ADAPTATION COMPLETE
Keratin density increased: +15%
Claw efficiency improved: +8%
Neural mapping: Expanding (Combat instincts 3% integrated)
Mass: 0.5 grams
Hunger woke him. Not regular hunger—not the "I should eat something" feeling from his old life. This was hunger that turned thought into static, that reduced his entire existence to a single screaming need: FEED.
Kai uncoiled from his crack and groomed sand from his coat with a tongue that moved without him telling it to. The motion was as natural as breathing, and that terrified him almost as much as the hunger. How quickly instinct was replacing choice.
The claws felt different. Sharper. The motion smoother. He was learning his body the way he'd learned his old Honda—every quirk, every response, every failing that might kill you if you didn't account for it.
Just a different vehicle, he thought, and almost laughed at the absurdity. Almost.
The genetic memory guided him to yesterday's root chamber. The grubs were still there—fat, pale, mandibles designed for wood, chewing steadily at roots the size of his leg. He watched one chew, watched it open a wound in the root. Sap welled up like blood from a cut.
He shouldered the grub aside—heavier than he expected, like pushing a grocery cart full of concrete—and drank.
Sweet. Faintly mineral. Like sugar water mixed with rust. His body processed it as fuel but not food. Not the kind that changed things, that made him more.
NUTRIENT ANALYSIS:
Plant matter: Energy only. No genetic material.
Adaptation potential: Zero
Recommendation: Seek animal protein
He needed meat. Live meat. Something with DNA he could harvest.
The collapsed corridor he'd marked yesterday held beetle scent—sharp, acrid, unmistakable. He waited in shadow, his human mind wanting to plan it out, to think it through, to strategize. But his cat instincts just knew—position here, strike angle there, bite point exactly here where the neck membrane was thinnest.
Like parallel parking. His mom had taught him that. "Don't think too hard, baby. Feel it. Your body knows."
His body knew.
A small beetle emerged, antennae sweeping. Kai hooked claws into thorax seams—there, where the armor plates met—and bit the neck membrane. The beetle twitched once and died, legs curling inward.
The warmth was different this time. Stronger. His body drinking in genetic code like water in a drought.
MAJOR PROTEIN ACQUIRED
Mass: 0.8 grams
Chitin processing: Enhanced
Armor density: +8%
Bite force: +5%
Target threshold: 5 grams for [TIER 1 EVOLUTION]
"Okay," he said to himself, voice less squeaky now. Deeper. More controlled. "I'm a video game character. Kill beetles. Level up. Try not to die."
He'd made jokes driving Uber when GPS took him weird routes, the app directing him through back alleys and questionable neighborhoods. "It's an adventure," he'd tell nervous passengers. "Trust the algorithm."
This was the same thing. Different road. Same approach: keep moving, trust the process, don't overthink it.
He hunted twice more before something went wrong.
Vibrations. Many. Organized. Coming fast. Not random skittering—coordination.
Kai turned. Six ants in a loose arc, closing like a net. Soldiers. Red-brown armor gleaming in the dim phosphorescence that leaked from the fungal patches above. Mandibles like garden shears, each one large enough to cut him in half.
His hindbrain screamed RUN.
He ran.
They were faster on straightaways, their six-legged gait optimized for speed. But Kai cut into a wider room and saw a crack too small for them—barely large enough for him. He dove through. His shoulders scraped rock, fur tearing. Behind him, mandibles clicked against stone, frustrated.
They started digging. Coordinated. Efficient. Two digging while four waited, ready to rush through the moment the gap widened.
They're not giving up. They're problem-solving.
Kai dug upward, clawing at the ceiling. Sand rained down. The ceiling sagged. He dug harder, faster, panic overriding everything. The ceiling collapsed with a sound like distant thunder, and he was suddenly in a new corridor, breathing hard, legs shaking like he'd run a marathon.
The ants were buried on the other side. He could hear them digging, slower now, disorganized. Alive but trapped.
COMBAT EXPERIENCE GAINED
Escape tactics: Successful
Threat assessment: Updated
New knowledge: ANT COLONIES = AVOID AT ALL COSTS
Psychological note: You survived by thinking like prey. Remember this.
"That was too close. Way too close."
He found a root seep and drank until the metallic taste made him gag. Let his heart rate drop below panic levels. Let his legs stop shaking.
CURRENT STATUS
Mass: 1.2 grams
Condition: Shaken but functional
Location: Unknown territory
Immediate threat: Low
Approaching first major threshold. Recommend immediate protein acquisition and secure rest location.
He found a crack that smelled empty and wedged himself in. His hind leg throbbed where an ant had clipped him during the chase—not bad, the armor had held, but a reminder: one mistake and he'd be ant food.
"One prey at a time," he told the dark, his voice steadier now. "Like driving. Don't think about the whole shift. Just the next ride. The next prey. One at a time."
It had gotten him through six years of seventy-hour weeks. It would get him through this.
He closed his eyes and tried not to think about the lottery ticket in a jacket pocket back in Chicago. Tried not to think about whether his mom had gone to his apartment yet, had found it empty, had started calling hospitals.
Does she think I abandoned her? Does she think I took the money and ran? Does she—
Stop.
Survive today. Think about it tomorrow.
Maybe.
DAYS SURVIVED: 3
MASS: 4.9 grams (approaching critical threshold)
The hunger came back with teeth.
His body was ready to cross a threshold. He could feel it like an itch under his skin, in his bones, in the genetic memory that whispered more, more, you need MORE.
The new root chamber was a jackpot and a deathtrap. Dozens of white grubs, each one double his size. Mandibles that could shear him in half. Armor plating thick enough to stop his claws. But they were slow. Methodical. Focused on their work like Uber drivers during rush hour—tunnel vision, not watching their surroundings.
Kai watched their rhythm like he used to watch traffic patterns on Lake Shore Drive. Red light here, gap there, merge now, commit to the lane. These grubs had patterns too. When they fed, they were vulnerable. Between segments, where the skin was thin. When they turned to reach a new section of root, there was a window—two seconds, maybe three—where the neck was exposed.
He dropped from above. Hooked claws deep into the segment joint—there. The grub thrashed like a car hydroplaning on ice, wild and uncontrolled. He held on with everything he had, found something vital, tasted hemolymph bitter and thick.
The grub went still.
MAJOR PREY CONSUMED
INITIATING TIER 1 EVOLUTION
Heat didn't spread this time. It detonated.
Every muscle seized simultaneously. His jaw cracked and reset, bones shifting in ways that should have been agonizing but felt more like inevitability. His gut expanded, organs rearranging themselves with wet sounds he could hear inside his own body. His heart rate dropped as chambers grew larger, efficiency increasing. His claws pushed out longer, serrated edges forming along the inner curve. His spine extended, adding length, adding killing leverage.
He barely made it to his crack before passing out, consciousness flickering like a dying bulb.
The dreams were vivid.
Chicago. Mom. The lottery ticket. But mixed with something else—ancient memories that weren't his. Hunts across alien landscapes painted in colors he had no names for. The taste of prey he'd never encountered, species that had been extinct before humans learned to walk upright. The weight of a body ten times larger than his current form, and the knowledge that this was just the beginning.
When he woke, everything was different.
EVOLUTION COMPLETE: TIER 1 JUVENILE WORLD CAT
MASS: 5.8 grams
MAJOR SYSTEMS UPGRADED:
Bite force: +40% [Ability Unlocked: Crushpoint Strike]
Muscle efficiency: +35%
Metabolism: Optimized for larger prey
Digestive system: Enhanced acid production
Sensory suite: Compound eye integration (ant heritage)
NEW ABILITY: CRUSHPOINT STRIKE
Instinctively identify structural weakpoints in chitin and exoskeleton. Attacks against identified weakpoints deal catastrophic damage.
Kai tested his new body systematically. Flexed his claws—they scored stone now, leaving visible grooves. Bit down on a pebble experimentally—it cracked clean through. His vision had changed too, sharper at the edges with a slight compound shimmer that let him track movement in his peripheral vision. Multiple focus points instead of two.
"Level up," he said. His voice was deeper. Clearer. Almost normal, if normal was a word that still meant anything. "Okay. Now we're talking."
He flexed his claws again, watching them extend and retract. Each one was serrated now, designed to hook and hold. Killing tools. That's what he had instead of hands.
"Mom would've liked this part." His voice cracked. "She always said I was too small for my age. 'Kai, baby, eat more. You're skin and bones.' Well, Mom—"
He stopped. The crack was quiet except for his breathing.
He wiped his face with a paw—the motion as natural as breathing now, and that scared him more than the ants. How quickly he was adapting. How fast the human habits were being replaced by cat instincts, like water wearing away stone.
"Still me," he said to the empty space. "Still Kai Vale from Chicago. Still remember the smell of curry from downstairs, the sound of the L train at 2 AM, Mom's laugh when I told her about the worst passengers. Just... smaller. Furrier. Hungrier."
He didn't believe it. But he said it anyway, because saying it made it feel more true, and feeling true was close enough to being true when you were alone.
Outside his crack, the root chamber waited. Full of prey. Full of potential.
Full of danger.
"Okay, Chicago boy. Let's see what you can do now."
He emerged hunting, and this time when the grubs came, he wasn't afraid.
The Crushpoint Strike made everything different. When he looked at a grub now, certain points would light up in his vision—not literally glow, but his brain would just know where the weak spots were. Behind the third segment where the nerve cluster sat. Where the thorax met the abdomen and the armor was thinnest. The thin membrane under the mandible joint that protected the brain.
It made hunting feel less like fighting and more like dismantling a machine. Clinical. Efficient.
Maybe too efficient.
Three grubs in two hours. His mass climbed to 8.2 grams. His body hummed with stolen strength, incorporating their genetics, learning their defenses so he could counter them in future prey.
ADAPTATION PROCESSING:
Armor: +12%
Digestive efficiency: +8%
Mandible strength: Catalogued
Burrowing patterns: Archived
He cached the excess meat in his crack, covering it with sand to hide the scent. Planning ahead. Thinking past the next meal to the meal after that.
When did I start thinking like this? he wondered. When did I stop being the guy who'd eat gas station hot dogs for dinner and start being... whatever this is?
But he knew the answer. The moment his consciousness had fused with the World Cat template. The moment survival stopped being abstract and became the only thing that mattered.
He curled up in his crack that night, full for the first time since arriving. His body worked on the genetic material he'd consumed, incorporating improvements, upgrading systems, preparing him for bigger prey.
Before sleep took him, he looked at his paws in the dim phosphorescent light.
They didn't look human anymore. They hadn't for a while. Pads were thicker. Claws were permanent fixtures now, always slightly extended. Fur had grown denser, sleeker, optimized for stealth.
"Still me," he whispered one more time. "Still Kai. Still—"
He couldn't finish. Didn't know how to finish that sentence anymore.
He slept. Dreamed of a parking lot and a phone call he'd never get to make and a mother who might never know what happened to her son.
And dreamed of hunting, of prey that ran and prey that fought and prey that died, and in the dreams he couldn't tell which parts were memory and which parts were instinct and which parts were something else entirely.