The thing crossed the field at a walk.
Not a run. Not a charge. A walk, unhurried and confident, the gait of a predator that knew its prey had nowhere to go. Rynn's Chaos Sight traced its progress in ghost images—each step layered with possibilities, most of them involving torn flesh and spilled blood.
He forced himself to breathe.
Running was pointless. The thing had already shown it could track him, and open ground favored something faster and stronger. The barn offered cover, obstacles, maybe even weapons if he got creative. He backed away from the doorway, putting his knife hand forward, his free hand reaching behind him for anything useful.
His fingers found a length of pipe. Rusted, solid, better than nothing.
The thing reached the barn door.
It was human. Had been human, anyway—a man maybe forty, dressed in the remains of work clothes, his face frozen in an expression that might have been surprise. But the similarities ended there. His arms ended in claws—not grown, not grafted, but simply replaced, as if the bones had decided to become something else. His teeth had lengthened, sharpened, crowded his mouth until he couldn't fully close it. And his eyes—
Red. Glowing. Hungry.
"Fooooood," he said, and the word came out wrong, dragged through a throat not designed for speech anymore. "So much food in one place. So much... potential."
Rynn's Chaos Sight flared. The thing was surrounded by probability shadows, but they were all the same—variations on feeding, on killing, on consuming. In every possible version of the next few minutes, this creature tried to eat him.
"What did you wish for?" Rynn asked, buying time, circling slowly toward a stack of hay bales.
The thing's head tilted. The motion wasn't human—too fluid, too jointless. "Wished to never be hungry again. Wished to always have food. Wished—" It paused, confusion flickering across its distorted features. "Wished to be the eater, not the eaten."
"And the System gave you this."
"The System gave me perfection." The thing smiled, and its mouth was a nightmare of layered teeth. "Now I'm always hungry. Now I always have food. Now nothing can eat me because I eat everything first."
It lunged.
Rynn was ready—barely. He threw himself sideways, rolling behind the hay bales as claws tore through the space he'd occupied. The bales exploded in a shower of dust and straw, the thing's strength far beyond human.
[Hostile entity: Wish-corrupted human]
[Estimated Tier: 1]
[Estimated affinity: Consumption (Corrupted)]
[Combat recommendation: Evade and escape. Direct combat not advised.]
"No shit," Rynn gasped, scrambling to his feet.
The thing was already turning, already moving, already hungry. Its red eyes fixed on him with absolute focus, and Rynn understood with cold certainty that this creature had killed before. Maybe many times. It knew how to hunt.
He ran.
Not toward the door—that would put him in open ground, exactly where the thing wanted him. Instead, he dove deeper into the barn, weaving between rusted equipment, stacks of wood, the skeletal remains of things he didn't examine. Behind him, he heard the thing follow—not running, but moving with that same unhurried confidence, as if it knew the chase would end the same way regardless.
Rynn's Chaos Sight flickered, showing him possibilities. The thing catching him from behind. The thing circling around. The thing waiting at the exit, patient as death. Most of them ended badly.
But not all.
In one probability, barely visible at the edge of his perception, he saw something else. The thing hesitating. The thing faltering. The thing encountering something it didn't expect.
He focused on that probability, trying to understand what caused it. The ghost image showed him the barn's loft, a shape moving in the shadows, something that made even the corrupted thing pause.
He didn't know what it was. Didn't know if it would help or hurt. But it was the only probability that didn't end with him dead.
Rynn changed direction, heading for the loft ladder.
The thing noticed. Its pace quickened slightly, the first sign of urgency it had shown. "Running won't help. Hiding won't help. I always find food. Always."
Rynn hit the ladder and climbed.
The wood groaned under his weight, decades old and none too stable. Below, the thing reached the base and looked up, those red eyes gleaming in the darkness. It could follow. The ladder would hold its weight, probably. But instead of climbing, it paused, head tilting in that wrong-way motion.
"Something's up there," it said. "Something... not food."
Rynn reached the loft and rolled onto the wooden platform, knife still in one hand, pipe in the other. The loft was darker than below, lit only by the grey glow filtering through gaps in the roof. Hay bales lined the walls. Old tools hung from pegs. And in the corner, barely visible, something moved.
His Chaos Sight activated automatically, showing him—
A girl.
Young, maybe sixteen, pressed against the back wall with a pitchfork held in front of her like a weapon. Her eyes were wide, terrified, but her hands were steady. She'd been hiding here since... since whenever this started. Since before the thing came.
Their eyes met.
"Don't move," Rynn whispered. "Don't make a sound."
The girl nodded, barely breathing.
Below, the thing circled the base of the ladder. It could climb. Should climb. But something held it back—that same hesitation Rynn had seen in the probability. It sensed the girl, maybe, but couldn't understand what it sensed.
"There's something wrong up there," it muttered to itself. "Something that doesn't belong. Something that—"
It stopped.
Its head turned slowly, tracking something Rynn couldn't see. Then it smiled, and the smile was worse than anything before.
"The food is trying to hide. The food is trying to protect something." It laughed, a wet, tearing sound. "The food doesn't understand. Everything is food. Everything. The girl. You. Whatever's wrong up there. All food."
It grabbed the ladder.
Rynn moved.
He crossed the loft in three strides, grabbed the girl's arm, pulled her toward the far end where the loft opened onto empty space. "Jump," he hissed.
"What?"
"Jump! Now!"
She jumped.
Rynn heard her hit the ground below, heard her cry out, heard her scramble away. Then the ladder creaked behind him and he had no more time to think.
The thing's head appeared over the loft's edge.
Rynn brought the pipe down with all his strength.
It connected with a solid crack that should have split a normal skull. The thing's head snapped sideways, but didn't break. Didn't even bleed. Instead, those red eyes fixed on Rynn with something that might have been amusement.
"That tickles," it said.
Then it was in the loft.
Rynn backpedaled, pipe raised, knife ready, knowing neither would do enough damage. The thing was Tier 1. He was Tier 0. The gap wasn't as vast as with Kaelen, but it was still a gap. Still potentially fatal.
But he had something the thing didn't have.
He had Chaos.
[Chaos Capacity: 1.9 Units]
[Chaos Control: 0.5%]
[Warning: Chaos manipulation at current control levels extremely dangerous]
[Warning: Attempting Chaos manipulation may result in—]
"I know," Rynn snarled. "Shut up and let me work."
He reached for the serpent.
It responded this time—not fully, not controllably, but there, uncoiling slightly at his mental touch. He didn't try to shape it into lightning. Didn't try to aim it. He just... opened the door. Let a little of what lived inside him leak out into the world.
Grey light flickered around his hands.
The thing stopped.
For the first time, those red eyes showed something other than hunger. Confusion. Uncertainty. A flicker of something that might have been fear.
"What... what are you?" it whispered.
Rynn didn't answer. He was too busy not dying.
The Chaos leaking from him wasn't lightning—not yet. It was just presence, the raw potential of un-reality made manifest. And in its presence, the thing's own nature started to waver. Its consumption affinity, corrupted and hungry, was touching something it couldn't consume. Something it couldn't understand.
The thing's claws flickered, becoming hands for just a moment before snapping back. Its teeth shortened, then lengthened again. Its eyes dimmed, then flared brighter.
"What are you DOING?" it screamed.
[Chaos interference detected]
[Target affinity destabilizing]
[Warning: Uncontrolled Chaos exposure may have unpredictable effects]
[Warning: Uncontrolled Chaos exposure may affect user]
[Warning: Uncontrolled Chaos exposure may—]
The thing lunged.
Rynn tried to move, tried to dodge, but the Chaos leaking from him had already done something to his coordination. He stumbled, fell, and the thing was on him—claws raking, teeth snapping, hunger made flesh.
Pain exploded across his chest.
He brought the knife up, jammed it into the thing's side. It didn't react. Didn't even notice. Its claws dug deeper, tearing through his shirt, his skin, reaching for something vital.
Rynn screamed.
And the serpent struck.
Grey lightning erupted from his chest—not directed, not controlled, just released, a flood of Chaos that had nowhere else to go. It hit the thing point-blank, lifting it off Rynn, suspending it in the air for one frozen moment.
The thing's red eyes went wide.
Then it began to dissolve into ashes, particles.
Not quickly. Not cleanly. The way Carl had burned, the way the void thing had dissolved—but slower, more painfully, more aware. The thing's claws became hands became claws became nothing. Its teeth fell out, regrew, fell out again. Its skin rippled, showing a dozen different faces underneath—the man it had been, the monster it had become, the possibilities that had been destroyed when it made its wish.
"Please," it whispered, and for a moment it sounded almost human. "Please, make it stop. I don't want to be hungry anymore. I never wanted—"
The grey lightning flared.
The thing dissolved.
Rynn lay on the loft floor, chest torn open, blood pooling beneath him, and watched as the creature that had tried to eat him became motes of grey light that drifted upward and vanished.
[Hostile entity eliminated]
[Chaos consumption detected]
[Chaos Capacity: 1.9 → 2.4 Units]
[Chaos Control: 0.5% → 0.7%]
The notifications scrolled past, irrelevant. Rynn couldn't move. Could barely breathe. The pain in his chest was a living thing, sharp and hot and getting worse.
[Warning: Critical injuries detected]
[Warning: Blood loss severe]
[Warning: Estimated time to unconsciousness: 2 minutes]
[Estimated time to death: 5-7 minutes]
[Recommendation: Immediate medical attention]
[Recommendation: Chaos expenditure for self-healing]
[Warning: Chaos expenditure for self-healing requires 5% control]
[Warning: Current control insufficient]
[Warning: Attempting Chaos healing at current control may result in—]
"Shut... up..."
The girl appeared above him.
She was young, scared, covered in dust from the fall. But her hands were steady as she pressed them against his chest, trying to stop the bleeding. "Don't die," she said. "Please don't die. I don't know what you did but please don't die."
Rynn tried to speak. Couldn't.
The girl looked around desperately, then seemed to make a decision. She pulled something from her pocket—a small vial, glass, filled with glowing liquid the color of twilight.
"I wished for medicine," she said. "Medicine that could heal anything. The System gave me this. Three drops. That's all. I've been saving it for something bad but this is bad, this is really bad, please let this work—"
She uncorked the vial and let one drop fall onto his wounds.
The effect was immediate.
Warmth spread through his chest, pushing back the pain, pushing back the darkness at the edges of his vision. He felt flesh knitting, blood slowing, the ragged tears in his skin pulling together like they'd never existed. In ten seconds, the wounds were closed. In twenty, they were scars. In thirty, even the scars were fading.
Rynn sucked in a breath. Then another. Then he sat up, staring at his chest, at the unbroken skin, at the girl who'd just saved his life.
"That was..." He couldn't find words.
"Expensive," the girl said, her voice shaking. "That was three months of my wish. Three months of safety, used up in one drop." She looked at the vial, now two-thirds full, and her eyes filled with tears. "But you were dying. You were dying and you saved me first and I couldn't just—"
"What's your name?"
She blinked. "What?"
"Your name. I'm Rynn. What's yours?"
The girl clutched the vial to her chest, tears spilling over. "Maya. My name is Maya."
Rynn held out his hand. "Thank you, Maya. For not letting me die."
She stared at his hand for a long moment. Then she took it, her grip surprisingly strong.
"I saw what you did," she whispered. "The grey light. The way that thing... stopped. What are you?"
Rynn looked at his hands. They were steady now. Whole. The serpent in his chest was quiet, satisfied, full of the Chaos it had consumed.
"I'm not sure yet," he said honestly. "But I'm figuring it out."
Below them, the barn was silent. The thing was gone. The night was still. And two survivors sat in a dusty loft, holding onto each other and the thin thread of hope that had kept them alive.
"We should go," Rynn said finally. "More things will come. Maybe worse things."
Maya nodded, wiping her eyes. "Where?"
Rynn thought about Kaelen's advice. Find others. People you trust. He looked at the girl who'd used her only medicine to save a stranger.
"I don't know yet," he said. "But we'll figure it out together."
He helped her to her feet, and together they climbed down from the loft, leaving behind the blood and the grey ash and the memory of a thing that had once been human.
Outside, the bleeding sky had begun to lighten.
---
My fingers are beginning to cramp and ache, guys. No time to edit.... Heheheheh