The first creature attacked.
It had the body of a man, naked and pale, but the head of something feline—muzzle elongated, teeth too long, eyes that glowed yellow in the dark. It moved on all fours, spine bent, and it was fast , faster than anything human, muscles rippling beneath skin that was too tight.
I met it head-on. Our claws collided, black against bone, and the impact sent shockwaves through my arm that made my teeth click. The creature was stronger. It drove me back, its jaws snapping inches from my throat, breath hot and rank. I crashed through a wall, concrete dust filling my lungs, my back hitting a steel support beam hard enough to dent it.
I stood. Blood ran down my mouth. The wound in my side closed. The creature charged again.
This time I moved differently. Lower. Quieter.
Predatory. I let the black substance guide me, let it show me the angles, the weaknesses, the precise place where the creature's neck met its malformed skull. I dodged. Clawed. Turned. Struck.
My hand punched through its chest. The creature collapsed, black blood pouring from the wound, its yellow eyes going dim. I stared at it. I had killed it.
Not the Beast. Me. I had chosen the strike, aimed the blow, ended the life.
Mara watched from behind a tank. "You didn't lose yourself."
"No." I looked at my hands, covered in black blood that wasn't mine. "I just knew where to hit."
Another creature emerged. Then another. A woman with too many joints in her arms, moving like a spider. A man whose skin had turned to chitin, hard and glossy. A child—a child —with eyes on the back of its head, weeping blood that turned to steam when it hit the floor.
Elara shouted: "There are too many!"
I looked around. They were converging, drawn by the scent of living things, by the noise, by the instinct to kill what wasn't them. We were outnumbered. Outmatched. Surrounded by nightmares that had been sleeping for years and were now very, very hungry.
"Then we stop fighting them," I said.
Mara understood immediately. "What do we do?"
"Run."
We sprinted toward the emergency exit, the creatures behind us, the facility becoming a battlefield of screams and breaking glass and the wet sounds of feeding.