Heartbeat Protocol

A cold, mechanical pulse tore through my chest as a crystalline beast pinned me to the blood-soaked subway floor, its fangs inches from my throat until a ruthless synthetic voice hijacked my mind: *Kill it, or die a failure.* By day, I am the disgraced family dropout living in the shadow of my perfect sister, hiding fresh wounds beneath cheap hoodies while she works for Defense to hunt down a rogue bio-weapon. By night, I *am* that weapon—tearing through alien swarms with a lethal AI heart that was never supposed to be inside my body. But as the machine in my veins slowly strips away my humanity, I uncover a sickening truth: the monsters devouring our city were funded by our own father, and the heart keeping me alive was stolen from Vera. When