At midnight in New York's Central Park, the on-duty patrol officer rubbed his eyes for the third time.
In the surveillance screen, a black shadow was sweeping over the ice surface of Swan Lake at an inhuman speed, lifting the snow on the shore with the airflow. The silhouette was not that of any known wild animal - with a shoulder width of nearly two meters, covered in dark silver mane, making a muffled sound when landing on all fours, but silently jumping up, like a moving shadow.
" Damn it... "The police officer touched the walkie talkie, and before his fingertips touched the button, the screen suddenly turned into snowflakes with a sizzling sound.
Three miles away, in the CEO's office on the top floor of Rockefeller Center, an antique seven digit clock was striking twelve.
Kane stood in front of the french window, the cigar between his fingers burned to the end, so hot that his fingers felt numb.
The glass reflected his neat custom-made suit, as well as the muscular lines that stretched like bowstrings under the suit - the frequency of his Adam's apple rolling faster and faster, and the skin on his neck was showing abnormal flushing, as if something was about to emerge from the bone crevices.
The phone was shaking on the desktop, and it was an ultimatum from the assistant: 'Sir, there are still forty minutes left for the emergency board meeting, and the helicopter is on standby on the rooftop.
Kane didn't look.
He stared out the window at the city skyline, which had been dyed frosty by the full moon. His pupils were contracting at a visible speed, and his iris was oozing silver gray patterns, like ink soaked in moonlight.
" Cancel, "he said to the air, his voice already tinged with a hint of non-human hoarseness.
The skin on the fingertips cracked open with fine cracks, and black fuzz was emerging from the cracks.
He suddenly pulled off his tie, turned around and crashed into the secret room inside the office.
There are no windows here, the walls are made of thick titanium alloy, and there is a steel cage that is half a person high embedded in the center. The inner wall is covered with dark brown scratches, and the edges are stained with unclean dark red blood stains.
This is the 'torture device' he prepared for himself.
When the first ray of moonlight seeped through the grille of the ventilation opening, Kane's screams were completely isolated by the heavy door.
Amidst the crackling sound of bone misalignment, the buttons of the suit shattered like bullets, the originally fitted shirt was torn into strips of cloth, and silver gray hair covered the entire body like wildfire. Three inch long claws popped out from the knuckles, making a piercing sound on the steel walls.
Three minutes later, there was only a half crouched werewolf left in the cage.
The silver eyes shone astonishingly in the darkness, the fangs pierced the lower lip, and saliva dripped to the ground with a sizzling sound.
It paced restlessly, its claws hitting the steel walls repeatedly, and the entire skyscraper trembled slightly under this force, but no one knew.
The man who evaporated hundreds of billions of dollars on Wall Street during the day is now trapped in a cage built by his own wealth.
At four o'clock in the morning, the galleries in lower Manhattan were still lit up.
Mira yawned at the computer, and on the screen was the exhibition list for tomorrow's opening.
She is the curator of this niche gallery, to be precise, an intern curator who earns a meager salary and works as a three person curator. She has been staying up all night here for three days in order to catch up with the schedule.
＂ Click.＂
A faint noise came from the back door of the gallery, and Mira was startled. He grabbed the paper cutter on the table and turned around - there was a man standing at the door, or rather, a "thing" wrapped in a tattered coat.
He was soaked all over, with mud and snow on his dark coat, and crisscrossing wounds visible from below his collar. The deepest one was on his collarbone, with his skin and flesh protruding outward and bleeding.
What's even stranger is that his eyes, in the dim light, are tinged with a faint silver gray, like a layer of mist, yet so sharp that people dare not look directly at them.
Sir? Do you need any help? "Mira's voice trembled as her hand holding the paper cutter trembled.
The person in front of her looked severely injured, but the wildness in her eyes reminded her of the starving lone wolf in the documentary.
The man didn't say anything, just stared at Mira. His gaze swept over her painted jeans, over her reddened nose from the cold, and finally landed on the paper cutter in her hand. His Adam's apple moved, making a low laugh like sound.
Mira suddenly noticed that there was a small piece of silver-gray... fluff hidden in his wet hair?
Just at that moment, the man staggered and his hand slipped down the door frame, revealing a watch on his wrist - the dial was broken, but the platinum case and the inlaid sapphire, which Mira had seen in a financial magazine.
That's a custom-made piece for the CEO of Kain Group, and there's only one in the world.
"You are..."
Before she finished speaking, the man suddenly stood up, like a wild animal awakened by something, and rushed into the thick fog at the entrance of the alley.
They're moving incredibly fast, which is completely unlike someone who's seriously injured.
When Mira chased to the door, she only smelled the lingering bloody odor in the air, mixed with a very faint, chilly scent similar to pine needles and snow.
The blood on the ground was still wet, and it dragged a winding trace in the snow, finally disappearing in the fog.
Mira looked down and found something extra at her feet - a black cufflink, engraved with the abbreviation: K·C.
When the office's clock struck five o'o'clock, Kain woke up from chaos.
The cage was in a mess. He lay naked on the cold steel floor, and his wounds were healing at an amazing speed, leaving only light pink scars.
The electronic calendar on the wall shows that there are twenty-nine days left until the next full moon.
Kain stood up, holding the cage wall, picked up the only intact shirt on the ground and put it on. His fingertips paused when touching his chest - there was a new scratch there, which he scratched himself when he lost control last night.
"Sir, we received news from Gallery Street," the assistant's voice came from the intercom, with hesitation, "Someone saw a person suspected to be you in the Lower City early in the morning, and also left a cufflink."
Kane's movements stopped.
He looked at his empty left cuff, where there should have been a pair of black obsidian cufflinks, a memento left to him by his mother.
"Address." He said, his voice returned to its usual coldness, without showing any emotion.
"25 West Street, 'Ximu Gallery'."
The moment the intercom was hung up, Kain had already walked to the dressing mirror.
The man in the mirror looked stern, and the silver-gray in his eyes had already faded, leaving only the bottomless black, as if the beast that tore apart his sanity last night had never existed.
Only the faint mark on his collarbone, which hasn't completely disappeared, is reminding him - something has slipped out of his tightly controlled world along with that lost cufflink.
The sky outside the window is turning pale, and the first subway is rolling over the tracks, carrying countless sleeping souls towards the daylight.
But Kane knew that once some cracks appeared, they could never be filled in again. Especially when those cracks reflected a pair of eyes, which were tainted with panic but as clear as a stream.