"Don't move, or I'll rip your throat out before you can even scream."
That was the first thing I heard. Not a doctor, not a lawyer, and definitely not a welcoming committee. Just a voice that sounded like two slabs of granite grinding together, dripping with pure, unadulterated hunger.
I didn't move because something the size of a semi-truck was currently pinning my chest into a floor that felt like wet, pulsing leather. A claw—grey, jagged, and smelling like a slaughterhouse in July—was pressed firmly against my windpipe. One twitch, and I was a snack.
"What the hell..." I wheezed, my voice sounding like I'd swallowed a handful of gravel. "Where am I?"
"In the Deep, little meat," the thing hissed. It leaned closer. I could see its eyes now—milky, cataracts of hate with no pupils. "And you're the first thing that's fallen from the Upper World in a decade. You smell... sweet. Like fear and failure."
I tried to scramble back, but my limbs felt like lead. My memory was a shattered mirror. I remembered a flash of headlights, the screech of tires, and then a coldness so absolute it felt like my soul had been bleached. Now, I was being held down by a monster in a place called the Deep.
Great. Just great. My life on Earth was a series of losing streaks, and apparently, death was just a promotion to a worse neighborhood.
"Please," I managed to choke out. "I don't have anything. I'm nobody."
"Exactly," the monster grinned, revealing rows of needle-teeth. "Nobody's coming for you. Which means I can take my time."
It shifted its weight, the claws digging deeper into my skin. I felt a sharp sting, and then a sudden, electric jolt shot through my spine. It wasn't pain. It was something else. A hunger. Not in my stomach, but in my marrow.
As the creature let out a low, guttural growl of anticipation, a translucent blue screen flickered into existence right in front of my face.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZED] [USER: JACE MERCER] [STATUS: NEAR-DEATH / STARVING] [TRAIT DETECTED: FEAR-EATER (GLITCHED)]
I blinked. "What the fuck is this?"
"Stop twitching!" the beast roared, slamming its claw down harder.
But as it pressed down, I didn't feel the crush. I felt a surge. The creature was terrified. Not of me—not yet—but of something in the shadows behind it. It was projecting a wave of raw, primal dread, and for some reason, I could taste it. It tasted like ozone and copper. It tasted like power.
I didn't think. I just reached out and grabbed the creature's wrist.
"Get. Off. Me," I snarled.
Suddenly, a violent vacuum opened in my chest. I felt a rush of energy tear out of the monster and slam into me. The creature shrieked, a sound so loud it cracked the leather floor beneath us. It recoiled, its massive body jerking back as if it had been hit by a lightning bolt.
[FEAR CONSUMED: +10 EXP] [LEVEL UP: 0 -> 1] [NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED: DREAD GRIP]
I scrambled to my feet, gasping for air. I felt... stronger. Faster. The crushing weight of the world that had held me down for twenty-four years was gone, replaced by a buzzing adrenaline high that made my fingertips itch.
"You... you little parasite!" The monster roared, lunging forward. "You stole from me!"
I didn't have a weapon. I didn't even have shoes. But as the beast leaped, I stepped to the left, my movements fluid in a way they'd never been in life. I reached out and clamped my hand onto its forearm.
*Dread Grip.*
I didn't just hold it. I pulled. I felt the creature's terror—the fear of being hunted, the fear of the dark—and I sucked it dry. The beast let out a pathetic whimper, its muscles withering in real-time. It went from a predator to a shriveled husk in three seconds.
I stood over it, breathing hard, my heart hammering against my ribs. I looked at my hands. They were shaking, but not from fear. From greed.
"Is that all you've got?" I whispered, though I wasn't sure who I was talking to.
"Pretty impressive for a dead man," a woman's voice rang out, sharp and cold as a winter morning.
I spun around.
Standing twenty feet away was a girl. She looked about my age, wearing a worn leather coat reinforced with strange, glowing filaments. Her hair was a mess of dark curls, and her eyes were narrowed, scanning me like I was a specimen in a lab.
But it was what she was holding that mattered. A heavy, blackened rifle with a glowing blue crystal embedded in the chamber. And it was pointed directly at my forehead.
"Who are you?" I asked, raising my hands.
"The person who decides if you get to keep your head," she replied. She didn't lower the gun. If anything, she stepped closer, the barrel tracking my every move. "I saw what you did to that Scavenger. You didn't just kill it. You ate its fear. That's not a normal glitch, Mercer."
"How do you know my name?"
"The System announces arrivals to anyone with a tuned Anchor," she said, her voice devoid of sympathy. "Now, here's the deal. You're either a very useful tool or a very dangerous liability. I haven't decided which yet."
I tried to smirk, though my legs were still wobbling. "I'm not much of a tool. And I'm definitely not in the mood to be a liability."
"Wrong answer," she muttered. She shifted her stance, her finger tightening on the trigger. "You're coming with me. You're going to tell me everything you know about that trait, or I'll see if your head makes a better trophy than your fear does."
I opened my mouth to argue, but a sudden, violent vibration shook the ground. A deep, resonant boom echoed through the air, like a giant bell being struck underwater.
[SYSTEM ALERT: NEAREST ANCHOR IS COLLAPSING] [TIME TO TOTAL DISSOLUTION: 04:59] [STATUS: GET TO THE ANCHOR OR BE DIGESTED BY THE DEEP]
I looked at the screen, then at the girl.
"What the hell is an Anchor?" I yelled over the noise.
She cursed, her eyes flashing with urgency. She didn't lower the gun, but she grabbed my collar with her free hand, jerking me forward with surprising strength.
"It's the only thing keeping this place from eating us alive, idiot!" she snapped. "Run. Now!"
We sprinted through the pulsing, fleshy corridor, the walls beginning to secrete a thick, acidic bile. Every few steps, I could hear more shrieks echoing from the darkness—thousands of them, attracted by the scent of a failing Anchor.
We burst through a set of jagged ruins into a wide plaza. In the center stood a pillar of obsidian, flickering with a dying, pale light. It looked like a lighthouse at the end of the world, and it was cracking.
"Lira!" a man's voice screamed from the base of the pillar. A rugged guy in battered armor was fighting off three smaller, spindly creatures with a broken sword. "We can't hold them! The light's too low!"
Lira didn't stop. She kept her rifle leveled at the creatures, firing a bolt of blue energy that vaporized one of them instantly.
"Shut up and hold the line, Bram!" she yelled.
She shoved me toward the pillar, her back to me. I could feel the heat radiating off her—a mixture of sweat, gunpowder, and something like ozone. For a second, our shoulders brushed, and I felt a spark of that same electric hunger. Not for fear, but for... something else.
"Touch the stone," she commanded, her voice low and urgent. "If you've got a glitch, maybe you can jumpstart the damn thing."
I looked at the obsidian pillar. It was humming, a low-frequency vibration that made my teeth ache. I reached out, my palm inches from the cold surface.
"Wait!" Lira shouted, her eyes widening as she looked past me. "Behind you!"
I didn't even have time to turn. A massive, pale hand—fingers longer than my entire arm—slammed out of the shadows and gripped my shoulder, the claws sinking deep into my muscle.
I felt a surge of terror, not mine, but the thing's. It was terrified of the Anchor. And I was starving.