The air pulsed with static.
From rusted loudspeakers clinging to lampposts, the emergency broadcast echoed, its mechanical voice cutting through the dusk like a blade.
"Evacuate immediately. Containment breach. No survivors expected beyond the perimeter."
Callum stood frozen on the cracked sidewalk, barely twelve, his thin frame trembling beneath a threadbare hoodie. The world felt wrong, like a nightmare that refused to end. Beside him, his uncle Marcus, always the unshakable rock, stared blankly at the sky. His face had paled to the color of ash.
Callum turned to him, voice breaking in a whisper.
"Uncle Marcus?"
No reply.
The boy's heart pounded as he searched the older man's face for comfort. But what he found instead made his stomach twist: Marcus's jaw clenched, then twisted upward into a grin. Not a warm, reassuring smile. No, it was something else entirely. Predatory. Cold.
Marcus's hand slid into his coat and returned gripping the handle of a worn, old knife. Callum's breath caught in his throat.
Then it all happened too fast.
A car, one of the last still moving, came barreling down the road, headlights piercing the gloom. Marcus didn't hesitate. With one smooth, terrifying flick of his wrist, the blade cut through the air and embedded itself dead center in the windshield.
The driver, a young man, probably not much older than twenty, screamed. The car swerved violently, slammed into an ancient oak, and crumpled like a discarded soda can. Glass rained across the street. Smoke hissed from the hood. The driver slumped forward, blood trailing from his temple.
"Uncle!"
Callum stumbled back, sneakers scraping the concrete. His vision blurred with tears and confusion.
"Why did you… why would you?!"
But Marcus was already moving, sprinting toward the wreckage, his boots striking the pavement like thunderclaps.
Marcus reached the car and wrenched his knife free from the shattered glass. It glinted, streaked with red. He crouched beside the driver's limp form. For a heartbeat, just one, something flickered in his expression. Not madness. Not malice. Something... human. Then it was gone.
He brought the blade down in a shallow slice across the driver's leg, just enough to draw blood. The boy didn't move.
"Stop!" Callum wailed. "He's hurt! Why are you doing this?!"
Marcus didn't speak. His silence was louder than any scream.
"I want to go home! I want my dad! You're supposed to protect me!"
Marcus froze. Slowly, he turned toward his nephew. For a moment, Callum thought he saw it again, that flicker. That fracture.
"Home?" Marcus murmured. His voice trembled. "Kid… there ain't no home left. Not after that announcement. Your folks…"
He looked away. Jaw clenched. Hands shaking.
"They told me to keep you safe. That's what I'm doing."
Callum shook his head violently.
"No! They're waiting for me! Please, Uncle Marcus… They're all I have!"
Marcus's face twisted, rage, sorrow, and despair fighting behind his eyes. Then, like a switch flipping, he yanked the car door open and shoved the driver's body out. It hit the ground with a sickening thud. The young man groaned faintly. Still alive.
But Marcus didn't look back.
. "The world narrowed. Sirens in the distance. The rustle of dead leaves. A silence that pressed on the chest like a weight.
Marcus sank to one knee. Rough hands grasped Callum's shoulders.
"Listen to me, Callum."
His voice cracked.
"I promised your mom I'd get you out. Whatever's coming... it's bigger than us. Your parents… they'd want you to live."
He looked away.
"You have to do it by yourself because I can't carry a burden like you "
He couldn't finish. The words died in his throat.
Callum trembled.
"But I don't want to live without them… neither I want to die "
He threw himself into Marcus's arms, sobbing so hard his whole body convulsed.
"Please… uncle ..... we have to take my parents also...don't make me leave them…"
Marcus start the engine, and stare straight ahead, unseeing.
Drip. A single tear fell to the dirt.
Callum stood frozen outside the car. His knees buckled.
"…He left…"
His whisper was the echo of a heart breaking.
"Why… me?"
His hands clenched into trembling fists. His voice cracked as he screamed into the void.
"Why is it always me?! Am I that easy to forget?! Is my voice that small?!"
"Takeshi… Yuto… they laughed when I fell…"
"They cheered when I cried…"
He collapsed to the ground, kneeling amidst scattered flower petals blown in by the wind. They clung to his skin, his clothes, his tears.
"Do I not deserve… to be loved?"
And then, the world changed.
The ground beneath him began to glow, white, pulsing, unnatural.
Callum's breath hitched as he looked up.
The driver's body... it shimmered.
Then convulsed.
From his open mouth, a thick stream of black fluid, viscous and writhing, spilled out. It coiled in the dirt like a snake, and then...
It rose.
The ooze began to take shape, molding itself into a humanoid form, its flesh smoothing, stretching, reshaping.
Muscles twisted along arms, claws formed at the fingertips, and its eyes, soulless at first, slowly turned a glowing, predatory red.
Its jaw cracked open, revealing sharp, jagged teeth.
A tail erupted from the base of its spine, thick and serpentine.
It stood naked, raw, monstrous, an echo of the human it once inhabited.
Callum backed away, trembling, his voice barely more than a breath.
"I… I hate my life. First I thought I was gonna die from a bomb. Now I'm gonna die from… this?"
He swallowed hard.
"Wh-what's your name…?"
The creature turned, smiling a smile that wasn't human.
Its voice boomed, hollow and ancient.
"I AM ANDY. Your body will be perfect."
Callum took a step back, drenched in sweat, heart pounding against his ribs like a drum of war.
"Wh-what do you mean… 'perfect'…?"