That was the first thing Elias knew. Not light, not pain, rain. The sound of it, a steady hiss across broken glass and hollow steel. It dripped through the ceiling, pattering against his skin, cold needles waking him from blackness.
Then came the voice.
Not a human one. Never that.
[ Vitality Restored: 142% Baseline ]
[ Musculoskeletal Repair: COMPLETE ]
[ Psychological Stability: …ERROR ]
"Congratulations, corpse. You're better than alive. For now."
Elias jerked upright, breath ragged, heart thrashing against his ribs. His eyes darted through the shadows. He was lying in what used to be a storefront, walls gutted by fire, ceiling half-collapsed. Burnt mannequins leered at him from broken shelves, their plastic faces warped into melted grins.
His hand shot to his side, expecting the agony of broken ribs, the shredded muscles, the claw marks seared into his skin.
But there was nothing.
No pain. No blood. His chest was whole, his arm smooth where feathers had once torn out. The memory of being thrown, bones snapping like dry twigs—gone, erased.
He scrambled to the cracked glass window, rain streaking down the fractured pane. His reflection stared back at him.
It wasn't him… so to speak.
His face was sharper, leaner, the hollows beneath his cheekbones cut clean as if sculpted by a knife. There was no bruising, no swelling.
He staggered back.
"This is… me?"
[ Physical Strength: 123% baseline ]
[ Agility: 118% baseline ]
[ Vitality: 142% baseline ]
[ Stability: …questionable ]
The words flickered across his vision like mockery, pale against the black.
"Smile wider, Elias. Bare your teeth. You've never looked more alive."
His hands trembled. They weren't shaking with weakness. They were steady. Too steady. Every muscle thrummed like a bowstring drawn tight.
He slammed his fist into the wall. Plaster cracked, raining dust across his shoulder.
The strength felt good. Too good.
The voice purred. "See? Even ruin bends to you now."
Elias pressed his forehead against the wall, breath fogging the soot-stained plaster. He wanted to scream, to deny it, but when he closed his eyes all he saw was the fight, the feathers tearing through flesh, the wet crunch of crow-bones, the smile stretching across his lips when he licked their blood.
He staggered out of the wreckage, glass crunching beneath his boots. The rain swallowed him whole.
The storm outside was quieter now, but the silence felt wrong.
The streets were unrecognizable.
The world looked like it had burned for a century, not a night.
Cars lay twisted and overturned, their frames still hissing with steam. Windows yawned open like shattered mouths. The stench of smoke clung to everything; wet asphalt, broken steel, even the rain itself carried it, bitter and metallic.
Bodies littered the ground. Some sprawled half-buried in rubble, their eyes glassy and open to the storm. Others were scorched down to blackened husks, impossible to tell where flesh ended and crow-feather began. Ash drifted on the wind in slow, silent spirals, coating Elias's shoulders until it looked like snow.
His stomach churned. No, not his stomach—something deeper, hungrier. His gaze lingered too long on a body crumpled against a streetlamp, its throat torn open. Blood had pooled in the gutter, diluted now to a thin pink river flowing between the cracks of the street.
The rain should have washed it away. But Elias could still smell it.
Sharp. Copper. Sweet.
He licked his lips before he realized what he was doing.
[ Hunger Level: ELEVATED ]
[ Nearest Source Detected: 3.2 meters ]
"The living stink of fear. You'll smell it soon. And it will taste better than meat."
Elias's jaw tightened. "Shut up."
The voice laughed softly. "Talk louder. Maybe they'll believe you're sane."
He moved faster, boots splashing in shallow puddles. But the hunger followed, a tether pulling at his ribs with every crimson smear he passed. He felt it in the hollow of his chest, a gnawing need that wasn't hunger for food, not even thirst, it was the urge to devour.
The city wasn't empty.
Shapes perched along the rooftops, outlines hunched against the pale glow of broken neon. Lesser crows, dozens of them, their eyes like faint embers in the rain. They didn't dive, didn't shriek. They only watched. Heads tilted. Wings shifting. Silent.
A warning? No, obedience.
Something else controlled them now.
Elias clenched his fists, forcing his eyes down. If he stared back too long, if he dared the hunger to speak louder, he wasn't sure what he'd do.
The streets twisted into an underpass, a collapsed overpass overhead spilling chunks of concrete across the road. Elias slowed. Something was different here. The rain muffled. The air warmer.
And beneath it all—
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His head snapped up.
Heartbeats.
Not one. Many. Fast. Clustered.
His pulse quickened in reply, as if his body had been waiting for this exact sound.
His mouth went dry.
Humans. Survivors.
For the first time since waking, his chest ached with something besides hunger. He should have felt relief. Should have fallen to his knees, shouted, begged them to let him join.
Instead, he found himself listening, counting each heartbeat like a predator learning the measure of prey.
The System's voice slid across his mind like oil. "Go on. Introduce yourself. Maybe they'll scream first. Maybe they'll run. Either way… you'll chase."
Elias's hands shook as he gripped the railing of the ruined underpass. His breath misted in the rain.
"Not prey," he whispered. "Not them."
But the whisper sounded less like a promise, more like a prayer.
The sound of heartbeats pulled him forward.
Elias crept down the incline of the underpass, boots crunching glass. The collapsed concrete opened into a pocket of shelter beneath the ruined overpass. A faint fire burned in the hollow of a cracked bus engine, its orange glow smothered by smoke.
They were huddled there.
Five of them.
A woman with a rust-streaked crowbar gripped in both hands, standing like she was ready to swing at the first movement. A younger man beside her clutched a broken pipe, shaking but trying to look fierce. Behind them, a girl no older than eighteen leaned against the wall, holding an empty revolver like it meant something. A heavyset man crouched near the fire, sharpening a piece of metal on a stone. And a thin, hollow-eyed woman clung to herself, lips moving in a whisper only she could hear.
Every head turned when Elias stumbled into view.
"Stop right there!" The man with the pipe barked, his voice cracking halfway through. His knuckles whitened as he raised it higher.
Elias froze. The fire's glow painted his face in flickers—rain-soaked hair plastered to his forehead, clothes torn, blood smeared down one sleeve.
The crowbar woman's voice cut the silence. "Don't come closer."
Her eyes were sharp, calculating, her shoulders squared like she'd carried the weight of this group for too long. She didn't tremble. She was waiting, measuring.
Elias raised his hands slowly, palms out. His throat burned when he tried to speak, the words rasping out like gravel. "I'm not… I'm not one of them."
The younger man; pipe boy—snorted bitterly. "Yeah? And what the hell are you?"
"Jonah." The woman snapped without looking at him.
"No, Mara, look at him!" Jonah jabbed his pipe toward Elias. "Those eyes, tell me they don't look wrong. Tell me he hasn't got the stink of those things on him."
The girl with the revolver stirred, her voice softer but clear. "He's breathing. That's enough for me."
"Shut up, Hana." Jonah's face twisted. "You want to invite him in and wait until he snaps our necks in our sleep? Be my guest."
The heavyset man near the fire said nothing, but his gaze tracked Elias like a scope, slow and deliberate. His hand paused on the blade he was sharpening, then continued as if to remind Elias exactly what it could do.
The thin woman suddenly looked up, her eyes wide and glassy. She blinked at Elias, and for a heartbeat her expression cracked with joy. "I knew it," she whispered. Her hands trembled as she reached toward him. "You came back. You came back to me."
Elias stiffened. Her voice broke into sobs, collapsing back into herself. No one comforted her.
The System chuckled in his ear, low and cruel. "Smile wider. Bare your teeth. See if they still call you human."
Elias clenched his jaw until it hurt.
Mara's voice cut through the whispers. "Where were you when it started?"
He blinked at her.
"The crows," she pressed. "The fires. Everyone's dead and you're walking around with not a scratch. So tell me, where were you?"
The truth jammed in his throat like broken glass. Trapped. Dying. Feeding. Becoming.
"I… ran," Elias forced out. "Like everyone else."
Jonah laughed harshly. "Yeah? Ran faster than a city burning down, huh?" He spat at the ground. "Bullshit."
Mara's grip on her crowbar didn't falter. She tilted her head, studying him like he was a puzzle she didn't want to solve.
Elias's pulse thundered in his ears. Not fear. Not yet. It was their heartbeats. Fast. Fragile. Delicious.
Hana's hand dipped into her jacket and came back with a dented water bottle. She hesitated, then stepped forward, extending it to him. Her fingers shook, but her voice was steady.
"You look… thirsty."
The bottle glistened in the firelight, condensation running down its sides. Elias reached for it slowly, his hands trembling. Their fingers brushed.
Her heartbeat pounded against his skull like a drum.
So close.
So alive.
He swallowed hard and pulled the bottle away, drinking deep to hide the hunger rising in his chest.
The water was warm and metallic, but it grounded him. Barely.
Jonah's sneer deepened. "See that? Look at him. He drinks like an animal. Like he hasn't seen water in years."
Mara's eyes flicked to Jonah, then back to Elias. She didn't speak, but the message was clear: I'm watching you.
The heavyset man finally broke his silence. His voice was low, gravelly, carrying more weight than Jonah's bark ever could. "Strength doesn't mean trust." His gaze locked with Elias's, unblinking. "Remember that."
Elias looked away first.
Smoke curled from the makeshift fire, its glow dimming as if even the flames were afraid to stay.
Elias sat apart, the bottle of water half-empty at his side. His body still hummed from Hana's touch, from the nearness of their heartbeats, from the gnawing whisper in his skull that would not shut up.
"They're sheep. Bleating, weak, waiting for the knife. And you, Elias… you're holding it."
He squeezed his hands into fists. The skin on his knuckles whitened, then darkened as veins pulsed black before receding again.
A sound cut through the static in his head.
Shift. Groan.
Everyone's head turned at once.
The collapsed bus nearby shuddered, metal scraping against the concrete. A loose panel fell, clanging against the ground.
Jonah swore under his breath. "Don't tell me—"
From the wreckage, a shriek split the air. Black wings burst outward, scattering ash and smoke. Crows; smaller than the monsters Elias had faced, but no less vicious clawed their way free, eyes glowing red.
"Shit!" Mara shoved Hana back with one arm and raised her crowbar. "Form up!"
"Form up with what?" Jonah snapped, but his hands tightened on the pipe anyway.
Hana fumbled with her empty revolver, clicking it uselessly before realizing, again, there were no bullets. Her eyes darted to Elias. For a heartbeat, hope flickered there.
The heavyset man; Darius, Elias heard Mara call him earlier, lifted his makeshift blade, his stance steady but grim. "We can't run. Not in this rain. We end it here."
The thin woman; Nia, began to scream, her voice shattering against the concrete. "No, no, no, not again—"
The first crow dove. Straight at Hana.
Elias didn't think. His body moved on its own.
One second the bird was in the air, talons outstretched, the next, Elias's hand shot up, fingers closing around its throat with inhuman speed. The snap echoed like a gunshot.
The crow's body went limp, ash spilling between Elias's fingers. He dropped it to the ground.
Silence.
Every survivor stared at him. Even the crows circling above hesitated, as if something greater had entered the fight.
Jonah's pipe slipped from his grip, clattering to the floor. His face went pale. "What the fuck… are you?"
Elias's chest heaved. He wanted to deny it, to say anything, but the truth was carved into the bones of the thing in his hand. Too fast. Too strong. Too wrong.
Mara's crowbar didn't lower. Her knuckles whitened as her gaze sharpened, weighing him not as a man, but as a weapon.
Hana's lips parted. Her breath trembled. "…You saved me."
The words cut deeper than Jonah's accusation.
The System purred in his skull, delighted. "Ahhh, there it is. Gratitude. Fear. Worship. They're yours, Elias. Tear and be adored."
Another crow screamed, diving for Mara. Elias pivoted instinctively, his body blurring in motion. His boot slammed upward, catching the creature mid-flight and driving it into the wall. Glass shattered. The bird's body dissolved into smoke, leaving streaks of ichor behind.
More shrieks filled the air, the flock stirred into frenzy.
"Stay behind me!" Mara barked, shoving Hana and Nia back. But her voice faltered as she glanced at Elias again, seeing not a man but a storm breaking loose.
Jonah backed further away, shaking his head in horror. "We're dead. We're dead because of him. He's one of them."
"Shut your mouth!" Mara snapped.
"Look at him!" Jonah shouted, spittle flying. "LOOK!"
Elias stood in the firelight, feathers still dissolving from his forearm, his breath coming in ragged bursts. Rain streaked down his face through the broken ceiling, mixing with ash and blood. His eyes glowed faintly red, embers under his brow.
No one moved.
Even the crows circled higher now, as if uncertain whether to dive again.
Finally, Darius broke the silence. His voice was steady, cold. "Doesn't matter what he is." His gaze never left Elias. "What matters is whether he points that at us… or at them."
Mara exhaled slowly. Her crowbar lowered an inch.
"Then he stays."
Jonah spun on her, furious. "Are you insane? Did you see—"
"You want to leave?" Mara's tone cut him in half. "Go."
Jonah's mouth snapped shut. He stood trembling, pipe clutched uselessly in his hands, but he didn't move toward the exit.
Nia's whisper carried faintly in the lull. Her eyes shimmered as she stared at Elias. "…My husband came back."
Elias flinched as though struck.
The System's laughter echoed, cruel and warm. "Oh, Elias. They don't even know what they're asking for."
The crows dispersed. Whether frightened off or simply satisfied, Elias couldn't tell. Their shrieks faded into the storm, leaving behind only the hiss of rain and the jagged silence of human breath.
The survivors regrouped quickly, though "regroup" meant huddling in corners, shoulders pressed close, weapons held tight. Mara said nothing, her crowbar leaning against her leg as she crouched near the weak fire, staring into the flames. Jonah sulked several paces away, muttering curses beneath his breath but too afraid to act on them.
Nia had stopped crying, though her silence was worse. Her gaze drifted to Elias again and again, as though measuring his shape against the ghost of her husband. Each time he caught her, her lips quivered into a half-smile.
Darius sat against the wall, his knife in his lap, sharpening it slowly. The scrape of steel on stone was a metronome, steady, deliberate. He didn't blink. Didn't look away from Elias.
And Hana… Hana sat nearest him. She hadn't spoken since the attack, but the tremor in her hands gave her away. She clutched the empty revolver like a lifeline.
Elias stayed apart. Close enough to be seen. Far enough to be other.
The fire crackled. Rain tapped like fingers against the broken windows.
Inside his head, the System spoke.
[Corruption Level: 4.7% → 4.9%]
[Stability: … degrading]
The voice slithered, equal parts mockery and lullaby.
Elias rubbed his arms, as though the stats were branded into his skin. He wanted to scrape them off, peel himself raw, but there they were, burned into the inside of his skull.
He glanced down at his hands. Too steady. No tremor of fatigue. No pain from the wounds he knew should have shattered him hours ago. His reflection in a puddle by his feet was clear: a leaner face, sharper lines, eyes steady and calm. Almost human.
Almost.
"Why?" he whispered to himself. "Why me?"
The System chuckled. "Why not you? Someone had to survive. Someone had to wear the crown of rot. Don't tell me you thought it was luck."
He shut his eyes, but the laughter didn't stop.
Mara's voice cut into the silence. "We move at first light. If there is one."
Jonah hissed a protest, but she silenced him with a glance.
"Sleep if you can. If not, rest your bones. Tomorrow will break us harder than today."
No one argued.
Elias sat back, letting the voices of the others blur into the storm. He thought about leaving, slipping away before they could decide whether he was monster or man. But the hunger coiled in his gut, dragging him down, tethering him to their heartbeats.
He hated it.
He craved it.
The fire guttered low. One by one, the survivors lay down, though no one truly slept. Elias sat awake, staring at the puddle by his feet.
His reflection stared back. Calm. Normal.
Until the lightning came.
For a split second, the puddle lit white. And in that flash, the reflection smiled at him.
Not with his mouth.
With too many teeth.
The System whispered sweetly. "Soon, Elias. They'll beg for the monster."