The inner wall loomed ahead like some ancient monolith, all smooth concrete stretching up three hundred meters of "screw you and your dreams of escape." No handholds, no convenient little nooks or crannies—just pure, weathered stone designed to keep Section 3's finest exactly where we belonged. Below. Always below.
I stood at its base, my fancy new snake-vision picking up things that would've made my old eyes cross. Tiny cracks spiderwebbed across the surface like nature's graffiti, and I could feel heat signatures pulsing from the other side. Fancy.
Then the hunger hit. You know that feeling when your stomach growls during a really quiet moment? Yeah, this wasn't that. This was more like my whole body decided to do some remodeling without consulting me first. My jaw ached, not painful exactly, more like that tension right before you sneeze. Then—pop!—suddenly I had fangs. Like, serious, snake-worthy fangs pushing past my lips.
"Well, that's new," I muttered, running my tongue over the points. They felt exactly like the snake's had—curved, sharp, and definitely not standard human equipment. I focused, trying to make them go away, and they actually listened, sliding back into normal-sized teeth. Show-offs.
I stared at my palms, thinking maybe, just maybe... The hunger perked up like an eager puppy, and oh boy, did it deliver. It started with this burning sensation, like someone had replaced my blood with molten metal. My skin bubbled, stretched, and then—surprise!—exploded as fangs burst through my palms. Blood went everywhere, giving the wall a nice new paint job. The pain was intense but quick.
Black scales, the two headed snake's, grew around the wounds like some kind of organic armor, spreading across my hands in these neat overlapping patterns. The bleeding stopped as fast as it started, leaving me with built-in climbing gear where regular old hands used to be. It felt right, somehow. Like this was how I was made to be, born to be.
"Here goes nothing," I whispered, and stabbed my new hardware into the wall. The fangs sank in like the concrete was made of cheese, anchoring me better than any climbing equipment. I pulled myself up.
The climb was easier than it had any right to be. My transformed hands punched through solid concrete like it was wet cardboard, creating holds where there shouldn't be any. I moved faster and faster, like I'd been born to scale impossible walls with hand-fangs.
At fifty meters up, the wind decided to join the party. My enhanced senses mapped every current like I had some kind of built-in weather radar. The breeze brought me a lovely cocktail of scents—eau de Section 3 smog mixed with something cleaner from above. Quite the upgrade from my usual nose.
I could see our house from up here, tiny as a matchbox among thousands. It already felt like it belonged to another lifetime—a lifetime before I'd watched my brother die, before I'd eaten a monster and become... whatever I was now. Before everything changed.
One hundred meters. Two hundred. The air got thinner, colder, but my new body couldn't care less. The hunger hummed away happily, like climbing impossible walls was its idea of a good time. My fangs never dulled, never hesitated, just kept punching through concrete like they were getting paid for it.
Finally, I reached the top. Three hundred meters of smooth wall conquered by palm-grown fangs. Because apparently, that's just how my life works now.
And then I saw it. Light. Not the sad, flickering kind we had in Section 3, but real, honest-to-gods electric light flooding every street and building. Section 2 spread out before me like something from an old world dream—buildings reaching for the sky, their windows blazing with brilliance, streets curving between them lined with actual working lampposts. And because one impossible wall wasn't enough, another one rose in the distance, topped with some kind of blue sphere.
I looked up at the eternally dark clouds gathering above, my enhanced vision trying to pierce their secrets. No luck there—just more darkness. Typical.
My super-snake-vision swept across Section 2, cataloging details faster than I could process them. Clean streets. Buildings that weren't falling apart. People walking around after dark like they weren't worried about getting eaten by whatever horror decided they looked tasty. It was like someone had taken everything I knew about survival and turned it upside down.
That's when I saw her. A figure on a nearby rooftop, staring right back at me. My vision zoomed in automatically—she was maybe a year or two older than me, dark chocolate skin, curly dark hair, and eyes so blue they looked unreal. And she could see me, really see me, scales and all. The realization sent a shiver down my spine.
She smiled, and oh boy, there was nothing friendly about it. It was all predator, all hunger. Her body temperature ran just a little too hot, and my own hunger stirred in recognition. Game recognize game, I guess.
She raised one finger in the universal "follow me" gesture, like finding a bloodied scaled-up stranger on the wall was just another Tuesday for her. I stared, trying to process the casual way she was inviting me down. Here I was, covered in blood, sporting some fancy new hand-weapons, and she was acting like we were meeting for tea.
Her smile widened, showing teeth that definitely weren't standard issue human equipment either. The hunger inside me growled, but different this time. I was starving, and something told me this girl might have what I needed—answers, food, or maybe both.
She turned and vanished between buildings, leaving her invitation hanging in the air like perfume.
I took one last look at Section 3, at the darkness I was leaving behind, and stepped off the wall. Because why climb down when you can fall with style?
The descent was equal parts terrifying and amazing. Wind tried its best to turn me into a human kite, time slowed down like it was giving me a chance to appreciate just how crazy this was, and my enhanced senses went into full "please don't die" mode.
I spun mid-air, my scaled hand reaching for the wall. The impact was brutal—fang met concrete, concrete won, and pain shot through my palm like lightning. Blood sprayed from the broken weapon, but I could already feel it healing, new fangs pushing through in a burst of agony and pain.
The sudden stop nearly ripped my arm off, but I established a rhythm—strike, break, regenerate, repeat. Each impact felt like getting hit by a truck, each regeneration burned like fire, but I kept it together. Mostly.
The ground rushed up way too fast for comfort. Twenty meters. Ten. Five. I landed and rolled, letting my fancy new body absorb what would have killed a regular person. The scales had spread further, covering most of my arms now, their black surface reflecting the city's lights like polished obsidian.
Standing up, I took my first breath of Section 2 air. It was different—cleaner but artificial, like someone had tried to copy fresh air without quite getting it right. The city's lights pushed back the darkness, but they couldn't touch the shadows in my head.
My nose twitched, catching scents that made my mouth water. There were others here like me—I could smell the beast in them, hiding behind human faces. But I had one target in mind. That girl had answers, and my instincts told me she was the only one I could trust with my questions.
Time to hunt.