The beasts were without eyes, but it was their mouths that made the air feel wrong.
Their snouts curved forward like warped seahorses, elongated and narrow, ending in spiraled openings lined with vibrating cartilage ridges. The ridges quivered even before sound emerged, as if the creatures were tuning instruments rather than preparing to attack.
They took a deep loud breath inhaling.
The sound of that inhale alone prickled against Bruce's skin.
Then they screamed.
The noise didn't travel like ordinary sound. It pulsed, compressing the air into visible concentric distortions, the sky itself seeming to vibrate like struck glass. Rings of warped atmosphere expanded outward in layered waves, overlapping, stacking upon one another in perfect synchronization.
It wasn't chaos. It was harmony.
A weaponized chorus.
