch.
When I finished, I turned back to human.
The Carnitrix settled on my wrist again—silent and smug.
I looked at the night outside through a cracked window.
Tomorrow, I'd find food. Real food. Maybe even scout the nearby town if the data checked out.
But for tonight, I had shelter, silence, and the stars overhead.
And for the first time since I arrived in this world of monsters...
I wasn't afraid.