The cave was still breathing.
Faint blue veins pulsed through the stone, the same rhythm as his heart.
Clara stood a few feet away, arms wrapped tight across her chest, watching him as though a wrong word might set him off.
"What are you?" she whispered.
He didn't answer right away. The HUD blinked to life, lines of light sliding across his vision.
System Alert:
Scanning Complete.
You are a hybrid. Part human, part lycan.
The words hit like a punch in the gut. "Say that again?"
The system repeated, slower this time.
System Alert:
Confirmed.
You are a werewolf.
The words hit harder than any blow. The silence that followed was heavy. Even the air seemed to stop moving.
Clara didn't see what he saw, but she felt the change in him.
The weight in his stance. The glow in his eyes.
"That's not real," she whispered while shaking her head. "Those things were just stories, plague talk."
"It's been real for a while now."
He looked down at his hand. The claws slid out and back in again, smooth, easy.
The fear he'd carried since the dig faded.
It wasn't sickness. It wasn't corruption.
It was who he was.
Clara's breath hitched. "The Sanctified call it the Moon Plague. They say it started before the Fall: people changing, losing control, killing whole settlements."
Terry met her eyes. "They always say that when they don't understand something."
He flexed his fingers; faint light rippled under the skin. "They burned anyone who survived infection. Maybe some of them weren't sick at all."
She looked away. "If they find out what you are…"
"They won't."
The calm in his voice made her shiver.
The wall beside him shimmered, alive with light.
System Message:
Ready to sync?
He nodded. The glow crawled up his arm like it recognized him.
System Message:
Stage 2 Active
Updating stats.
[Host: Terry Holt]
Health: 160 / 160
Stamina: 140 / 140
Strength: 14
Endurance: 11
Perception: 10
Instincts: 12
Energy: 10
The numbers faded, but the strength stayed.
He could feel every detail in the dark. The grit under his boots, the shift of air through cracks in the rock.
"What's happening?" Clara asked.
"Control," he said quietly.
System Alert:
Perception boosted.
Instinct ready.
A faint hum filled his chest; the same deep vibration he'd once felt in the quarry floor. It was inside him now.
He closed his eyes. The world unfolded without sight.
Voices above the rock. Machinery grinding. The rhythm of footsteps.
And beneath it all, chanting. Measured, holy tones repeated like a metronome of faith and death.
"They're coming."
"Who?"
"Sanctified."
The faint sound of prayer carried down through the stone. Voices chanting. Steel boots on rock.
Clara's face went pale. "Containment team. They'll bury the whole site."
"Then we don't stay down here."
System Alert:
New task.
Survive the purge.
Defy the Sanctified.
Terry smiled. "Finally something we agree on."
———————————————————
They followed the sound of something alive and struggling. A dragging scrape. A wet breath. Then a low, broken growl that didn't belong to any man.
The tunnel narrowed, the air thick with heat and metallic tang.
Clara raised a hand to her mouth as the smell hit, copper and ash and something wrong, like burning blood.
"Mason?" Terry called softly.
The growl deepened.
When they rounded the corner, Clara gasped.
Mason was hunched near a pile of fallen stone, his back to them. The shirt he'd worn had torn straight down the middle, fabric clinging to skin that shimmered faint blue beneath the dust.
His muscles flexed and rippled under the light, skin shifting as though something moved beneath it.
The sound of his bones, wet, clicking, and uneven filled the narrow space.
"Oh God…" Clara whispered.
Mason's head turned, slowly, eyes catching the glow. Gold—so bright it almost looked like fire surrounded by black veins that spread out across his temples. His teeth were longer now. His breath came in ragged snarls.
He wasn't human anymore. Not fully. Terry stepped forward carefully.
"Mason. You're alright. It's me."
The growl sharpened. Mason's body trembled, torn between instinct and memory. His hands slammed against the ground; claws slicing through the dirt and stone.
"Mason," Terry said again, voice calm but deep. "Look at me."
Mason's voice came out strangled, half a growl, half a sob. "It burns… inside… can't stop it…"
Clara stumbled backward, panic rising. "He's turning Terry, he's…"
"Stay back," Terry said, steady. "He can hear me."
He moved closer until the heat of Mason's body rolled against him. Mason's claws twitched, his breath fast and wet.
Terry crouched low, hands open.
System Message:
Link found.
Second host nearby.
Alpha link forming.
He ignored the words, keeping his eyes on Mason. "Listen to me. You're not dying. You're just changing. Don't fight it."
Mason let out a guttural roar and lunged. Terry caught him mid-swing. The impact drove both of them into the wall. Dust fell from the ceiling. For a heartbeat they struggled. Mason's claws inches from Terry's throat.
Then the system reacted.
System Message:
Link stable.
Mason blinked, disoriented. The glow faded from his veins, leaving faint silver scars in its place. He looked down at his hands, half normal,and half something else.
"Terry, what happened to me?"
"Same thing that happened to me," Terry said. "Just louder."
Mason sat back against the wall, chest rising and falling. His voice broke. "I thought I was dying."
"You were," Terry said. "But you didn't."
Clara finally stepped closer, still keeping her distance. She stared at both of them, one calm and one shaking, both changed.
"Werewolves," she said.
"No," Terry said. "People the world tried to kill, and didn't."
Mason took his hand. The contact sparked faint blue light between them, subtle, but there. A pulse, steady and sure.
System Message:
Alpha link confirmed.
Pack status: Forming
Mason looked at him differently now, not as a friend, but as something deeper, older, written into blood and instinct.
And for the first time since it all began, Terry didn't feel alone.
————————————————————
He stopped before a wall of fallen stone. The air seeping through it smelled faintly of the surface: cold, metallic, free.
He laid a hand against the rubble. The stone was warm, humming softly beneath his palm. He could feel the structure of it; every fracture, every trapped air pocket, every line of tension running through the concrete.
His vision flickered; faint blue threads traced through the wall like veins.
Clara watched him. "How do you even know there's a way through?"
He didn't answer right away. The hum in his chest deepened until it matched the rhythm of the rock itself.
"Because it's breathing," he said quietly. "Same way the earth did before it woke up. I can feel where it's weak."
System Message:
Skill Ready.
Pulse Tear.
He watched the light gather along his claws, the sound rising; a pressure hiss, like steam forcing its way through cracked pipes.
"Pulse Tear," he muttered. "Sounds like something you'd use to fix machinery, not break a wall."
Energy flared along his arms, brighter than before. He stepped back, drew in a breath, and slashed.
The world erupted.
A burst of white-blue energy tore through the wall like a cannon shot, shredding stone and rebar. The tunnel filled with heat and dust. Clara shielded her face, Mason stumbled back.
System Message:
Energy used : -2
Remaining 8/10.
A brief ache pulsed through Terry's arm, fading almost instantly. It wasn't pain exactly, more like fatigue rippling through his bones.
So it costs something, he thought. Figures.
When the sound finally died, daylight poured through a jagged hole. The air smelled of smoke, ozone, and freedom.
Terry stared at the molten edge of the breach, the stone still glowing faintly from the blast. He flexed his hand, the claws dimming.
"Pulse Tear, huh?" he muttered, shaking his head. "No. It ripped straight through."
He smirked faintly. "Ripshot. That's better."
System Message:
Path cleared.
User rename detected.
Skill updated - Ripshot.
Mason whistled. "Remind me not to argue with you."
"Guess we're done hiding," Terry said, stepping out into the open air.
————————————————————
The quarry above was unrecognizable; smoke, fire, collapsing scaffolds. White-armored soldiers moved through the haze, chanting as they worked. Each wore the black halo and downward spear of the Sanctified Plague.
Through his new senses, Terry heard everything, every word, every heartbeat.
"They're praying," he said.
"That's how they kill," Clara replied.
He watched them for a long moment. No fear this time. "We're not fighting," he said. "We're moving."
He motioned to Mason. "Stay close."
System Message:
Leadership path active.
Link stable.
They slipped through the wreckage like smoke.
By the time the next explosion hit, they were past the fence, the quarry burning behind them.
Clara looked back once. "They'll come for us."
"Let them," Terry said. "This time they'll know what's hunting them."
The HUD flickered softly.
System Message:
Task Complete.
New skill earned. Alpha's Call.
Warmth rolled through his chest. Mason gasped once, then steadied, his breathing matching Terry's.
Clara looked between them. "What just happened?"
"System said thanks," Terry said.
The display glowed one last time.
System Message:
Pack formed. 2 Members.
Goal: 5 Members for next reward.
He stared at it, thoughtful. "Five," he murmured.
"Five what?" Clara asked.
"People like us," he said.
They walked until the fires were distant, the sky dark with ash. The hum of the system faded to a quiet pulse at the back of his mind. He lifted his eyes to the horizon, where faint light touched the storm clouds.
"If it wants a pack," he said, "then that's what we'll build."
The three of them moved on; two changed men and one human witness. Three heartbeats keeping the same rhythm as the earth beneath them.