The cold bit harder than it did before.
Damian sat hunched behind the rusting van, motionless, back pressed to frozen metal. His eyes were wide. His lungs wouldn't pull in air. He hadn't moved since the voice whispered in his skull.
The System had gone quiet again.
But nothing about this silence felt normal.
His hands were shaking.
His breath came slow, shallow, barely visible in the frost, and for a moment he didn't even register the blood.
It trickled from the corner of his mouth, warm against the cold. That copper sting flooded his tongue, thick and metallic.
What the hell just happened?
He wiped it off with the back of his hand, stared blankly at his stained fingers. They wouldn't stop trembling. He didn't feel injured. But something inside him was screaming.
He opened his System tab.
It flickered—then held steady.
His heart beat so loud it swallowed the silence.
[Passive: ???]
[Ability: ???]
(Classification: Unrecognized)
(Status: Inactive – Instability Detected)
He stared at it for a long time.
His abilities gone. Void, gone. Shadow Step, gone. Replaced with something... unreadable. The words sat there on the screen like a warning label no one had time to translate.
Something inside him had shifted.
Snapped.
Reshaped.
He could feel it.
It wasn't pain nor weakness something worse hit him.
Foreignness.
Like a piece of him now belonged to something else.
He forced himself upright. Every muscle resisted. His coat was stiff with dried blood. The walk home wasn't conscious. Just instinct. Shadow Step should've pulled him back in seconds. He still moved like he had it.
So he tried.
Once.
And it hit him like a sledgehammer.
His knees gave out. Vision folded inward. Blood splashed across the sidewalk and then—
Nothing.
When he came to, the sky had shifted to a sickly pre-dawn gray.
He didn't know how long he'd been out.
Didn't care.
He limped home without a word, boots dragging, every step slower than the last. The streetlights flickered. The air felt wrong. Like something was stalking him—through his own body.
By the time he reached the house, the sun had just begun to claw at the edge of the horizon.
He stepped inside quietly.
Muscle memory.
But something was off. His footsteps didn't sound right. Too soft. Too slow.
Eva was awake.
She sat curled on the couch with a blanket around her shoulders, the TV casting blue light on her face. The news was still looping Moscow footage silent fires, craters in concrete, figures collapsing under invisible pressure.
She didn't look at him at first.
But when she did her eyes widened.
"Shit! Damian—" She scrambled upright. "You look like you just walked out of a car crash."
He didn't respond.
He couldn't, didn't have the courage to.
His voice was wrong. It scratched in his throat like it didn't belong to him anymore.
"Are you bleeding?"
He waved a hand.
"It's nothing."
"Nothing? Your lip's split. You're pale as hell. You look like you haven't slept in a week—"
He walked past her, silent, into the kitchen. Opened the fridge, grabbed a bottle of water, drank like he'd been in the desert.
Eva followed.
"Damian. What happened?"
His fingers curled around the countertop. White-knuckled. The wood creaked under the pressure.
"Not now."
The way he said it it wasn't anger. Not even cold.
Just empty.
And that scared her more than any outburst.
He locked the bathroom door behind him.
Stared at the mirror for a long time.
His face looked the same, pale, stained with blood, like a zombie.
But his eyes were wrong.
Darker.
Like something had sunk beneath the surface and refused to leave.
He peeled off his shirt slowly, wincing at the pain in his ribs. And there it was.
Just under the collarbone
A mark.
Thin. Black. Like a fracture in glass, crawling along his skin like something underneath had cracked its way up.
It hadn't been there yesterday.
And it wasn't human.
He sat cross-legged on the bedroom floor, back against the wall. His System tab hovered in front of him, flickering gently like a heartbeat.
He checked his stats.
Still Level 7 no drops yet, no injuries the System could register no nothing.
But his Abilities?
[Ability: ???]
[Ability: ???]
(Status: Inactive – Unstable)
(Warning: Activation Not Recommended)
His jaw tightened.
He activated it anyway.
He didn't hesitate.
He didn't think. Just foolishness that could kill him.
The moment he reached for it, the world detonated.
White light exploded in his skull. He collapsed his back arched. A wet cough tore out of his chest, spraying blood across the floor. His body seized. Every nerve lit up like it had been wired into an electric chair. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't scream. Only feel—
And then—
Black.
He woke twenty minutes later.
Still on the bathroom floor.
Shaking.
The System pulsed once more.
[Ability Activation: Failed]
[Stabilization Error: User Not Compatible]
[Trace Level: 3%]
Damian wiped the blood from his chin and stared at the wall for a long time.
His voice came low, hollowy.
"I'm being overwritten."
There was no time to panic.
That would come later.
Right now he had to move.
There was one place he could go. One object that might help. Something buried just outside Prague, deep in the ruins of a collapsed monastery. In the original timeline, it didn't awaken until Surge Six. An artifact left untouched for months until someone found it by accident.
But if things were accelerating...
If the System was warping already...
It might already be there.
If anyone else found it first he was done.
He stood.
Pain lanced through his ribs, he swayed, grabbing the wall as support.
Couldn't falter when he had something to do.
He repacked what he could carry. Lighter this time. No rations. No distractions. Just tools. His trusty kitchen knife. Bandages. Batteries. He wasn't expecting a fight. He just wasn't willing to be unprepared.
A soft knock at the door.
"You leaving again?"
Damian paused.
Then he opened it.
Eva stood there, arms crossed over her blanket, eyes fixed on him. That fear was still there. Deeper now. Set into her bones.
He gave her the smallest nod.
"Just a few hours."
"Where are you going now?" Her voice cracked.
He looked her straight in the eyes.
"Nowhere you'd want to follow."
She didn't argue, didn't plead.
But as he stepped past her, she caught a glimpse of his face.
Not the bruises, not the dried blood on his clothes.
His eyes.
They weren't his anymore.
And that terrified her more than anything else.
The door clicked shut behind him.
Outside, snow fell harder.
The streets were still. Silent. Frost coated every surface like the world itself was holding its breath.
Damian pulled up his hood.
No Shadow Step.
No Void.
No shortcuts left, just his mind and pure will.
Just the weight of a corrupted System pressing down on his bones, and a new ability that wanted to eat him alive.
He adjusted the strap of his backpack.
Slipped the kitchen knife into his sleeve.
And walked.
Boots crunching on frozen concrete.
Something pulsed behind his sternum. The fracture mark burned faintly beneath his skin. Whatever had taken root inside him—it wasn't dormant anymore.
It was watching.
Waiting.
And slowly, quietly, it was changing him.
He didn't know what he was turning into.
But he knew one thing:
If he waited too long, it would finish the job.
[User: Damian Voss]
Level: 7
STR: +8 | DEX: +9 | INT: +11 | PER: +7
Passive: ??? – (Active)
Ability: ???
Next Global Event: ???
Time Until System Surge: 98 Hours
System Status: Thread Interference Present