6:30 PM, late autumn.
The last echoes of school bells had long faded, leaving only the whisper of wind through empty corridors. The campus of Liberty Central High School stood deserted, shadows stretching like grasping fingers across the pavement.
At the front gate, the school's automated barrier lifted with a shrill metallic creak—a sound like a rusted hinge on a coffin lid.
A frail boy in a school uniform—around five-foot-three—emerged from the school grounds, his steps dragging like a marionette with half-cut strings. Dried blood streaked his forehead in jagged tributaries. His face was so swollen it resembled overripe fruit on the verge of bursting.
He stopped in the middle of the street, blinking with the dazed confusion of a newborn animal. Finally, he took a deep breath—several, in fact—his ribs expanding with unnatural elasticity. Then he turned toward the neon-drenched skyline and moved forward with sudden, terrifying resolve.
At first, his movement was grotesque. Each step unfolded in jerky increments, a stop-motion nightmare. His joints resisted every motion with audible pops, like a rusted humanoid machine shaking off decades of disuse.
But then—adaptation.
His limbs loosened. His coordination sharpened. His pace quickened with predatory precision.
Walk became jog. Jog became sprint—then something beyond human. His feet barely touched the ground, each stride devouring pavement with a sound like tearing cloth. On traffic cams, his form dissolved into a smear of motion.
Five kilometers away, a broad-shouldered man in a skin-tight tactical shirt paced down the sidewalk. Muscles rippled beneath the fabric like caged beasts, his spiked hair bristling like the quills of an annoyed porcupine.
His wrist terminal flashed crimson.
He glanced at the caller ID, groaned, and answered at the last possible second.
"Captain! We've got a Code Violet—high-speed target near Liberty Central!"
A young agent's voice crackled through the comms, breathless. "HQ's screaming for Unit Five, and the telemetry's off the charts!"
"Got it. See you on scene."
The man sighed and cracked his neck with a sound like stepping on twigs.
There goes date night. Again.
Why did monsters always have worse timing than his ex-wife?
Grumbling, he bent to tighten his shoelaces—then exploded forward without warning. The air itself seemed to flinch as he vanished, leaving only a shockwave of swirling litter in his wake.
Damn, it felt good to run.
No rubble. No twisted roots waiting to trip him. Just clean pavement and open air.
The scrawny boy pumped his legs with machine-gun rhythm, bare feet slapping asphalt in a staccato frenzy. Ahead, the scent of food intensified—a symphony of hot blood and adrenaline that made his dead salivary glands twitch.
He wanted to devour it all.
Not people. Not citizens. Just prey wrapped in noise and wheels.
A black luxury sedan hissed past him on the highway. Inside, a suited office worker white-knuckled the steering wheel.
"What the actual hell?!"
The man's voice cracked as he swerved. "Kid's gonna paint himself across my bumper!"
Still cursing, he fumbled for his phone. Good citizens reported maniacs. Especially maniacs who ran faster than his damn car.
The boy's eyes narrowed to slits. His psychic sense lashed toward the metal beast—only to shatter against something cold and impenetrable.
No mental fluctuations. No fear. Just… nothing.
Was this creature immune?
The sedan slowed obediently at a red light. The boy's lips peeled back in a black-gummed sneer.
Ah. It submits.
In the rearview mirror, the office worker watched in horror as the lunatic kept coming—full sprint, zero hesitation, like death itself wearing a school uniform.
Then—
From the right: A neon-blue sports car roared into the intersection, bass-heavy music vibrating its frame. The driver, some sunglasses-wearing idiot, was too busy scream-singing to notice the red light.
Or the thing darting behind the sedan.
Screeeeech—
Too late.
BANG— a sound like a freight train hitting a steel drum.
DUANG— the hollow crunch of metal folding like paper.
For a suspended moment, the boy's body hung mid-air, limbs splayed like a broken doll, before crashing onto the roof with a wet thud.
The car alarm wailed. The driver stumbled out, sunglasses cracked, voice shrill as a fire alarm.
"C-City Security? I just hit—no, something hit me—!"
The crescent moon cast silver-edged shadows across the wreckage.
The boy lay sprawled on the ruined roof, staring at the stars through the smoke of his own breath. His fingers twitched against crumpled metal—testing, probing, like a spider on a broken web.
Was I... too weak?
The thought burned like acid in his dead veins.
Or had the world grown teeth while I slept—teeth sharp enough to bite back?