"Ahem…"
As soon as Elric stepped into the hallway, a sharp, acrid stench filled his lungs.
The transition was immediate and brutal. One moment he was breathing the stale but manageable air of the dorm's interior, and the next, it felt like someone had poured acid directly down his throat.
The air felt thick—impossibly thick—like trying to breathe through a wet cloth soaked in chemicals. It burned his throat and eyes with each shallow breath. His vision blurred instantly, tears streaming down his face as his body's natural defenses tried desperately to protect itself from the foreign toxins.
A wave of dizziness struck him hard enough to make him stumble against the wall, his shoulder slamming into the cold concrete as his legs threatened to give out beneath him.
The smell was something between gasoline and rotten metal—poisonous, heavy, alive. It clung to everything it touched, seeping into fabric, skin, and lungs like an invasive parasite seeking a new host.
Elric's hand shot out to steady himself against the wall, his knuckles white as he gripped the rough surface. His other hand instinctively went to his mask, checking the seal, making sure it was properly fitted. The respirator was doing its job—he could feel the filtered air coming through—but even with protection, the sheer concentration of toxins in the atmosphere was overwhelming.
This was worse than he'd expected.
Much worse.
He clenched his jaw, forcing his body to adjust. His enhanced metabolism—thanks to his evolving physique from the system rewards—fought back against the toxins seeping through the mist. He could feel it working, his cells adapting faster than a normal human's would, processing and neutralizing the poison at an accelerated rate.
But even with his advantages, it was a battle.
His heart pounded in his chest, working overtime to pump oxygen through his compromised system. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the cool temperature. His stomach churned with nausea that threatened to empty what little food he'd eaten earlier.
After about an hour of careful, measured breathing and slow movement through the fog-choked corridors, the nausea began to fade.
The fog still hissed around him like a living thing, swirling in hypnotic patterns that made depth perception nearly impossible. But his head finally cleared, the sharp pain in his temples dulling to a manageable throb.
His body had adapted.
For now.
[Room] After the adverse reactions faded, Elric opened the operating table space again Get started with the scanning feature.
The most dangerous thing in this fog is not its own poisonous gas.
There were cocooned masses too, pulsing faintly against the floor of the campus courtyard like grotesque eggs waiting to hatch.
If anyone walked into that fog without a scan, they wouldn't even see the creatures until it was too late.
They'd be torn apart before they understood what was happening, their screams swallowed by the mist like they'd never existed at all.
The girls' dorm where Natasha was hiding wasn't far from the boys' residence hall—just a few hundred yards of fog-covered ground between them.
Under normal circumstances, it would be a casual two-minute walk. Students made the trip dozens of times a day, chatting and laughing, completely oblivious to how safe they'd been.
Now, those few hundred yards might as well have been miles of hostile territory.
Elric moved quietly, hugging the wall, his footsteps deliberately light despite the heavy boots he wore. Every few seconds, he stopped to check corners, he sweeping in wide arcs to detect any movement before it could detect him.
The fog played tricks on perception. Shapes loomed and vanished. Shadows danced at the edge of vision. More than once, he froze, certain he'd seen something move, only to realize it was just the mist swirling around a lamppost or bench.
Paranoia wasn't a weakness anymore. It was survival instinct.
When he reached the base of the boys' dorm, the entire area was empty.
No voices. No footsteps. No signs of human life at all.
Just the faint whisper of the fog sliding through cracked windows like the breath of some vast, sleeping beast.
The building loomed above him, dark windows staring down like empty eye sockets. Somewhere inside, people were probably huddled in their rooms, too terrified to move, too hopeful to flee, waiting for rescue that would never come.
No one else would risk stepping out here. Not unless they had no choice.
Not unless they were desperate enough to trade away their only advantage for a chance at food and water.
Elric crouched behind a shattered bulletin board near the entrance, his back pressed against the damp wood. He pulled out his cracked smartphone—the screen protector was spiderwebbed with damage, but it still functioned—and sent a message.
Elric: [I'm outside the boys' dorm. Where are you?]
The reply came faster than expected, the phone buzzing in his hand.
Liam: [Almost there.]
A second message followed immediately.
Liam: [Heads up, though. I'm not alone this time. Got some people from the Athletics Department with me — seven, maybe eight.]
Elric's eyes narrowed, his jaw tightening.
Liam: [Don't freak out, man. We're just moving together since the pool water's gone toxic. We need supplies bad.]
Liam: [We'll trade fair, promise.]
Elric frowned, reading the messages twice to make sure he understood correctly.
Seven or eight people?
That wasn't what they'd agreed on.
Their arrangement had been simple: one-on-one trade, minimal contact, no complications. Liam brings the mutation fruit, Elric brings supplies, they exchange and part ways.
Now suddenly there was a group?
His mind raced through possibilities. Maybe Liam was telling the truth—maybe he really did just need protection for the journey. The athletics crowd would be stronger than average, better equipped to handle the physical demands of moving through toxic fog.
Or maybe this was a setup.
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