The heavy silence of the dead world was broken by a new sound.

  A mechanical, deep hum coming from afar… Not the whistle of the wind between ruined buildings. Something more alive. Something hungrier.

  Rust had left the ruined highway behind and reached the rusty outskirts of the city when the sun began to bleed. He had been walking for exactly six hours straight since the quarantine, without a single break.

  But the truly terrifying thing was not the scenery. It was his own body.

  There was not the slightest burn in his legs. His lungs were not burning. Not a single drop of sweat had run down his forehead. After six hours of uninterrupted walking, his breathing was still calm, like a man sitting in an armchair.

  What… am I?

  He looked at his black leather-gloved hands. The way he had split the Mimic in the quarantine kept replaying in his mind. Drawing the knife, the perfect twist of his wrist, that split second when the creature hung in the air… While his mind was frozen, his body had worked like a machine.

  A cold knot settled in his stomach. Are there others like me?

  His body no longer obeyed him. It was as if it were a separate entity, a programmed armor designed to keep him alive. Rust was merely a passenger trapped inside, his memories erased.

  As he entered the city, the scenery grew heavier. Skyscrapers stood like rotten titans leaning against each other. Vehicles were impaled into shop windows, buses hung from bridges. Everything was covered in that fine white ash.

  The sun was descending rapidly. Ash particles glowed blood-red in the orange light. Rust felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

  If I get caught in the open, I’m finished.

  Being outside in this city at night was suicide. His eyes locked onto the 12-14 story apartment building ahead. It looked less damaged than the others. High ground was always safer.

  He slipped silently into the lobby. He paused when he reached the stairwell on the ground floor. The stairwell was blocked by a massive barricade. Beds, steel cabinets, heavy furniture were piled on top of each other. But the barricade had been torn apart from the inside, not the outside.

  Rust loosened the knife in its sheath and began climbing the stairs.

  Second floor… Third floor… On the fourth floor, a bloody handprint on the wall. On the fifth, a dried pool of blood. On the sixth and seventh floors, the silence grew even heavier. As if the building itself was holding its breath.

  He reached the eighth floor still not out of breath.

  The corridor was dim. The first apartment door was closed. He turned the handle. Locked. He gave it a light shoulder shove.

  CRACK!

  The lock exploded like a gunshot, and the door swung violently. Rust melted into the shadows. No sound came from inside.

  He stepped into the apartment. It was tidy. Methodically abandoned. The kitchen was empty. On the floor, rifle casings and empty magazines… No one had fled without leaving their weapons behind.

  At the end of the corridor, a half-open door. A child’s room. Dust-covered toy cars, faded pink wallpaper, a small teddy bear on the bed.

  But the thing in the middle of the room ruined everything. A roughly one-meter-wide pool of dark, jelly-like liquid mixed with blood. Its surface was bubbling slightly, spreading a disgusting acidic stench.

  Rust crouched down. And at that moment, something impossible happened.

  The liquid, as if sensing his presence, began to slide slowly toward him. Defying gravity, it extended thin black veins and advanced straight toward his boots.

  Rust leaped backward. The liquid changed direction and followed him. As he stood up, his elbow struck the toy car on the edge of the bed. The car fell, rolled, and landed right in the center of the liquid.

  A high-pitched hiss rose. The liquid climbed onto the car, dissolved it in seconds, absorbed its fibers, and grew. Darker, bigger, hungrier.

  Rust recoiled in horror. And right then, a rusty nail was driven into the center of his brain.

  His eyes rolled back. The pain dropped him to his knees. His vision went black.

  A child’s room engulfed in flames. Trembling shadows huddled in the corner. A high-pitched cry. Then the wet sound of bones breaking. CRACK. His own bare hands. Crimson blood dripping from his knuckles. Not shaking. As he looked at the small motionless bodies on the floor, there was not a shred of pity inside him. Only the coldness of the machine. And that flat voice: “Clean it up. Leave none alive.”

  “HAAH!”

  Rust gasped as if drowning, returning to reality. His mind screamed in disgust, yet his physical body betrayed no emotion. His forehead was completely dry. His stomach did not heave.

  Those hands… those bloody hands were his.

  He stood up quickly. The liquid on the floor was still crawling toward him — now slightly larger. He slammed the door shut and gripped the handle tightly. He closed his eyes.

  He was disgusted with himself. He forced himself to exhale, though his lungs demanded no air.

  But at that moment, a sound that did not belong to the wind came from the end of the corridor.

  Tick… Tick… CRACK.

  Like a bone being broken and forcibly twisted backward. And the sound was coming from the ceiling.

  Rust gripped the handle of his knife and moved silently down the dim corridor. His steps were soft as a cat’s. The source of the sound was the elevator shaft at the end of the corridor.

  First came the sound of metal scraping. Then the sound of a heavy mass falling onto the elevator ceiling. THUD!

  The steel cables groaned. The rusted doors were wrenched open from the inside by a colossal force, bending to both sides.

  The thing that emerged from the shadows had crawled straight out of humanity’s deepest nightmares.

  On all fours. Shoulders as wide as a giant gorilla, hind legs like a drawn bow. Its skin was completely peeled away; exposed, throbbing blood-red muscle fibers. What held those muscles together were thick, tar-black veins rooted beneath the skin. Its head was the worst. It had no eyes. Where its face should have been was a smooth, calcified bone dome. The jaw that opened beneath it was packed with interlocking razor teeth. Bone spikes resembling rusty blades protruded from its joints and spine.

  The creature stepped into the corridor, driving its razor claws into the concrete. Blackish blood oozing from its claws left disgusting trails on the floor.

  Rust took half a step back. His boot stepped on a piece of broken glass.

  CRUNCH.

  The tiny sound echoed like a gunshot in the deathly silence.

  The creature’s bone skull turned toward Rust with impossible speed. It had no eyes, yet it was looking at him. The black veins in its neck swelled. And from that jaw erupted the ear-piercing scream of a rusty saw.

  The hind legs uncoiled. The creature launched like a cannonball.

  Rust’s mind could not process the speed, but his body had already moved. He threw himself sideways. The creature passed him by millimeters and slammed into the concrete wall like a wrecking ball. The wall shattered, and the building shook.

  Rust regained his balance and drew his knife. Fighting in this narrow corridor was suicide.

  The cold side of his body drew the route. He turned and sprinted. The creature chased after him, shaking the floor. He headed for the child’s room.

  When he reached the door, he did not stop. He rammed it with his shoulder like a battering ram. The wood splintered. He dove inside. The acid liquid was still there. Without slowing down, he loaded power into his legs and made a perfect leap over the pool.

  The creature’s claws that lunged from behind touched the liquid. A high-pitched hiss rose, smoke billowed, but the monster continued without caring about the pain.

  Rust ran toward the broken panoramic window. Eight floors below was an abyss. He did not hesitate for a second. He covered his face with his arms and hurled himself into the void.

  The wind roared in his ears.

  He was falling toward the rusty fire escape just below and to the side. He spun skillfully in the air, his boots slammed into the rails. The rails bent painfully. Rust used that bend as a springboard and launched himself onto the gravel-covered roof of the adjacent building.

  He crashed shoulder-first onto the hard gravel. He tumbled and slid, stopping only after slamming into the ventilation unit. A normal human would have been pulverized.

  Rust sprang to his feet in seconds. No fractures. Only a slight ache — and even that was fading. Before he could catch his breath, that terrible scream came from above.

  The creature had also leaped from the window, crashing like a meteor just ten meters away with its massive weight. A small crater formed on the roof. The monster rose onto all fours without staggering.

  Rust turned and sprinted toward the edge of the wide roof. Heavy claw sounds and disgusting CRACK sounds echoed on the concrete right behind him. When he reached the edge, he loaded that terrible power into his legs and hurled himself toward the windows of the old apartment across the street.

  SHATTER!

  He sailed through the air and crashed through the dirty glass. Shrapnel-like glass shards tore his clothes, but when they touched his skin they crumbled without leaving even a scratch.

  He slammed shoulder-first onto the parquet, rolled, and rose. But he had no time to stop.

  Two seconds later, the wooden door on the left exploded outward. A second shadow had crossed the street from the neighboring building, clinging to the fa?ade, and entered through the window.

  The creature spread its massive arms and leaped at him. Its razor jaw aimed straight for Rust’s throat.

  Rust did not slow down. He suddenly dropped to his knees and began sliding across the dusty parquet. As the creature’s muscular body passed directly over him, he raised his combat knife in reverse grip.

  SLAAASH!

  The sharp steel sank into the creature’s stomach. While sliding underneath, Rust ripped the monster’s body open from groin to ribcage like a zipper. As he sprang to his feet and continued running, he heard the creature collapse.

  But there was no sound. He turned his head slightly.

  Only tar-like black blood had gushed from the enormous gash. The black tissues on both sides of the wound frantically joined together and stitched the cut in seconds. The creature stood up without showing any sign of pain. It was still chasing him.

  Striking the body doesn’t work.

  Rust shoulder-rammed the locked steel door at the end of the corridor. The hinges snapped. He hurled himself out along with the door, into the dim, narrow back alley between the buildings.

  He rose to his feet in the middle of the alley. His breathing remained eerily steady.

  The alley opened at its end onto an open viaduct. But the world suddenly narrowed.

  CRUNCH. CRUNCH.

  He looked left. On the high brick wall of the narrow alley, a mass of muscle was running parallel to the ground, ignoring gravity. He looked right. The same thing on the fa?ade of the building to his right. He looked behind. The creature whose stomach he had ripped open was coming through the shattered door.

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  And from above, a large roof tile fell onto the back of his neck. He raised his head.

  At the very top of the buildings surrounding the alley stood the fourth one. Much larger. The protrusions on its bone dome looked like a crown.

  The large one dropped itself from the roof straight onto Rust’s path toward the viaduct. It crashed onto the concrete like a falling angel of death. Spiderweb-like cracks formed on the ground.

  Front. Back. Right. Left. The circle was completely closed. This was a death trap.

  All four turned their smooth bone faces toward Rust at once. As if receiving orders from a single mind, a silent and deadly wait.

  Rust’s mind trembled for the first time. A cold fear stabbed into his stomach. It’s over, he thought. The way an ordinary human would.

  But his body… his body did not give up. As if in spite of the coward in his brain, his body took complete control of the reins. His heartbeat settled into a heavy, powerful rhythm. His pain threshold dropped instantly. His hand instinctively gripped the knife handle at the perfect angle.

  In front of him, right behind the largest creature, lay the viaduct. His mind screamed: What are you doing, are you insane?!

  But his legs did not listen. Rust exploded forward in an incredible sprint, straight at the largest monster blocking his path.

  The creature roared. It raised its massive razor claws to cut Rust in half.

  Just when he thought he would be torn apart, his body swerved right. He veered toward a rusted, rotting dumpster. His boot stepped on the metal lid, launching him toward the wall. He ran two horizontal steps on the bricks. The creature’s claws tore through the air, grazing Rust’s cheek with the wind. It missed by centimeters.

  While sailing through the air, the large creature snapped its jaw upward. Its teeth nearly tore off Rust’s boot. Rust’s arms moved automatically.

  His left hand pressed against the creature’s smooth bone skull. The knife in his right hand sank into the monster’s unarmored neck joint. The creature hissed in pain.

  Using that push, Rust flipped over its back, his foot catching on the creature’s bony shoulder plate. He lost balance in the air and crashed shoulder-first onto the asphalt at the end of the alley.

  THUD!

  His back burned. The knife had flown from his hand. He slid across the ground. The trap had been broken, but he had not escaped cheaply.

  He recovered quickly, snatched his knife from the ground, and sprinted from the end of the alley onto the viaduct, the massive bridge.

  This place was a car graveyard. Rusty sedans and overturned vans blocked the road. Heavy rumbling sounds came from behind. All four creatures had reached the bridge.

  But they were not jumping over the cars. CRASH! SHATTER! They crushed the cars, tore apart metal doors, and hurled scrap vehicles left and right with raw force, carving a straight path for themselves.

  Rust turned his run into parkour. He stepped on a car’s hood and leaped onto its roof. The rusty roof collapsed with a THUD; Rust almost fell inside. He barely recovered and jumped onto another vehicle’s trunk.

  A shadow leaped from the roof of the overturned passenger bus on his left. One of the wall-running creatures used the bus like a trampoline and flew through the air straight at Rust.

  Rust panicked and leaped right, but the creature was too big. The moment he realized the shadow would crush him, he saw a thick rusty iron bar hanging from the bed of a pickup truck on his right.

  Without thinking, on pure reflex, his left hand grabbed the bar and swung it desperately at the creature’s head as it fell on him.

  CLANG!

  The iron bar struck the creature’s calcified bone face with tremendous force. The impact echoed across the bridge. The bar in Rust’s hand bent into a U-shape. His arms went numb up to the elbows. The bar flew from his hand.

  The creature veered off course and crashed mercilessly onto the asphalt, sliding.

  Rust looked at his own hands in horror. What kind of power is this?

  The end of the viaduct was now visible. But the bridge did not end. It connected directly to the second floor of a colossal skyscraper skeleton whose construction had been left unfinished when the apocalypse struck. There was a ten-meter-deep abyss between them.

  The other side: a dark labyrinth of massive concrete columns with no outer walls, open elevator shafts, and rebar protruding like spears.

  Rust pushed his speed to the absolute limit. The creatures were shaking the ground behind him.

  When he reached the edge of the chasm, he loaded all that incomprehensible energy into his legs and hurled himself into the void. He cleared ten meters in the air.

  His boot struck the edge of the opposite concrete floor. He almost fell. He clawed at the dust and dirt with his hands, pulled himself onto the dusty floor of the construction site with all his might, and rolled in somersaults.

  He immediately rose onto his knees and turned around. At the end of the bridge, the last rays of sunlight were disappearing.

  Four massive shadows leaped into the void one after another and crashed onto the construction site floor, on the same level as Rust, like heavy cannonballs.

  The concrete trembled. A cloud of dust rose. From the darkness, a deep, vibrating sound rose from the bone dome of the fourth and largest creature.

  As if the entire pack had drawn breath at the same time. The real hunt was beginning now.

  Rust began climbing the skeleton of the construction site. He leaped over half-finished concrete stairs and rusty scaffolding two or three at a time.

  The moment he stepped onto the wooden scaffolding to reach the next floor, he heard that disgusting CRACK sound. One of the creatures below had made an incredible leap and landed directly on the scaffolding at the same height as him.

  The creature spread its arms in the air.

  Rust did not run. Without cutting his momentum in the slightest, he ran straight at the airborne creature at full speed. They collided shoulder to shoulder. The terrifying power inside Rust exploded. He struck the creature’s chest with both hands so hard that the monster was hurled backward and slammed into a massive exposed concrete column.

  SLAAASH!

  Six thick rebar rods protruding from inside the column pierced through the creature’s chest and came out the back. The creature began thrashing in the air like a giant insect impaled.

  Rust stopped. He waited to see what would happen.

  The creature was not dead. The steel rods piercing its chest did not cause it to bleed. The black tar tissue around the wound began to move frantically. It melted and corroded the rods, closing the wound in seconds. The creature broke the rods in its chest and pushed itself forward. As if nothing had happened.

  Rust kicked the support post of the scaffolding hard. While the wooden structure collapsed with a great crash, the creature fell to the lower floor along with the debris. Rust continued climbing the stairs.

  How do these things die?

  His mind was desperately struggling. Blows to the body did not work because they had no internal organs. Then a lightning bolt flashed in his mind. The Mimic. The abomination in the quarantine that had imitated that child. He had killed it by splitting its skull in two. Armored or not, their brains were the weak point.

  He reached the top of the construction site, a vast concrete platform with no outer walls. The sounds of cracking bones echoed from below.

  At that moment he noticed the enormous weight on his back. His backpack. He could not fight with this weight. He hurled the backpack behind a heavy concrete block. He took only the handgun, two spare magazines, and the combat knife.

  The sounds coming from below were now one floor down.

  Rust quickly scanned his surroundings. He saw long rebar rods on the ground and thick industrial ropes on the side. He grabbed a one-meter-thick iron bar with both hands and bent it over his knee with a KUT sound, snapping it in two. He tied the sharpened end to the rope with a solid sailor’s knot. He had created a makeshift harpoon system. He slung one end of the rope over his shoulder and took the spear in his hand.

  He moved to the farthest edge of the open elevator shaft and waited. He took a deep breath.

  The first shadow burst from the darkness.

  The moment the creature leaped straight at him, Rust threw himself backward into the ten-story void. While falling through the air, he spun around. He hurled the rope-attached spear like a javelin straight into the abdominal cavity of the creature flying toward him.

  The spear sank into the flesh. The rope tightened.

  Rust’s own weight and the momentum of the fall pulled the creature hanging in the air down into the bottomless void with him, into the elevator shaft. For three floors, they fell side by side in the darkness.

  Rust hung from the rope in the air. The creature swung toward him like a pendulum. The ground rushed closer.

  Rust reached to his waist with his right hand and drew the combat knife. A split second before they hit the ground, he drove the knife into the smooth bone skull of the creature swinging toward him and landed on top of it with his own weight.

  THUD!

  Both of them slammed into the concrete floor. With Rust’s weight and the enormous momentum of the fall, the combat knife cracked the creature’s calcified bone armor and sank into its brain. The creature twitched for a second. Then its body dried up and crumbled into fine ash, scattering into the air.

  Rust rose to his knees in the middle of the dust cloud. He looked at his hands. At the thick gore dripping from the tip of his knife.

  This time the control was his. He was not on autopilot; he had killed it with his own decision, his own trap, and his own power. He stood up and gripped the knife tightly.

  “Three left.”

  BOOOOM!

  From above, two massive shadows leaped down from the elevator shaft at the same time. Two Stalkers rushed toward Rust, shaking the ground.

  Rust drew the handgun with his left hand, the knife in reverse grip in his right.

  BAM! BAM! BAM!

  The gun roared. Bullets struck the front creature’s kneecaps and shoulders. The rounds did not kill it, but the massive kinetic energy threw off its balance. In that split-second gap while the creature staggered, Rust charged forward.

  A true close-quarters hell began.

  Rust leaped onto the staggering creature and mercilessly drove his knife into the narrow gap where the creature’s bone armor met the neck. The creature screamed and swung its massive claw. The claw raked Rust’s chest, tore his tactical vest, and sliced his skin. Blood sprayed.

  Rust felt the pain but did not step back; he channeled his two-ton superhuman strength into his arms and twisted the knife inside the neck joint.

  CRACK!

  The spinal cord snapped. The second creature crumbled into a pile of ash.

  But before Rust could regain his balance, the third creature slammed into him like a train from the darkness. The handgun flew from his hand. Rust was dragged across the concrete floor for meters and slammed his back into a column. The air was knocked out of his lungs.

  The creature lunged straight at Rust’s face with its razor teeth to tear it apart.

  At the last moment Rust raised his right arm and shoved the thick steel body of his knife between the creature’s closing jaws. The teeth scraped against the metal, throwing sparks. He was being crushed under the creature’s weight. The creature’s disgusting acidic saliva dripped onto his face.

  He was cornered.

  Rust roared. With his free left hand he gripped the creature’s smooth bone skull from the side. While his right arm, still holding the knife, forced the creature’s jaw upward, he pushed the creature’s head with all his might toward the concrete column beside him.

  He was pushing the limits of his own power to the absolute end. The veins in his neck bulged. And he slammed the creature’s head into the concrete.

  THUD! The bone cracked.

  Rust did not let go. While the creature thrashed, he slammed it into the concrete once more. THUD!

  The moment the creature was dazed, he yanked the knife out from between its teeth and drove it upward from the creature’s soft, unarmored lower jaw straight into its brain. The knife went in to the hilt.

  The creature’s body suddenly went rigid and collapsed onto Rust as a pile of ash.

  Rust stood up, covered in concrete dust and gore. He ignored the wetness seeping from his torn vest and the thick tar smeared on his face. His lungs didn't burn for air. His body remained in an eerie, chilling stillness, as if the violence he just unleashed required no effort at all.

  All three were dead. The knife had finished the job. But the silence did not last long.

  Rust did not wait for the colossal silhouette to fully emerge from the darkness.

  Adrenaline boiled in his veins like lava. While the ashes of the previous three creatures still floated in the air, the Alpha’s chilling, calm stance awakened the hunter inside him. This was not a mindless pawn that attacked blindly like the others. This was the intelligence of the pack, the boss. And Rust’s mind instantly grasped how deadly that silent wait was.

  Rust gripped his combat knife tightly in his right hand, lowering his center of gravity by tilting his arm slightly forward. A momentary deathly silence fell over the concrete floor.

  Then the Alpha, as if bending time, launched from its position. Its massive body tore through the air, coming at him like a cannonball.

  Instead of dodging sideways, Rust did the exact opposite. He ran directly at the Alpha. Centimeters before the collision, he threw himself to the ground and slid rapidly. The Alpha's razor claws shredded the exact spot he had just been, sending concrete dust flying into the air.

  As Rust slid underneath, he swung his knife upward. But the Alpha wasn't stupid. With an incredible reflex in mid-air, it turned and shielded the knife's path with its thick, bone-armored foreleg.

  CLAAANG!

  Sparks exploded. The combat knife barely scratched the calcified bone armor but could not pierce it. Rust's arm went numb from the force of the impact.

  The moment the Alpha landed, without a hint of hesitation, it swung its thick hind leg. The kick landed squarely on Rust's ribs.

  Rust flew backward for meters as if hit by a truck. His back slammed into a giant concrete column, showering plaster. The air emptied from his lungs, and the taste of blood filled his mouth. But the pain... was almost non-existent. That strange numbness was still active.

  The Alpha slowly turned. Its horn-like bone protrusions gleamed in the shadows like a demonic crown.

  And it roared.

  This wasn't the high-pitched screech of the others. It was a thick, muffled roar that vibrated bones and crushed lungs.

  Rust gritted his teeth. Holding onto the column, he stood up.

  The Alpha attacked again. This time, the close-quarters combat began.

  The Alpha swung its right claw. Rust ducked, passed under it, and brought his left fist down on the creature's neck joint. The creature staggered but didn't stop; whipping its head violently, it struck Rust on the shoulder.

  Rust stumbled. The Alpha opened its jaws and lunged directly for his throat. Rust gripped his knife with both hands and jammed it horizontally between the jaws.

  The disgusting screech of metal and teeth rose. The Alpha's jaw began to bend even the thick body of the knife. As Rust felt the creature's acid-burning breath on his face, he kicked the Alpha's kneecap with his right foot with superhuman force.

  CRACK!

  The bone armor cracked. As the Alpha recoiled in pain, Rust seized the opening.

  He lunged forward and plunged his knife into the soft, dark tar tissue in the creature's stomach. This time, he did something he hadn't done with the others: He twisted the knife deep inside and pulled the creature toward him.

  Snarling, the Alpha swung its giant arm, striking Rust in the chest and hurling him toward the open elevator shaft.

  Rust barely grabbed the edge at the last second. As his feet dangled in the void, the Alpha approached with heavy steps, ignoring its wound. It raised its claw and brought it down to shred Rust's hands.

  But this was exactly what Rust wanted.

  The moment the claw came down, Rust held onto the edge with one hand, drew his knife with the other, and nailed the creature's giant claw directly to the concrete! The knife pierced both bone and concrete at once.

  The Alpha roared in agony. Rust quickly pulled himself up. As the creature tried to free its claw from the concrete, Rust stood right in front of it.

  The Alpha wheezed, covered in gore. Rust, however, stood with an eerie stillness.

  He looked at the eyeless bone skull.

  And the machine in his mind calculated the final move.

  As the Alpha tore its claw free, Rust clenched his right fist. He gathered all his power, that two-ton superhuman strength, the destructive energy from his muscle memory, into a single point.

  In the split second the creature raised its head, Rust brought his fist down like a sledgehammer.

  Directly onto the Alpha's horned, thick, supposedly unbreakable bone dome.

  BOOOOOOM!

  The sound of the impact shook the entire construction site. The Alpha's skull shattered into pieces. Bone fragments scattered around like shrapnel.

  The strike was so violent that the creature's body was lifted off its feet and hurled backward into the bottomless elevator shaft.

  As it fell, with its neck broken and skull completely shattered, it cried out one last time. But this time, the thick roar turned high-pitched, thinned out like a digital glitch, and finally morphed into the disgusting, thin child's cry he had heard from the first Mimic, fading into the darkness.

  SPLAAAT!

  A wet sound of impact came from below.

  Then, a deep silence.

  Only a thin cloud of ash slowly drifted upward.

  Rust dropped to his knees at the edge of the shaft... but stood up immediately after. His chest was rising and falling evenly and calmly. Even after a six-hour continuous walk and this brutal fight, his breathing was almost normal. His pulse was steady. There was no fatigue. Only a slight ache, and even that was disappearing in seconds.

  The deep claw marks on his shoulder under his torn vest were slowly closing.

  Rust straightened up.

  He looked at the misty darkness in the center of the city, at the P.A.R.A.D.O.X. buildings.

  The cold night wind dried the concrete dust and grime on his face.

  He picked his knife up from the ground and wiped it on his pants.

  He was no longer on autopilot. He still didn't know who he was, but he knew what he was.

  He was the one even the things hiding in the dark feared.

  As he sheathed his knife, he listened to the mechanical hum coming from the depths of the city.

  The spider's web was only just beginning.