Two weeks crawled by, measured not in days but in data points. The world, stripped of its psychic governor, didn't find a new equilibrium. It convulsed.
The fragile, ad-hoc cooperation that had flickered to life in the shadow of the angry mountain hadn't become a model. It had been drowned out—first by the triumphant rhetoric of the respective governments who claimed credit for "managing the supernatural crisis," then by a new, uglier noise.
It started in the heartland of the old order.
In a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, a community of timber werewolves—quiet, family-oriented packs who worked in construction and logistics—held their monthly full moon run in a private forest preserve. It was a ritual of release, of family bonding. The perimeter was guarded, the permits in order.
They never saw the drones.
