Chapter 6: The First Hunt — Part One
The fish processing plant loomed against the night sky like a rotting tooth, its broken windows gaping dark and empty. Cole crouched behind the same shipping container he'd used for five nights of surveillance, chain coiled over his shoulder, knife pressed against his thigh.
1:17 AM. The Skalenzahne had returned twenty minutes ago with his latest victim—a young woman this time, maybe twenty-five, still alive and struggling when the creature dragged her through the side entrance. Cole had heard her screaming. The sound had cut off abruptly after she disappeared inside.
Don't think about her. Focus on the mission.
He moved.
The walkway to the plant was slick with old rain and river spray. Cole kept low, footsteps silent on the weathered boards, chain clinking softly against his back. The side door hung open—the Skalenzahne never bothered closing it. Why would he? Who would be stupid enough to walk into his lair?
Me. I'm that stupid.
The interior smelled like rot and fish and something else—copper and meat and the particular sweetness of death. Cole's stomach turned. He breathed through his mouth and kept moving.
The feeding room was exactly where he'd mapped it. Heavy industrial door, steel frame, hinges crusted with age but still functional. Through the gap beneath the door, orange light flickered—candlelight, maybe, or a battery lantern. Wet sounds emerged from inside. Tearing. Chewing.
He's eating. The window opens now.
Cole wrapped the chain around the door handle in a figure-eight pattern, threading it through the frame's anchor points, pulling it tight. The padlock clicked shut with a sound that seemed impossibly loud in the silence.
He checked the chain twice. Solid. The Skalenzahne could probably break it eventually, but eventually wasn't instant. He'd have time.
Now the hard part.
The service hatch was on the building's west side, fifty feet from his current position. Cole moved through the plant's main processing area, navigating by memory and the dim glow of streetlights through broken windows. Rusted machinery created a maze of shadows. Old conveyor belts stretched like metal serpents into the darkness.
The hatch was exactly where he'd seen it during exterior surveillance—a ventilation access point, three feet square, covered by a corroded grate. He pulled the grate free with both hands, the metal shrieking protest that made him freeze and listen.
The wet sounds from the feeding room continued unchanged.
He didn't hear. Or he doesn't care.
Cole crawled through the hatch into a service corridor that ran parallel to the feeding room. Pipes lined the walls, dripping condensation that soaked through his pants. The smell was worse here—concentrated, inescapable.
Ten feet ahead, a second grate opened into the feeding room itself.
He drew the knife.
[ADVISORY: TARGET STATUS UNCLEAR. FEEDING MAY BE INCOMPLETE. RECOMMEND VISUAL CONFIRMATION BEFORE ENGAGEMENT.]
Cole crept forward until he could see through the grate.
The Skalenzahne crouched in the center of the room, fully woged, scales glistening in the light of a camping lantern. The woman's body lay before him—what remained of it. She was clearly dead, but the creature wasn't eating. He was still. Alert. His yellow eyes fixed on the chained door.
He knows.
The Skalenzahne rose slowly, sniffing the air. His snout swiveled toward the service corridor.
Toward Cole.
[WARNING: TARGET AWARE OF HOST PRESENCE. RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE—]
Cole kicked out the grate and dropped into the feeding room.
The Skalenzahne spun, faster than anything that size had a right to move. Cole sprayed pepper directly into its eyes—center mass, maximum concentration, everything in the canister at once.
The creature roared. The sound shook dust from the ceiling. Scaled hands clawed at reptilian eyes, thick membranes sliding shut too late to block the chemicals.
Cole lunged with the knife.
The blade caught the Skalenzahne's forearm, opening a gash that wept dark blood. The creature lashed out blind, a backhand sweep that Cole barely dodged. Claws whistled past his face.
He's not slowed. Why isn't he slowed?
[ANALYSIS: SKALENZAHNE POSSESS NICTITATING MEMBRANES. PEPPER SPRAY EFFECTIVENESS REDUCED BY 70%. RECOMMEND ALTERNATIVE TACTICS.]
NOW you tell me.
The Skalenzahne shook its head, clearing the irritation, and fixed Cole with yellow eyes that showed no impairment whatsoever.
"Human." The voice was wrong—too deep, resonating in frequencies that hurt Cole's ears. "You smell like fear and cheap coffee."
It charged.
Cole threw himself sideways. A scaled fist caught him in the ribs—not a direct hit, just a glancing blow, but it launched him across the room like a kicked football. He crashed into industrial equipment, metal edges biting into his back, air exploding from his lungs.
[HOST DAMAGE DETECTED: POSSIBLE RIB FRACTURE. RECOMMEND RETREAT.]
Can't retreat. Door's chained.
He scrambled upright as the Skalenzahne advanced. The creature moved deliberately now, savoring the hunt. Its snout split into something that might have been a smile.
"You chained the door." It sounded amused. "Clever. Stupid, but clever."
Cole backed into a corner. The knife felt absurdly small in his hand.
"You've been watching me." The Skalenzahne took another step. "I smelled you three nights ago. Decided to see what you'd do. Interesting."
It knew. This whole time, it knew.
"You should have run when you had the chance."
The creature lunged.
Cole dove left, felt claws rake across his shoulder, kept moving. Blood—his blood—splashed the concrete. The pain came a second later, sharp and hot and demanding attention he couldn't spare.
The Skalenzahne turned, tracking him, cutting off the path to the service hatch. Its tail swept out and caught Cole's legs, dropping him to the floor.
He rolled. A clawed foot stomped where his head had been, cracking concrete.
The knife. Use the knife.
Cole slashed upward from the ground. The blade caught the Skalenzahne's ankle, slicing through scales into the meat beneath. The creature howled and staggered back.
Cole scrambled to his feet. His ribs screamed. His shoulder burned. Blood ran down his arm in warm streams.
[HOST STATUS: CRITICAL. MULTIPLE INJURIES. COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS REDUCED 40%.]
The Skalenzahne recovered faster than Cole could process. It came at him again, not charging this time but advancing with predatory precision, cutting off escape routes, herding him toward the corner where the woman's body still lay.
"I'm going to enjoy this," it said. "You've made this interesting. That deserves a slow death."
Cole's back hit the wall.
The creature loomed before him, eight feet of scale and muscle and ancient hunger. Its jaws opened wide, revealing rows of teeth designed for tearing flesh from bone.
This is it. This is how I die.
The thought was almost peaceful.
Then he saw the lantern.
It sat on a shelf to his right, three feet away, filled with what looked like camping fuel. The shelf also held other supplies—boxes, tools, and a red plastic container that might be gasoline.
Fire. Crocodiles are cold-blooded.
Cole didn't think. He moved.
His hand closed around the lantern. He hurled it at the Skalenzahne's face. Glass shattered, fuel splashed, the creature recoiled.
Cole grabbed the gas container and threw it too.
The Skalenzahne caught it reflexively. Its claws punctured the plastic. Gasoline geysered across its chest, its arms, its face.
Cole flicked his lighter.
The flame was small—barely an inch of fire from a two-dollar disposable. But gasoline doesn't need much.
He threw the lighter.
The Skalenzahne erupted.
Fire engulfed the creature in a roaring wave, orange and yellow and hungry. It screamed—not the hunting roar from before, but something higher, something that spoke of genuine pain. It thrashed, clawed at itself, dropped to the floor and rolled.
Cole grabbed the knife from where it had fallen and moved.
The burning creature saw him coming. It tried to rise, tried to swing, but the flames had done their work. Scales cracked and peeled. Muscle cooked beneath. The eyes—those terrible yellow eyes—were clouded with agony.
Cole drove the knife into the Skalenzahne's throat.
The blade sank deep, scraping against cartilage, finding the soft tissue beneath. Blood—hot and dark and wrong-smelling—geysered over his hands. The creature's claws grabbed his arm, squeezed, but there was no strength left. Just reflex.
Cole twisted the knife.
The Skalenzahne shuddered once, twice, and went still.
[TARGET ELIMINATED]
[INITIATING ABSORPTION PROTOCOL]
Something happened.
Cole felt it in his chest first—a pulling sensation, like someone had hooked a wire behind his sternum and started reeling it in. Energy flowed from the corpse before him, invisible but tangible, streaming through the point where his blade still pierced dead flesh.
The absorption lasted seven seconds. It felt like seven hours.
[ABSORPTION COMPLETE: SKALENZAHNE ESSENCE INTEGRATED]
[ABILITIES ACQUIRED:] [— ENHANCED STRENGTH (MINOR)] [— DERMAL REINFORCEMENT (MINOR)] [— AQUATIC ADAPTATION (BASIC)]
[PREDATOR ESSENCE: ACTIVE]
[HUMANITY: 97%]
Cole collapsed beside the burning corpse.
His ribs weren't broken—bruised, maybe cracked, but not broken. His shoulder wound was deep but clean. He'd live.
I killed it.
The thought didn't feel real.
I killed a monster, and I absorbed its power, and I'm still alive.
He laughed. The sound came out wrong—high and thin and bordering on hysteria. He clamped his jaw shut and forced himself to breathe.
The fire was spreading. The feeding room's wooden fixtures had caught, flames licking up the walls. Soon the whole plant would be engulfed.
Cole pushed himself upright. His body screamed protest. He ignored it.
The service hatch. The chain on the door. Evidence.
Move.
He pulled the knife from the Skalenzahne's throat and stumbled toward the hatch. The chain could burn with everything else. The knife he needed—it was his only real weapon.
The crawl through the service corridor was agony. Every movement sent fire through his ribs, his shoulder, muscles he didn't know he had. But he kept moving, because stopping meant dying, and he hadn't come this far to burn alive in a fish processing plant.
He emerged into the October night covered in blood and soot and something that might have been monster viscera. The plant burned behind him, flames visible through broken windows, smoke rising toward stars he couldn't see through the cloud cover.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Cole ran.
Three blocks. Four. Five. His lungs burned. His legs threatened to give out. The system pulsed warnings he ignored.
The car waited where he'd left it. He collapsed into the driver's seat, turned the key with shaking hands, and drove.
Halfway home, he pulled over and vomited into a gutter.
[ADVISORY: ABSORPTION INTEGRATION REQUIRES 48-72 HOURS. EXPECT DISORIENTATION, VIVID DREAMS, PHANTOM SENSATIONS. REST RECOMMENDED.]
Cole wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stared at nothing.
He'd killed something tonight. Absorbed its power. Taken the first step toward becoming whatever the system wanted him to be.
And somewhere in Portland, eleven homeless people would never get justice—but the thing that murdered them would never hurt anyone again.
Is this victory?
He didn't know.
He drove home, cleaned his wounds, and sat in the dark until dawn turned the windows gray.
The phantom sensation of scales rippling beneath his skin kept him from sleeping.
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