Mara led them, crowbar balanced across her shoulder.
She kept her stride even, though her knees wavered with exhaustion. Every step was command and defiance both: keep up, or be left behind.
Behind her came Hana, too small under her scarf, too pale under the ash. She stumbled once, catching her toe on a pothole, and hit her knees hard, followed by her hiss of pain.
When she rose, her scarf clung to the blood streaking down her shin. She adjusted it higher on her face.
Darius stalked at the rear, not trudging but measuring each step. His head tilted now and again. He carried no weight but himself, yet seemed to anchor the line, as if his presence alone was both burden and shield.
His eyes roved; rooftops, alley mouths, collapsed doorways, with a patience that belonged to something hunting, or something waiting to be hunted.
None of them spoke. They hadn't since morning, when Jonah's absence had settled in like a missing tooth.
The city didn't speak either. No birds, no dogs, not even the skitter of rats. Just the brittle crunch of boots in ash, and the drag of lungs working too hard for too little air.
It was a march without destination. Each footfall felt less like progress and more like debt, an IOU written in blood and hunger.
Above them, Elias moved.
He clung to the skeletons of rooftops, fingers hooked in brick, body flowing low to avoid the skyline. He hadn't meant to follow, but here he was, doing exactly that.
The city smelled different up here, the wind sharper. But beneath the smoke and dust, he caught the threads of them.
Fifty paces ahead, the group trudged along the ash road. Their shoulders sagged in the same rhythm, heads bent low, each step measured by fatigue.
If he closed his eyes, he could almost believe he walked with them. That Mara's sharp glance was checking on him, that Hana's scarf was hiding a shy smile, that Darius's looming watch was for his sake too.
But when he opened his eyes, the lie broke. He was not with them. He was a shadow behind stone, claws curled into brick so tightly that grooves scraped into the wall.
He looked down at his hands.
The claws were longer today. Ridged, blackened at the edges, as if bone itself had splintered and clawed through skin. His forearm seemed stretched too thin, veins dark like spiderweb cracks beneath glass. He flexed, the sound was a faint crunch, not of flesh but of something harder grinding within.
Once, those had been hands he could hold Hana's scarf with. Once, they could carry Mara's crowbar, swung clumsily but with human effort. Now they could only rend. Only tear.
Stepping forward was unthinkable. Not while he looked like this.
That was when the System cut in.
an overlay burning across vision whether he willed it or not:
[ Corruption: 9.6% ]
[ Hunger: Critical ]
[ Stability: …erratic ]
[ Physical Strength: 123% - 131% baseline ]
[ Agility: 118% - 122% baseline ]
[ Vitality: 142% baseline ]
The screen lingered. Too long.
Then came the voice.
Progress acceptable. Resistance admirable. Unsustainable.
It was not sound. It was pressure behind his ear, breath that wasn't his own. Elias slammed his palm against his temple, as if he could crush the presence out. The claws tore his own skin. Blood welled between his fingers.
But the words didn't leave.
Hunger is efficiency. Resistance is waste. You will see this soon.
His throat closed around a growl.
He turned his eyes back to the group, just in time to see Hana stumble again. Mara caught her elbow, steady, unflinching, pulling her forward. Hana's lips moved, too soft for a human to hear at his distance; A thank you.
The road funneled into a narrow choke where two crumbled towers leaned toward each other like broken teeth. Burned cars clogged the gutters, their frames hollowed, paint blistered down to rust. Silence filled the gap; too heavy, too still.
Mara slowed first. Her hand shifted on the crowbar, thumb brushing the haft like it was a trigger. Darius's head tilted a fraction, his eyes narrowing. Even Hana felt it, her grip on Nia's scarf tightened.
The air smelled wrong.
Then movement.
Two shapes slipped from shadow. Men, if the word still meant anything. Their coats were leather cut from scavenged seats, patched with duct tape.
Shotguns dangled loose but ready in their arms. Faces lean, mouths stretched into smiles that looked hungry in ways Elias recognized too well.
"Drop the steel," one of them said. His teeth were yellow, cracked. His voice carried the lazy cruelty of a man too comfortable with violence. "Drop the packs. Or drop dead."
Mara shifted forward, planting herself between Hana and the barrels. Her crowbar dipped, not surrender, not quite, but a measured lowering. "We're just passing through."
The taller scavenger chuckled. "Yeah, and you'll pass lighter if you walk away breathing. Don't make me redecorate the road with what's in you."
Hana's breath hitched. She fumbled with her pack, pulled it off her shoulders with trembling hands. The straps stuck; her panic made it worse. When she finally shoved the bag forward, the scavenger snatched it with a grin too wide.
Darius didn't move quickly. He crouched, set his blade down deliberately, then nudged it forward with his boot. His calmness made the scavengers fidget. It was the calm of a predator not concerned by threats.
From shadow, Elias saw it all. His claws sank into stone until the brick bled dust. The scents of fear, sweat, and iron sharpened on his tongue. His hunger coiled tight, whispering: prey, prey, prey.
The scavenger with the sack slung it over his shoulder, stepping back toward the road's mouth. The other one lingered, eyes raking over Mara, then Darius.
"Big man thinks he's special." He sneered, stepping close enough that his shotgun's barrel brushed against Darius's chest. "Let's see how special you—"
Crack.
The sound was clean, efficient.
Darius's hand snapped up, gripped the man's jaw, and twisted. A single motion, smooth.
The body dropped boneless. The shotgun clattered beside it, useless metal on cracked asphalt. The dead man's eyes stared wide, neck bent at an obscene angle.
For a moment, silence held. Even the ash falling from the sky seemed to pause.
Then the remaining scavenger bolted. The bag of food jostled against his back as he vanished between the ruins. His footsteps faded fast, swallowed by the empty city.
The group didn't chase.
They stared at the corpse at their feet—the sudden, casual end of a man.
Mara's jaw locked. Her knuckles whitened around the crowbar. She looked ready to swing it at Darius, not the corpse.
Hana gagged into her scarf, breath shallow, whispering: "He didn't even scream."
Elias, crouched in shadow, felt his claws throb in eerie recognition. The clean kill. The stillness afterward. It was the same silence that followed when his own jaws tore through Jonah's chest.
And the thought came sharp and bitter: Am I watching Darius, or watching myself?
The answer hollowed him out
Mara stepped forward, her boots grinding on the asphalt.
"Was that necessary?"
Darius didn't flinch. He brushed his palms together as if wiping away crumbs. "It's them or us." His tone was flat. A statement of gravity, not morality.
"Don't you dare—" Mara's voice shook with rage, with restraint. "Don't you dare act like you're the only one who's ever had to make a choice."
Darius tilted his head, calm, detached. "Then you understand."
The crowbar trembled in Mara's grip. For a heartbeat, Elias thought she would swing. Thought he would see bone split, blood spill, another life snuffed quick. But Mara only froze there, caught between fury and necessity, until the crowbar's weight seemed to drag her arm back down.
She spat into the ash instead.
The scavenger's body looked less like a man and more like discarded meat.
Darius turned and walked on. "There goes our belonging," he said, glancing toward the road where the second scavenger had fled with their food.
Mara muttered a curse. She shouldered her crowbar and followed. Hana trailed, pale and trembling.
Behind them, the corpse stayed in the ash, cooling.
The survivors had gathered what scraps they had left, pitiful compared to what was taken, and walked on in silence. But it was a new silence now.