Somewhere in another part of Stonehaven – At 02:47 A.M.
The streets were empty.
No sirens. No barking dogs. No voices. Just the rain, and the wet slap of it against the concrete.
She didn't feel it anymore.
Once, she used to shiver.
Once, she used to think.
But now—
Now there was only the fire in her chest. The rage in her veins. The broken voice in her skull whispering kill them all. The process had failed. She had failed. Whatever was left of the girl they had twisted, carved, burned into something new… it was gone.
And in its place—
Teeth.
Claws.
Hatred.
She crouched high above them, veiled in darkness. Her limbs trembled under strain they no longer recognized, bones jutting from the torn skin like jagged blades. Her hair hung in blood-clumped ropes, parting slightly from one eye and obscuring the remnants of once-soft features.
Below her, three black Foundation transports rolled to a slow halt beside a half-collapsed warehouse.
She didn't move.
Not yet.
She watched.
Doors hissed open, boots slapped into puddles. Flashlights clicked on.
The anomaly retrieval team stepped out in formation, their movements seasoned by years of battle, armored in reinforced plating, and methodical in every calculated step. These were a team that had seen things, survived worse. Or they thought they had.
One of them, Danz, adjusted the scope on his rifle and muttered, "This place gives me the creeps. You smell that?"
"Rust. Mold. Probably something died here last week," Levan said, his eyes scanning the rooftops. "Don't let your nerves get ahead of your sightlines."
"What? She was spotted near here last night," Danz continued. "They found a body an hour later. Just good old, clean bones. Nothing left."
"That can't be real," said Renna. "No person or thing could pull that off in under five minutes... right?"
"And if you ask me, I still don't see why we're being sent into these ghost runs," she added. "Every time we show up, there's nothing left but meat and static."
"Because Command doesn't believe in ghosts," Malek said, thumbing the safety off his sidearm. "We've talked about this. They believe in asset retrieval."
"Asset," Renna muttered. "Right. That's what they're calling these monsters now?"
"Oh, come on, don't call it that," Malek said. "It… she was human once."
"Doesn't matter," Danz replied, scanning the rooftops. "Not when it tears through armor like tissue paper. Whatever she was as a person, she's gone now."
"She still moves like she remembers," Renna said quietly. "Based on movement analysis from prior ops, she sticks to familiar terrain. Prioritizes concealment. Never crosses into direct sightlines. Ever heard of any monsters that self-aware? That careful? I don't think it's all gone."
Malek looked up. "So you think there's still some part of a person left in there?"
No one answered.
High above, the creature shifted, if only slightly.
Her head tilted, slow and broken. That name. That word—she. It clawed at something deep, buried beneath layers of pain and instinct. A flicker of sound rose in her, like a name just out of reach. C...
Her claws twitched.
Below, Renna broke the silence again. "What are we even doing out here? Every team sent after it ends up gutted in some way or the other. We're no different."
"Orders," Danz replied simply. "We're here strictly on orders. No more, no less."
"And if we die?"
"Then Command sends a cleanup crew and pretends we didn't."
A moment passed. The rain hissed quietly around them.
Malek exhaled and looked down at the ground, then up at the rooftops as if hoping not to see what he already feared was there.
"I can't die out here," he muttered. "I've got a little brother waiting for me back home. Kid's only thirteen. Thinks I'm some kind of superhero." He gave a dry chuckle. "I send him pictures of my boots and tell him they're 'tactical-grade kickers.' Boy eats that stuff up."
Renna let out a soft laugh. "Tactical-grade kickers? You're terrible."
"Nah, he loves it," Malek smiled faintly. "Last time I came back on leave, he'd spray-painted 'KICKER UNIT 01' on his sneakers and chased me around the house pretending to be in combat mode."
"Sounds like a good kid," Renna said, her voice softer now. "My grandma's waiting for me. Just her and me back home. No parents. She's all I've got."
Malek glanced at her. "She know what you do?"
"She thinks I fix radios for a living." Renna smiled sadly. "I send her postcards from whatever base I'm stationed at. Lie through my teeth. But I always write. Every Sunday."
"You gotta get back to her."
"And you to your kicker unit," she replied, nudging him gently with her elbow.
The moment lingered, just long enough to feel real.
Then the tracker on Levan's wrist beeped.
Twice.
Then three times.
The display pulsed red.
"Uh… guys?"
The rest of the squad turned toward him.
Levan's voice was tight. "Movement, two o'clock! Target's airborne. We've got a ping—"
That was all he got out before something red and fast dropped from above like a thunderclap.
Seventeen minutes earlier, the command center had lost contact.
Now it understood why.
Danz didn't even have time to look up. Her claws crushed his skull into the pavement, splitting it like soft fruit. Blood sprayed across the wet asphalt. His body twitched once—then went still.
She shrieked. A raw, splintered sound. It wasn't a cry of triumph. It was pain. Raw, blistering pain.
She couldn't stop herself. No matter how hard she tried.
Because there was nothing left inside her to hold back.
"Contact! Contact! We're live, I repeat, we're live—!"
Levan raised his rifle and fired wildly, his hands shaking. But he was too slow.
She came from behind him, tearing straight through his ribs. With one hand, she lifted him like dead weight and hurled him into the side of a building.
He hit it with a sickening crunch. Bone burst through his thigh. His breath came out in a wet gurgle and ended.
She screamed again. It was louder this time, a raw sound full of rage and something far worse.
Renna panicked.
She emptied her clip, firing round after round straight into the creature's chest. The shots tore through its flesh.
The bullets hurt.
And that was good.
She liked the pain. She needed it. It was the only thing left that made her feel real. That reminded her she hadn't completely died yet.
Not all the way.
She lunged.
With one savage motion, she tore Renna's jaw clean off.
The scream stopped instantly, drowned in a fountain of blood. Then she sank her teeth into Renna's neck like a starving animal, ripping away flesh in ragged, wet chunks.
Malek saw it happen.
And he ran.
He had to be the smart one of the group.
But she was faster.
She leapt, slammed into him mid-stride, and drove him into the street. His body hit the pavement hard. Her knees pinned his arms, claws braced on either side of his face.
He writhed beneath her, choking on panic, choking on pain.
"Please—no, wait—wait!" he gasped. "I've got a little brother back home—he's thirteen—I'm all he has. I'm the one who feeds him. I'm the one who helps with school. I have to make it back. I have to—"
The creature froze.
Her head tilted slightly.
The growling eased, just a little.
From her mouth, thick with blood and breath and broken snarls, something strange slipped out.
A word.
Two words.
It was barely a whisper, scraped from what was left of something human.
"…Me too."
Then she struck.
Her fist plunged into his gut, again and again, until bone cracked and breath left his body in wet, broken gasps. Her claws scraped pavement beneath what was left of him.
And when it was done—
She didn't roar.
She didn't howl.
She just stood over him in silence, the rain mixing with blood, eyes dim and haunted.
Whatever memory had surfaced… it had passed.
The rage returned.
And she was starving. Someone else remained.
It was the Chief of Police, herself.
She stood with that same calm face. That same straight back.
It filled the creature with rage.
She hated that calm. That order. That self-control.
It reminded her of everything she had lost. Everything she could never get back.
Her body trembled, ready to strike—
But something deep inside her held her back. It was a flicker of memory, familiar but never forgotten.
She stepped back, retreating into the shadows.
Not because it was over.
Not because she was done.
But because the rage wasn't.
****
The streets were dead.
And she was starving.
The monster slithered through the alleys, twitching and snarling at every shadow. Her claws dragged along the walls behind her, carving the names of her captors in deep, angry slashes.
The ones in white coats. The ones who smiled. The ones who lied.
They told her she'd be better. Stronger. More.
But they made her this.
They turned her skin inside out. Injected her with things. Strapped her down while she screamed, again and again.
She used to beg. Not anymore.
Now she answered.
The Industrial District reeked of rust and death.
Perfect.
She clung to the rafters like a spider, still and silent. Below her, a man whimpered. He'd seen her. He'd lived.
Barely.
With a twist of her foot, his neck snapped like dry wood.
Then came Mendoza.
Another weapon.
Another test.
She dropped behind her like a shadow peeling off the wall.
Gunshots burst through the air. Pain tore through her flesh. Heat burned across her skin.
And she smiled.
She loved it.
Because pain meant fear.
And if they feared her...
It meant they remembered.
Remembered what they did.
Remembered who she was.
And now—
They were afraid of what she had become.
They were afraid of her.
She chased Mendoza through blood-slick corridors, her claws shrieking against the metal walls. Her grin split wide, tearing already-cracked flesh, and revealing too many teeth. None of them human.
She wanted Mendoza to run. To scream. To beg.
To suffer.
But she was too fast.
The monster lunged again—
And this time, Mendoza didn't make the turn.
She crashed into her, driving them both into the wall with bone-shattering force. Mendoza gasped, her ribs folding under the pressure.
Hot breath hit her ear suddenly.
The monster didn't speak.
She didn't have to.
Her hunger said everything.
****
3:02 A.M. – At the Stonehaven Dispatch Center
Rain hammered the roof. Static filled the room.
"She's not responding."
The dispatcher's voice cracked with tension. His headset hissed with dead air. He tapped his screen again. No vitals showed, no signals, no comms. Just that slow, red blink:
Team Status: Compromised.
A low murmur crept through the room.
"That's… that's the fourth team this week." whispered a young tech officer.
At the back, Chief Aomorii stood still, her coat dripping rainwater into a quiet puddle at her feet. She didn't take her eyes off the monitor. Her arms were crossed. Her jaw locked tight.
The dispatcher turned to her. "Ever since RS-07 breached containment… every team we've sent has vanished. And it's only escalated from then onwards!"
Aomorii didn't blink.
"This is not the same as the others," the dispatcher added. "This isn't random. It's not feeding. It's tracking something."
Another tech scrolled through tactical maps. "Sir, we've logged six incidents in less than 72 hours. Three in the residential district, two in industrial, one near the canal zone. But no clear pattern."
"There is one," Aomorii said quietly.
All eyes turned.
She stepped forward, her voice calm, cold, but thoughtful. "It's circling. Returning to specific zones where she lived. Where she was changed. Where she died."
"But why?" asked the dispatcher. "What could a thing like that possibly want?"
"She's not hunting for food," Aomorii confirmed. "That much, we can rule out. Seems to me like she's looking for answers of sort. Or revenge. Maybe both."
"You're saying it remembers?"
"She remembers enough."
The room fell into a heavy silence.
Aomorii's eyes were locked on a grainy feed of a shadow moving just outside the frame. "It knows these streets all too well. It avoids cameras. Avoids drones. Takes out the highest threat first, then works its way down. She's not lashing out randomly. She's punishing us, one by one, and taking her time with it too. Every attack we make only pulls us deeper into its carefully laid trap."
"What do we do about it?" asked the young tech.
Aomorii's voice was barely a whisper. "We stop treating her like an anomaly… and start treating her like someone who knows exactly what was taken from her."
A moment of silence passed between them.
Then she added, "She's not just killing to survive. She's merely doing it against the Foundation to make them feel. Every lie. Every needle. Every scream."
And in the silence that followed—
The static pulsed louder.
Because somewhere out there...
The rage still burned.
Hers.
< Chapter 15 > Fin.