The air inside the university quadrangle had become a physical weight, heavy with the metallic tang of blood and the ozone-sharp scent of electricity. I ran past the sprawled bodies of students who had fainted from the initial shockwave, my shoes slamming against the pavement with a rhythm that felt detached from my own heartbeat. The bent metal signpost in my grip was heavy, awkward, and slippery with sweat, but I refused to let it go. It was the only thing standing between me and the creatures that were currently tearing the world apart. The roar I had heard earlier—the one that signaled a second beast—echoed off the concrete walls of the administration building, sounding more like grinding machinery than any animal I had ever known.
"Clear the area! Move! Everyone to the gymnasium!" a security guard screamed, his voice cracking with a panic that betrayed his authority. He was waving frantically near the covered walk, his baton drawn but shaking visibly in his hand. "Do not stop! Do not look back!"
A cluster of students sprinted past me, their faces pale masks of terror. One of them, a girl with her bag hanging open and spilling notebooks onto the grass, tripped over a protruding root. She scrambled to her feet, sobbing, not even bothering to retrieve her things. I didn't stop to help her. I couldn't. The instinct that had buried itself in my chest—the cold, predatory hum of the orb I had absorbed—was screaming at me to keep moving, to find high ground, to hunt or be hunted. It was a sensation entirely foreign to my own mind, overlaying my thoughts like a second, darker transparency.
"You there! Student!" the guard yelled, spotting me as I veered away from the gymnasium and toward the main gate. "Wrong way! The evacuation point is the gym! The streets are not safe!"
I didn't slow down. "My friend is out there," I shouted back, my voice sounding rough and unfamiliar to my own ears. "I'm not staying trapped in here!"
"Get back here! That's an order!"
I ignored him, vaulting over a low hedge and hitting the asphalt of the campus driveway. The sensation in my legs was exhilarating and terrifying all at once. I wasn't an athlete; I was a college student who spent too much time in the library and not enough time at the gym. Yet, as I pushed off the ground, I felt a surge of explosive power in my calves and thighs—a residue of the creature I had killed. The world seemed to move just a fraction slower than usual, allowing me to process the chaotic scene with unnatural clarity. I could see the individual shards of glass on the road, the specific sway of the trees as the shockwaves continued to ripple from the sky, and the terrified wideness of the eyes of the people I passed.
Is this the power? I thought, gripping the signpost tighter. Is this what that thing felt before I killed it?
I reached the main gate of the campus, expecting to find the usual gridlock of tricycles and cars. What I found instead was a graveyard of vehicles. The traffic along Katipunan Avenue had completely seized. Cars were abandoned, doors left wide open, engines idling or dead. Drivers and passengers were flooding the streets on foot, a stampede of humanity pushing away from the intersection where the rift in the sky was most prominent. The noise was deafening—a cacophony of car alarms, screaming sirens, and the terrified wails of thousands of people realizing that their reality had shattered.
"Move! Get out of the way!" a man in a business suit shoved past me, his eyes wild. He was clutching a briefcase to his chest as if it could protect him from the monstrosities descending from the clouds.
I stumbled but regained my balance instantly, the unnatural reflexes correcting my posture before I could fall. I looked North, toward Cubao, toward where Mark had been. The sky there was a bruising shade of violet and black. The rift wasn't just a line anymore; it was a complex geometric fracture, leaking smoke and light. And beneath it, hovering over the distinct skyline of the business district, were shapes. Dozens of them. They looked like ashes floating on an updraft, but I knew better. They were swarms.
"Mark," I whispered, the name tasting like ash in my mouth.
I began to weave through the abandoned cars, treating the hood of a stalled sedan as a stepping stone to get a better view. The elevation gave me a vantage point, but it also made me a target. From atop the car, I saw the chaos unfolding near the flyover. A group of three creatures—similar to the skeletal, dog-like beast I had killed, but larger, with obsidian spines protruding from their backs—were tearing into a bus. The passengers inside were screaming, banging against the glass, but the creatures were relentless. They moved with a jerky, stop-motion horror, tearing metal like wet cardboard.
"Oh god, help us! Someone shoot them!" a woman screamed from the sidewalk, clutching a child to her chest.
A police patrol car was parked askew near the bus, its lights flashing. Two officers were crouched behind the doors, firing their service pistols. Pop. Pop. Pop. The gunshots sounded pathetic against the roar of the beasts. I saw the bullets spark against the creatures' hides, doing little more than annoying them. These things weren't just animals; their skin was hardened, perhaps reinforced by the same strange energy that had entered me.
One of the creatures turned its attention away from the bus and toward the police officers. It let out a chittering hiss, its jaw unhinging to reveal rows of needle-like teeth. In a blur of motion, it leaped. It covered the twenty feet between the bus and the patrol car in a single heartbeat.
"Look out!" one officer yelled, but he was too slow.
The creature slammed into the car door, crushing the metal inward and pinning the officer against the frame. He shrieked in agony as the beast raked its claws across the shattered window. The second officer panicked, firing blindly, but the bullets went wide, shattering the windshield of a nearby SUV.