Chapter 1: Before the Noise Changed
The city always sounded alive to Brian Nolan.
Not in the poetic way people wrote about—no humming metaphor, no beating-heart nonsense. It was louder than that. Messier. Realer. Tires screaming against asphalt. Vendors shouting prices they didn't expect anyone to argue with. Someone's music leaking through cheap earbuds like a confession no one asked for.
Brian liked it because it talked back.
He stepped out of the metro station and into the afternoon heat, tugging his backpack strap higher onto his shoulder. The concrete stairs behind him exhaled commuters in waves, bodies brushing, elbows apologizing without words. Someone bumped his arm hard enough to jolt his phone loose.
"Whoa—hey," Brian said automatically, catching it before it hit the ground.
The guy who'd hit him didn't stop. Didn't even look back.
Brian stared after him for half a second, then snorted. "You're welcome, city."
He checked the time. 4:17 p.m.
Late. Again.
Brian weaved into the flow of pedestrians, letting himself be carried down the sidewalk like a leaf pretending it had a destination. His reflection slid across glass storefronts—dark hair too long because he kept forgetting to book a trim, a face that looked younger than twenty if he didn't frown on purpose, shoulders slightly hunched like he expected the world to apologize to him.
His phone buzzed.
Mom.
He answered before the second ring. "I know, I know. I'm late."
"You're not late," his mother said. "You're just… consistently unpredictable."
"That's my brand."
"You don't get a brand. You get dinner at seven. Are you still coming tomorrow?"
Brian sidestepped a man selling knockoff sunglasses from a folding table. "Yeah. I said I would."
"You say a lot of things."
"Wow. Okay. I see how it is."
She sighed, but there was a smile in it. Brian could always hear it. "Did you eat?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"Yes, I ate," he repeated.
"Brian."
"Okay, fine. I drank coffee. That counts as a liquid meal."
"That does not—"
"I'm alive. See? Proof it works."
She muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like a prayer. "Just… be careful. The news is strange today."
Brian frowned. "Strange how?"
"Protests. Accidents. People acting…" She paused. "Never mind. I don't want to worry you."
Too late, he thought, but he didn't say it. "I'll call you later."
"You always say—"
"I know. Love you."
Another sigh. Softer. "Love you too."
He hung up and slipped the phone back into his pocket, slowing as the sidewalk narrowed. A crowd had gathered ahead, bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder around something on the ground.
Great, Brian thought. Another street performance or someone yelling about the end of the world.
He craned his neck. "What happened?"
A woman near the front answered without looking at him. "Guy collapsed."
"Like… tripped?"
"No. Like dropped."
Brian edged closer. He caught a glimpse between shoulders—an older man sprawled on the pavement, one arm twisted wrong, mouth open. A young guy knelt beside him, fingers shaking as he pressed two against the man's neck.
"I don't feel anything," the guy said, panic cracking his voice. "I don't—someone call an ambulance!"
"I already did!" someone shouted back.
Brian swallowed. He'd seen people pass out before. Heat stroke, blood pressure, all that. Normal city stuff. He told himself that as a ripple of unease slid under his ribs.
The man on the ground jerked.
Just once. Sharp.
A woman screamed.
"He's moving," someone said. "He's alive!"
The kneeling guy smiled in relief—then flinched as the man's head snapped sideways with a wet crack.
The smile vanished.
"What the hell?" the guy whispered.
The man's eyes opened.
Not all the way. Just enough.
They were wrong. Not glassy or unfocused. They locked onto the kneeling guy's face with a kind of raw, animal intent.
The man lunged.
The kneeling guy didn't have time to react. Teeth sank into his forearm. Blood sprayed, bright and shocking against gray concrete.
For half a second, nobody moved.
Then the street exploded into noise.
"Hey! Get him off!"
"Jesus Christ!"
"What is he doing?!"
Brian staggered back as the crowd surged. Someone fell against him, knocking the air from his lungs. He caught himself on a parking meter, heart hammering.
"What—what is this?" he muttered.
The man on the ground—no, not a man anymore—clung to the screaming guy with impossible strength. Two others rushed forward, trying to pull him off.
The thing bit again.
Brian turned and ran.
He didn't think. He didn't plan. His legs just moved, carrying him down a side street that smelled like trash and old rain. His breath came fast, shallow.
"Calm down," he told himself aloud. "Okay. Okay. That's not—people snap. Drugs. Medical emergency."
A crash echoed behind him.
A scream cut off mid-sound.
Brian didn't look back.
He slowed only when his lungs burned, bending over with his hands on his knees. His vision swam. The city noises felt… different now. Sharper. Edgier. Like the background hum had tuned itself wrong.
His phone buzzed again.
Unknown number.
He answered with a shaky laugh. "Yeah, if this is a scam, you picked a bad time."
"Brian?" A familiar voice, tight with fear. "It's Mark."
His stomach dropped. "What's wrong?"
"Where are you?"
"Downtown. Why?"
"Listen to me," Mark said. "You need to get somewhere safe."
Brian straightened slowly. "Did you see it too?"
There was a pause. Long enough to be terrifying.
"Yes."
"Okay," Brian said, forcing steadiness into his voice. "Okay. So we're both hallucinating. That's good. Shared delusion."
"Brian, I watched a woman bite through her husband's neck."
The street around Brian seemed to tilt. "That's not funny."
"I'm not joking!"
A siren wailed in the distance, then another. Then several, overlapping into a discordant scream.
"What's going on?" Brian asked.
"I don't know," Mark said. "But it's spreading. Social media's blowing up. People are calling it riots, attacks, some kind of disease—"
A loud bang echoed through the phone, followed by shouting.
"Mark?" Brian said. "Mark!"
"I have to go," Mark said quickly. "Something's wrong. If you can hear this—don't help anyone who looks hurt. Don't stop. Just run."
The call cut off.
Brian stood in the middle of the sidewalk, phone pressed to his ear long after the line went dead.
"Don't help anyone," he repeated.
That didn't sound real. That sounded like something someone said in a movie right before the main character did the opposite.
A woman stumbled out of a nearby café, clutching her stomach. Blood soaked through her fingers.
"Help," she croaked.
Brian took a step toward her without thinking.
She looked up.
Her eyes were red around the edges, veins dark and spiderwebbed. Her jaw hung slightly open, saliva stringing between her teeth.
Brian froze.
The woman hissed.
He ran.
This time, he didn't slow down.
He ducked into an apartment building with its front door propped open, nearly colliding with a man barreling out carrying a duffel bag.
"Move!" the man shouted, shoving past him.
Brian took the stairs two at a time, chest tight, ears ringing. He reached the third floor before realizing he had no idea where he was going.
A door slammed somewhere below.
Footsteps pounded upward.
"Hello?" a voice called. "Is someone there?"
Brian backed away, pressing himself against the wall. He held his breath.
The footsteps passed his floor, continued upward.
A scream echoed from above, high and sharp, followed by a wet, tearing sound.
Brian slid down until he was sitting on the cold concrete steps, hands shaking so badly he had to clench them together.
"This isn't happening," he whispered. "This isn't—"
The building lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then went out.
The city, which had never shut up for a single second of his life, went eerily, impossibly quiet.
And then—
Somewhere far away—
Something roared.
Not an animal. Not a machine.
Something wrong.
Brian pressed his forehead against his knees as the first distant explosions rolled through the city, windows shattering, alarms screaming to life all at once.
Above him, footsteps came back down the stairs.
Fast.
Uncoordinated.
Hungry.
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End of Chapter 1