Toronto, Ontario – August 18, 2025. 5:47 a.m. EST.
Dawn arrived bruised.
The purple auroras had retreated to faint ribbons near the horizon, but the sky remained wrong—too dark for morning, streaked with sickly green veins that pulsed like dying arteries. The air smelled of scorched copper and wet earth. No birds sang. No traffic hummed. Only distant screams, sporadic gunfire, and something deeper: low, guttural growls that didn't belong to any dog Elias had ever heard.
He, Aisha, and Jamal moved west along Eglinton, keeping to alleys and the shadows of overturned delivery trucks. The three of them hadn't spoken much since leaving Jamal's apartment. Words felt heavy, unnecessary. What needed saying could wait until they weren't breathing in ash.
Elias walked point. His steps felt different—firmer, quieter. The rune on his chest had stopped glowing but remained warm, a constant reminder that whatever the serum and the storm had done, it wasn't finished. His body registered every shift in temperature, every faint electromagnetic hum from dying power lines overhead. Melanin drinking. Storing. Waiting.
Aisha kept glancing at him. Not with awe. Not yet. More like someone trying to decide if the man beside her was still the same person who'd drawn blood samples and asked clinical questions.
Jamal limped slightly—not from the arm Elias had healed, but from a deep gash across his calf he hadn't mentioned until now. "You gonna fix this too?" he asked, voice rough.
Elias didn't stop walking. "If you ask nicely."
Jamal snorted. "Fuck you, Doc."
But he didn't pull away when Elias paused, knelt, and placed a hand on the wound. The rune pulsed once. Heat flowed. Skin knitted. Jamal hissed through his teeth but didn't complain.
Aisha watched the whole thing. "You're not even tired."
"I'm tired," Elias corrected quietly. "Just… differently."
They reached Pharmacy Avenue. The Shoppers Drug Mart where Aisha sometimes covered nights was gutted—windows smashed, shelves toppled, prescription bottles scattered like confetti. A pack of feral dogs—three German Shepherds and something bigger, mangy, with too many teeth—circled the entrance.
They weren't normal dogs anymore.
The biggest one's fur had turned patchy black, glistening like oil. Spines protruded from its shoulders in irregular rows. Its eyes glowed the same violet as Elias's. When it snarled, the sound vibrated in Elias's chest.
Aisha froze. "Jesus…"
Jamal stepped forward, fists clenched. "I got this."
"No," Elias said. Sharp. Commanding.
Jamal hesitated.
The lead dog lunged.
Elias moved—faster than he expected. Not superhuman blur, but smooth, decisive. He caught the animal mid-air by the throat. Muscle and bone resisted for a heartbeat, then yielded. He slammed it down. Concrete cracked under the impact.
The dog yelped once—high, almost human—then went still.
The other two backed off, hackles raised, growling low.
Elias released the corpse. Blood on his hands. Dark. Thicker than it should be.
He looked at Aisha and Jamal. "They changed too. Everything did."
Aisha swallowed. "You killed it."
"I stopped it," he corrected. "There's a difference."
Jamal stared at the body. "That thing wasn't a dog anymore."
Elias didn't answer. He wiped his hands on his torn shirt and kept walking.
Midtown Toronto – 7:22 a.m.
They found Talia near Yonge and Eglinton.
She was perched on the roof of a flipped taxi, legs dangling, staring at the sky. Her skin had taken on a faint metallic sheen under the strange light. When she saw them approach, she didn't smile. Just watched.
"You're late," she said.
Elias stopped ten feet away. "Traffic."
She laughed once—short, bitter. "Funny guy."
Aisha stepped forward. "Talia, we need to stick together."
Talia tilted her head. "Why? So your boy wonder can play messiah?"
Elias met her gaze. Calm. Unblinking. "I'm not playing anything."
"You injected us with something," Talia said. "Then the sky ripped open and half the city grew fangs. Coincidence?"
"No," Elias admitted. "The serum prepared you. The storm triggered whatever was already there."
Talia hopped down. Landed lightly. Too lightly. Her balance was wrong—predatory.
"I can see heat now," she said. "Through walls. Through people. I watched a man burn from the inside out when lightning hit his building. He screamed until he didn't."
She stepped closer to Elias. "You smell different. Like… ozone and iron."
He didn't retreat. "You're not the only one who changed."
She studied his eyes. "Those weren't purple before."
"They are now."
A long silence.
Talia finally spoke. "I don't trust you, Doc. But I trust the streets even less. So for now… I'll walk with you. Don't mistake that for loyalty."
"Fair," Elias said.
Jamal muttered, "This is gonna be fun."
Global Echo – Multi-POV Fragments
Ottawa, Parliament Hill ruins – 8:10 a.m. EST
Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, Elena Vasquez, crouched behind an overturned desk in what used to be the Centre Block. Smoke curled through broken windows. Outside, mutated elk—antlers twisted into jagged spirals—roamed the lawn, goring anything that moved.
A surviving RCMP officer whispered, "Ma'am, comms are dead. Military bases in Petawawa and Kingston report… creatures. Not animals. Not anymore."
Vasquez clutched the satellite phone that no longer connected. "Cabinet?"
"Scattered. Or dead."
She closed her eyes. "Then we're on our own."
Chicago, Illinois – 7:45 a.m. CST
A pack of mutated rats—each the size of a medium dog, fur hardened into chitin plates—swarmed through the Loop. A lone National Guard sergeant fired until his magazine ran dry, then switched to his knife.
He didn't last long.
Above, on a shattered skyscraper ledge, a woman with wings of translucent membrane watched. She had been a barista yesterday. Today she felt the wind differently. Hungry.
Amazon Basin, Brazil – local afternoon
Vines moved without wind. Trees bled red sap that hissed on contact with soil. A jaguar—now twice its normal size, eyes burning crimson—stalked through the undergrowth. When it roared, birds fell dead from branches.
The forest remembered the storm.
And it answered.
Toronto – 11:03 a.m.
They found Kwame near a burned-out Tim Hortons on Danforth.
He sat on the curb, staring at his hands. Around him, plants had erupted through cracked pavement—thick, black vines with thorns like obsidian blades. They pulsed faintly, in time with his breathing.
He looked up when they approached. No surprise. Just exhaustion.
"You're all alive," he said flatly.
"Some of us," Aisha answered.
Kwame stood slowly. The vines shifted, parting for him like loyal dogs.
"I didn't ask for this," he said.
"None of us did," Elias replied.
Kwame's eyes narrowed. "You sound like you expected it."
"I expected progress," Elias said. "Not apocalypse."
Kwame laughed—hollow. "Progress. Right."
He glanced at the vines. One tendril lifted, wrapped loosely around his wrist like a bracelet.
"I can make them grow. Control them. They listen better than people ever did."
Aisha asked softly, "You okay?"
"No," Kwame said. "But I'm useful."
Elias studied him. "You don't have to come with us."
Kwame looked at the ruined street. At the distant howl of something inhuman. At the sky that still looked bruised.
"I don't have anywhere else," he said. "But don't think that means I'm following you. I walk my own path. You just happen to be on it right now."
Elias nodded once. "Understood."
They moved on—five now. A fragile coalition bound by necessity, not trust.
High Park area – 3:40 p.m.
The park had become a jungle overnight.
Trees towered higher than they should, canopies interwoven with glowing fungi. Grass blades sharpened into razor edges. In the distance, a moose—antlers spiraling into bone spears—charged a group of survivors. Screams cut short.
Elias's group watched from the tree line.
Aisha whispered, "We can't help everyone."
"I know," Elias said.
Jamal gripped a scavenged metal pipe. "But we can help ourselves."
Talia's eyes glowed faintly as she scanned the area. "Something's coming. Big. Not animal. Not anymore."
They retreated deeper into cover.
Elias felt the rune on his chest warm again. A new branch forming—slow, deliberate. Painless this time.
He flexed his fingers. Strength there. Not overwhelming. Just… more.
Enough to matter.
As the sun dipped—still wrong-colored, still wrong-feeling—he spoke quietly to the group.
"We don't owe the world anything. Not yet. We survive. We learn what we can do. Then we decide who we become."
No one argued.
No one agreed either.
They just kept moving.
The city—and whatever it had become—wasn't finished with them.
And Elias Crowe was only beginning to understand what he had awakened inside himself.
(End of Chapter 3)