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"Don't you dare look at me like that," Grimm spat, his voice a wet rattle. He was pinned against the blood-slicked wall, his mutated chest heaving. "You think you're better because you can still think? We're both just meat in a jar, Kane."
I didn't answer. I couldn't. My throat felt like it was lined with crushed glass, and every breath tasted of copper and ozone. I stepped closer, the claws on my new, oversized hands scraping the concrete. The power imbalance was sudden and violent. An hour ago, Grimm had been the apex of this hellhole. Now, he was just a shaking pile of grey flesh and desperation.
"Move and I'll rip your throat out," I rasped. The voice wasn't mine. It was deeper, vibrating in my chest like a dying engine.
Grimm let out a jagged laugh. "Go ahead. Do it. Maybe the Doctor will actually give you a gold star if you kill the only guy who knows where the vent shafts lead."
I froze. My hand was inches from his neck, the heat radiating off his skin smelling like burnt rubber. I didn't want to kill him. I wanted that map. But the hunger—that screaming, void-like itch in the center of my gut—wasn't interested in maps. It wanted the glowing core shard embedded in Grimm's shoulder. It wanted to evolve.
"The vents," I whispered, leaning in. I could feel the pulse in his neck drumming against my knuckles. "Tell me where they go, or I start eating you from the feet up."
"You're a monster," he hissed, though he didn't pull away. He couldn't. I had him locked. "A real fucking monster."
"I'm whatever she made me," I snapped. "Now talk."
"The main shaft is behind the incinerator," Grimm wheezed, his eyes darting toward the ceiling. "But you won't make it. The Pack is coming. They smelled the blood from the first breach. You think you're the only thing in here with a hunger?"
As if on cue, a shriek ripped through the corridor. It wasn't human. It wasn't even biological in any way I understood. It sounded like metal grinding against bone. Then came the scratching—hundreds of tiny, needle-like claws sprinting across the walls above us.
"Shit," I muttered, glancing up.
"Told you," Grimm smirked, though it looked more like a grimace of pain. "Welcome to the food chain, rookie."
I didn't have time to argue. The first one dropped from the ceiling—a pale, multi-limbed glitch-beast with eyes like milky marbles. It didn't hesitate. It slammed into me, knocking me flat onto the wet floor. I felt a sharp sting in my shoulder as its teeth sank in, but the pain didn't trigger fear. It triggered something else. Rage. Pure, unadulterated hunger.
I grabbed the creature by its neck, my claws sinking into its soft, translucent skin. I didn't just fight it; I tore it. I felt the snap of its spine under my grip and a surge of heat flooded my veins. I didn't eat it—not yet—but the act of killing felt like a drug.
"Get up!" I yelled at Grimm, who was trying to crawl away while the rest of the Pack descended. "If we die here, I'm dragging you to hell with me!"
"Help me then, you idiot!" Grimm screamed as a second beast clamped onto his leg.
I lunged. I didn't think. I just moved. I slammed my shoulder into the beast, sending it flying into the wall with a sickening crunch. I grabbed Grimm by the scruff of his neck and hauled him toward the corner of the room, using my larger bulk to shield him.
"Why?" Grimm gasped, his breath coming in short, panicked bursts. "Why the hell are you helping me?"
"Because I need that map," I growled, snapping my jaws at a creature trying to flank us. "And because I'm not letting this bitch win by letting you die first."
We fought for what felt like hours. Every time I killed one, I felt a flicker of something new in my mind—a fragment of a memory, a piece of code, a sensory glitch. I was evolving in real-time, my muscles tightening, my reflexes sharpening. But I could see Grimm fading. He was leaking fluid from a dozen gashes, his movements slowing.
Then, the room went silent. Not the kind of silence that means the danger is gone, but the kind that means something bigger just arrived.
At the end of the hall, a shadow emerged. It was the Scavenger—a massive, hulking distortion of a beast that looked like it had been stitched together from a dozen different failures. It didn't shriek. It just breathed, a heavy, wet sound that made the air feel thick.
"Oh, fuck," Grimm whispered. "That's the end. We're done."
I looked at him. Really looked at him. He was terrified, pathetic, and somehow, still holding onto a shred of humanity. I looked at the core shard in his shoulder—the glowing, crystalline key to the next level of evolution. If I took it, I’d be strong enough to fight that thing. If I didn't, we were both just calories for the Scavenger.
I felt my fingers twitch. The hunger was a roar now, drowning out everything. I could almost taste the power inside that shard. I could feel my body craving the upgrade, begging me to rip it out of Grimm's flesh and swallow it whole.
But I remembered the way he’d looked at me when I’d saved him from the Pack. Not as a monster. As a partner.
"Grimm," I said, my voice steady for the first time. "Hold still."
"What?" he asked, blinking.
I didn't eat the shard. Instead, I reached out and jammed the core fragment I’d harvested from the earlier kill—the one I’d been saving—straight into his open wound. I didn't steal his power; I gave him mine.
He screamed. A raw, guttural sound that echoed off the sterile walls. His body convulsed, the shard fusing with his own, triggering a forced, violent evolution. His skin hardened into a dark, iridescent plating. His muscles swelled, snapping the remnants of his rags.
"You... you idiot," Grimm gasped, his voice now a deep rumble. He looked at his new claws, then at me. "Why would you do that?"
"Because one of us has to be fast enough to get the door open," I said, stepping back as the Scavenger roared and charged. "Now get moving!"
We hit the Scavenger together. It was a blur of teeth, claws, and grey ichor. Grimm fought like a demon, his new strength slamming the beast back, while I went for the throat. We were a whirlwind of desperation and violence, two glitches fighting for a chance to be human again.
Just as I sank my teeth into the Scavenger's neck, a sharp, electronic *click* echoed through the chamber.
Above us, the reinforced glass observation deck shimmered. Dr. Vivian was there, leaning against the railing with a look of pure, clinical fascination. She wasn't horrified. She was smiling. It was the smile of a child watching an ant colony burn.
"Exquisite," she murmured, her voice amplified by the intercom. "The altruism variable. I didn't expect you to share, Kane. How... inefficient. And yet, so rewarding for the data."
She didn't wait for us to recover. Her finger hovered over a glowing red console.
"Let's see what happens when we merge the results," she said softly.
Before I could even breathe, she hit the button labeled TRANSFER BODY. A blinding white light erupted from the floor, pinning us both to the spot, and the world began to tear apart at the seams.