Episode 4 — Bleeding Hours
Timeline: The night after the warehouse fight. Rain hasn't stopped. Zack is 18.
⸻
Hospitals always smell like lying. Bleach pretending it can drown rot. Flowers pretending they aren't dying in slow motion. Zack slumped in a blue plastic chair outside Room 412, hoodie half-melted, ribs banded in dull ache. A TV in the corner whispered a game show while a janitor pushed a squeaky mop across a floor that would never be clean.
His HUD hovered in the corner of his vision like a bored angel.
LEVEL 3
EXP: 300 / 1000
STATUS: Microfractures (Ribs), Hex Residue (Low)
STEEL SURGE [Prototype] – Cooldown: Severe (do not engage)
"Hey." The night-shift nurse with mauve scrubs and linebacker shoulders stopped short when she took him in—blood crusted at his hairline, hoodie charred, knuckles scraped to chrome. "You get hit by a truck or a bad idea?"
"Bit of both," Zack said, voice sanded raw.
"You family?"
He nodded toward 412. "My mom."
Something softened around the nurse's mouth. "Five minutes. Doctor's doing rounds."
"Thanks."
He stood, joints ticking like cooling metal, and slid into the room. The lights were low. Monitors blinked green and patient. His mother lay whittled to the important parts—eyes, hands, stubborn jaw. Her breath scratched the air.
"Hey," he said, forcing light into it. "I brought the good news: vending machine coffee is still a hate crime."
She turned her head. Even that cost her. Then she smiled, and it was a cathedral in a war zone. "My boy," she whispered. "You look… harder."
He sat, took her hand. Skin like tissue paper. "Just tired."
"Liar."
"Yeah." He stared at their hands. His looked like a weapon. "I'm… figuring things out."
"Don't figure yourself away." A cough wracked her. He felt useless—steel bones, useless hands. The monitor tut-tut-tutted.
"I'm trying to make it better," he said, hating how small it sounded.
"You always try," she breathed. "Don't forget to sleep in between saving the world."
"World's not on my list," he said. "Just you."
Her fingers squeezed, weak and fierce. "I know."
Footsteps. The doctor, all careful smile and end-of-shift gravity, slid in with the nurse. "Ms. Hale, some tests came back. We're… going to adjust comfort meds and oxygen support. It'll help with—" He looked at Zack like a warning label. "—with the shortness of breath."
Comfort. Zack tasted metal and said nothing.
He kissed his mother's forehead, stood, and let the nurse herd him into the hall. His phone vibrated—a number he didn't have saved flashed BLOCKED. He answered anyway.
"Chrome-teeth," Luna purred, velvet wrapped in a smirk. "How's the family business? Grief?"
Zack exhaled through his nose. "Don't test me."
"Oh, but you're very fun to test." Her voice went crooked. "You want points, birthday boy? I've got a cruelty on the subway line drawing pictures with people's bones. Demon-run crew. They like hostages. It's messy; the pay is… delicious."
"Location."
"Underneath Rivergate Station. Closed spur. You'll hear them before you see them."
"What's your cut?"
"Seeing you live long enough to owe me something with teeth. And a jawbone if you die." She hung up. Real relationships, adult edition.
Zack put his palm against the door to 412. "I'll be back," he whispered to the wood, to her breath, to himself.
He wasn't sure any of them believed it.
⸻
He took the service stairs down to the street. Rain combed the city flat, neon bleeding in the puddles. A rat skittered past a flyer stapled to a pole: MISSING PERSON, NYPD LOGO a cheap shield against the graphic emptiness where a face should be. Zack's jaw clenched so hard steel squealed.
Rivergate Station wore its age like resentment. Two entrances were chained. The third lay open and yawning, a sign blinking MAINTENANCE like a dare. He dropped into the tiled throat of the city, boots ringing on steps, concrete sweat seeping from the walls.
At the turnstiles, a scent hit him: pennies and burnt hair. The tracks hummed low. Somewhere far in the dark, a scream died before it decided if it wanted to be loud.
His HUD ticked up a notch, reading the air like a bloodhound.
Miasma: Demonic (Sulfur/Brim Blend)
Threat Estimate: Pack (4–7)
Civilians: Probable
"Alright," he muttered, rolling his shoulders until the microfractures complained. "Let's be ugly."
He hopped the turnstile, slid along a service corridor, and shouldered through a rusted staff door onto a disused platform. One flickering light. Water plinked into a black puddle. The rails curved into a blind mouth.
He didn't have to wait long. They came in laughing.
Five of them: big-shouldered men wearing construction vests like costumes, faces too smooth and too wrong under the fluorescents. Mireclaws—low-tier body snatchers, demons who wore men like coats until the seams split. Their eyes gleamed like oil, and their smiles didn't bother to ask permission.
A sixth shape stumbled behind them—small. A girl in a pink jacket, duct tape around her wrists, gag soaking rain and tears.
Zack's stomach went iceberg-cold.
"Yo," one Mireclaw said when he saw Zack, voice like two voices jammed misaligned. "Platform's closed."
"Your faces are closed," Zack said, stepping out of shadow. "Let the kid go, and maybe you walk out with your limbs."
They laughed like they'd practiced.
Another tilted his head. "You the steel baby? Heard you got turned by a fender-bender with God."
"You heard wrong," Zack said. He could feel his pulse in his gums. "You just met your limit."
The leader—hard hat at a mean angle—shoved the girl toward the edge of the platform with his boot until her toes curled over air. "You got three seconds to fuck off, steelboy, or she learns to fly."
Zack moved. Not a sprint. A blur. He hit the leader before the word fuck finished leaving his mouth, steel knuckles kissing his jaw with a noise like a toaster under a car wheel. The demon's head snapped around 180 degrees; vertebrae made a noise like popcorn.
+150 EXP
EXP: 450 / 1000
"Hi," Zack said to the next one, and put his fist through its chest. Hot tar belched up, slick and burning. He ripped his hand free with a shlork that would make a butcher flinch.
+150 EXP
EXP: 600 / 1000
The remaining three spread without speaking, instincts finally muting banter. The girl whimpered, teetering. Zack slid sideways, boots gritting on sand, keeping himself between her and the edge.
"C'mon then," he hissed. "Dance."
They came in at angles—left feint, right charge, high lunge. He met the right with a rising cross that turned cheekbones to ceramic shards. He ate the left feint, took a rake of claws against his ribs and liked it. The high lunge got a headbutt; skull split, black worms wriggling.
+200 EXP
EXP: 800 / 1000
The last one had smarts, hooray: it grabbed the girl and yanked her into a choke, using her as a panting, kicking human shield, heels searching for floor. "Back the fuck off," it snarled. Its breath smelled like a tire fire in a slaughterhouse. "Or she's paste."
Zack put his palms up, slowly. "Okay. Okay. Fine." He took one step forward. "You win."
He took another.
"Stop," it hissed, tightening the choke. The girl's eyes blew wide with terrible, hopeful intelligence. She thought her life was a coin flip.
Zack took a third step, and then he wasn't there.
He was behind the demon—momentum still smearing his absence. The world hadn't kept up yet. He'd done it without meaning to—feathered the Surge, a whisper, a tremor.
The demon started to turn, too late. Zack's hands came down like hammers on its forearms, snapping bones the way rich people snapped glow sticks. The girl tumbled forward into his hip; he turned with her, tucked her to his ribs, and pivoted three quarters into a mule-kick that caved the demon's chest.
+200 EXP
EXP: 1000 / 1000
LEVEL UP → LEVEL 4
STAT BOOST: +VIT | +SPD
NEW SUBROUTINE: Surge Feather (1–2 frames) — UNSTABLE
The platform breathed. The girl clung, gag whistling panic. A low, dirty growl rolled out of the tunnel. Not a train. More Mireclaws. More poor bastards wearing other poor bastards.
"My favorite number is none," Zack said. He ripped the tape with his teeth, tasting glue and fear. "Can you run?"
She nodded, violent. "Y-yeah."
"Go up those stairs," he pointed. "Straight to the top. Find a cop. If he looks weird, kick him in the nuts and scream. Don't stop. Don't look back."
She bolted. He watched until she vanished into the corridor, small shoes slapping time with his heart.
The growl crawled closer. He hopped off the platform and down into the gravel bed, shoulders rolling. Between the rails, water glistened like a throat. He felt very alive and very tired and absolutely ready to be worse.
Four more Mireclaws padded into the spill of fluorescent. One carried a length of rebar. One dragged a sack with a wet corner; blood dripped in a Morse code he didn't want to translate.
"Boys night," the rebar one smiled, mouth splitting high. "We heard a hero happened."
"Try again," Zack said. "Heroes wear capes and die in Act One. I'm the thing that happens if Act One refuses to end."
They charged. He met them in the rails.
He let one overextend and turned him into a hood ornament, rebar ringing off Zack's forearm with a dull GONG. He flipped the rebar in his hand and threw it like a spear; it pinned a demon to a service door. The creature shrieked radio static.
+150 EXP
EXP: 150 / 1000 (L4)
Another tried a tackle; Zack planted, absorbed, rolled his hips, German suplexed it onto the rail. A jolt raced the steel into its meat—something in it cooked, burst, sloughed.
+150 EXP
EXP: 300 / 1000 (L4)
The third got smart and went low, raking at the Achilles. Zack took the pain, let it tear, then stamped down so hard the rail sang. He grabbed the demon by the jaw with both hands and pulled until the hinges tore and the head came off like a stubborn jar lid.
+200 EXP
EXP: 500 / 1000 (L4)
The last one tried to run. Bad plan. Zack ghosted, Surge Feather flicking him three paces ahead. He clotheslined the thing so hard its spine made a zipper sound. Then he dragged it back into the light and made sure it wouldn't be a sequel.
+200 EXP
EXP: 700 / 1000 (L4)
WARNING: Surge Feather Overuse — Cooldown increasing.
He stood there, breath frosted in the stale air, hands dripping black that steamed and stank. The sack the demon had hauled twitched. He opened it.
Inside: a man, eyes open and paralyzed with spell-venom, mouth trying and failing to scream. Human. Alive. For now.
"Hey," Zack said, softer than he felt capable of. He cut the bindings and hauled the man up. "You're going to hate standing. Do it anyway."
The guy's legs didn't work, but terror did. Zack slung him over a shoulder like firewood and clambered up onto the platform. His ribs complained. The HUD tutted.
VITALITY: 62% → 58%
Microfractures: Aggravated
Hex Residue: Building (unknown source)
He got the man to the corridor and shoved him toward the stairs. "Straight up. Don't stop. If someone blocks the exit, that's not someone."
The man nodded like a string made him do it and stumbled into the stairwell, whimpering apologies to God, his mother, gravity, Zack, anyone.
Zack leaned against the wall, laughing once—short, cracked. The laugh skinned into an oath. He spat black, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and headed for the service door with the rebar spear. Behind it, dim light pulsed and something chanted off-key.
He wrenched the door open. A utility room slept full of cleaning chemicals and a cheap altar: soda crates, candles, an upside-down map of the city stabbed with pins. In the center, a sigil chalked on the floor—Marrow's handwriting. The hex residue wasn't random. It was broadcast.
"It's not enough to feed," Zack muttered. "You have to network."
The candles flared as if the room heard him. He felt that same iron-filing creep in his blood, like someone turning a magnet. His HUD fuzzed.
MARROW-LINKED WEAVE DETECTED
INTERFERENCE: Hex-Grade Neural
Option: Purge via Hemoglobin Conductor? [Y/N] — RISK: Vascular Damage
He remembered the freezer, needles in his skin, the way the world had gotten slow and glassy. He chose Y and rode the burn. Heat crawled his veins like a hot wire, and the chalk lines ran, candles guttering into smoke.
The pressure eased. The room breathed like a thing that had almost died and wasn't sure it wanted to finish the job later.
Zack kicked the soda-crate altar into confetti, ground the chalk under his heel, and took a photo of the map with his busted phone. Addresses. Boltholes. Luna hadn't lied.
He scooped the rebar back up and left. On the platform, the Mireclaws were puddles and hush. Water plinked a new rhythm. A train far down the line woke, lights little knives in the dark.
He took the stairs two at a time. The station's open mouth coughed him into rain and sirens. Two cops were arguing with a hysterical man he recognized—the sack. The girl in the pink jacket stood beside a transit worker who radiated ladies and gentlemen we are delayed due to a demon energy. The girl's eyes found Zack like magnets find knives.
He didn't wave. He didn't stay. He slid into the alley like a rumor. Behind him, the sirens solved problems late.
⸻
He cut through streets that had taught him to keep his shoulders down and his eyes up. His body hurt like he owed it money. The HUD rolled numbers like prayer beads.
LEVEL 4
EXP: 700 / 1000
STEEL SURGE [Prototype] — Cooldown: Elevated
Surge Feather — Behavior learned (unstable)
He bought a coffee that tasted like a filing cabinet from a bodega with a bulletproof laugh and headed back to the hospital. The fluorescent lobby washed him ghost-pale. The elevator hummed like a throat clearing.
On Four, the nurse's face told him the weather.
"Room 412?" he asked, even though he knew.
"Doctor's with her," she said gently. "She asked for you."
He went in. The oxygen cannula hissed a dragon's lullaby. His mother looked smaller and sharper, like someone had sculpted her out of breath and stubbornness and then sanded away everything extraneous, including time.
"Hey," he said. He sat. Took her hand. "I beat up some construction workers."
She smiled with one corner of her mouth. "Union boys?"
"Demon scabs." He tried to make it funny and almost did. "Saved two people. One kid. One guy who will probably stop taking the subway forever. I'm very popular with MTA now."
She closed her eyes. "I had a dream you were swimming in metal," she whispered. "And every time you tried to climb out, it loved you and pulled you back."
"Sounds clingy." His throat bunched. "I'm learning how to make it behave."
"You always did teach bad dogs to sit."
"Steel isn't a dog," he said. "It's… gravity with a mean streak."
Her fingers fluttered against his knuckles, a bird testing the air. "If it asks a price, don't pay with your soul, baby."
"I don't think I got one left," he said before he could stop himself.
"Then take mine," she said, fierce except for the very end, where it trembled.
"No," he said, too loud. He bowed his head to the bed rail. "No."
The doctor stepped in—same careful smile, same polite apocalypse behind the eyes. Words like progression and palliative and we'll keep her comfortable bobbed on the air like dead moths.
Zack nodded. The words meant time in the smallest font.
When they left, he lay his forehead against their joined hands and breathed. His HUD, uninvited, threw up the future in cruel, clean lines.
PRESTIGE PATH
Requirement: Level 1000 → Prestige 1
Current: Level 4
Projected: 996,000 EXP
Advisory: At normal mission cadence, human lifespan constraints apply.
He laughed once. It sounded like it had glass in it.
"Okay," he told the numbers. "We cheat, then."
He stayed until she slept—small snores, machine whispers, rain tattooing the window. He kissed her, left, and found a vending machine that had always hated him. He fed it a dollar to make peace. It ate the dollar and blinked ERROR. He grinned at the idiocy of it and put his head against the Plexiglas until the laugh shook out.
His phone buzzed. A picture arrived without a caption: Luna's lips next to a napkin with a string of addresses written in eyeliner. The last line said: "Pick one, break two."
"Subtle," he texted back.
Three dots.(…) Then: "You drip on hospital sheets?"
He frowned at the phone. "Don't."
"Then hurry, chrome-teeth." A location ping came through. "This one screams when you look at it."
He pocketed the phone and headed for the exit. Rain slapped the glass doors like it wanted in. As they slid open, a man in a suit stepped aside to let him pass.
Silver hair. Winter eyes. Cigarette like a little comet.
Silas. Up close, he smelled like cold iron and incense.
"You shadow me now?" Zack asked, too tired to climb into anger.
Silas flicked ash, rain swallowing the spark. "Just confirming you're not dead. Marrow is restless. He lost a toy and blames the room."
"Good," Zack said.
"You feathered the surge." Silas's eyes smiled without his mouth's permission. "Cute. Dangerous. Like juggling knives on a moving train."
"Trains are delayed," Zack said. "Signal problems."
Silas's mouth finally curved. "You will lose," he said, not unkind. "Make those losses carry purpose."
"Working on it."
Silas reached into his coat and produced something small and old: a coin, tarnished and heavy, stamped with a crest that hurt to look at. He set it on Zack's palm. It burned cold.
"Marker," Silas said. "If you are about to die stupidly, spend it."
Zack eyed him. "What's the interest rate?"
"Teeth." He tipped his cigarette butt into a puddle. "Try not to need it."
He was gone in the way old monsters leave: not vanished—subtracted.
Zack stood in the sliding doorway with rain taking liberties with his face and closed his fingers on the coin until the cold bit. He didn't put it in a pocket. He liked the way it hurt.
He looked up at 412's lit window. A shadow moved—nurse, machine, dream. He put a hand to the glass and then he went back into the night.
⸻
The city coughed up another address in a neighborhood that never learned its lesson. He didn't take the streets; he took the alleys, a river of dumpsters and cats and broken bottles that sang when wind found them. He moved faster than worry, slower than guilt.
His HUD rolled with him, a drumbeat in white text.
LEVEL 4
EXP: 700 / 1000
TARGET: Marrow Bolthole (West Pier Cold Storage)
OBJECTIVES: Break the Weave / Hurt the Name / Don't Die
He smiled, a thin bright thing with serrated edges.
"Let's make this city bleed louder."
He didn't run this time. He flowed, steel humming in his bones like a song he didn't know how to stop singing, not yet. The rain approved.
Above him, somewhere patient and endless, the night watched with many eyes and decided it could wait to see who ate whom.