The evening drew near gently with suffocating speed of the fading bright sky, choking out the remaining orange light of the Ohio skyline and burying the university block in a thick, bruised purple twilight.
Back in his single dorm room, Caleb sat on the edge of his unmade bed, uncapping a small plastic bottle of prescription analgesics he had been handed upon his discharge.
He tipped two chalky white pills into his palm, swallowed them dry, and leaned back against the headboard, staring blankly at the dark ceiling.
Within ten minutes, the room began to tilt.
A heavy, unnatural fuzziness settled behind his eyes, followed by a sudden, intense lethargy that turned his limbs to lead. Caleb gasped, his chest tightening as if an iron band were constricting his lungs.
He tried to stand, his fingers desperately reaching out to clamp onto the edge of his wooden study desk to keep himself upright.
"Help—"
The word died in his throat. His breath choked out completely, his vision blacked out, and his strength failed him entirely as he collapsed onto the rug, his body convulsing in silent, subterranean spasms.
"AOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO—"
Raw, guttural howl shattered the evening silence of the empty quad, echoing off the limestone facades with a bloodcurdling resonance that made the windowpanes rattle in their frames.
Damon was the first to react. Standing in his dormitory corridor, his sharp ears picked up the acoustic signature instantly. He didn't waste a second. Stripping off his formal wear, he pulled on a plain grey hoodie and black baggy pants—simple, unidentifiable attire that allowed for unrestricted movement in the dark. Recognizing the distinct, monstrous pattern of the howling beast, Damon pulled out his phone and fired a single text to Lira.
Minutes later, Lira met him at the base of the rear fire escape, dressed in identical dark gear—a grey hoodie pulled low over her hair and loose black cargo trousers.
They moved like shadows through the misty brush toward the northern perimeter, stopping dead in their tracks at the edge of the maintenance court.
Under the flickering beam of an overhead arc light stood a nightmare. It was a horrifying were-human—a grotesque, unstable chimera whose left side retained the pale, terrified features of Caleb, while the right side had erupted into a mass of matted black fur, hyper-elongated bone structure, and a dripping, monstrous canine snout.
It was now undeniably confirmed, the dark liquid Bill had injected into Caleb's neck had mutated his whole being, turning the boy into the very monster which rampages and slaughters.
At the beast's feet lay three campus security men, completely incapacitated. Caleb had attacked them in his blind, agonized rage—huge, jagged claw marks lacerating their arms and chests with enough force and violent shock to knock them out cold where they fell.
"We can't let the precinct backup bag him," Damon sighed, his dark eyes tracking the violent rise and fall of the creature's chest. "Lira, call Holly and Fiona."
Lira quickly patched through to the secondary line. Fiona, who wasn't really happy to be dragged into another dangerous, violent anomaly so soon after her psychic breakdown, nevertheless agreed to step up alongside Holly to create a series of structural distractions on the south side of the block, drawing the incoming patrol vehicles away from the scene.
Meanwhile, Quive Stephenson, who happened to be driving nearby along the outer perimeter road, caught a sharp, erratic signal pulsing through his tactical comms unit. He pulled his black vehicle to the curb, his eyes narrowing as he adjusted the frequency to lock onto the anomaly.
At the very same moment, Claire noticed the sudden surge of security patrols sweeping toward the quad. Working swiftly alongside Ryan, who used his subtle metal manipulation to unlatch the trunk of an idling patrol car, Claire sneaked up through the fog. She logged into one of the officers' handheld radios, planting a tiny, high-frequency bug which gave them access to instantly tap into and monitor every single incoming radio transmission from the precinct network.
While the hunt was erupting across the quad, a completely different tension filled the quiet corridors of the local clinic.
Rein stood inside Professor Julian's private consultation lab. Even though it had been almost three years since her initial containment treatment, she felt a persistent, icy numbness spreading down her right arm—a dull ache that had intensified dramatically ever since the spectre had emerged from the chalk circle the previous night and demanded to know why she lacked the Death Bringer.
Professor Julian performed a full diagnostic scan for her within the clinic, adhering strictly to proper medical procedures to avoid drawing the suspicion of the floor nurses, while discreetly altering the raw data from her blood tests on his terminal to wipe any trace of her anomalous signatures from the hospital record.
While Julian was adjusting the digital monitors, Rein's eyes drifted toward the glass partition of the hallway.
Through the blur of the frosted pane, she caught sight of Bill. He was dressed in his heavy canvas street coat, clutching his dark bag, and leaving the clinic in a frantic, suspicious hurry.
A sharp spike of adrenaline surged through Rein's chest. Remembering the charcoal sketch and the attack in the woods, her muscles tensed, and she prepared to step forward to intercept him—
Before she could take a single step, a firm, cold hand clamped around her shoulder from behind, holding her back with unyielding force.
Rein turned her head to see Doctor Gadhi standing right behind her in the shadows of the lab. Gadhi's eyes were dark and piercing as she leaned down, her voice in low, warning whisper cut straight through Rein's panic.
"Don't move," Gadhi commanded softly, her grip tightening on Rein's arm. "Think about where you are, Rein. If you blow your cover inside this facility, everything we've built crumbles."