2025-12-10 22:14:48
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Chapter 17
Kane’s POVThe moment Serena ordered the doors locked, something electric snapped alive in my chest.Finally.A controlled environment.Equipment.A living anomaly sitting ten feet away, breathing, mutating, stabilizing, unraveling all at once.I wiped my palms on my coat. “Elara, check the west windows. Make sure nothing can crawl through the vents.”Elara glared. “Don’t talk to me like I’m your assistant.”“Then move faster like someone who wants to stay alive.”Serena shot me a warning look. “Kane.”“Fine,” I muttered. “Please.”Elara rolled her eyes but went.Asher sat on an overturned chair, tapping his fingers against his leg, his knee bouncing restlessly.“Stop looking at me like a lab rat,” he snapped.“You’re not a lab rat,” I said, already preparing a fresh slide. “You’re a miracle. Try to appreciate it.”“That doesn’t make it less creepy,” he muttered.Serena stepped between us. “Kane. Talk to him like a human being, not an experiment.”I exhaled sharply. “Alright. Asher… c
Chapter 16
Serena’s POVThe road bent north, thinning into cracked concrete bordered by dead fields and rusted signposts. We’d been walking for hours, too tired to talk, too tense to relax.The nests were behind us, but the weight of them walked right beside us.Asher limped a little. Elara watched every shadow. Kane kept glancing over his shoulder like he expected something to follow.Nia held onto Elara’s sleeve, quiet as ever.I kept my rifle ready.The eclipse-light didn’t fade. It never did. But the deeper we went, the darker it felt as if the sky itself was warning us to turn around.We didn’t.We couldn’t.About an hour later, Kane slowed.“Wait, look there,” he said, pointing through the broken fence line.Behind a cluster of collapsed trees and vines, a shape stuck out large, rectangular, metallic. Not a vehicle… a structure.A building.Concrete walls. Reinforced windows. A faded blue sign tilted sideways.Elara squinted. “What is that?”We stepped closer until the letters came into v
Chapter 15
Serena’s POV***********The Next “Morning************“As soon as we’re outside, stay close,” I told them, tightening the strap of my rifle. My voice came out steady , it had to. “We follow the highway north. No detours unless I say so.”Kane opened his mouth like he wanted to give direction, but one sharp look shut him up.He adjusted his glasses instead, muttering something about observation protocols.Asher leaned against the cart for balance, still pale under the red light. “I’m fine,” he murmured when Elara fussed over him.“No, you’re not,” I said, stepping beside him, “but you can walk, and that’s all we need right now.”He nodded once.We pushed the carts out of the ruined supermarket and onto the cracked street. The moment we stepped outside, the world hit us silent, abandoned, coated in that sick eclipse-red glow that made every broken building look like it was bleeding.We followed the cracked highway out of town. About an hour into the walk, I noticed something.A low
Chapter 14
Dr. Kane Malric’s POVAsher hit the ground so hard the entire aisle shuddered.For a second, none of us moved.None of us breathed.Serena’s gun hung uselessly at her side now, her arms shaking too much to aim even if she wanted to.Elara just stared at his collapsed body, hands trembling.Nia whimpered into my shirt, hiding her face.And me…I stared at him like he was the final page of a book I had spent my whole life trying and failing to write.Immune.Transforming.But not turning.Asher’s body lay crumpled against the cracked tiles, chest rising and falling in uneven, shallow breaths. The red-black shadows of the ruined supermarket still flickered through the broken windows, and the smell of burnt blood and sweat clung to everything.I swallowed hard. Years of lab experience didn’t prepare me for this not the Eclipseborn, not the Eclipse, and certainly not someone like Asher. He was… an anomaly. A walking, breathing unknown variable, a puzzle I had no frame of reference for.El
Chapter 13
Asher’s pov The wall behind me vibrated with every breath I took.I wasn’t sure if it was the building shaking or just my bones grinding against themselves, desperate to finish shifting—or to tear themselves apart trying.The worst part?I couldn’t tell which outcome I wanted.My hands dug into the tiles, cracking them. The air was thick with blood, dust, and that burning red light that felt like it was crawling inside my skull.I squeezed my eyes shut.Hold it. Hold it. Don’t lose them. Don’t lose yourself.But the monster inside me was pacing. Thrashing. Tasting the fear in the air like it was fuel.“Asher,” Elara whispered.Her voice was too soft. Too close.“Don’t,” I growled no, snarled. “Elara… stay back. Please.”My throat felt stretched. Wrong. Like two voices were fighting to speak through the same mouth.Serena still had the gun trained on me, knuckles white around the grip.Kane tried to whisper something to calm her, but he sounded like he was trying to calm himself more
Chapter 12
Asher’s povDarkness squeezed around me like a fist.Not peaceful darkness.Not sleep.This was heavy. Suffocating. Burning.Like something was coiled inside my chest with red-hot wire, wrapping around my ribs, crushing, tightening. My veins felt like they were sizzling under my skin, boiling from the inside out.Am I turning?Is this it? Is this what it feels like right before you become one of them?A strangled breath tore out of me, raw and animal, as awareness slammed back into my body like a punch to the ribs.I gasped, choked, then shot upright so fast pain ricocheted through my spine.The world hit me in broken fragments.Red eclipse light pouring through the shattered supermarket windows.Shelves knocked over.Debris everywhere.Serena shouting something, her voice sharp, panicked.Kane swinging a metal pipe like he barely knew how to hold it.Nia crying somewhere behind the crates high, terrified little sobs.And thenThree Eclipseborn.Not the normal ones.No.These things
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