The wind tore at the remnants of the shack like a wild animal rattling rusted metal sheets and twisting the wooden planks. The smell of salt, wet wood, and rot clung to Silas's clothes and hair. He crouched in the corner, knees presed to his chest, staring at the object he had dragged back from the ruins.
It was small, metallic, with a needle-like thing at one end. He had no idea what it was. Something broken, something human-made. Worth scrap? Maybe. Dangerous? Probably. The more he stared at it, the heavier it felt, as if it had some weight beyond its material.
Silas forced himself to take a breath. He had scavenged for months in this coastal wasteland, surviving on scraps of fis, driftwood, and whatever was in the ruins. He had seen worse things than this lying in piles of rubble: jagged metal, shattered glass, bones picked clean by scavengers. But this… this felt different.
It wasn't alive, he told himself. And yet, it seemed to hum faintly in the dim light, a vibration that wasn't sound, not exactly. His hands itched to touch it again. Curiosity twisted inside him, gnawing.
"Worth selling… maybe," he muttered, trying to sound sane even as his stomach clenched. "Metal's scarce. Some blacksmiths might pay."
He knelt, picked it up, and turned it over in his hands. The needle wiggled slightly, not from his fingers but on its own. A spark of panic hit him. He dropped it to the floor. The sound echoed through the shack, mixed together with the cries of the wind outside.
Then he froze. From outside, there came a low, wet scrape—claws against wood, careful, deliberate. Another scavenger? Or one of the mutated beasts that roamed the coast? His grip tightened on the jagged knife he had found days ago, useless against anything bigger than a rat.
He dared not breathe. He crouched lower, listening. The sound circled the shack, scratching against the walls. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to hide. But the door was blocked by debri, and escape wasn't an option.
And then… silence.
He glanced at the object on the floor. Something in him—a part that was always searching for answers, for survival—pulled him forward. He didn't know why. Perhaps desperation. Perhaps curiosity. Perhaps something darker.
He picked it up again. The metal was cold. Too cold. His thumb brushed the small switch near the handle. On impulse, he pressed it.
A buzzing erupted, sharp and high-pitched, filling the shack. The needle quivered violently. Silas yelped, dropping the thing again. The buzzing stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
Then he felt it.
A sharp pain along his forearm, like lava had been poured directly into his veins.Not that he knew how that felt but he just guessed. He gasped, clutching his arm. And then he saw it: a thin red line across his skin. Perfectly straight. Precise. Not a scratch. Not a cut.
His stomach twisted. He tried to wipe it away. It wouldn't. And then the red darkened, spreading into black ink as though it had a life of its own.
Lines thickened, twisting into jagged fins, sharp teeth, a coiling tail. Silas stumbled back, scraping at the black marks with his fingernails. The lines did not bleed. They did not fade. They moved. Subtle, almost imperceptible, but alive.
The pain came in waves, washing through him. He groaned, sliding down the wall, heart hammering in his chest. The wind outside screamed, waves crashed against the black sand, and the shack groaned as if mourning his weakness.
And then the pain stopped.
The tattoo—the shark—lay flat against his skin, black, shiny, and permanent. Silas pressed a trembling hand against it, expecting teeth, expecting something to snap at him. Nothing. It was still. Silent. And yet… heavier than it should be. Alive in a way he could feel pulsing beneath his skin.
He staggered to a corner, curling into himself. His mind raced with fragments: ruins, murals, the painted figures crawling with beasts. He had dismissed them then, laughed at superstition. Now the memory gnawed at him like hunger.
Hours passed. Or maybe minutes. Time had no meaning here. Every groan of the shack, every whisper of wind, made him flinch. Shadows stretched across the floor, moving with a life of their own. He felt the tattoo shift beneath his skin when he flexed his fingers, subtle but undeniable.
He could feel it waiting. Patient. Hungry.
Sleep refused him. He lay on the cold floor, staring at the ceiling, thinking about all the times he had survived by luck. All the times he had failed. All the times he had been weak. And now… now he carried something inside him, a predator bound to his own blood.
When exhaustiom finally dragged him under, the dream came. Dark water rose over him, black and infinite. Teeth snapped in the depths, cutting through the water like knives. And beneath it all, a pulse: a heartbeat not his own, but tethered to him, alive in his veins.
He awoke with his chest heaving, sweat stinging his eyes. The wind outside had shifted, calmer now, but the waves still whispered. The tattoo remained, black and perfect. Silas flexed his fingers, watching the faint movements under his skin.
It was real.
It was his.
And it waited.
For what, he did not know.
He didn't sleep again that night. Couldn't. Every noise, every shadow, every creak of the shack made him flinch. He moved slowly, cautiously, touching the lines, tracing the tail of the shark with trembling fingers. It reacted faintly, almost like a heartbeat under his skin.
The thought that he could never understand what it was—or why it had chosen him—clawed at him. It should have terrified him. And yet, beneath the fear, there was a flicker of… power. Something that whispered, in a language he could not understand, that he was no longer completely helpless.
By morning, the storm outside had faded, leavinf a wet, gray world. The black sand gleamed under the weak light, broken boats littered the shore, and the shantytown groaned under the weight of decay. Silas sat by the window, watching the tides, his eyes drawn constantly to the black mark on his arm.
He had survived the apocalypse this long by being cautious, by avoiding unnecessary risks. But whatever had happened last night—whatever he had become part of—was something else entirely. It was a predator now, and he was tied to it.
Silas shook his head, trying to clear the dread. He needed food. Water. Shelter. But most of all… he needed to understand the thing on his arm.
He could not. Not yet.
And perhsps that was for the best.
Because whatever had awakened in the ruins, in the scrap metal he had picked up, was not something meant to be understood quickly. It waited, patient, hungry, and growing stronger every second it remained alive.
Silas flexed his fingers again. The lines under his skin shimmered faintly in the weak morning light.
The weight of ink pressed down on him.
And he hadn't realize it yet but his life had changed forever.