Part III — The Underground Light
When the haze lifted, he was on his knees in the ruins of the underpass.
Rain poured through a hole in the roof, washing away the crimson traces of what had happened.
He was himself again — mostly.
Naked under torn clothes, trembling, throat raw, chest heaving.
A shadow stepped out from the dark.
Not Prophet.
Someone younger, leaner — a woman with skin the color of burnt bronze and hair silvered at the tips like moonlight had touched it.
She carried a knife in one hand and a flickering charm in the other.
Her eyes met his with no fear.
"Easy," she said, voice low and careful. "You'll tear what's left of you if you move too fast."
Kai tried to speak, but his voice came out hoarse. "What… what did I do?"
"You woke up," she said simply.
Then she crouched beside him, studying the veins of light still pulsing faintly under his skin. "You're not just one of us."
He frowned. "Us?"
She smiled — a small, sad curve of the mouth. "Werewolves, changelings, monsters. Whatever name humans gave us to feel brave."
Kai swallowed. "Then what am I?"
Her gaze didn't waver.
"You're what we came from."
The charm in her hand sparked once — a pale lunar flame that cast his shadow across the wreckage.
In that light, the ghost of a wolf rose behind him, vast and ancient, howling without sound.
From somewhere deep in the city, alarms wailed — sirens, but not police. Something else.
She stood, offered him a hand.
"Come on, Echo. They'll be hunting the frequency now."
He took her hand. The hum returned, softer this time, almost like a melody.
And as they vanished into the maze of neon and fog, the city's pulse changed.
Something old had rejoined the rhythm.
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> "The moon does not choose her children.
She only calls — and waits to see who answers."
— The Lycan Codex, Fragment 1: The First Frequency