It had been a week since the sky cracked.
Seven days of quiet, of tension, of subtle, creeping madness.
Liam Perez sat by the window of his second-floor apartment in suburban Osaka, the lights off, the room dim with natural light filtered through gray clouds. His once-ordered living space was now cluttered with canned food, batteries, plastic jugs of water, and the unmistakable scent of sweat and stress.
The TV only played emergency bulletins. Internet was spotty—government-controlled. Social media feeds were flooded with the same posts: sightings of mutated animals, strange pulses in the air, and neighborhoods going dark.
And now, today, something had changed again.
**They had gone feral.**
The pets. The strays. The "adorable" little creatures that had once wandered the residential streets of Osaka — cats, dogs, birds, even rabbits — were now changed.
Not just physically, but behaviorally.
The morning air was filled with low growls, strange clicking sounds, and the occasional blood-curdling howl. Liam had watched from his window as a once-friendly golden retriever lunged at a delivery man, tearing into him with unnatural strength before it was gunned down by police.
The streets were no longer safe.
---
Liam had barely slept the night before.
The hum — that eerie, rhythmic resonance in his skull — had grown stronger. He could feel it vibrating through the floor, like the whole world had a pulse now and he was syncing to it. It wasn't painful anymore. It was *familiar*.
He hated how natural it was beginning to feel.
The days of organizing food, learning Japanese emergency radio codes, and watching international news had given way to paranoia. He blocked the door with furniture. Taped thick plastic over the windows. Wired a DIY alarm using empty tin cans and LED lights powered by his portable battery.
His engineering instincts helped.
But instinct alone wasn't enough.
---
Midday came, and with it, a sudden, haunting silence.
No barking.
No movement.
Just wind.
Then… a thump.
Liam froze, crouched by the kitchen table. The thump came again. Heavy. Rhythmic. From the stairwell outside.
His apartment door rattled slightly — just once.
Liam held his breath.
A wet sniffing sound slid across the gap at the base of the door. The faint, hot breath of something animal and very much alive curled through the air.
He reached for the makeshift spear he'd crafted out of a broken broom handle and a sharpened kitchen knife, heart pounding.
The door didn't break. The thing didn't charge in.
Instead, it… whispered. Not with words. Not with a voice. But with presence. Liam felt it, the way you feel something staring at you in the dark.
And then, it left.
---
He waited an hour before moving.
When he finally cracked the door open and peeked into the hallway, it was empty.
But blood smeared the walls. Deep claw marks gouged the floorboards. And one of his upstairs neighbors' doors hung ajar, splintered from the inside.
Liam backed into his room and locked the door again, hands shaking.
"This can't last," he whispered to himself.
---
Later that evening, a rumble echoed through the city. Not an earthquake — Osaka had seen plenty of those. This was *different*. Deeper. Like thunder trapped underground.
From his window, Liam watched as a distant fire burned on the horizon. Smoke rose above what looked like a collapsed building.
The emergency sirens didn't even bother going off anymore.
They'd been blaring too often to mean anything.
He opened his notepad and began jotting down everything he'd noticed in the past week:
* **Animals mutate faster** than humans. They grow larger, stronger, and far more aggressive.
* **Plant life is thicker**, creeping into paved areas. Weeds now sprouted overnight.
* **Electrical interference** was becoming common. Batteries died faster. Devices glitched.
* **Weapons worked… but less effectively.** The ARC energy seemed to dampen kinetic and thermal force.
* **The hum is growing stronger.** Every day, it feels more synchronized, like it's… guiding something.
At the bottom of the page, he wrote in shaky letters:
> *"What am I turning into?"*
---
Liam had noticed it three days ago.
A tiny crack in his fingernail had closed in hours. His reflexes were sharper — not superhuman, but undeniably quicker. His dreams were more vivid. In them, he ran through vast corridors of light and shadow, chased by voices that never spoke aloud.
But it was the spark that frightened him the most.
Literally — a spark.
When he'd touched the metal sink yesterday, the faucet had sparked. Not static electricity. Something deeper. Almost... conscious.
Was it him?
Or was it the ARC?
He hadn't told anyone. Who would he tell?
The government had shut down personal messaging. Calls to the Philippines barely got through. He hadn't heard from his family in days.
He was alone.
---
In the heart of Osaka, police stations were either abandoned or turned into fortresses. Local authorities were overwhelmed, barely holding districts together with ration drops and blockades. The military presence had grown overnight — but even soldiers were beginning to change. Reports whispered of units going "silent," entire squads that had entered ARC-affected zones and never returned.
The TV showed none of it.
Only reruns of the same statement: **"The situation is being handled. Please remain indoors."**
But no one believed that anymore.
---
By midnight, Liam stood in his tiny apartment's kitchen, sweat beading on his forehead.
He had packed a go-bag: tools, spare clothes, food, and a battery-powered shortwave radio.
He couldn't stay here. Not much longer.
He needed to find a real shelter. A bunker. Or better yet — **people**.
Not just to survive.
But to understand what was happening to him.
He stepped to the window, pulled the curtain back an inch, and stared into the night.
Down below, three animals — no, **creatures** — stood under a flickering streetlight.
Two of them were dogs.
The third… used to be a cat.
All of them stared straight at his building.
And in that moment, Liam felt the hum pulse again in his chest — not painful, not invasive, but like a beacon.
Like something in the darkness had *recognized him.*
---