Rakan fell.
Or at least—he thought he did.
But there was no impact.
No ground beneath him.
Just darkness.
Not the kind that came with closed eyes or unlit streets—this was something else. Something vast, swallowing, stretching in all directions like an endless ocean of black.
And beneath his skin—
Something was writhing
Something was moving.
A presence.
A force.
All he knew was the sensation, the way it curled and uncurled like invisible threads weaving through him. The way it filled his veins, hot and alive, pulsing in rhythm with his erratic heartbeat.
And then—
A voice.
Not spoken.
Not heard.
Just felt.
Like a whisper inside his skull.
"Wake up."
His breath caught.
The darkness shattered.
And suddenly—he was back.
His body slammed into the pavement, reality snapping into place as pain exploded through him.
He gasped, coughing hard as his vision swam, his limbs shaking beneath him. The world was tilting, spinning, the orange glow of the setting sun blurring into streaks against his sight.
The air felt wrong.
Charged.
Like something massive had just shifted.
Like something inside him had just awakened.
And then—
That thing was still there.
Still watching.
Rakan's stomach twisted.
The thing hadn't moved. Not physically.
But something about it had changed.
Before, it had been an unraveling, a mass of flickering shapes, impossible to comprehend.
Now—
It had form.
Still shifting, still flickering, but clearer.
Long-limbed. Twisted. Its body stretched unnaturally, limbs bending at impossible angles, its face—or whatever it has as a face— split open in something like a grin—if a grin could be filled with jagged, ever-changing shapes instead of teeth.
Its eyes—or what passed for them—were locked onto him.
And it was smiling.
Or at least—
It felt like it was.
Rakan's breath came sharp, his pulse hammering, his body trembling from pain and something deeper. Something colder.
Something like fear.
And then—
The thing lunged.
A blur of movement.
A tearing in the air itself.
Rakan didn't think.
He moved.
His body acted on instinct, driven by something deeper than conscious thought, something woven into the very core of his being.
He dodged.
Just barely.
The thing's arm—claw—whatever it was—slashed through the air where he had been just moments ago, tearing through the pavement like it was paper.
A gash split through the concrete, deep and jagged, a scar left in the very earth itself.
Rakan barely registered it.
He was already moving.
Already running.
But the thing didn't let him go.
It shifted.
Unravelled.
And reappeared—
Right in front of him.
Impossible.
Rakan's body locked up.
His mind screamed.
He had no time.
No chance to react.
And then—
That feeling inside him—
It erupted.
His vision blurred.
His pulse stopped.
And the world around him seemed to fold—
Twist—
Bend—
And then—
He was somewhere else.
Standing.
Breathing.
Alive.
His back against a wall.
The thing—
Gone.
Or at least—
Not near him.
Not for now.
Rakan's chest heaved, his mind racing, his body still trembling with the ghost of whatever had just happened.
He looked down at his hands.
They were shaking.
His fingers curled, clenched into fists as his breath came in quick, uneven gasps.
That thing—
That thing—
It had attacked him.
And yet—
He had moved.
He had dodged.
He had escaped.
And that feeling—
That thing beneath his skin—
It had saved him.
He swallowed hard.
And for the first time—
A thought crept into his mind.
A question.
A realization.
That whatever was happening—
Whatever was inside him—
It wasn't normal.
It wasn't human.
And it was only just beginning.
The wound festered.
Not in the way of infection—no heat, no swelling, no streaks of red creeping under his skin. But it lingered, pulsing, humming, like something was still moving beneath it. When he pulled his shirt up in the dim light of the alley, he could see it: dark, thin lines spiraling out from where the thing had torn into him. They didn't look like veins. They didn't look like anything a human body should have.
It should've stopped bleeding by now. But it hadn't. The blood was slow, sluggish, an unnatural trickle from a wound that refused to close.
Rakan exhaled sharply through his nose, forcing his shirt down. He was just exhausted. That had to be it. His body wasn't used to this kind of injury. That thing—whatever it was—had attacked him out of nowhere, and now his body was in shock. His mind was in shock. He just needed to get home, clean it, bandage it, and he'd be fine. He had to be.
He pressed his palm against the wound, hissing as he forced pressure into it, and pushed himself off the alley wall. He took a step. Another. A third—
And then he stopped.
Because the street was empty.
Dead empty.
Not in the way it should be, this late into the night, with people tucked away in their homes and the distant hum of cars in the background. This was different. A deeper kind of quiet, like the world itself had pressed pause. The air was still, unmoving. The neon lights from a sign above him flickered once, then went out entirely.
And then—
"You should really get that looked at."
The voice slid into existence, smooth and amused, like it had been there all along and Rakan was only just now noticing it.
He whipped around.
Someone was sitting on the ledge above the alley, one leg bent up, the other dangling over the side in lazy amusement. His face was half-shadowed, features hidden beneath the stark glow of the streetlight behind him. But Rakan could make out pale, tousled hair, a sharp grin, and a single eye peering down at him—watching, but not with concern. With something else.
Something knowing.
Something that made the wound in Rakan's side pulse.
"Who—" His throat felt tight. "Who the hell are you?"
The man tilted his head, exaggerated, like he was genuinely considering the question.
And then he smiled wider.
"Oh? You don't remember me?"
His voice was light, teasing, like they were old friends. Rakan stiffened. He'd never seen this man in his life. He was sure of it.
And yet—
That voice.
That presence.
There was something wrong with it.
Something wrong with him.
"Ah, well," the man continued, stretching his arms behind his head. "Can't blame you. You humans are terrible with memory."
His grin sharpened.
"But don't worry. I remember you."
The world had not started moving again.
The stillness pressed against Rakan's skin, dense as water, thick as breath in winter. The alley was nothing but shadow now, the streetlights above flickering out one by one, snuffed like candles against some unseen force. His pulse was a low, dull roar in his ears, his breath shallow, caught between his teeth.
And yet, the man above him lounged as if nothing was wrong. As if the world hadn't stopped, hadn't emptied itself of all its sound and life. He was watching, head tilted at an unnatural angle, his eye gleaming like the crescent sliver of a blade catching the moon.
Rakan's fingers curled, a deep, instinctive urge to brace himself, to prepare for something, anything. He didn't know why, but the longer he stood there, the more his body screamed at him to move.
And yet, he couldn't.
Because there was something about that man. Something about his voice, his presence, that curled at the edges of his memory, a feeling older than thought, older than the first time he had felt that wrongness settle into his bones.
Moonlight slashed through the alley, silver and sharp, cutting across his figure in uneven patches, painting him in stark light and shifting shadow. He was tall but not imposing, his frame draped in loose, layered clothing that felt deliberately careless, a teasing contrast to the sharp lines of his body. His hair was a mess of unruly waves, pulled back haphazardly, stray strands slipping free to frame a face that was deceptively open, all lazy amusement and fox-like mischief. And yet, his presence carried something heavy beneath it, something unreadable, a knowing weight behind his single eye—the other hidden beneath the tilt of his bangs, veiled, secretive.
Rakan's gaze caught, lingered. A symbol, inked and faintly raised, peeked from beneath the loose folds of his sleeve, a shape curling against the inside of his wrist. An eye. Simple, yet intricate. Old, yet unyielding. It was there and then it wasn't, the fabric shifting, swallowing it whole.
"You're scared." The man's voice was light, conversational. "I don't blame you. I'd be too, if I were you."
His grin widened, too sharp, a crescent of teeth in the dark. "After all, it did get you pretty good, didn't it?"
Rakan's grip on his side tightened. The wound pulsed again, thick and sluggish.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, though his voice felt distant, unreal. "I don't know who you are."
The man let out a low hum, tapping his fingers lazily against his knee. "That's fair," he admitted. "But I do know you, Rakan."
His name in the man's mouth felt wrong. Like it didn't belong there. Like it had been pulled from somewhere it shouldn't have been.
Rakan's breath hitched. "How—"
"Your wound," the man interrupted, pointing lazily. "It won't heal, you know."
Something cold trickled down Rakan's spine.
The man smiled, his gaze heavy, knowing. "It's not a normal injury. Normal injuries don't stay. Don't cling." He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees. "That thing you ran into? That was no ordinary monster, kid. And you're no ordinary human."
The words slammed into him, rattling something deep in his chest, something he didn't want to name.
His nails dug into his palm. "You don't know what you're talking about."
A laugh. Low, amused.
"Oh, but I do."
The man's eye gleamed in the dark, too bright, like the reflection of something deep, deep beneath the water's surface.
"And so do you."
Rakan took a step back, breath shallow, heartbeat hammering against his ribs.
Because the moment the man had said those words—
The moment he had uttered them with that low, knowing lilt—
The air had changed.
The stillness had not lifted. The silence had not shattered. And yet, something in the space between them had shifted, the weight of the world tilting slightly on its axis.
And for the first time, Rakan felt something stir beneath his skin.
Something deep.
Something old.
Something that had always been there, waiting.
The man's grin widened.
"Oh," he murmured, almost to himself.
"There it is."
The air held a taut stillness, thick and charged, as if the night itself had leaned in to listen. Rakan's breath was shallow, his pulse an erratic drumbeat against his ribs, but the man across from him—no, not a man, something else entirely—was all ease, all casual nonchalance, as if the weight of the moment barely brushed against him.
He moved, and the world moved with him. A step, unhurried. A hum, thoughtful, as if he were weighing something unseen.
"Well," he said lightly, rolling his shoulders. "Looks like you're managing. That's good."
Rakan's grip on his side tightened, fingers pressing into the wound that refused to close. His voice, when it came, was rough at the edges, half-buried beneath exhaustion and lingering adrenaline.
"Who the hell are you?"
A grin. Too easy, too practiced. "Just a guy who saved your life. No need to thank me, though, I'm not that selfless."
Rakan narrowed his eyes, anger flickering beneath the lingering haze of pain. "That—thing—was gone before you even got here."
"Was it?" A light tilt of the head, amusement lacing every syllable. "You sure about that?"
A sound.
Low. Wet.
Rakan's breath hitched as it crawled up his spine, slithering into his ribs, that familiar wrongness pressing into his lungs like the weight of unseen hands. His head snapped to the side, eyes darting past the stranger, past the narrow mouth of the alley, to the shifting dark beyond.
It was still here.
The air rippled, thick and distorted, and the shadows bled into something else, something moving, unfolding, unmaking. It took shape in jagged, unnatural motions, flesh and air warping like a film skipping frames, limbs twisting, elongating, the edges of its form refusing to settle. The eyes were wrong, too many, too hungry, wet sockets stretching across the jagged sprawl of its face.
Rakan's stomach lurched. The world tilted.
The man in front of him merely sighed. "Tch. Persistent little bastard."
He moved before Rakan could process it, before the creature could lunge.
It was not a step, not a shift, but a sudden absence—a blink, a breath, and he was no longer in front of Rakan but there, at the creature's throat, weightless and sharp as a blade of wind. His hand moved lazily, fingers trailing through the air like an artist across an unseen canvas, and the space around him responded.
A pulse. A ripple. A cut into the fabric of something Rakan could not see.
The creature spasmed, its form breaking apart like ink scattered in water.
But it did not die.
Instead, it writhed, convulsing against some unseen force, limbs collapsing inward before flaring outward again, reshaping itself, the gnarl of its body shifting with a grotesque snap of bone and sinew.
And still, the man remained unbothered.
"Annoying," he murmured, flexing his fingers. "You lot never know when to quit."
Rakan could hardly move, barely breathe, eyes locked onto the scene unfolding before him.
The stranger let out a slow breath, and for a moment, the light in his eye changed—sharp, cold, something unreadable cutting beneath the amusement.
Then he moved.
Not like before.
Not like anything Rakan had ever seen.
It was not speed, not force, but weightlessness, an absence of resistance, a fluidity that did not belong to the rules of the world. The distance between him and the creature vanished in a breath, his form slipping between spaces, between moments, and before the thing could react, his hand was already at its core.
He pressed two fingers against its flesh.
And ripped.
There was no sound, no struggle. Just a silent collapse, a folding inward, the creature's form crumbling into nothing, into dust, into less than dust. Into something seen but unseen.
And then it was gone.
The stranger exhaled, shaking his hand as if ridding himself of something distasteful. "There," he muttered. "That's better."
Rakan could not speak.
The man turned to him, rolling his shoulders. "So. Where were we?"
Rakan swallowed, something thick in his throat. "What—" He forced his voice to steady. "What was that?"
A knowing look. A grin, teasing and too pleased. "That," he said lightly, "was a question you'll have to pay for."
Rakan scowled. "What?"
He lifted a brow. "Nothing in this world is free, kid. But lucky for you, I'm a simple man. A little food, a little conversation, and I'll tell you everything you want to know."
Rakan stared, deadpan.
"You're serious."
The man placed a hand over his heart, mock-wounded. "Of course I am. Do I look like someone who lies?"
"Yes."
A bark of laughter. "You are sharp."
Rakan's fingers twitched at his side. Every nerve in his body screamed at him not to trust this man, to turn and leave before he got pulled into something he couldn't escape.
And yet—
The words echoed in his skull.
"Your wound won't heal."
"You're no ordinary human."
His pulse roared in his ears. He exhaled, slow, deliberate.
And then—
"…Fine."
The man grinned.
"Attaboy."