"You promised you'd help me with the nightmare and the sys—"
"Quiet," he spoke.
The word sliced through the alley sharper than the cold.
He was moving toward her, not fast, not slow. Just steadily closing the little space she'd left between them. Personal space wasn't just being ignored, it was being stepped on and ground down.
Soph's back hit rough brick. She hadn't meant to retreat, but her body had shifted on its own.
She lifted her chin instead.
"You said this would be the last time I'd owe you," she murmured.
His eyes didn't soften.
"It is," he said
Her stomach dipped.
She tried to laugh it off, a weak huff of breath that didn't sound like her.
"Funny," she said. "You practicing your supervillain lines now or—"
The knife appeared like it had always been there.
No flourish. No warning.
It slid in under her ribs.
There was no dramatic wind-up, no shouted threat. Just a clean, practiced movement. The blade punched through flesh with a soft, wet sound that reminded her of stabbing into a sack of soaked clothes.
Her breath vanished.
The world contracted to the cold line of metal inside her, the dull bloom of pressure swallowing her insides.
She didn't scream.
Air left her in a short, ugly sound, more punched-out cough than anything else. Her fingers spasmed around his coat.
For a heartbeat, Soph just stared at him, eyes wide and blank with shock.
You said— her mind tried to form the words. They fell apart before they could reach her mouth.
The thick, slow thing her blood had become bucked against the intrusion, not in panic but in offended confusion, as if whatever she was now couldn't quite process "stabbed" as a valid state.
Pain arrived late.
Dull and deep and wrong.
The old man leaned in, close enough that she could smell the faint ghost of coffee on his breath, the starch of his coat, the cold metal between them.
"There it is," he rasped.
Something snapped.
Her hand slammed into his chest.
She didn't aim. She didn't brace. She just shoved.
The old man flew.
His feet left the ground. His back hit a trash can hard enough to crush metal. The container shrieked and toppled, rolling and bouncing along the alley. The knife tore out of her stomach on the way, clattering across the pavement and leaving a smear behind.
Soph staggered forward with the sudden absence of resistance. Her hand flew to her abdomen.
Dark fluid oozed between her fingers.
Not bright red. Not the fresh, slick blood she'd seen in movies or health class videos. It seeped out thick and sluggish, almost black in the poor light, like something halfway between oil and congealed wine.
Her body went cold.
Her knees threatened to fold. The brick wall caught her shoulder instead.
A hot feeling swarmed toward the wound in a panicked, crawling tide.
Fix it, she thought wildly. Fix it, fix it, FIX IT—
Flesh twitched around the hole.
Not cleanly. Not neatly. Skin puckered, then relaxed. Fibers inched toward each other, then stalled, as if the instructions had been written in a language her cells only half understood.
The bleeding slowed, but didn't stop.
She looked up, breathing in short, shallow pulls.
The old man was already moving.
Hao raised an eyebrow.
"Rude," the Anchor commented on what was happening just ahead of him.
No argument there.
He'd heard enough to know this wasn't some random mugging. "You said this would be the last time I'd owe you." "You said you'd help me." Those weren't lines you tossed at a stranger.
So this is what your teacher ,found on a random forum most likely, looks like, Hao thought. Stab first, explain later.
His motes flared when the knife went in, flooding the alley with raw data.
The wound in Soph's stomach didn't bleed right. Dark, sluggish fluid oozed out like it was remembering how gravity worked. It clung to her skin a moment before dripping, thick and slow, splattering the ground with heavy drops.
Flesh twitched around the hole, indecisive.
For a second, the edges of the wound puckered together, pulling like magnets. Then the motion stuttered, halted, tore again. The result wasn't healing so much as a confused attempt at it.
"Yeah," Hao thought. "That ain't normal."
"That isn't supposed to be here," the Anchor added.
Soph's shove sent the old man crashing into the trash can. Metal screamed as it flipped and rolled, denting with each bounce.
The old man hit the ground with it, shoulder first, then back.
That should have knocked the breath out of him. Maybe broken something if he was unlucky.
He pushed himself up a second later, swearing under his breath. His exhale sounded sharp and annoyed, not panicked. A bruise was already swelling along his jaw where he'd clipped the edge of the can.
He smiled.
It was the wrong kind of smile. Not surprised she'd thrown him. Not afraid of what she'd just done.
Pleased.
"You hit hard," he rasped, getting to his feet.
He bent, picked up the knife, and straightened, testing his grip like they were in the middle of a training session instead of an attempted murder.
"Good," he said. "Means I was right to hurry."
"Hurry for what?" Soph spat.
She stumbled back, one hand pressed to her stomach, fingers slick and glistening with that too-dark fluid. Her breath came ragged now, not from alcohol, but from shock.
"You said you'd help me," she choked out. "You said you'd show me how to get points, how to fix this, not—"
"You're loud," he cut in.
His voice stayed almost conversational.
"No discipline. No discretion. No understanding."
He stepped in.
The distance between them vanished in half a heartbeat.
The next exchange wasn't a fight so much as an accident in slow motion.
Soph swung wild.
Her arm cut through the air with the kind of strength no girl her size should have. When her fist hit the wall by accident, brick dust burst out and the stone itself complained in a low, grinding crack.
Every blow that connected with him made something in the alley whine. The metal of the fallen trash can jumped. The ground under their feet seemed to flinch.
But she had no guard. No plan. Just terrified instinct and raw, monstrous strength.
The old man moved like gravity worked differently for him.
He slipped around her swings with ugly efficiency. Boots planted exactly where they needed to be. Shoulders and elbows tight, economical. His coat flared just enough to hide the precise positioning of his legs.
When she overextended, he didn't block.
He turned.
He redirected.
He let her own force carry her past him, then punished the opening with mechanical cruelty.
A knee drove into her side. The impact sounded like someone dropping a heavy bag of wet sand.
She gasped, faltering.
The hilt of the knife slammed into her ribs. Once. Twice. Each hit targeted, not random. Testing. Mapping.
She swung again, desperate, fingers clawed.
He dipped under, body folding and unfolding with practiced ease, and shoved her shoulder. Her feet tangled. Her back hit the wall hard enough that Hao felt the vibration through the bricks under his own hand.
Soph slid down half a step, catching herself.
The wound at her stomach oozed and twitched. Flesh continued its confused attempt to knit, never fully closing, never fully tearing wider.
"You don't even understand what's inside you," he murmured, stepping into her shadow.
The knife rose.
"Waste of power."
Her eyes went wide, fear finally overtaking anger.
Hao's muscles tensed.
He moved before he decided to move, one foot already stepping out of the deeper darkness near the door.
"This is the part," the Anchor observed dryly, "where you either interfere or watch as the girl looses her life."
This is the part, Hao thought, where I die in an alley behind a party.
His motes surged toward them like a dark tide, tasting fear, intent, violence.
The old man's arm shifted, preparing to drive the knife home again.
The blade caught the flickering streetlight.
For a second, the metal gleamed bright.
In that narrow strip of reflection, three shadows collided:
The old man's hunched frame.
Soph's trembling outline against the wall.
And behind him, already moving, already too close, a third shape stretching out longer than it should across the wet concrete.
Hao's.
The old man froze.
His gaze flicked, not to the knife, but to the ground.
Then he turned.
The smile was gone.
All that remained in his face was calculation.
"You are bold," the Anchor whispered, almost amused.
The old man's eyes found Hao in the gloom.
And just like that, the knife had a new direction.