[Year 2005 — Black Pine National Forest, USA]
The night sky was alive with fire.
Aaron Reiner had been alone for days, wandering the ridges with nothing but his pack and a battered tent. He wasn't out there for adventure or some noble communion with nature. He was running—from people, from obligations, from the dull ache of a life that had rotted out years ago. The mountains gave him silence. Solitude. Enough to almost forget.
Then the world broke open above him.
A streak of burning light tore across the horizon, green at its core, trailing sparks that bled into red. It howled as it fell, louder than thunder, brighter than any lightning storm he'd seen in his thirty years. For a heartbeat, Aaron thought it was the end of everything. The final reckoning, written across the stars.
The shockwave nearly put him on his ass. Trees cracked, birds screamed out of the canopy, the ground itself heaved like it had been struck by a god. Aaron hit the dirt, heart racing, breath sharp in his throat. When he dragged himself back up, he saw it—the crater glowing through the treeline, smoke curling into the summer air.
He should've turned away. No one sane chases something that falls from the sky. But sanity hadn't been Aaron's companion for years. Something about the light, about the hum that gnawed at his chest, pulled him closer. His boots sank into loose earth as he climbed into the impact site.
At the center lay something that had no right to exist on Earth.
Not rock. Not metal. Something in between. A pod the size of a barrel, slick and black like oil, its surface alive with pulsing veins of crimson. They throbbed faintly, as though the thing were breathing. The air stank of ozone and burned sap. Aaron felt sweat crawl down his back.
He whispered, hoarse, "What the fuck are you?"
The pod answered by splitting open.
It was not a machine. It was not alive. It was both, and neither. The shell peeled back with a wet, mechanical shriek, revealing something curled inside. A shape. Sleek. Shifting. It flowed as though liquid, yet held form. A mask. Jagged, cruel, cut with runes that glowed red from within. Its hollow sockets lit like the eyes of a predator awakening from slumber.
Aaron froze, lungs locked.
The mask twitched. It snapped forward before he could move.
It hit his face like a living vice. Metal bit into his skin. Tendrils—wires, veins, nerves—stabbed into his jaw, drilled through his skull, slithered down his spine. Aaron screamed, a raw, broken sound that shattered the night. He clawed at it, nails scraping his own cheeks bloody, but the mask melted into him, skin to skin, bone to bone.
Pain shredded him apart. Every nerve burned white, every muscle locked. His body convulsed in the dirt, foam at his lips. He felt himself dying, torn apart from the inside out. But the agony shifted. Twisted.
Pleasure seeped in.
It was sickening, invasive, wrong—but it was there. Like molten heat flooding his veins, like his flesh itself had been wired for ecstasy. His scream broke, caught, turned into something else. A gasp. A moan torn from his throat against his will. His cock swelled hard in his jeans, straining, humiliatingly alive even as he writhed like an animal.
And beneath it all came the voices.
You are chosen.
You are mine.
Through you, all will kneel. Through you, all will breed. The weak will be broken. The strong will submit.
The whispers weren't sound. They were carved into his skull, etched into the wet meat of his mind. Every syllable crawled down his spine like a lover's hand. He bucked against the dirt, every vein pulsing with unholy fire.
When it was over, he lay shaking, sweat dripping, breath ragged. He crawled on hands and knees toward the shallow pool formed at the crater's edge. His reflection stared back at him—his own face, but not his own. Black veins crawled across his cheeks, etched with faint crimson light. His eyes glowed like embers, pupils narrowed to predatory slits.
It had changed him.
No—it had claimed him.
The name whispered itself into his mind, smooth as poison.
Lustrix.
Aaron staggered upright, body trembling, cock still straining against denim. Every breath tasted sharp, every sound crashed against his ears. His senses burned too bright, too sharp. He could smell the sweat of animals running miles away. He could hear water dripping through stone deep beneath the earth.
And over it all pulsed the hunger.
Not hunger for food. Not thirst. Something darker. A need buried in flesh and nerve, dragged to the surface by the parasite now riding him. His body screamed for flesh. For submission. For conquest.
The Lustrix spoke again, low and intimate, vibrating in his bones.
Take. Break. Breed.
Aaron stumbled from the crater, heat flooding through every inch of him, the night no longer quiet. He could hear them—the campers a mile off, their laughter drifting faint across the trees. Human voices. Warm, unsuspecting.
The mask purred against his skin. His cock throbbed painfully, dripping into his jeans. His mouth went dry.
The Lustrix was already feeding. And Aaron Reiner, whether he wanted it or not, was feeding with it.