Frankie didn't wake so much as she surfaced, like a body dragged from the bottom of a dark lake.
Her eyes snapped open to grit and gloom. The ruined manor. The cracked ceiling. Cold stone under her spine. For a moment, her mind tried to place her back in the slums, but her ribs corrected that thought. So did her wrist. And the metallic taste of fear still lingering on her tongue.
She sat up, breath hitching. Luca was already awake, huddled in the corner, watching her with eyes too wide.
"You were shaking," he whispered. "Burning up. I thought you were a goner."
Frankie touched her forehead. Cool. Normal. The amulet was another matter. It pulsed against her chest like a second heartbeat slow, heavy, alive. She pulled it free. The metal was warm, thrumming with a heartbeat that wasn't hers.
Luca leaned closer, face twisting. "That thing is wrong, Frankie. Properly cursed."
She didn't argue. The symbol carved into the metal looked deeper today. Hungrier. The moment her skin settled fully against it—
Reality stuttered.
The manor blurred. Sound narrowed. Sensation shrank to a point.
Words appeared, not in the air, but inside her thoughts.
Dominion absorbed.
Host stability: Marginal.
Unapproved system anchor confirmed.
Initialization complete.
Frankie sucked in a breath. More text followed, cold and clinical.
Francesca Rinaldi
Race: Human (Unapproved)
Level: 1
Strength 1 | Speed 1 | Agility 1 | Vitality 1
Dominion: 0 / 100
The words vanished. The manor rushed back.
"Frankie?" Luca grabbed her shoulder. "You blanked out."
She swallowed. How did you explain that reality had just turned into a ledger, and what do the numbers mean?
"I don't know," she lied. The lie tasted like ash.
A dragging sound scraped outside. Bone-pale plating against stone.
Frankie's body reacted before thought. Hair rose. Pulse sharpened.
She knew that sound.
Luca peeked through a gap in the boards. "Another one. Bigger."
Frankie joined him. The scavenger stood in the street taller than the last one, unscarred, moving with machine patience.
But she felt different now. Stronger, faster.
She didn't no how but that didn't really matter at the moment. That's a problem for future Frankie.
"If we don't kill it," she said, "it will find us."
Luca stared. "You want to fight that thing? On purpose?"
"We don't have a choice."
They slipped outside. Frankie grabbed a half-buried iron rod. Solid. Real.
A stone shifted under Luca's boot.
The scavenger blurred forward.
Frankie moved first.
Time slowed just enough. She sidestepped and smashed the rod into its knee joint. Metal cracked plating. The creature staggered.
Luca hurled a pouch of salt. White dust burst. The scavenger shrieked in vibration.
Frankie darted in. Striking seams. Joints. Neck.
It adapted. Fast. A backhand clipped her shoulder, sending her rolling across broken stone. Pain flared. She rose anyway. The system whispered limits. Risk. Margin.
She hurled a chunk of masonry. It struck true. Luca was already driving an iron stake into the torso gap.
The scavenger convulsed. Frankie leapt onto its back and drove the rod down.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The hum returned. Deep. Resonant. Cracks spread across pale plating. Silver light spilled out.
Then the creature dissolved into drifting white dust.
Frankie landed hard. Luca gasped against the wall.
Then the surge hit.
Not heat. Flow. Hunger being fed.
Text flashed Infront of my eyes
Dominion absorbed
Level: 2
+1 to strength
Strength 3 | Speed 2 | Agility 2 | Vitality 2
Dominion: 0 / 200
The text faded.
Frankie lifted the iron rod. It felt lighter. Familiar. She swung once.
The air split too fast.
"Frankie…" Luca stared. "Your eyes… they are glowing red"
She looked at her hands. The world was sharper. Clearer. Alive in new ways.
She wasn't just surviving anymore.
She was growing.
And the thing inside her wanted more.
They returned to the manor in silence. Words weren't needed. Frankie leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. The system waited. Cold. Patient.
The Death Zone had tried to kill her.
Now she was going to eat it alive.