The smell of bacon drifted through the house.

  It wrapped around me like a blanket, soft and thick, pulling me deeper into the easy hum of morning.

  Sunlight spilled through wide windows, catching on the clean lines of the kitchen—all soft grays and pale woods, the kind of place where everything belonged without being perfect.

  The table was already set.

  Plates waiting, glasses gleaming faintly in the light, silverware resting in neat rows.

  The smell of coffee lingered underneath the bacon, rich and steady.

  Dad sat at the head of the table, paper in one hand, glasses slipping low on his nose.

  He wasn’t really reading—just turning pages like it gave him something to do between stealing toast off the platter.

  Mom moved from the stove with a plate full of bacon, barefoot, humming low under her breath to the old song playing through the speakers.

  She nudged a chair back into place with her hip without thinking, smiling to herself.

  And me—

  I sat cross-legged in one of the chairs, laughing at something dumb Dad muttered from behind his paper.

  The kind of laugh that shook loose from your chest before you could catch it.

  It felt easy.

  It felt real.

  Like all the blood, the steel towers, the dead cities—none of it had ever touched me.

  Like it had all been—

  A nightmare.

  "Dad, you're hogging all the toast," I said, reaching out without even thinking.

  He peered at me over his glasses, deadpan.

  "Survival of the fittest," he said, dragging the platter closer to his side.

  Mom laughed.

  The radio buzzed.

  The bacon sizzled.

  And for a few breaths longer than it should’ve lasted, the world was perfect.

  The bacon on the plate. The smell. The room.

  I blinked.

  And Marcus Farhide’s head was sitting in the center of the table.

  Eyes open. Mouth slack. Skin pale, lips split, jaw hanging off at an angle like it had been broken.

  Blood seeped out from beneath it, slow and thick, crawling across the plate and into the toast like syrup.

  I blinked again.

  The kitchen collapsed.

  No noise. No warning.

  The walls peeled back.

  The light shattered.

  And suddenly—I was standing.

  Alone.

  In a wide, dead space. Bodies scattered across the floor.

  Mangled.

  Twisted.

  Burned and broken and wrong.

  Provenance enforcers.

  Gang leaders.

  People I had hunted.

  People I had crushed and shot and strangled and left to rot without a second thought.

  They were everywhere.

  Torn limbs.

  Gutted torsos.

  Spines snapped sideways like broken toys.

  But their eyes—

  Their eyes were still alive.

  Wide. Staring.

  Locked onto me.

  None of them blinked.

  None of them breathed.

  Just endless, wet, glassy stares burning holes into my skin.

  "Mom?" I whispered, voice shaking.

  "Dad?"

  No answer.

  The chairs were gone.

  The table was gone.

  The house was gone.

  Just me.

  And them.

  The air thickened, humid and sour.

  I couldn’t move.

  Couldn’t breathe.

  Every inch of me screamed to run, to fight, to wake up—

  But the bodies stayed.

  And the eyes kept watching.

  The whispering.

  Monster.

  Freak.

  The words came from nowhere.

  Not from mouths.

  Not from the dead.

  But from the inside of my own head.

  The ground pulsed under my feet like a heartbeat.

  A dead heartbeat.

  Too slow.

  Too loud.

  The whispers grew.

  Faster. Louder.

  Until they weren’t words anymore.

  They were just screaming.

  Shrieking.

  Tearing at the inside of my skull.

  Scratching at every nerve.

  Filling every breath with rot.

  The world spun.

  The bodies dragged closer without moving—sliding across the broken floor like puppets without strings.

  Their mouths split open.

  Their teeth gleamed.

  And somewhere under the screaming,

  a new sound started—

  BANG.

  Muffled.

  Far away.

  BANG.

  Closer.

  BANG.

  Right behind my ear.

  I jolted awake.

  Gasping.

  Thrashing.

  Sheets tangled around my legs like chains.

  The air was freezing against my sweat-soaked skin. I sat up too fast, the world tilting, my heart beating out of rhythm. Another slam hit the door, hard enough to rattle the hinges.

  Skein’s voice barked through the metal.

  "WAKE THE FUCK UP, MARI! TRAINING STARTS IN FIVE!"

  Another bang.

  Another rattle.

  I dragged air into my lungs.

  Fought to focus.

  Fought to remember where I was.

  A ruined Provenance building.

  Abandoned. Crumbling.

  Stench of old blood and burnt metal.

  But under it—

  Bacon.

  The broken concrete floors.

  The flickering overhead lights.

  Not the kitchen.

  Not the bodies.

  Not them.

  I got up and opened the door.

  Skein was leaning against the frame like she owned it, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

  She snorted when she saw me.

  “Damn, Mari. You look like someone dragged you backwards through a meat grinder.”

  I just stared at her.

  She grinned wider, unfazed. “C’mon, zombie princess. Spite’s outside. Said somethin’ about teachin’ you how to ‘hug your inner demon’ or whatever the fuck.” She wiggled her fingers dramatically. “Spooky shit. Let’s go.”

  I brushed past her, ignoring the rest of her rambling.

  The bathroom was freezing.

  A cracked mirror. A rust-stained sink.

  I splashed cold water on my face and stared at myself.

  Pale.

  Hollow-eyed.

  Hair clinging to my forehead.

  Cracks spidered along my cheekbones, faint but real—black veins just under the skin, pulsing if I looked too long.

  I turned and headed outside.

  The yard was damp with mist, the sky a dull bruise overhead.

  Everything smelled like rust and dying grass.

  Spite stood under a dead tree at the edge of the lot, arms hanging loose at his sides, his cracked mask tilted just enough to make it worse.

  He didn’t move until I got close enough to hear the buzz of his breathing through the mask.

  “You ready, child?” His voice crawled up the back of my spine.

  His long fingers brushed my shoulder—light, but cold enough to make me shudder.

  “What do I do?” I muttered, trying not to flinch.

  Spite turned me around, slow, deliberate.

  His hand pressed against my back, right over the place where the seed burned under my skin.

  “Endure,” he whispered.

  Pain hit me like a hammer.

  Sharp. Deep.

  I hit the ground hard, arms clutching my sides as my spine lit up with fire.

  Something ripped loose from inside me.

  Tendrils tore through skin, slick and black and wild, snapping into the air like broken bones trying to find a body.

  I gasped, biting down a scream.

  The ground shifted under me.

  Above me, I heard Spite’s voice.

  “Let it hurt.”

  Somewhere behind me, Skein barked a laugh.

  “Yo, she’s sprouting! Like a fucked-up weed!”

  I gritted my teeth, the tendrils whipping wild behind me—slashing at the air, at the dirt, at nothing.

  The pain crawled higher, sharper, like it was chewing through my spine.

  “Trippy,” Fuse drawled, his voice drifting in slow and lazy, like he could barely stay awake.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Bet if we water her she grows bigger.”

  The tendrils lashed again, snapping inches from my face, raw instinct and rage with no direction.

  Spite’s hand pressed harder into my back, forcing me lower, keeping me grounded.

  "Control it, child," he rasped.

  "Control its rampage."

  I gasped, clutching the dirt.

  The Whisper shrieked inside me, clawing for release.

  The world spun.

  I wasn’t sure if it was my blood pounding in my ears or the thing screaming from my bones anymore.

  But if I didn’t get a grip—

  It would tear me apart.

  "It hurts," the Whisper whimpered.

  Its voice curled into my mind, thin and shivering—not the roaring thing it usually was. Small. Weak.

  "Please... stop..."

  I gasped, my fingers clawing into the dirt.

  Not from my pain.

  From its pain.

  It thrashed inside my chest like a wounded animal, every beat of my heart hammering against it, grinding it down.

  The tendrils jerked behind me, spasming—not wild, not angry—but broken.

  Shaking.

  Like they were tied to something dying.

  Spite still stood behind me, one hand resting steady on my back.

  Like his touch alone was dragging the Whisper into the open, bleeding it dry.

  I tried to move, to break free—but the pain didn’t let me.

  It wasn’t my body that hurt.

  It was the thing inside me.

  It was screaming.

  "Endure," Spite said again, his voice low, steady.

  Like it was obvious.

  Like it was easy.

  Another pulse of agony ripped through my spine—deep, burning, heavy—and the Whisper sobbed inside my head.

  "Please..."

  I gritted my teeth so hard I tasted blood.

  Behind me, Skein’s voice floated in, light and mocking:

  “Shit, look at that. She’s breaking faster than I thought.”

  Fuse made a sound—somewhere between a yawn and a laugh.

  "Poor kid. Bad trip, man."

  I wasn’t listening.

  I wasn’t hearing anything except the thing inside me—

  the thing I was supposed to control—

  begging me to make it stop.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, forehead pressed into the dirt.

  I could kill it.

  Right now.

  I could rip it out of me.

  End it.

  All I had to do was let go.

  Give in.

  But Spite’s hand stayed where it was—heavy, cold, merciless.

  Endure.

  I bit down another scream and clung to the pain like a lifeline.

  The ground cracked beneath me, fissures webbing out in every direction.

  A low, wet sound followed—a tearing, splitting—and then the first root punched through the arch of my foot.

  I gasped—not from pain, but from the wrongness of it.

  Thick black veins peeled from the soles of my feet, writhing like severed arteries, clawing into the dirt and burrowing deep.

  My legs locked.

  My spine arched.

  Something twisted under my skin—sharp, fast, like a second skeleton threading itself through my bones.

  A seam ripped open along my back.

  I felt it—hot and wet—as fibers snaked out, knitting themselves into a heavy robe that draped over my shoulders.

  It wasn't fabric.

  It was alive.

  The texture clung wetly to my arms and chest, tightening, constricting, pulling until every movement felt like it dragged a thousand hooks through my nerves.

  I opened my mouth to scream—

  But something harder than bone slid across my face.

  Thin plates pushed up through my cheeks, my forehead, my jawline—burning like metal fresh from a forge.

  They met at the center, sealing me in.

  No eye holes.

  No mouth slit.

  Just a smooth, blank surface, cold against the raw meat of my face.

  I clawed at it blindly.

  Nails scraped uselessly against the slick white shell that used to be my skin.

  Breath sawed in and out of my lungs, but it wasn’t enough.

  The mask didn’t move.

  Roots wrapped tighter around my ankles.

  The robe cinched harder around my ribs.

  I could feel something inside me—splitting open—hollowing out a space where my heart used to be.

  The tendrils coiled around me—protective, expectant—waiting for the command that hadn't yet formed on my tongue.

  Pain stitched itself through my spine, threading every bone with something heavier than marrow.

  Something awoke.

  In the chill of broken earth and sour mist, a shape stood behind Spite.

  I didn’t see him arrive.

  He was just... there.

  The man in white.

  Watching.

  Silent.

  A voice slid into my skull—slow, heavy, dragging its weight through every thought:

  "You breathe me in without knowing."

  The tendrils in my spine twisted violently, clawing deeper into the ground.

  "You were never yours to begin with."

  My heart spasmed.

  My fingers tore into the dirt.

  "Curious," the voice murmured, colder now. "How long will you pretend you're not already mine?"

  My fingers curled into claws without thought.

  My legs bent wrong.

  My chest hollowed out, then filled again with something that wasn't breath.

  The dirt vibrated under my feet.

  The world bent.

  I wasn't standing anymore.

  I was growing.

  I was bleeding into the ground.

  I was pulling something dead and hungry up through the roots in my skin.

  Somewhere on the edge of the broken lot, Skein let out a low, breathless laugh.

  "Yo, Fuse," she muttered, voice shaky but grinning, "tell me you’re seeing this."

  Fuse coughed, sounding dazed.

  "Yeah. Uh... yeah, man. She’s... she’s turning into something."

  Spite stepped into view.

  His mask tilted slightly—watching, measuring.

  He didn’t move.

  He didn’t interfere.

  This was what he wanted.

  This was what he was waiting for.

  The robe tightened.

  The mask burned against my face.

  The roots clawed deeper into the earth.

  But then—

  Everything snapped back.

  The tendrils tore themselves apart into smoke.

  The mask shattered into dust against my skin.

  The robe unraveled like ash in the wind.

  The blackened skin tightened, pulling back into the old fractures across my body, leaving only the thin spiderweb cracks behind.

  The roots ripped free from the earth, dragging a sharp pain through my legs as they tore loose.

  The world spun around me, the stink of blood and earth clogging my nose.

  I looked down at my shaking hands and sucked in a ragged, broken breath.

  Whatever that was—

  It was gone.

  For now.

  A shadow fell over me.

  Spite crouched down, his long arms folding like a spider over my broken shape.

  "You’re close," he said, voice low, almost reverent.

  "Closer than you think."

  I lifted my head slowly, blood dripping from my nose, my breath rattling in my chest.

  His mask stared back at me—cracked, blank, patient.

  "You brushed the root," he said.

  "But you didn’t drink from it."

  His fingers tapped lightly against my back, right over the spine where the pain still burned.

  "Next time," he murmured, voice like something scratching inside a wall,

  "you won’t crawl away."

  He stood and left me kneeling there—mud and blood mixing under my palms, the ground still trembling from whatever I almost became.

  A voice cut through the heavy air—sharp, stunned.

  "Yo, Empress," Nova said.

  "You planning to sprout wings or just rot there?"

  I looked up.

  Nova stood on the crumbling ledge above, hands on her hips, grinning like she’d just seen someone survive a car crash.

  Rook and Ghost flanked her, both stone-faced—but even from here, I could feel the weight in their stares.

  "Control it next time," he said.

  "Or don't bother getting back up."

  I forced myself onto my feet.

  My knees shook.

  My fingers were numb.

  "Spite’s a freak, but damn. He might actually make something outta you."

  I wiped the blood from my mouth with the back of my hand.

  Nova clapped her hands once, loud enough to echo against the ruined walls.

  "Alright, let’s get the fuck out of here before any more Provenance bucket-heads come sniffing around," she said, jerking a thumb toward Ghost.

  Ghost gave her a dry look but didn’t argue.

  "Fine," she muttered, already heading back inside.

  A low engine growl cut through the stillness—then a battered van screeched to a halt outside.

  Ghost sat behind the wheel, window down, one hand slouched out, tapping the door.

  "You bitches getting in or what?" she called, deadpan, like she couldn't be bothered to care.

  We crammed into the van.

  I ended up sandwiched between Skein and Fuse—Fuse immediately slinging an arm around my shoulder.

  "Good shit today, kid," Fuse said, breathing out a thin line of pale purple vapor.

  A small rig buzzed faintly in his hand, patched with wires and scorched along the grip—the kind of junky burner addicts used to fry their nerves for a few hours of weightless high.

  "Really gettin’ the hang of Spite’s ‘training course.’" He flexed two fingers in lazy air quotes, the rig pulsing blue when he dragged another hit.

  "Still don’t know how the hell you survive that crap," he mumbled, sounding like he was halfway to passing out. "Looks like it eats you alive."

  Skein cracked him across the back of the head hard enough to make him cough.

  "No shit it hurts, dumbass!" she snapped. "You think growing shit outta your goddamn back feels like a spa day?"

  Fuse just coughed a laugh, slouching deeper in his seat, smoke leaking out around a crooked grin.

  "Character building," he muttered.

  From the back, Spite’s voice floated out—low, gravel-edged, certain.

  "It is a necessary sacrifice," he said.

  "Khareth’el’s heart must be shaped.

  The child must awaken."

  Fuse lazily tucked the burner into his jacket, still grinning like an idiot.

  Skein rolled her eyes so hard I could practically hear it.

  “You’re gonna fry what’s left of your brain, Fuse,” she muttered, slouching sideways and kicking her boots up onto the back of the front seats.

  “Not that you had much to begin with.”

  “Brain’s overrated,” Fuse said, slurring the words a little.

  He thumped the side of his head with two fingers.

  “Got instincts. That’s all you need, baby.”

  “Instincts didn’t stop you from setting your pants on fire last raid,” Skein shot back, her grin all teeth.

  Fuse snorted. “It was strategic. Distraction technique.”

  Up front, Nova twisted around from the middle seat, a wide grin spreading across her face under the flicker of busted dashboard lights.

  "Yeah? Worked like a charm. Even the enforcers didn’t know whether to shoot you or toss you a fire extinguisher."

  Ghost, behind the wheel, said nothing—eyes steady on the road, hands loose but ready.

  Rook sat shotgun, posture stiff, gaze scanning every alley and rooftop like he was expecting an ambush any second. He didn’t bother turning around. He didn’t need to.

  The van rattled as it tore through the broken streets, neon streaking the windows in long, dirty lines.

  In the back, Spite was hunched low near the cargo hold—half-shrouded in shadow, knees jammed awkwardly against the metal walls.

  His cracked mask tilted ever so slightly toward me, the faint pulse of red at its center flashing like a heartbeat.

  “The child progresses,” he said, voice scraping low enough to vibrate through the old van frame.

  “The vessel stirs. Hunger will find her soon.”

  Fuse leaned his head back against the seat, glancing sideways at me with raised brows like he didn’t know whether to laugh or be worried.

  He settled on a crooked, lazy grin.

  “Dude, you hear that?” he stage-whispered, nudging my arm.

  “‘Hunger.’ Shit’s about to get biblical in here.”

  "Shut up, Fuse," Rook muttered, still staring out the windshield, hand resting near the concealed pistol tucked at his hip.

  The van jerked over a pothole hard enough to rattle our bones.

  The city swallowed us deeper—filthy neon bleeding through the mist, the streets stitched together with rot and forgotten light.

  I sat back, squeezing my fists tight until the black cracks along my skin throbbed faintly.

  Hunger.

  Yeah.

  I could feel it.

  “So what’s next?” I asked, still catching my breath.

  “What’s next is food,” Nova said, like it was obvious.

  She kicked her boots up on the dashboard, grinning.

  “Then we hit the fun part. Got intel about a Provenance building sitting on some juicy tech. Skein and Ghost have been practically foaming at the mouth to raid it.”

  “Finally,” Ghost said quietly from the front, her voice like a blade sliding free of a sheath.

  “I say we hit Stack Shack,” Fuse chimed in, tapping a burner-stick lazily against his knee.

  “The Stack Classic there is fucking amazing.”

  “That Stack Classic of yours is just synthetic meat garbage,” Rook muttered without looking away from the cracked road ahead.

  “But cheap as hell," Fuse shot back, flashing a grin. "And you get a free heart attack with every order."

  "Stack Shack it is!" Nova whooped, punching the air.

  Rook tensed—sharp, sudden—eyes slicing to the rearview.

  "Tail. Fast—GET DOWN."

  The words exploded out of him at the same time the shot ripped through the night.

  The bullet hit Spite straight in the head.

  His mask shattered—a cracking snap like bone under a boot—

  and then his body liquefied.

  A spray of black blood hit the van walls, splashing all of us in hot, metallic mist.

  Ghost swerved hard, tires screaming across broken pavement.

  "Son of a bitch!" Fuse yelped, ducking down.

  I dropped low instinctively, heart hammering against my ribs.

  But the blood didn’t stay inert.

  It moved.

  A slick stream shot backward through the broken window, carving through the cold night air.

  I caught a glimpse—

  Spite, reforming mid-air, dragging himself into shape as he landed on the enemy car behind us.

  Metal groaned under his weight.

  The enemy driver swerved, panicked—but Spite had already ripped into the roof like it was foil.

  Fuse's muffled laugh rose, cracked and disbelieving

  "He’s fucking surfing them!"

  I didn’t wait. I yanked the side door open.

  Cold air slapped me in the face—sharp and biting. I hauled myself onto the roof of the van, boots slipping on slick metal.

  Skein’s voice howled from below. “MARI—ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?!"

  The Whisper roared.

  The tendrils ripped free from my spine, writhing in the air like blades.

  My legs elongated—snapping at wrong angles, built for speed, not mercy.

  Black cracked skin armored over my body, muscles tightening, stretching.

  For a heartbeat—

  the robe began to form, threads weaving from the air, thick and heavy over my shoulders.

  The mask bled up my jaw, cold and hungry, reaching for my face.

  Almost.

  It almost crowned me.

  But—

  It broke.

  The robe shredded into mist.

  The mask cracked apart before it could seal.

  The surge collapsed inward, strangling itself.

  I staggered—breath catching hard in my throat—and when I looked down:

  The black cracked skin.

  The twisted legs.

  The tendrils, thrashing wild against the storm.

  Not the god-form.

  Not yet.

  “Fuck!”

  The van’s frame rattled beneath me, the neon smearing into long, broken rivers across the night.

  The enemy car was just ahead.

  Close.

  Too close.

  Instinct hit me like a thunderclap.

  I pushed off hard—

  Leaping without thinking.