The glyph doesn't move.
It just sits on the concrete like it's always been there. Circle, three curved slashes, tight little marks around the edge. Too clean. Too dry. Wrong for a place that smells like mold and rust.
My phone buzzes in my hand.
[UNREGISTERED GLYPH DETECTED][ERROR: INSUFFICIENT PERMISSION][ADVISORY: LEAVE AREA]
The System sits quiet after that. No explanation. No help. Typical.
I take one more slow look around the station. Empty tracks. Dead advertising boards. Emergency lights buzzing like tired insects.
If that mark belongs to something that needs "permission," it's above my pay grade.
I snap a photo anyway. Two, from different angles. The lens tries to auto-focus and twitches, like it doesn't want to look straight at the lines. The last photo comes out slightly warped. Edges bent.
"Fine," I tell the wall. "You're going in the report."
I turn my back on the glyph and head for the stairs.
The temperature climbs with each step. By the time I hit the top, my breath's invisible again and my fingers feel like they belong to a living person. The door at street level shudders when I shove it, then gives way with a grunt of old metal.
Night air hits me in the face. Diesel and old rain and hot trash. Somehow cleaner than whatever passes for oxygen down there.
I step out onto the sidewalk.
The station entrance is one of the forgotten ones. No proper metal shutter. Just a chipped concrete arch with a faded Metro logo and a rusted chain no one bothers to lock. The street above Old Line 7 isn't much better. Closed storefronts. Roller shutters painted with aggressive graffiti and half-hearted art. A 24-hour corner shop bleeds neon onto the wet pavement.
The city hums. Distant siren, closer scooter engine, a drunk yelling two blocks over. Normal sounds. Good sounds.
I take a second to watch the reflection of the entrance in a puddle. No shadows moving wrong. No cold mist creeping up the stairs.
Clean enough.
My phone pings in my hand again. Different tone.
[CONTRACT E-12 "WHISPERS ON LINE 7" – STATUS: CLEARED][PAYOUT: 240 CREDITS PENDING][XP GAINED: 100][LEVEL UP → 2]
Under that, little adjustments:
[HP: 74% → 82%][STAMINA: 61% → 70%]
No fanfare. No fireworks. Just numbers quietly shuffling like accounting.
"Congratulations to me," I mutter.
I pocket the phone and cross the street toward the Guild booth.
They call it a branch office in the app. In reality it's a reinforced glass box wedged into the corner of a parking lot, attached to a prefab kiosk that sells burnt coffee. Alien blue Guild logo flickers above it, fighting the rain and losing.
Nobody waits inside. No line at 3 a.m. The door recognizes my token automatically and clicks open.
Warm air, cheap heating. Old posters on the walls selling "Career Paths in Monster Management" like this is a university open day and not a slow suicide. One counter. One terminal. One dropbox for physical evidence if you're old-school or paranoid.
I set the lamp and my knife on the counter, hit the terminal with my wrist chip, and let it sync.
The screen shows a stylized map of Line 7 for half a second. Little red hazard icons blink out one by one as the system accepts my kill report. A short text scrolls at the bottom:
E-12 ANOMALY: CLEANSEDRISK RATING: WITHIN EXPECTED PARAMETERS
Sure. Expected.
The terminal offers a feedback box: "Describe your experience."I leave it blank. They don't pay extra for words.
I do upload the photo of the scorched rails and the junction box. That part they care about. Guild hates unregistered power lines. Messes with their disaster models.
I don't upload the glyph.
Not yet.
My phone vibrates again in my pocket, sharp, like it heard the decision.
I ignore it and slide my knife back into its sheath. The lamp goes onto the charging rack behind the counter. I'll pick it up tomorrow, if no one steals it.
Out on the street again, the city has shifted a little. Less traffic. More silence between sounds. The corner shop's neon flickers out as I pass. Someone inside swears and kicks something metal.
I'm three steps past the station entrance when the System pings me again.
Short, urgent.
[NEARBY ANOMALY DETECTED][RANGE: 230 M][SEVERITY: LOW][REWARD: VARIABLE][ACCEPT AUTO-GENERATED CONTRACT?][Y/N]
The word that catches my eye isn't "anomaly."It's "auto-generated."
Guild doesn't use that word. They like "assigned" or "approved."
"What are you doing," I say under my breath.
Level 2, apparently. Level 2 comes with unsolicited jobs.
I think about saying no. I could go home. Shower. Sleep four hours. Pretend the glyph doesn't itch at the back of my skull.
But I'm already hunting tonight. Gear's out. Blood's up enough. And if there's something spilling out of Line 7 this fast, leaving it might delay sleep permanently.
I tap Y.
The city map pops up, simple lines and blocks. A red dot pulses in an alley behind the closed electronics store two streets over. Timestamp already counting.
[CONTRACT E-13 "SURFACE NOISE" – ACTIVE][OBJECTIVE: INVESTIGATE AND NEUTRALIZE MINOR ANOMALY][CLIENT: —][ORIGIN: SYSTEM]
No client. That's new.
I turn my collar up against the wind and head for the alley.
The route takes me past shuttered storefronts wearing graffiti like armor. A busted billboard leans against a wall, old ad peeling in strips. The rain picks up just enough to make the pavement shine. Streetlights smear across it in long streaks.
Halfway there, the temperature dips again. Not a full Wraith drop. Just a subtle edge, like walking past an open freezer door.
The System confirms it:
[RANGE: 90 M][THREAT: UNKNOWN (EST. F-RANK)]
Good. Low-tier. Warm-up.
I turn into the target street.
The electronics store sits dark, its sign a broken jaw of plastic. The alley runs down the side, squeezed between it and a cracked concrete office block. Dumpsters. Wet cardboard. Old posters peeling in long, damp tongues.
The smell changes as I step in. Less city, more rot. Organic, but not quite trash. A sweetness under the sour. Flesh going wrong.
I follow it deeper.
The street sounds fade behind me. The alley's its own dead zone. Only noise is water dripping from a bent gutter and the soft, wet crackle of something moving out of sight.
[RANGE: 20 M]
The red dot on the map sits at the corner where the alley turns toward the back entrances. Blind angle.
Classic.
I slow. Knife comes out. No lamp this time; the overhead security light throws enough weak yellow to see shapes. Shadows cling under the metal fire stairs and around the dumpsters, thicker than they should be.
The crackling sound stops.
I edge up to the corner and lean out just enough to see.
At first it looks like garbage piled in the middle of the back lot.
Then it moves.
Rats.
A lot of them. Two dozen at least. They're packed too tight, all pressed into each other in a single heaving mound of fur and tails. But the mound doesn't break apart. It moves as one piece, shifting in lurches, dragging itself toward a dark patch on the concrete.
The patch glistens.
Blood, thin and fresh, sliding from a tied trash bag someone dropped when they closed earlier. The bag has a tear near the top. Something pink and butchered is visible inside. Offcuts. Maybe pig. Maybe not.
The rats pour themselves up the side of the bag, teeth flashing, bodies moving in a rolling wave.
Their eyes catch the yellow security light.
They don't shine normal red.
They shine the same flat gray as my phone screen in the tunnel.
[THREAT: PARASITIC SWARM][STATUS: MINOR][WEAKNESS: IMPACT / LIGHT / FIRE]
The Wraith's leftovers, maybe. Something in its wake. Ghost-burnt energy leaking up through cracks and into the first thing desperate enough to eat it.
Great.
One of the rats at the edge stops chewing and lifts its head. Its gaze clicks to me like a camera focusing. Then another. Then another.
The whole mound turns.
Dozens of eyes. Same wrong gray. Same dead reflection.
They ripple once and launch.
The swarm hits the concrete where I stood a second before, claws skittering, teeth chattering. I jump back, boot slipping on wet cardboard. My shoulder smacks into brick. The first of them leaps for my thigh.
I kick.
The rat explodes against the wall with a wet pop — but the body doesn't fall right. It smears, leaving a streak of blackish gel that wriggles before fading into the brick. The others surge over where it landed, eating the residue as they go.
"Disgusting," I say. "Zero stars."
No time for clever. Impact, light, fire.
Fire I don't have. Lamp's charging two blocks away. Impact I've got.
I step in and start culling.
Knife flashes, black metal catching the alley light. Each swing catches one or two bodies, sends them flying. They hit walls, dumpsters, concrete. Some burst into that same dark gel. Some stick and wriggle. The swarm splits and re-forms, mass flowing around my boots like liquid.
Tiny claws rake exposed skin at my wrist. It stings like acid. The spots go numb a second later.
The System throws up a note:
[WARNING: MINOR CORRUPTIVE CONTACT][STATUS: STABLE]
Good enough. I keep swinging.
The problem with stabbing rats is numbers. You don't win by killing one. You win by breaking whatever's making them move like that.
So I look for it.
Under the motion and fur and teeth, there's a pattern. The mound keeps reforming around one point near the center. Whenever they scatter, they cling a little tighter in that spot. Bulge forms, then sinks. Like a heartbeat.
The next time the swarm surges forward, I step into it instead of away.
Teeth hit my boot leather. Claws scramble up my jeans. Pain flares along my shin, bright and sharp. I ignore it and drive my knife straight into the center mass.
It hits something harder than bone. Resistance, then give.
The swarm screams.
It's not a rat sound. It's a broken train whistle shoved through a straw, high and sharp enough to pierce my eardrums. The mound blows apart, rats flung backward as if a small bomb went off inside them. They hit every surface and slide down, limp.
Something solid clinks on the ground where my blade just was.
I back up, chest heaving, knife still ready.
The rats don't move.
Most of them are already losing shape, fur collapsing into dark sludge that steams in the cold air. The smell is awful. Rot and rust and burnt wire.
At the center of the spreading stain lies a shard of metal.
Black. Twisted. About the size of my palm. Not steel, not cast iron. It has that same flat non-reflection as the Wraith's body. Lines are etched into it.
Circle. Three curved slashes.
My jaw tightens.
The System pings.
[CORRUPTED FRAGMENT RECOVERED][LINK: GLYPH — ACCESS DENIED][XP GAINED: 40]
Under that, a new line:
[HIDDEN OBJECTIVE CHAIN "MARKED LINES" – PROGRESS: 2 / ?]
Hidden objective.
So the glyph in the station wasn't a one-off. This thing was carrying a piece of it inside whatever passed for a core. Like a tag. Or a command.
The shard lies there in the steaming rat mess, perfectly clean, no slime touching it. The black surface drinks the light.
I kneel, making sure there's no movement left in the pile. The corruption stings along my shin where they got through the fabric. The System doesn't complain, so I ignore it too.
Up close, the etched circle looks deeper. Not scratched. Carved. The three curved lines inside it reach down, slightly uneven. If I stare too long, they look like they keep going past the surface, down into something I can't see.
My fingers hover over the shard.
The phone buzzes once.
[WARNING: UNKNOWN EFFECTS][RECOMMENDATION: DO NOT TOUCH]
Of course it says that after I kneel in the rats.
Behind me, on the main street, a car passes. Bass thumps through the alley walls. Human noise. Civilization. A reminder that time still exists.
I pull a small evidence pouch from my belt, hold it open with one hand, and flip the shard into it using the flat of the knife. No direct contact. The metal hits plastic with a sharp, dry sound.
The moment it's inside, the air pressure in the alley shifts. Like someone opened a vent in the sky.
The security light overhead flickers.
Then it goes out.
Darkness drops hard. No gradual dimming. Just on, off. The only light left is the thin spill from the street at the mouth of the alley.
My phone screen comes on by itself again, casting pale gray over my hand.
[ANOMALY CHAIN CONFIRMED][FACTION ACTIVITY: PROBABLE][DATA LOCKED UNTIL RANK: C]
C-rank.
I am very much not C-rank.
My thumb tightens on the pouch.
The System isn't done.
[ADVISORY: LEAVE AREA IMMEDIATELY][NOTE: ADDITIONAL ENTITIES INBOUND]
Wind slides down the alley, cold and fast. It smells like the tunnel again. Old stone and steel and something else. Something thin and hungry.
I stand, shard secured, knife slick with whatever passed for blood in those things.
At the alley mouth, the city looks normal. Wet asphalt, parked cars, distant traffic. But the reflections in the puddles have a faint circular distortion. Like someone dragged a fingernail through the image.
I take one step toward the street.
"Don't move," a voice says quietly behind me.
Not the System. Not a ghost.
Human. Male. Close.
"Hunter," the voice adds. "Turn around. Slowly. And keep your hands where I can see them. I need to know how much of that mark you're carrying."