The monsters howled above, their claws raking against fractured concrete. Dust rained from the subway ceiling as the ruined world roared, but Ethan's attention wasn't on them.
It was on her.
The woman who had stepped out of the shadows moved with unnerving calm, her blade gleaming under the flickering light. Her eyes—cold, sharp, assessing—stayed fixed on him longer than the screeching beasts overhead.
She knew. Somehow, she could see what was happening to him.
The Core pulsed violently in his chest, as though recognizing her presence, or worse… acknowledging her. Ethan clenched his fists, the faint glow of crimson veins rippling down his forearms in jagged lines.
"What the hell is happening to me?" His voice cracked, part rage, part desperation. "What is this thing inside me?"
The woman tilted her head, almost curious. Her lips curled into the faintest smirk, though her eyes carried no warmth.
"You'll find out soon enough."
Before Ethan could demand more, the ceiling split open with a deafening crack.
Screeches. Too many.
She stepped forward, her blade singing as it left its sheath. "Stay behind me."
And then she was gone.
No—faster than gone. One moment she stood at his side, the next she blurred into motion, a streak of silver weaving through the collapsing subway entrance. The first creature plunged through the crack, shrieking, claws outstretched. In one precise arc, her blade severed its head cleanly. Black ichor sprayed, steaming where it touched the concrete.
Ethan stumbled back, breath shallow. He should have run. He should have left this stranger to her fight. But his body… refused.
The Core throbbed in his veins, dragging his gaze to the carnage, whispering at the edge of his mind:
> "Fight."
"Kill."
"Feed."
"No!" Ethan pressed his hands to his ears, but the whispers weren't coming from outside. They were inside him, curling into his very thoughts like worms burrowing deeper.
Another monster broke through the opening, hissing as it landed on all fours. Ethan staggered back, his breath ragged, and the whispers surged louder. His arms trembled violently, his blood boiling. He dropped to his knees, clutching his chest.
> [Warning: Host synchronization below 75%.]
[Stability compromised.]
[Initiating auto-stabilization protocol…]
The voice—cold, mechanical, undeniable—echoed inside his skull. Ethan gasped, eyes wide, as a transparent red screen flickered across his vision.
Lines of text burned themselves into existence:
[Crimson System: Online]
Host ID: Ethan Carter
Core Status: Bound (Parasitic Integration, Stage I)
Vital Capacity: 105/100
Abilities: Latent (locked)
---
Ethan's heart stopped. His body froze.
This wasn't a hallucination. This was real.
"No… no, no, no. Get out of my head—get the hell OUT!" he shouted, slamming a fist into the ground. The display wavered, but didn't vanish.
> [Warning: Host resistance detected.]
[Note: Resistance is futile.]
The crimson letters pulsed, cold and absolute. Ethan's breath shuddered as the weight of it sank in. Something alien had dug itself into his blood—into him. A parasite. A machine. A curse.
And worst of all, it wasn't leaving.
The monster lunged.
Ethan's head snapped up. He didn't think. He didn't plan. His arm shot forward, glowing veins blazing like molten rivers beneath his skin.
The creature halted midair—its body shuddered violently as if invisible claws tore into it from the inside.
Ethan's vision turned red. His pulse thundered, the whispers now a roar:
> "YES. YES. KILL."
He squeezed his fist, and the monster's body ruptured, exploding in a wet cascade of gore and ichor that rained across the tunnel walls.
Ethan collapsed, gasping for breath, bile rising in his throat as his hands shook uncontrollably. He had done that. Without touching it. Without even thinking.
The Core pulsed with satisfaction.
> [Vital Energy absorbed.]
[Host synchronization restored: 89%.]
[Ability unlocked: Crimson Grasp.]
The words glowed across his vision, and for the first time, Ethan felt it—the intoxicating rush of power, like lightning surging through every nerve in his body. It felt good. Too good.
And that terrified him more than the monsters ever could.
"You're awake."
Ethan flinched. The woman—bloodied blade in hand—was suddenly there again, her gray eyes studying him with unnerving calm. She didn't even seem winded, though the floor was littered with twitching corpses of the things she had cut down.
"I—" His throat tightened. He wanted to ask a thousand questions. He wanted to scream. But all that came out was a broken whisper: "What… what's happening to me?"
She wiped her blade against her sleeve, the faintest smirk tugging at her lips.
"You've been chosen," she said, her tone more knife than comfort. "Or maybe cursed. That thing inside you—it's called the Crimson Core."
Her gaze narrowed, sharp enough to cut.
"And if you don't learn how to control it, it will eat you alive."
The words hung heavy in the flickering dark. Ethan swallowed hard, every fiber of his being trembling.
The Core whispered again—soft, sweet, inevitable.
> "Hungry."
And Ethan realized with a cold shiver of dread that it wasn't lying.
Ethan leaned against the damp wall of the subway, his breath ragged, hands trembling as if he were still trying to wash the monster's blood off his skin—even though he hadn't touched it. The gore wasn't his, but the guilt was.
That thing had died screaming inside his head. Torn apart by his will.
No, not his will.
The Core's.
He shut his eyes, but that only made it worse. Behind his eyelids, the faint crimson glow pulsed like a heartbeat, radiating through his veins. He swore he could hear it—thump… thump… thump—a second heart layered beneath his own, out of sync, foreign, invasive.
"What the hell is this?" His voice cracked.
Selene's boots clicked against the concrete as she walked closer, her presence strangely unhurried, as though she had seen this before—too many times before.
"The Crimson Core," she repeated flatly. "Parasitic. Sentient. It's bound to you now, whether you like it or not."
"Sentient?" Ethan's head jerked up. "You mean… it's alive?"
Selene tilted her head, her expression unreadable. "Alive… in its own way. It feeds. It adapts. It learns. And if you're not careful, it will consume more of you than just your blood."
Her words landed like knives. Ethan's stomach churned. Consume. More than blood. He already felt pieces of himself slipping—his thoughts, his impulses, that moment where killing the monster had felt right.
He shuddered. "You're telling me this thing—this parasite—just crawled inside me, and now it owns me?"
Her gaze hardened. "No. Not yet. But it will try."
The Core pulsed, almost pleased by her words. Not yet. The whisper slithered through his mind again, silk against a blade:
> "You are mine."
Ethan's knees nearly buckled. He pressed the heel of his hand to his temple, fighting to keep his thoughts his own. "I can't— I can't do this. I need it gone. There has to be a way to cut it out—burn it out—something."
For the first time, Selene's lips curved—not in amusement, but pity. "There's no going back, Ethan."
He froze. The way she said his name, low and certain, made his chest tighten. "How do you—"
"I know more than you think." Her voice sharpened, a blade sliding back into its sheath. "But you're not ready for those answers. Not yet. For now, you need to survive the night."
The subway groaned above them, another cascade of dust falling like gray snow. In the distance, faint screeches echoed—reminders that the creatures hadn't given up the hunt.
Ethan's hand trembled as he looked down at his veins. Crimson light still pulsed faintly beneath his skin, as if something beneath the surface was breathing with him.
He hated it.
He feared it.
But beneath the horror, something else lingered—something worse.
It felt… good.
The surge of power. The rush of strength that wasn't his, yet coursed through every nerve. For a single heartbeat, when that monster had screamed inside his skull, Ethan hadn't felt weak. He hadn't felt human.
And the truth terrified him more than the monsters.
Selene must have seen the shift in his eyes. She crouched in front of him, blade resting casually against her shoulder. Her gray eyes cut into him, reading him like a book he didn't remember writing.
"It's already tempting you, isn't it?" she murmured.
Ethan swallowed hard, unable to speak.
"That's how it begins." She leaned closer, voice a whisper edged with warning. "The Core doesn't just feed on blood. It feeds on desire. Rage. Hunger. The more you use it, the more it will own you."
The Core pulsed in his veins, as if offended by her words. Or amused.
> "She lies."
Ethan's breath caught. The whisper was smoother this time, almost… intimate. As though the Core wasn't just inside him—it knew him.
"I…" His voice cracked, and he shut his eyes against the flickering vision still lingering at the edge of his sight. The crimson system screen, those cold words etched into his mind:
[Crimson System: Online]
[Ability unlocked: Crimson Grasp.]
[Warning: Host integrity compromised.]
He forced the display away, but the words burned themselves behind his eyelids.
"What if…" His throat was dry. He almost hated himself for asking it. "What if I use it? What if I control it instead of letting it control me?"
Selene's smirk was razor-thin, her answer immediate.
"Then maybe you survive."
Her eyes glinted, catching the dim light of the subway. "Or maybe you burn faster. Either way…" She stood, sliding her blade back into its sheath with a metallic whisper. "The Core doesn't choose hosts randomly. It saw something in you, Ethan. Something dangerous."
The air between them tightened.
Ethan's stomach knotted. He wanted to deny it, scream at her, tell her she was wrong. But deep down, in the marrow of his bones, he feared she was right.
The Core pulsed again, its whisper curling like smoke:
> "We are not so different."
Ethan pressed his back against the cold concrete, his fists clenching, his entire body trembling—not from weakness, but from the terrifying, inescapable truth.
He was no longer just Ethan Carter.
He was the Host.
And the Crimson Core wasn't done with him yet.