Ethan staggered slightly, clutching the cold, damp wall for support as the images flooded his mind. Children—frightened, screaming, some no older than seven—were herded through metallic corridors like cattle. His breath caught when he saw one child, trembling, held down by masked figures as a glowing green serum was injected into his arm.
Moments later, chaos erupted.
Some of the children convulsed violently, their eyes rolling back. Others let out horrifying shrieks as their limbs twisted unnaturally, losing all sense of control. Blood stained the pristine white floors, and in the corner of his vision, Ethan could see a few lifeless bodies, their small forms limp and pale.
But what haunted him most were the ones who survived—those who didn't die, but changed. Their skin blistered, their eyes lost all innocence, and their bodies mutated just enough to show they were no longer completely human.
Ethan's pulse pounded in his ears as the vision shifted. He blinked rapidly, trying to process what he was seeing—but it made no sense. His thoughts scrambled to keep up. Test subjects… they were being used as test subjects… That was the only conclusion his overwhelmed mind could hold onto. Anything more would crush him.
The scene before him warped and settled again.
Now, the surviving children—just a handful—were thrown into a deep, circular pit surrounded by harsh lights and towering walls. Their eyes darted around wildly, confusion and terror painted across their young faces. Then it began.
Agonized screams pierced the air as each of them fell to their knees, bones snapping, skin tearing. The transformation was nothing short of torture. Limbs elongated, jaws stretched, claws tore through fingertips. The children howled in pain as they turned—forcefully, brutally—into lycans.
Then came the worst part.
They were made to fight.
The moment the last howl faded, snarls erupted. It was chaos—fur, blood, claws, desperation. Each child, now more beast than human, fought viciously for dominance. No mercy. No escape. One by one, they fell, until only one remained standing—battered, blood-soaked, chest heaving with ragged breaths.
In that grim silence, a voice echoed in Ethan's memory, cold and calculating:
"This one... is the chosen."
Ethan gasped, stepping back from the memory like it had physically struck him.
The scene shifted once more, smoother this time and less violent.
Ethan now found himself looking into a bright, sterile room filled with toys of every kind—tricycles, plush animals, puzzles, blocks. It looked like a daycare, almost peaceful. Except... the children inside weren't ordinary.
They laughed and played, some roughhousing a little more than others, but there was something beneath their laughter—an edge, a raw intensity. And it didn't take long for Ethan to realize: these were the survivors. The ones who had clawed their way out of the pit. The chosen few from the different batches.
They had been separated from the others and placed here, where they were closely monitored. No vegetables, no fruits—only meat. Slabs of it, raw or barely cooked. Day after day, it was fed to them, like fuel to a fire. And the results were visible.
The children had grown quickly, unnaturally. Their limbs thicker, their muscles well-defined. Their eyes sharper, more calculating. Even their play had a certain aggression to it.
Ethan felt a knot form in his stomach. The room was a cage masked as a playground. These children weren't being raised—they were being forged. Transformed by altered genes and a steady diet of blood and protein into something the world wasn't ready for.
The vision shifted once again—this time darker, colder. Ethan's heart pounded as he tried to brace himself for what would come next.
Now, the children stood in a dim, concrete room, lined up in silence. Their eyes were blindfolded, their small hands twitching with anticipation. In front of them, displayed like a target, was the projected image of a man. His face was unfamiliar—just an ordinary man. But to the children, he represented something more.
An instructor's voice echoed through the room, low and clinical. A handkerchief was passed to each child, saturated with the man's scent. The voice said nothing else. Just one command: "Find him."
Without hesitation, the children were released into the wild. The vision blurred, and Ethan watched with horror as the scene skipped ahead.
When the children returned, they did so in silence. In their hands were pieces of the man—flesh torn from bone, still glistening with fresh blood. A finger here, an ear there. One dragged in a strip of skin like a trophy.
Ethan's stomach turned as he clearly understood that they weren't children anymore. They were now weapons.
And this… this was the test that made them hunters.