Its claws snapped shut around my throat.
Cold. Instant, skin-numbing cold. I dug my nails into its wrist, but the dead muscle felt like iron cable wrapped in leather.
Black crept in at the edges.
Then the furnace inside me exploded.
My jaw split with a wet crack. Something ancient ripped upward through bone and sinew. My mouth yawned open—too wide, wrong-wide—and pure instinct took the wheel.
I bit.
Rot and grave-dust flooded my tongue. Power slammed down my throat like lightning chased by gasoline. The thing shrieked, tried to jerk free. My teeth locked harder.
Flesh didn't tear. It dissolved.
Straight into me. Energy, thick and electric, pouring into the void that had opened behind my ribs.
Its grip slackened. I dropped to my knees, but the hunger hauled me forward like a dog on a leash. I slammed the creature down and tore into it, ripping, gulping, devouring with a savagery that made the last rational part of me scream in horror.
Every mouthful was fire. Every mouthful was fuel.
When the hunger finally quieted, nothing remained but black ash drifting upward and vanishing into moonlight.
My hands shook. Breath sawed in and out.
Then green text bloomed in the air in front of me.
[GHOST STOMACH SYSTEM ACTIVATED] [WILD GHOST CONSUMED] [ANALYZING ESSENCE…] [ABILITY ACQUIRED: NIGHT VISION] [INTEGRATION 100%]
I blinked hard. The words didn't fade.
The forest snapped into brutal clarity. Moonlight turned daylight-bright. Every leaf vein, every dewdrop, every scuttling beetle a mile away—sharp enough to cut.
I raised a trembling hand. Ash and something darker smeared my skin.
"This isn't real."
My stomach answered with a low, satisfied growl—not pain, just readiness. Like a wolf that's tasted first blood and already smells the rest of the pack.
Consume. Adapt. Survive.
The words weren't mine, but they lived in my bones now.
Far off between the trunks, a lantern flickered—warm, orange, human.
Or something wearing human light.
With my new eyes, the dark parted like theater curtains.
I started walking toward it.
Not because it looked safe.
Because the hunger was already licking its lips for whatever came next.