Paris.
A grey morning—
dense, swollen, almost viscous—
where even the light seemed reluctant, oozing between the buildings like a pallid breath losing strength.
The sky sagged low.
Lower still.
A slab of lead poised to collapse upon the city.
And the city, in return, seemed exhausted.
Drained to its marrow.
As though something deep in its ancient bones had stopped breathing centuries ago.
Kael walked.
Or rather… drifted.
His body advanced with mechanical insistence while his mind trailed behind, snagged on a fatigue older and heavier than mere sleep.
In his earbuds, a dull thump pulsed.
An artificial heartbeat.
A muffled thock… thock… more felt than heard—
a presence that did not entirely belong to the world of sound.
Hands buried in the pockets of a worn jacket, shoulders hunched, Kael stared downward—
at the mosaic of slick cobblestones, at crushed gum, at grimy puddles that refused to reflect anything clearly.
And everything around him blurred.
Edges softened.
Colours thinned.
As if the city itself were dissolving.
As if he were dissolving with it.
A faint wind brushed through his black hair.
He blinked slowly.
His irises—ice-blue, ghost-pale—swept over the street without ever truly seeing it.
Then the campus emerged from the misted morning.
At the gates, students already swarmed in restless waves.
Laughter, half-hearted and hollow.
Murmurs, thick with sleep.
Sighs that sagged like damp cloth.
The bitter smell of burnt coffee tangled with cold cigarette smoke.
Umbrellas fluttered, jittering in the wind—
hands trembling from cold, from nerves, from the sheer cruelty of being awake too soon.
Kael slipped through them like a shadow skimming over other shadows.
No one greeted him.
No one waited for him.
He preferred it that way—
more deeply than he cared to admit.
He passed the gate.
Drew in a reluctant breath.
Another day.
Another slow suffocation of hours.
More classrooms, more corridors, more long strangling silences.
But this morning—
—was not like the others.
Even if, at first glance, it wore the same weary mask.
A thin metallic shiver slid down his spine, cold as a blade caressing each vertebra one by one.
He froze.
Breath snagged in his throat.
One earbud slipped free.
Then—
The world inhaled.
And held.
Time contracted—
tight as a pupil seized by sudden light.
The murmuring mass of students flickered—then vanished—
swallowed by a void abrupt and absolute.
Ding.
A faint chime.
Yet in Kael's skull, it detonated like a blow struck from the inside.
He raised his head.
An interface hung suspended before him—
floating in air that had grown thick, gelatinous, almost sentient.
— EVOLUTION SYSTEM: INITIALIZATION —
[ Loading: 1%... ]
His throat tightened painfully.
"What… what is…?"
The words disintegrated before they fully formed, devoured by the grotesque quiet.
He stepped back.
His hand lifted on instinct—
to touch the apparition, to shove it away, or perhaps to shield his face from it.
But the interface remained.
Still.
Silent.
Cold as starlight.
Utterly alien.
Around him, dozens of students stared at identical visions.
Frozen faces.
Wide, trembling pupils.
A single, rising murmur stirred—wet, organic, unsettling in its collective tremor.
[ 7%... ]
Then a scream tore reality open.
Sharp.
Clean.
A perfect vertical cut in the morning air.
Kael spun.
A student was pointing skyward, arm shuddering violently.
He looked up.
A whirl of birds—pigeons, crows, stray seagulls twisted into the same terrified knot—spiraled above the campus.
A vortex of wings.
Chaotic.
Panicked.
Unnaturally frantic.
One bird broke from the swirl.
And fell.
Straight down.
Like a stone dropped by an indifferent hand.
It hit the cobblestones.
SPLAT.
Its body convulsed, wings hammering the ground in a grotesque, stuttering rhythm.
A wet gargle bubbled from its throat.
Kael stepped forward—
drawn,
repelled,
caught between instinct and dread.
The skin of the bird's throat rose—
swelled—
trembled—
CRACK.
Its head twisted at a sickening angle.
A splintering, wet crunch followed.
The beak split open—
and opened further—
far further.
Teeth—black, serrated, real—sprouted like shards of volcanic glass.
One wing ruptured, pierced from within by a bone that shot outward like a white-hot spike.
Blood erupted in a violent spray, splashing the stones.
Kael recoiled.
Stomach lurched.
[ 13%... ]
Another scream—behind him now.
He whirled.
A student had collapsed—
the one who had once lent him a lighter in class.
Foam spilled from the boy's mouth.
The veins beneath his skin darkened, swelling into stark ropes—
then bursting.
His cheeks split like melted wax.
A foreign tooth punched through.
Then another.
Then ten—
a blossoming bouquet of blades.
His jaw cracked sideways.
His torso spasmed, twisted, warped.
Screams collided.
Merged.
Melted into sounds no longer remotely human.
The student rose.
Or rather… something rose in his place.
Its spine arched grotesquely—
then snapped upright with a whip-like jerk.
Skin tore around the shoulders in a widening bloom of crimson.
Kael's fingers shook.
His breath fractured.
"No… no no… impossible…"
The creature leapt.
A security guard rushed in front of Kael, weapon trembling in his hands.
But—
…far too late.
The impact thundered—
CRUNCH.
The guard flew backward.
His skull met the wall—
and burst.
A red blossom of gore.
Fragments of bone and brain sluiced down the concrete in a thick, horrific smear.
[ 19%... ]
Kael staggered back.
Legs quivering—ready to flee or fold.
Chaos erupted fully now.
Students screamed.
Others fled.
A few kept recording—until the scream closest to them turned their hands to jelly.
Drones buzzed overhead.
City loudspeakers blared with empty reassurances:
"Please remain calm. Do not panic."
Absurd.
Laughable.
Panic had already swallowed everything whole.
Kael no longer saw the campus—
only fragments.
Fragments sharpened by instinct.
In his eyes, something primal flickered.
Not merely fear—
but its deeper twin.
A cold spark.
Precise.
Inexplicable.
Almost… natural.
He understood—
with a clarity that cut like glass.
The world wasn't going to return to normal.
It had already slipped away.
Already vanished.