The first scream didn't come from the shadows.It came from the open street.
Jonas had seen blood before, in alleys, in dim corners, in whispers of crime and hunger. But this was something else—violence made public.
He was still stumbling away from the rooftop when the fog rolled over Main Avenue. Not in tendrils. Not in sheets.Like a tide.A red-tinted tide, thick and slow, dragging itself up the cracked asphalt, licking at tires, curling over shoes.
A man in a brown work coat was the first to touch it. He looked down as if at water, confused. Then his skin went soft. It sagged, peeling from bone like hot wax. His mouth opened wide enough to split his jaw, and a sound came out that was neither scream nor word.
People didn't run at first. They stared.
Then the tide surged higher.
Jonas backed into the cover of a half-collapsed storefront. No way in hell am I ready for this.
The fog didn't just take people now. It rewrote them.A young mother clutching a stroller vanished waist-down into it, then rose again—legs elongated, bent backwards, skin pulled taut over too many joints. She pushed the stroller with one hand, the other dragging behind her like a tail. The baby's cry was… wrong. Wet. Guttural.
And then they began to serve.
The red tide rippled in unison, and every altered human turned their head the same way—towards a sound only they could hear. They walked, shuffled, crawled toward it. Not random. Not hunting. Summoned.
Jonas's hands clenched. He needed a weapon. He needed—
A voice rasped from above."You waited too long."
He looked up. The rooftop figure was there—hood half-torn, arm bandaged in strips of shirt soaked dark. A thin line of blood trailed from her mouth. She was paler now, swaying slightly, but her eyes burned.
"You… knew this would happen," Jonas spat.
"They always come in the open eventually. But never before night. It's feeding faster."
The fog rose higher, swallowing a streetlamp to its neck. The bulb flickered red before popping.
"What the hell do they want?" Jonas asked.
"They want to finish the cycle," she said flatly. "They've been at it for centuries. This city… it's their farm."
Jonas shook his head. "Farm? I've seen them kill—"
"Farm." She cut him off. "You don't just kill cattle. You breed them. You keep them in fear so the meat stays… fresh. You let them live long enough to multiply. Then you harvest."
Jonas felt bile rise in his throat.
The red fog's surface shivered. Something large was moving under it, just deep enough to hide.
The woman tossed him a rusted fire axe."You either get above it, or you get inside it."
The inside it part made Jonas's chest seize.
"What's inside?"
Her smile was tired, humorless. "The City Below. The fog doesn't come from here—it leaks from there. If we cut it off at the source, the tide dies."
"How?"
"We go where no one goes. The Last Lines." She pointed towards the skeletal mouth of the subway. Most entrances had been bricked up decades ago. This one yawned wide and wet.
Jonas stared at it. The smell from here was breathing.
The woman gripped his wrist. "It's the only way. You want to save anyone, you have to walk into the dark."
Another pop—this time, a gunshot. Somewhere behind them, the altered Servitors had started pulling down police barricades. People screamed. Sirens choked out mid-wail.
Jonas's legs moved before his brain agreed. Down the cracked steps, into the leaking dark. Each step was slick, as if the concrete had been sweating.
The fog followed.
The subway platform was drowned in shadow. No trains. No wind. Just the steady, low moan of the city's bones.And shapes—slender, human-sized—standing perfectly still along the edges, watching.
The red tide seeped in after them, filling the track pit.
One of the still shapes twitched. Then another. Heads turning toward Jonas in perfect unison. The woman tightened her grip on the axe.
"They're the first ones it took," she whispered. "From the first flood."
"How long ago was that?"
Her jaw worked. "One hundred and eight years."
They began to step forward.
Jonas lifted the axe. His palms were already bleeding from gripping it too tight.
The first of the Servitors reached the platform's lip. The red light in its eyes didn't blink.
It spoke.
"Come home."
Jonas swung.
The axe cleaved through its collar, but instead of blood, fog poured from the wound. It didn't fall—it grew. Its spine uncoiled upward, and the head lolled, grinning.
Behind it, the others began to climb.
The woman yanked him toward the far end of the platform. There, a service tunnel curved into black.
"They won't follow past the Throat," she said, breath ragged.
"The Throat?" Jonas asked, still backing away.
"You'll know it when you feel it."
They ran. The fog hissed behind them. And as they plunged into the tunnel, the walls began to close—not physically, but in the way a nightmare narrows. Each step felt heavier, the air thick with whispers.
Jonas's vision warped. His hands weren't his. The axe weighed as much as his whole body.
And then he saw it.
The Throat was not a doorway. It was a mouth. A massive, circular tunnel lined with teeth of corroded steel and bone, flexing slightly as if breathing.
Beyond it, only red.
The woman didn't hesitate. She stepped in.
Jonas took one breath, tasting iron and smoke—and followed.