Rain keeps falling like it doesn't care.
No tilt. No mercy. Just cold needles stitching the street together.
Ivante moves before his mind can catch up.
One step. Then another.
The gold candles flicker behind him — a nervous breathing — and the Gorger's head snaps toward the motion like a snapped trap.
Up close, it's worse.
Skin slick as boiled tar, veins pulsing a sickly violet beneath translucent flesh. The three-split jaw hangs loose, drool threading in sticky ropes that hiss when they hit wet asphalt. Its eyes aren't eyes — just deep pits that reflect nothing back.
Ivante's lungs burn.
His feet slide on the rain.
He tastes metal. He tastes fear. He tastes the echo of teeth that were just inside him.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
"Kid—" Mario starts, boots grinding into the street as he shifts forward.
Too late.
The Gorger lunges.
It doesn't leap so much as collapse forward, weight turning into momentum, claws scything through rain. Ivante sees the sweep coming — a blur of bone and muscle — and his body does something stupid.
He dives.
Shoulder hits pavement. The world smears sideways. His cheek scrapes glass, skin tearing, blood blooming hot against the cold rain.
The claw whistles past where his head was.
Close enough to comb his braids with wind.
The Gorger's bulk slams into the street behind him, concrete cracking in a spiderweb burst that sprays grit into the air. Its tail — a barbed rope of cartilage — whips low.
Ivante rolls.
Too slow.
The tail snaps across his ribs like a baseball bat.
Crack.
Air leaves him in a wheeze that tastes like pennies. His body skids three feet, slamming against a parked car hard enough to dent metal.
He gasps, coughing, chest screaming.
"Back!" Sister Lena shouts, her voice razor-edged now, gold light trembling around her like heat. "Back inside the circle, Ivante!"
He hears his name and it feels wrong in his mouth.
Too loud. Too fragile.
Mario barrels past him, planting his boots, forearms locking again. His left arm still whole this time — unbroken — muscles bulging, face pale but set.
The Gorger smashes into him.
Impact.
The street shivers.
Mario's boots carve trenches in asphalt as he holds. Veins stand out along his neck. Sweat and rain slick his face. His teeth grit so hard Ivante thinks they might crack.
For one blessed second, the creature stalls again.
Ivante pushes himself up on shaking arms.
Across the street, Little Benny hasn't moved yet. Umbrella trembling in his grip. Chalk still clinging to his fingers.
"Don't run," Ivante croaks, voice shredded. "Don't— don't run."
Benny stares at him, eyes too big, breath shallow.
The Gorger's jaw splits wider.
Three mouths open at once.
Mario sees it.
He twists, trying to angle his body, but the creature's weight pins him. Teeth snap down — not on his arm this time, but his shoulder.
Ivante hears the crunch before he sees it.
A wet, intimate sound, like biting into fruit that's already rotting.
Blood sprays again, painting the gold light.
Mario screams — not a roar, not a command — just raw pain ripped from deep in his chest.
Ivante moves.
He doesn't think. He runs.
Rain hammers his face. His heart thunders. He feels the rewind still humming in his bones like a ghost.
He grabs Benny by the back of his jacket and yanks hard.
"Move!" Ivante barks, voice cracking. "Move, damn it!"
Benny stumbles, umbrella clattering to the ground. Chalk spills everywhere like snow.
The Gorger jerks its head.
Mario's body flies sideways, shoulder mangled, hitting the street with a sickening thud that echoes down the block.
The creature's head whips toward Ivante.
Too fast.
Ivante shoves Benny behind him and plants his feet like he's seen Mario do — knees bent, shoulders squared — pretending this is something he knows how to survive.
The Gorger lunges.
Jaws open wide enough to swallow a car.
Time stutters.
Ivante feels it again — that hitch, that split-second drag, like the world hesitating before deciding whether he deserves to exist.
Then teeth.
They punch through his left side this time, lower, tearing through muscle and cartilage. His ribs splinter. His back arches. His body lifts off the ground as the creature clamps down.
Pain is white. Then red. Then everything.
He tastes rot. He tastes rain. He tastes his own blood.
He hears Benny scream — a thin, tearing sound that knifes straight through him.
His heart slams once.
Twice.
Stop.
Dark.
Cold.
Weightless.
—
He wakes beneath the same streetlamp.
Rain.
Sirens.
Gold candles steady.
His side is whole. His ribs unbroken. His jacket still torn at the elbow.
Two minutes earlier.
His breath comes in ragged pulls that scrape his throat raw.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Across the street, Benny still holds his umbrella.
Mario hasn't moved yet.
Sister Lena's hands hover over wax, light bending like glass.
Ivante looks down at himself, hands trembling, rain running between his fingers.
He remembers teeth.
He remembers Mario's scream.
He remembers Benny's face twisted in terror.
The alley rumbles.
Brick cracks.
Dust rolls out like breath.
Ivante swallows bile.
He laughs — a broken, ugly sound that slips out before he can stop it.
"Shit," he whispers. "Shit, shit, shit."
The Gorger bursts through again, bigger in his memory, just as monstrous in reality.
Mario plants his boots.
"Hold your breath," he says, calm as a heartbeat.
Ivante looks at Benny.
At Mario.
At the monster.
His chest tightens — but something else threads through it now. Cold. Sharp. Determined.
He steps forward again.
But this time, he doesn't rush.
He angles left.
Rain slicks the street. A mirror shard glints near his foot. He plants his heel on it without looking, grinding glass into asphalt.
The Gorger lunges.
Ivante sidesteps — too close — feeling the hot stink of its breath brush his cheek. He throws himself low, sliding on his hip beneath the creature's sweeping claw.
The tail whips.
He rolls through it, spine scraping pavement, teeth clacking together.
He pops up on his feet.
"Mario!" Ivante shouts, voice hoarse but clear. "Don't brace — drop and twist!"
Mario hesitates — just a breath — then trusts him.
He lets his weight go and twists his torso.
The Gorger's jaws snap shut on empty air where Mario's shoulder was a second ago. Momentum carries the creature forward, overextended.
Ivante runs straight at its flank.
He doesn't aim for the monster.
He aims for Benny.
He snatches the boy by the collar and hurls him toward the gold circle.
"Run!" Ivante screams. "Run, run, run!"
Benny scrambles, chalk dust trailing like smoke, disappearing behind Lena's trembling light.
The Gorger roars.
Sound tears the rain apart.
Ivante turns — too slow.
Claws rake down his back.
Fabric splits. Skin opens. Pain lances white-hot from shoulder to hip, ribs exposed in a flash of wet red.
He stumbles, breath ripped out of him.
Mario lunges back in, planting a boot and slamming his forearm into the creature's jaw with everything he has. Bone cracks — not Mario's — the Gorger's, a splintering snap that makes the street shudder.
Lena slams both palms down.
Gold light erupts.
A net of radiant threads snaps across the street, searing the Gorger's skin where it touches, smoke hissing into rain.
The creature thrashes.
Ivante staggers forward, vision tunneling, blood pouring down his legs.
He feels his heart pounding, frantic, desperate.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He looks at Mario — battered but alive. At Benny — safe behind gold. At the Gorger — burning, writhing, furious.
His knees buckle.
The world narrows to a pinprick of light.
He thinks of teeth. Of bone. Of two minutes that keep resetting like a cruel joke.
He takes one more step.
His heart slams once.
Twice.
The Gorger breaks free of the net with a roar that shakes windows.
Its head snaps toward him.
Ivante opens his mouth — maybe to scream, maybe to curse, maybe to beg —
—and the world tilts toward teeth.