The air in the lecture hall curdled the second Sono stepped through the threshold. Max watched with a detached, clinical interest as a collective, repulsive shiver traveled through the rows of desks. It was as if a predator had entered a cage of herbivores; students instinctively jerked their heads away, staring at their notebooks with a desperate intensity, while several in the front row were visibly trembling, the rattling of their pens against the plastic desks providing a rhythmic soundtrack to their terror.
"That's him," Steve hissed, his voice barely a breath of air. "That's the monster who broke Eric last night. Max, you don't understand... Eric couldn't even touch him."
