The sun dipped behind the city's smog-kissed skyline as Ify stepped out of the Guild building, flipping the mission tag in her hand and squinting at the holographic print.
She didn't have time to call before a sleek black vehicle pulled up beside her with a soft purr. The tinted window rolled down to reveal Bara in the driver's seat, shades on, grinning like he owned the entire street.
"Yo. Need a ride, Princess?" he said with a wink.
Ify raised a brow. "Where the hell did you get that?" she asked, crossing her arms. "Last I checked, your transport was your mouth and Malik's feet."
Before he could answer, the passenger side door swung open, and Malik stepped out, expression as unreadable as always. His hoodie was pulled low over his eyes, and the faint scent of blood still clung to him despite the fresh change of clothes.
"Get in. You can scold us inside," Malik said flatly.
She slid into the back seat with suspicion etched across her face, gripping the seatbelt like she expected the car to sprout wings and fly.
Bara pulled off without waiting, the car humming smoothly down the road. For a moment, silence filled the cabin—until Ify leaned forward between the seats, glaring at both of them.
"Okay. Spill. Where'd this car come from? Did you steal it? And is that a custom dash display? That's like high-grade chrome tech. Wait—is that leather? Don't tell me you bought this with guild credits!"
Malik stared out the window like he wasn't there.
Bara kept his gaze on the road, casually chewing a toothpick before letting out a low whistle.
"Relax, babe. Just a little... side hustle," he said smoothly.
"A hustle?" Ify narrowed her eyes. "You two ran off while I was registering the mission for one hour. Don't tell me you robbed a bank."
Bara snorted. "We'd need like, forty minutes for that."
"Bara."
"It was just a little cleaning job," he said, flashing a sly grin as he turned the wheel. "Y'know... wipe down some trash, rearrange some furniture, maybe take out a few rats. Paid well. Very well. If you catch my drift."
Ify blinked, then leaned back slowly, mouth slightly open. "You killed people, didn't you."
"I never said that," Bara sang, tapping the steering wheel. "But hypothetically, if a group of scumbags happened to no longer be among the living, I might've hypothetically contributed to that beautiful karma."
"Unbelievable," she muttered, eyes wide. "And Malik helped you?!"
Malik didn't even turn around. "I didn't help. I cleaned."
"You two are insane," she muttered, half in awe, half in fear. "But damn… this car is sexy."
The car zipped through traffic, reflecting city lights off its polished black hood. It looked like it belonged to a celebrity or an underworld kingpin. Probably both.
Bara flipped a switch and soft trap music filtered through the speakers. "So," he said, glancing at her through the rearview mirror, "what mission did our pretty little D-Ranker pick out for us?"
Ify straightened up, switching from suspicious to business mode with an exhale. "It's a scouting job. Class C threat level, outskirts of District Twelve. Reports of abnormal activity, maybe a rogue spell anomaly. No casualties, just... creepy."
"Creepy sounds fun," Bara mused.
"Creepy means cursed," Malik added, his voice low. "I hate cursed."
Ify tossed them each a glowing data tag from her satchel. "Yeah, well. You boys seem to like playing with the dark. Might as well put it to good use."
Bara caught his and smirked. "I like this vibe already."
Malik gave her a sideways glance. "Next time, pick something that doesn't end with us buried under rubble or chased by feral spirits."
"No promises," Ify said sweetly, already pulling up the mission details on her comm.
The three drove off under the shifting neon haze of the city, unaware that something far worse than a rogue anomaly was waiting beyond the District borders.
The drive took them beyond the main city limits and into the outskirts—District Twelve, a neglected zone scarred by abandoned industrial parks, collapsed rooftops, and empty streets overrun with weeds and rusted steel. The air felt heavier here, like the atmosphere itself remembered pain.
They parked by a broken chain-link fence that had once guarded a facility long forgotten. The place looked dead. Not quiet—dead. Not a bird chirped. Not a breeze stirred. The silence was so total that even their footsteps sounded too loud as they walked forward.
The sun had dimmed behind ash-colored clouds. Shadows fell like wet ink, stretching long and wrong.
Ify held up the mission tablet, scanning for the pulse of the anomaly. "Signal's coming from that structure over there," she said, pointing toward a ruined warehouse, its walls peeling, its windows blown out like blind eyes.
They stepped inside.
And immediately stopped.
The stench hit them first.
Bara doubled over. "Oh—oh, hell no—!" he gagged, stumbling away from the doorway. "What is that?!"
Even Ify, normally composed, covered her mouth with a trembling hand, her eyes wide as they adjusted to the dark.
The warehouse interior had been painted in blood.
It dripped down the walls in smeared handprints and circular patterns. Symbols—some ancient, some unstable—glowed faintly on the concrete in a sickly green light. Corpses, or what remained of them, hung like butchered livestock from hooks welded into the ceiling. Some were missing heads. Others had unnatural gashes carved into their torsos—like someone had been trying to write with their insides.
But the worst part?
They were fresh.
Bara finally turned his face from where he'd vomited outside and forced himself back in. "Nope. Nope. I take it back. Forget what I said. Creepy is not fun."
Ify shivered, her knuckles white as she held the scanner. "This wasn't in the report," she whispered. "They said no casualties."
Malik walked in slowly, his heavy boots echoing off the slick floor. He moved toward a wall where a smear of dark blood traced along the concrete like a finger painting.
He knelt, pressing his hand into the stain.
His fingers twitched.
Cursed energy—chaotic, twisted—pulsed beneath the surface of the warehouse like something living. Something old.
Malik stood back up slowly, his voice low and cold.
"…You sure this was the mission?" he asked, turning to face the others. "Because this looks like we got way more than we bargained for."
Ify didn't answer.
Her scanner beeped erratically.
Then it glitched. Flashed red.
> "ANOMALY BREACH DETECTED – LEVEL: UNKNOWN"
Bara cleaned his mouth slowly, eyes flicking left to right. "Please tell me this is just a prank by the guild. Like a creepy initiation hazing thing."
From deeper within the warehouse, something wet moved.
A slithering drag of limbs on metal.
Followed by a low moan.
Malik's hand immediately reached for a rusted metal pipe on the ground—and it hissed to life, the cursed essence crawling up its frame and reshaping it into a jagged black-bladed spear.
Bara's fingers twitched slightly, subtle energy coiling around his eyes as he scanned the darkness.
Ify whispered, "Whatever did this… is still here."
Something breathed in the shadows.
Long.
And close.
The silence stretched for what felt like eternity. Each heartbeat in the stillness was a countdown—an omen.
And then…
A soft, slick sound echoed through the warehouse.
Drag. Thud. Drag. Thud.
It came from beyond the veil of shadows at the far end. Something large. Sluggish. And wet.
A sliver of movement—a glimmer of sinew—caught in the flickering overhead light.
Ify took a step back unconsciously, the scanner trembling in her grip.
Then the creature stepped into view.
And it was hell made flesh.
It stood nearly eight feet tall, its form hunched, but not from weakness—from pressure, like it was constantly caving in on itself, like the laws of reality were barely keeping it whole. Its skin was a patchwork of rotted flesh and metal grafts, uneven and stitched like a child's horrific art project. Tubes of black ooze pulsed along its sides like artificial veins. Its right arm was too long, dragging clawed fingers that scraped along the floor, while the left looked skeletal—completely stripped of skin, baring bone laced with runes that shimmered like maggots in moonlight.
Its face—or what should've been—was a jagged tear of exposed muscle. No eyes. No nose. Just a vertical, gaping maw that split its entire head like a grotesque flower, lined with twitching teeth that didn't match: human, animal, insectoid.
And it smiled.
Not with lips. But with the subtle tilt of its head. With the stretching of its neck as if curious. Amused. Hungry.
The anomaly pulsed behind it—a tear in space, swirling with crimson mist and distorted whispers—and whatever this thing was, it had crawled through it.
Ify gasped, stumbling backward.
Bara's face lost all color. "By all that is unholy… what the fuck is that?!"
The creature tilted its head, mimicking his voice in a warped, broken echo. "...wh̷̬̾á̶̱t̷̰̿ ̶̨͐t̵͖͝h̸̜̎e̶͖̿ ̴͍̽f̴̯̈́u̴̲̾c̶̯̕k̶̮̚…?"
Then it moved.
Fast.
Not naturally. Not with rhythm or steps. It glitched, jumping forward in twitchy jolts like a corrupted file skipping frames. It closed half the distance in a blink.
"MOVE!" Malik shouted, voice sharper than anyone had ever heard it.
He stepped forward, placing himself between the thing and his friends.
"Bara—go! Take Ify and run! Get the hell out of here!" he barked, eyes blazing.
Ify froze. "Wait—what? No! You're not—"
But Malik didn't let her finish.
He turned his head slightly, flashing a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I'll buy time. Don't argue. Just—go."
Bara grabbed Ify's arm roughly. She resisted, eyes wide and furious, but the cold in Bara's eyes said this wasn't a joke. With one pull, he yanked her away, dragging her toward the exit even as she screamed over her shoulder.
"Malik!!"
Malik stood tall, his fingers twitching as the chaos energy around him surged.
His voice dropped to a murmur. "Alright, ugly…"
He exhaled.
"Let's dance."
The creature opened its jaw wider, unhinging like a snake, the warehouse echoing with a chorus of demonic whispers.
Then it charged.