The doorway swallowed us deeper than any corridor should have allowed. It didn't feel like entering a building. It felt like stepping into a throat. The air clung to my skin, humid and unnervingly warm, as though something in the walls exhaled slowly, deliberately.
Ronan's grip remained anchored around my hand — not crushing, but unshakably firm. I could feel the way his pulse changed. Not faster. Denser. As if his blood thickened in anticipation.
Observation 41: A beastman enters new territory like a creature tracking the heartbeat of the world.
He didn't look around in quick, darting glances the way a human would. His gaze moved deliberately. Slowly. Like a predator circling its perimeter — confident in what he'd do if something leapt first.
The hallway stretched forward into a dim, steady glow, revealing walls too smooth to be constructed by anything natural. They were white, but not clean-white. A bone-white. A memory-white. The kind of tone that reminded you of something emptied and long gone.
"Do you hear that?" I whispered.
Ronan didn't pause. "Yes."
"What is it?"
"A heartbeat," he said, low. "But not from a person."
A chill spread down my spine.
We stepped further. The light shifted as if responding to our movement — glowing slightly stronger ahead and dimming behind. The building was guiding us. Not physically pushing, but setting the path.
"Keep your senses open," I murmured, though he hardly needed the reminder.
"I am." His tone softened only a fraction when he added, "And keep close."
I did.
The air tasted metallic now. Like the inside of a machine. Or a weapon. A hum vibrated along the walls, faint and rhythmic.
Observation 42: Ronan's body always reacts before his words — his shoulders tightening a degree before he acknowledges danger.
And they tightened now.
We reached the end of the corridor.
The glow ahead sharpened into a single doorway, outlined with a dull, shifting light like a heartbeat trapped inside the frame. Ronan stepped in front of me slightly, not obstructing — anchoring.
He lowered his voice. "There's something inside."
I swallowed. "Alive?"
"Yes. But..." His nostrils flared, an instinctive motion he rarely controlled. "It's faint. Fractured. Wrong."
Wrong.
Not dangerous. Not threatening.
Wrong.
Something about the way he said it made my stomach twist. Ronan didn't use that word lightly. Creatures could be vicious or monstrous or deadly — but wrong meant unnatural. Against the grain of the world.
Against the grain of instinct.
He released my hand only long enough to place his palm against the door.
The door unsealed without a sound.
And the world changed.
The room was vast, circular, lit by thin veins of blue-white light running across the floor. In the center stood a glass cylinder taller than either of us, fog swirling inside it like a trapped storm.
But the thing that stole my breath wasn't the cylinder.
It was the table nearby.
A table covered in papers, fragmented notes, threads of sketches.
And in the middle—
My name.
Dozens of times.
Written in different hands, different pressures, different pens.
My name, carved into a sheet of metal.
My name, typed into a dossier.
My name, circled in red on top of a grid of photographs.
My throat closed instantly.
"Ronan…"
He was already there, a wall of presence beside me. His jaw tightened with such force I heard his teeth creak.
Observation 43: When Ronan goes completely still, it is the calmest form of rage.
He didn't slam the table. Didn't roar. Didn't break anything. It was the silence that shifted — a silence that hummed around him, thickening the air, concentrating every instinct he possessed.
He reached out, fingers brushing one of the sheets with my name carved into it.
"This isn't just surveillance," he said, voice low, roughened. "This is obsession."
I tried to speak, but my voice appeared softer than I intended. "Why me?"
He shook his head with a slow, predatory precision. "I don't know. But I'm going to find out."
His hand hovered over another file. He opened it with a controlled flick — too controlled. The restraint cost him.
Inside the folder lay not information.
But drawings.
Of me.
Sketches capturing me walking, thinking, turning my head. Some were crude outlines. Others were detailed enough to look almost alive, my expression captured mid-thought, mid-breath.
A chill rippled under my skin.
"They studied you," Ronan whispered, anger simmering just beneath the surface. "Every gesture. Every step. Every micro-expression."
My heart began to race in my chest, too loud, too raw.
Observation 44: Ronan doesn't say "I'm angry." His body broadcasts it through shadows and breath.
He leaned closer to the file, reading a line scrawled at the bottom:
"Subject is unaware of how much she reveals."
My breath left me entirely.
"Ronan…" My voice wavered.
He closed the file.
Not gently.
But carefully.
Careful rage — the most terrifying kind.
"They think they can understand you," he murmured. "Translate you. Map you out like terrain."
He turned to me then, eyes no longer the warm ember I knew, but something sharper. Wilder. Protective in a way that made the air thrum.
"They're wrong."
Something inside the cylinder hissed suddenly.
Fog shifted.
A silhouette emerged behind the glass.
Ronan moved instantly — stepping in front of me, arm across my body, shielding me so thoroughly I could feel the heat radiating from his spine.
The shape behind the glass pressed a hand — or something shaped like a hand — against the inside.
A long finger dragged downward, leaving a streak in the condensation.
Ronan's breath deepened. His stance widened.
The figure leaned closer, features still hidden by mist.
Then—It whispered.
Soft.
Distorted.
But unmistakably directed at me.
"Elena…"
My heart stuttered in my chest.
Observation 45: Ronan reacts to threats against me with something beyond fury — something primal.
He didn't roar. He didn't lunge. He simply took one step forward, placing himself entirely between the cylinder and me, blocking the view.
"Stay behind me," he murmured, voice low enough to vibrate through the floor.
"What is it?" I whispered.
"I don't know." His body tightened, muscles coiling like live wire. "But it knows you."
A chill ran deeper than bone.
Then the cylinder cracked.
Not exploded.
Cracked — one single fracture spiraling down like lightning.
The fog thickened.
Ronan's claws slid out of his fingers.
Claws.
I had seen them before — but never in stillness. Never in silence. Never in the kind of readiness that promised unrestrained violence.
A pulse erupted from the cylinder.
Not sound.
Not wind.
Something else.
Something that knocked breath out of my lungs and shook the lights overhead.
Ronan staggered half a step — not from weakness, but from impact. He ground his claws into the floor to stay upright, dragging deep lines into the metal.
The crack widened.
"Elena." He reached back blindly, his fingers finding my forearm, anchoring me to him. "Do not move."
The fog split like torn cloth.
Something stepped forward.
Humanoid.
But wrong.
So deeply wrong that even the air rejected it.
Its head tilted, as though testing how much of me it could see around Ronan's body.
Ronan snarled — low, deadly — a sound that felt like it shook the shape of the world.
Observation 46: Even when danger is inches away, Ronan never forgets to check if I am breathing.
His hand squeezed my arm gently — the only part of him that wasn't violence.
I whispered, "Ronan, what does it want?"
"I'm not letting it get close enough to answer."
The creature raised its hand.
And wrote a symbol in the air.
A symbol I had seen once.
On one of the papers.
Beside my name.
My blood froze.
Ronan's claws flashed forward.
The creature lunged.
The world narrowed to sound and breath and instinct.
Ronan moved like fire given shape, intercepting, striking, shielding me with everything he was. The creature slammed against him with unnatural force, pushing him a foot back, his heels grinding metal as he absorbed the impact.
But he didn't fall.
He couldn't fall.
For me.
He roared, pushing back, claws carving bright arcs of fury.
The creature hissed, black ichor dripping from where Ronan tore into it.
I stumbled backward, heat roaring in my chest, breath tangled in my throat. The room pulsed around me. The symbol the creature had drawn hung faintly in the air — fading like steam.
My symbol.
Why my symbol?
Ronan slammed the creature into the glass cylinder hard enough to crack the entire structure. His body was a blur of teeth and claws and protective fury, every ounce of strength harnessed into keeping it from reaching me.
Observation 47: He fights with precision when he is angry — but with abandon when I am threatened.
Another roar tore out of him as he drove the creature down to the floor, pinning it. For a second, it struggled. Then—
It stilled.
Ronan's breathing was ragged. Violent. His muscles trembled with restrained instinct, his claws still driven into its torso.
"Elena—" he rasped without turning. "Don't come closer."
I didn't.
The creature lifted its head.
Just enough to see me.
"Elena," it croaked again.
I felt my heart drop.
Ronan growled, but the creature's voice didn't aim at him.
Only me.
"Elena… we found… you."
My veins turned molten.
Before I could speak, the creature convulsed—
And dissolved.
Yes — dissolved — into a fine, dark dust that evaporated in the air like smoke being swallowed by nothingness.
Ronan froze.
His claws retracted instantly, his body trembling under the rush of ending the fight. He whipped around to face me, breath ragged.
"Elena." His voice was low, rough. "Are you hurt?"
"No." My voice broke. "Ronan, what was that?"
He stood slowly, jaw clenched hard, every line of his body tense with the aftershock of instinct still burning through him.
"I don't know," he said. "But it wanted you."
My chest tightened.
"And Elena…"
He stepped closer, brushing his thumb softly over my cheek — a movement so gentle it contradicted the violence still vibrating through him.
"It wasn't the last one."
I swallowed.
"What do you mean?"
He lifted his head, eyes glowing faint amber in the dim, storm-lit room.
"There are more," he whispered. "And they're coming."
My pulse hammered.
The symbol in the air flickered once.
Then vanished completely.
Observation 48: Ronan's expression when he fears losing me is more dangerous than any creature we've faced.
He exhaled, grounding himself.
"We need to move."
I nodded, legs barely steady.
But as we turned toward the door—
A siren blared through the facility.
Low.
Vibrating.
Awakening.
The lights flickered.
The walls trembled.
And deep below us, through floors we hadn't yet touched, something answered the siren's call.
Not with sound.
With movement.
Multiple movements.
A wave of them.
Ronan tightened his grip on my hand, pulling me close.
"Elena," he murmured, voice laced with something feral and unshakable—
"They know you're here."