We don't run at first.
That's the mistake.
The supermarket tries to pretend it's still a supermarket. The lights buzz. The speakers cough out a cheerful promotion in a voice too bright to be real. Someone's cart squeaks as they push it forward like nothing happened, like they didn't just stand frozen while reality bent around a word above my shadow.
SELF-DEFINED.
It still burns there. Not glowing, not dramatic—just present, like a brand that refuses to fade.
And beneath it, the other word lingers in my mind more than in my sight.
TARGET.
Ardan drags me by the elbow, half-carrying me through the broken aisle. Glass crunches under my boots with every step. I feel it bite into the soles, feel the vibration climb into my bones.
"Move," he repeats. "Move, Mark. Don't look back."
My lungs burn like I've been sprinting for miles, even though my legs can barely remember how to work. Every breath tastes like metal and dust. My nose is bleeding again—warm, slow, humiliating.
The girl stays close. Too close. Her hand never leaves my wrist.
The thread between us is steady now, but it's steady like a rope under tension. If something yanks, we both go.
We pass an employee kneeling beside a toppled display. He's picking up oranges with shaking hands, whispering to himself as if naming the fruit will make his world normal again.
"Sir?" he says when he sees us. "Are you—"
Ardan doesn't answer. He pulls me past him, toward the emergency exit.
And that's when I feel it.
Not footsteps.
Not a presence like the auditor's, tight and mathematical.
This is different.
It's… hunger.
The air behind us cools by degrees, like the building is exhaling something cold down the back of my neck. The fluorescent lights flicker in a pattern that isn't random. One by one, they dim in our wake, as if shadows are gathering strength with every meter we put between ourselves and the last scene.
The girl's fingers tighten on my wrist.
"You feel it," she whispers.
I nod, because my throat won't give me anything else.
Ardan's shadow stretches ahead of him, long and thin. The words above it jitter.
ACCOUNTANT.
FLAGGED.
DELINQUENT.
He notices me looking.
"Don't," he says. "If you stare too long, it stares back."
That should be a joke.
It isn't.
We reach the emergency door. The red bar is smeared with blood—someone's, not mine. The metal is cold, wet with condensation that shouldn't exist indoors.
Ardan shoves it open.
The alley outside is darker than it should be for the time of day. The sky above the buildings is the color of bruised steel. Wind pushes trash along the pavement in lazy circles.
The moment we step out, the thread between me and the girl hums, vibrating like a tuning fork.
I flinch.
She does too.
Ardan looks over his shoulder—into the store—and his face tightens.
"Don't stand here," he says. "We need a crowd. A street. Noise. Something that masks us."
"Masks us from what?" the girl asks.
Ardan doesn't answer right away.
He listens.
Then he speaks quietly, like he's afraid the wrong syllable will be overheard.
"From the ones who respond to that word."
TARGET.
We move fast down the alley. My legs are jelly. My head swims. Somewhere behind my eyes, a dull pressure builds like a headache that's deciding whether it wants to become something worse.
The city around us doesn't help.
The shadows between dumpsters are too thick. The corners feel deeper than they should. Streetlights at the alley mouth flicker like they're blinking out of fear.
We reach the sidewalk, merge into foot traffic.
For three seconds, I almost believe it worked.
Then a woman on the corner stops abruptly, her shopping bag tearing as her fingers clamp too hard.
She turns her head toward me—too smoothly, too precisely.
Her shadow doesn't match her.
Her shadow leans toward me.
A hook of darkness lifts off the pavement, like a claw testing air.
My stomach drops.
"Ardan," I whisper.
He sees it too.
"Don't react," he says. "Keep walking. Keep your face normal."
My face doesn't know how to be normal anymore.
We walk.
The woman walks too.
Not following us exactly. Just… keeping pace.
Another person joins the flow beside us—a man in a cheap suit, eyes half-lidded like he's sleepwalking. His shadow drags behind him in a shape that looks too much like a dog on a chain.
Then another.
A teenager leaning against a bus stop, scrolling on his phone. His shadow rises a little higher than it should, like it's standing on tiptoe to smell me.
They're not looking at me.
They're looking at my shadow.
I can feel their attention like fingers.
Ardan steers us toward a crosswalk. Cars rush by, horns blaring. The noise should make me feel safer.
It doesn't.
Because the shadows are moving wrong.
They creep across the asphalt like spilled ink, stretching between shoes, licking at the white stripes of the crosswalk.
The girl's breathing quickens.
"Mark," she whispers. "They're—"
"I know," I say.
Ardan raises his voice suddenly, bright and casual, like he's addressing a friend.
"Hey!" he calls. "You two! You know if the metro is open on weekends?"
The question is nonsense. It's also a test.
The suited man blinks, and for a second the spell breaks. Confusion flickers across his face.
Then his shadow twitches, and his expression empties again.
"Metro," he repeats, voice flat. "Closed."
Ardan's jaw tightens.
"Yeah," he mutters. "They're not people."
The walk signal turns green. We step forward.
The moment my foot touches the first white stripe, the air tightens.
Not like authority.
Like a noose.
The shadows on the ground recoil from my shoe, then surge toward it, as if pulled by magnetism. I feel the tug in my bones, a nauseating sensation like my body is being asked to lean into a direction it refuses.
The thread between me and the girl flares hot.
She cries out, stumbling.
I grab her, and pain shoots through my arm—not because she's heavy, but because the connection between us is resisting being stretched.
Ardan swears.
"Don't fall," he snaps. "If you fall, they'll have a reason to touch you."
A reason.
That's what this is. A hunt with rules I don't know yet.
We reach the other side of the street. Ardan pulls us into a narrow gap between buildings—a service corridor that smells like rust and old urine.
He presses his back to the brick wall, breathing hard.
"Okay," he says. "Okay. Listen to me. The moment that label appeared—TARGET—something got broadcast."
"Broadcast to who?" I ask.
He looks at my shadow, then away quickly, like it hurts his eyes.
"To anything hungry enough to answer it."
The girl wipes tears off her cheek with the back of her hand, furious.
"Then remove it," she says. "Take it off him."
"I can't," Ardan says. "That's not a sticker. That's a tag."
"I didn't ask for it," I rasp.
Ardan's smile is thin, and there's no humor in it.
"The system doesn't care what you asked for. It cares what you became."
We stand there, boxed in by brick and darkness.
And then, from the alley mouth, I hear the scrape.
Not footsteps.
Something else.
Like claws drawn slowly across concrete.
My blood turns cold.
The shadows at the corridor entrance thicken, congealing into something almost solid. A shape forms within it—not a person, not quite an animal. The darkness seems to be wearing a body the way a hand wears a glove.
It leans forward, and the air smells like wet paper and ozone.
Ardan's hand finds my shoulder again, squeezing hard.
"That's one," he whispers. "Don't look at its face."
I can't help it.
The thing's head is the shape of a human skull, but it's empty—no features, no eyes. Just smooth darkness, with faint lines like cracks in dried ink.
Its shadow doesn't stretch behind it.
It stretches toward me.
A single claw—long, hooked, too sharp—emerges from the darkness.
It points at my shadow.
Then it speaks.
Not with a mouth.
Inside my bones.
TARGET CONFIRMED.
The words slam through me like a hammer.
The girl cries out, and the thread between us flares bright enough to hurt my eyes.
The thing tilts its head.
Its claw shifts, considering.
CHOSEN, it seems to taste through the air, and the darkness around it ripples.
Then it moves.
Fast.
It doesn't run. It slides, like a shadow unspooling.
Ardan grabs me and yanks me backward just as the claw rakes the brick wall where my face had been.
Sparks jump.
The sound is terrible—stone being cut like paper.
"Move!" Ardan roars.
We run deeper into the corridor.
The walls narrow.
The air thickens.
My lungs burn.
Behind us, the scrape follows—steady, patient, confident.
Not like a predator chasing prey.
Like a collector approaching property.
The thing's shadow stretches ahead of it, faster than its body, and it reaches for the line between me and the girl.
I feel it touch the thread.
Pain detonates.
White-hot.
The girl screams, dropping to her knees.
I stagger too, dragged down by the connection.
Ardan turns, desperation on his face.
"Mark!" he yells. "Don't let it grab her—if it takes the thread, it takes the choice!"
Choice.
Consent.
The only thing we made for ourselves.
I look at the thing.
At the claw wrapped in darkness.
At the shadow reaching for what binds us.
And I do the only thing my body understands.
I step in front of her.
The claw slashes toward me.
I throw my arm up.
The impact is not pain.
It's cold.
A dead, deep cold that tries to climb into my veins.
My vision blacks out at the edges.
And above my shadow, the word SELF-DEFINED flares.
Not like light.
Like a warning.
The claw hesitates.
The thing pauses, as if suddenly remembering that some objects are not meant to be taken lightly.
Then, from behind it, another scrape answers.
Closer.
Heavier.
The darkness at the corridor entrance splits—
—and something larger begins to unfold out of the shadow, bringing with it the smell of rain on grave dirt.
Ardan's face drains of color.
"Oh no," he whispers. "That's not a hunter."
The bigger shadow shifts, and a new label flickers into existence in the air like a verdict.
LEDGER.