The sound of footsteps echoed unevenly against the cracked pavement, three sets thudding in panic two upright, one dragging. Rain hadn't touched this part of the city in days, but blood still glistened in a dark smear across the sidewalk.
"Jack! Stay with me, you hear me?!" shouted the man in front, clutching the limp body slung between them.
Kai and Ash were Hunters rank B, both of them. Not amateurs. Not elites. Just two men who'd seen enough Gates to know what it meant when one broke.
A Gate Break. When a dungeon wasn't cleared in time. When the portal surged open and spilled its monsters into the real world like bile. Their team had been the backup squad, stationed nearby. Not that it mattered. The frontline squad died screaming before they even entered.
Now only three of them remained. And Jack, their tank, the one who always took the front, was torn nearly in half.
His right arm was missing from the elbow. His gut was open organs spilling out in slick ropes, held together by nothing but pressure and prayers. Blood soaked Kai's gloves.
"There's gotta be a hospital nearby," Ash said, scanning the street. "Emergency room, first responder, anything"
"There!" Kai pointed to a dim side street. Tucked between a shuttered Cigar shop and an abandoned Suit shop was a small clinic. Black sign. Two flickering bulbs. It looked like it hadn't seen renovation in years.
But the sign was lit.
HECTOR CLINIC
"Seriously?" Ash squinted. "That place looks like it sells patient organs."
"I don't care if it sells cigarettes," Kai said. "The light's on."
Together, they hauled Jack across the road. The glass door pushed open with a slow creak, like it hadn't been touched in a while. Inside, the clinic was dimly lit, with tiled floors and a single hallway that led deeper into the back.
"Doctor! Emergency!" Kai shouted. "We've got a critical!"
For a few seconds, nothing answered them.
Then a voice called out casually from the far end of the hall.
"…Patient?"
The voice was male. Calm. Almost indifferent.
A door opened near the back. Someone stepped out from what looked like a restroom, drying his hands with a folded towel.
He wasn't dressed like any doctor they'd ever seen. No lab coat. No badge. Just a high-collared black suit with a dark tie and long overcoat, like he'd stepped out of a funeral or an outdated fashion magazine. His skin was pale, bordering on sickly, and his hair was dark, matted slightly at the roots like he hadn't slept in a week. His eyes, however, were startling. Not glowing. Not threatening. Just... still.
No fear. No confusion. No rush.
Kai squinted. "You the doctor?"
The man didn't blink. "Yes."
He nodded toward the main bed. "Bring him."
Ash hesitated. "Is this really a clinic?"
The man didn't answer. Just turned around and started walking.
They followed him, moving Jack onto a rusted looking examination bed under a ceiling heat lamp. The room was clean surprisingly so but smelled faintly of iron and antiseptic.
The doctor reached a counter, pulled on a pair of black surgical gloves, then stopped mid motion. He turned his palm upward.
And peeled the glove off.
The moment the latex came free, something on his palm twitched.
It wasn't skin.
It was a mouth.
A literal, fleshy mouth, shaped like a flower bud, lined with rows of sharp, white fangs that glistened wet. It opened slowly, revealing a mass of writhing tendrils curled inside. The tentacles slithered out in silence, stretching across the air like they were tasting it.
Ash took a step back. "What the hell…"
The tentacles flicked once, and then darted forward with unnatural speed, crawling across Jack's body like living instruments.
One passed over his open abdomen. Another slid into the torn socket where his arm had been. Two more traced his collarbones and neck, as if analyzing.
Kai's face was drained of color. "What the fuck are you?!"
The doctor didn't flinch. "A doctor."
"That's not… That's not normal!"
"I didn't say it was."
"You're a Hunter?!" Ash barked.
"Yes. Now shut up. I'm inspecting the patient."
The tentacles moved with eerie synchronicity, brushing and prodding, even lifting parts of Jack's exposed organs to examine them. The doctor's expression never changed.
"Severe abdominal bleeding. Intestinal trauma. Right arm severed. Nerve damage across 32 percent of extremities. Spine stable."
His voice was calm. Detached. Like he was reading off a shopping list.
He glanced at them, finally.
"That will be one million dollars."
Ash choked. "What?"
Kai blinked. "One million?"
"Yes. Payable upfront or later."
"Are you ripping us off?!"
"No," the doctor said, already preparing something on a tray. "That price is absurdly cheap. You're lucky I'm even awake."
Kai stared at him. "You're serious."
The doctor didn't answer.
Ash frowned. "Wait. What kind of class is this? He has to be a specialist maybe some kind of mutated Regenerator."
"No," Kai murmured. "This... This isn't a healing class I've ever seen."
His eyes dropped to the tendrils, now retracting slowly back into the doctor's palm-mouth. "That's not spellwork. That's not mana. That's something else."
Ash's mind raced. "He's gotta be a veteran. Maybe Second Awakening? If he's that far along and still stable, he's at least S-rank."
Kai gritted his teeth. "If he's S-rank, then a million's a bargain."
They looked at each other.
Jack let out a pained wheeze, barely conscious.
Kai stepped forward, voice low but clear.
"Please save his life. I'm willing to pay."
.
.
.
The doctor tilted his head slightly at Kai's words, as if processing something. Then he turned away without acknowledgment, already prepping a tray of instruments.
"Leave," he said flatly.
Ash stared at him. "What?"
"Operating rooms are for the sick. You're not the patient. Get out."
Kai hesitated, eyes flicking to Jack, who still hadn't moved. But the doctor no, the Hunter had already plunged a thick syringe into a vial of viscous green fluid.
Kai didn't wait for a second warning. He grabbed Ash by the shoulder and dragged him into the hallway, the door clicking shut behind them.
They stood in silence outside the room.
And then the screaming started.
It came fast and sharp, like a wire snapping under tension.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The voice was unmistakable. Jack.
Kai winced, fists clenched. "What the hell did he just do?!"
Ash turned toward the door. "Was that a pain stimulator? Did he… Did he just wake him up?!"
Then came another sound.
A loud crack, followed by the unmistakable grind of steel teeth biting into something dense.
A chainsaw.
The unmistakable roar of a full-sized, gas powered chainsaw revved up in the small room like it belonged in a butcher's basement.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Jack's voice rose even higher.
Kai backed up until he hit the wall. "That's it. That's a torture room. We just handed our friend to a lunatic."
"We should stop him," Ash said, swallowing hard.
Kai looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "You saw his hand. You saw what came out of it."
"Still. Jack's in there!"
"And we'll join him if we step through that door. He said he's a Hunter. He might be a Second Awakening. Hell, he might be something worse."
The screaming reached a crescendo.
Then… silence.
For a second, neither of them moved.
Then came a muffled voice from inside the room. Jack again. But his words were slurred. Angry.
"F-Fuck you… monster… get away from me…"
A scraping noise followed. Something dragging against the tile.
And then, the door creaked open.
Jack crawled into the hallway, one elbow scraping the floor, eyes wild.
"Jack!" Kai rushed to him, dropping to his knees. "Hey hey, it's okay! I'm here!"
Jack collapsed into his arms, panting hard. Ash crouched beside them, eyes wide.
It was impossible.
There was no blood. No missing limb. No sign of trauma.
Jack's body, which just twenty minutes ago had been half dismembered and leaking intestines, now looked… untouched. His right arm, previously gone from the elbow down, was back. Pale and fresh, but whole.
"What the hell…" Ash whispered.
Kai helped him sit upright. "You're okay. You're okay, Jack. You're alive."
Jack nodded slowly. "He… fixed me. It scary as hell, but… I think… I think I'm fine."
Ash ran a hand over Jack's forearm, almost afraid to touch it. "Even the best healers in Qintara can't regrow limbs. They can reattach if they get it fast enough. But this…"
Kai looked back at the door.
No one had come through yet.
"Is he a mutant type healer?" Ash asked. "Maybe he's got some kind of Regeneration Codex?"
"No," Kai said quietly. "This isn't a healing skill. This is something else."
"Then what the hell is he?"
Footsteps echoed behind the door.
Wet, deliberate footsteps.
And then, something stepped out into the hall.
They both turned.
It was the doctor or what used to be him.
He was still wearing the same black suit, though it was now soaked through with blood, collar to hem. His shoes left red footprints behind him as he walked.
But his head was gone.
In place of a neck, several thick, fleshy tentacles sprouted upward in a bouquet of writhing limbs. Each tendril held a different surgical tool scalpel, bone saw, forceps, even a humming cauterizer. One tentacle, longer than the others, held the chainsaw.
It was still dripping.
Still on.
Ash stumbled back, slamming into the wall. Kai froze, arms around Jack, eyes wide.
None of them spoke.
The thing that had been their doctor paused in the doorway.
And then it spoke.
Not with a mouth. With a voice that echoed from somewhere beneath the skin, vibrating through the air like sound coming from behind the walls.
"Would you like to pay with cash… or card?"
That was the moment Kai screamed.
It wasn't fear.
It was everything all at once panic, disbelief, the realization that they were standing in a room with something that shouldn't exist.
Ash reached for his weapon, but didn't draw it.
Something inside him screamed that drawing a blade would only make things worse.
The creature didn't move closer. It didn't threaten them. It simply stood, surgical limbs twitching in anticipation.
Kai slowly reached into his coat and pulled out his hunter ID.
"I'll… transfer it digitally."
The creature tilted slightly, then turned away and walked back down the hall without a word. The chainsaw buzzed faintly until it disappeared behind the operating door.
Silence returned.
Ash collapsed against the wall and slid to the ground, sweat pouring down his back.
Jack looked between them, still sitting upright on the floor.
"…I feel amazing."