The neon lights dragged crimson trails across Thin Yu's retina. He gripped the edge of the convenience store freezer, staggering forward, before a searing pain exploded at the base of his neck—a near miss as he stumbled toward the yogurt display.
July's sultry night air carried the stench of car exhaust into his collar, yet despite the oppressive heat, an unnatural chill crept across his skin.
"You're out of your mind," Zhao Xu said, pressing a chilled can of soda against Thin Yu's neck. "You had to wear that ripped jacket to look cool, didn't you?"
Thin Yu opened his mouth to retort but found his Adam's apple involuntarily quivering. A low-frequency vibration pierced his eardrums—like the growl of an engine from the parking garage below, or a giant feline clawing against his chest cavity.
He instinctively grabbed the nearby shelf, his knuckles whitening as they clung to the metal rack. This had been happening for three days now.
It started on that rainy night when Tang Yao refused his seventh invitation. From then on, the world began to unravel. The sound of raindrops hitting the canopy overhead transformed into machine-gun fire, and the artificial chemicals in the mascara from the girl at the next table decomposed into a pungent whiff of sulfur. At that moment, he could even count the grease spots on the cook's apron thirty meters away.
"Argh, Thin Yu!" Zhao Xu waved his hands in front of Thin Yu's face. "Snap out of it! We have to close up at nine…!"
The glass door suddenly crashed open with a deafening clang. Five figures chained with metal links stumbled inside, the leader—a red-haired man—kicking over the promotional displays beside the cash register.
Thin Yu watched as the pile of snacks toppled, suddenly noticing he could see every stray hair on the man's jawline, each one lying at an angle like a specimen under a microscope.
"Lend us some money," the redhead growled, tapping his knuckles against the barcode scanner. His voice carried the sour stench of betel nut.
Thin Yu noticed something protruding from the man's lower back—a sharp metallic outline that automatically formed on his retinas as if it were a blueprint.
When the store manager trembled and opened the cash register, Thin Yu's nails dug into the flesh of his palms. The frustration he'd been bottling up for three days boiled in his veins; he could even hear the creaking sound of his own teeth grinding together.
Zhao Xu suddenly pulled on Thin Yu's arm. In that moment of skin-to-skin contact, Thin Yu realized his friend's cold sweat was seeping through their clothes into his pores.
The streetlights cast jagged shadows resembling wolf fangs across the asphalt. As they took a shortcut through an alley, Thin Yu abruptly grabbed Zhao Xu by the shoulder.
Amidst the nauseating stench of sewer gas and the familiar tang of betel nut, he locked onto the faint metallic glint in the corner of his vision. The burning pain at the nape of his neck suddenly shot up toward his temples.
"Run!" Thin Yu shouted, barely finishing the word before a steel pipe whistled through the air.
As he shoved Zhao Xu to safety, a dull ache blossomed across his shoulder. The metallic taste of blood spread in his mouth—irony mingling with faint salt as he caught a whiff of the man's sweat evaporating on his knuckles.
"Pretty loyal for a human," the steel pipe sizzled as it struck the ground. The red-haired man pulled up his collar to reveal a serpentine tattoo. "Know why we're here?" He yanked Thin Yu by the lapels of his jacket. "I fucking hate your eyes."
Thin Yu's head slammed against the brick wall, and in that instant, he heard the fabric tear. The chain Tang Yao had given him snapped, releasing a coin-sized pendant etched with cryptic runes into the shadows.
A flicker of pale gray flashed across Thin Yu's vision, as if a wild beast was sprinting along his optic nerves. Time slowed; he could see every scar on the man's knuckles, smell the sizzle of grilled sausage wafting from the street corner, and hear the faint electronic chirp of the convenience store door thirty-two meters away.
"Still staring at me?" The red-haired thug pressed his knee into Thin Yu's ribs.
Pain exploded through him, but something snapped deep within his bones. Thin Yu's pupils constricted into vertical slits before snapping back to normal. When he grabbed the man's wrist, he felt every joint and bone shifting beneath the skin as if manipulating a set of mechanical parts.
As the steel pipe clattered to the ground, Zhao Xu's screams faded into distant static. Thin Yu watched the thug stumble backward, realizing the world was bathed in an eerie red filter.
He raised his hand and saw his veins twisting and coiling under his skin like writhing snakes. "Monster…" the gangsters chorused as they scrambled back.
Thin Yu followed their gaze downward and froze—the outline of his shadow on the wall was twisted and grotesque, with unnatural bulges forming across his shoulders.
When the steel pipe swished through the air again, he caught a hint of rust mingled with minerals. Before his conscious mind could register anything, his body reacted—a flawless evasion that ended in a precise lock onto the steel pipe's surface. As he gripped it, the metal resonated faintly, a vibration from the subway two hundred meters away.
A low growl echoed through the alley as if summoned by the wind. The steel pipe groaned under Thin Yu's grasp, splintering with hairline fractures that spread like thorns across its industrial coating.
The red-haired thug's eyes widened in disbelief—their leader, a man who could bend steel, was now being held aloft by this scrawny kid in tattered leather. Crimson streaks ran down the steel pipe's ridged surface as Thin Yu's fingers dug into it, his blood glistening an unnatural shade of blue under the moonlight.
"What the hell…" The thug's curse died in his throat asThin Yu's nails began to transform with alarming speed.
The flickering streetlight at the alley mouth stretched his shadow into a hunched, beast-like silhouette. The crimson filter over Thin Yu's vision intensified, and it felt like needles were pierce his eardrums.
He could hear the gangsters' racing heartbeats—like a rapid drumbeat—and taste the bitter tang of adrenaline in their sweat on his tongue.
Suddenly, he realized he could predict every move the red-haired thug would make—the exact angle of his kick, the precise force behind it, even the friction his sneakers would create as they skidded across the pavement.
As the steel pipe whizzed past his ear,Thin Yu's knee already met its mark on another thug's ribs. The sickening crack echoed like a glass bottle shattering; fermented sweetness mixed with the metallic tang of broken cartilage filled his nostrils.
His body felt split in two: his mind screamed to stop, but his muscles moved with mechanical precision, executing an ancient, brutal instinct.
"Monster! It's a monster!" One of the gangsters' screams carried the unmistakable scent of urine as they fled.
Thin Yu's pupils narrowed; he could see the ammonia rising from their soaked pants. His arm swung out on its own, five flashes of erasing the alley wall three centimeters deep in an instant.
The overwhelming sensory assault began to unravel him. The putrid stench of rotting rats in the sewers, the sour tang of spoiled beer thirty meters away at a bar, even the chemical traces of silver amalgam from the thug's dental fillings—all these sensations converged into a maelstrom of chaos within his mind.
He dropped to his knees, clawing at the asphalt. The texture of tar and gravel under his nails felt like fire as he tried to ground himself, but the pain only amplified.
"Thin Yu!" Zhao Xu's voice echoed as if from underwater.
When Thin Yu turned his head, his vertebrae creaked like gears grinding together. He saw Zhao Xu slumped beside a dumpster seven meters away, phone in hand—a fool still recording the nightmare unfolding before him.
The metallic tang of blood intensified tenfold. Thin Yu's fangs pierced his lip as he tasted an odd sweetness in his own blood—the faintest trace of rust.
He staggered toward one of the fleeing gangsters. The thud of the man's carotid artery pulsed like a siren, drawing him in. An ancient, primal instinct roared through his veins, urging him to tear through the fragile skin.
"Thin Yu!"
A cool, melodic voice pierced his skull like a needle. Just before his claws reached the man's throat, they froze mid-air. The acrid scent of pine and frost filled his nostrils, overriding the metallic tang of blood and calming the wild pulse in his veins momentarily.
He turned his stiff neck toward the alley entrance where Tang Yao stood, her sketchbook clutched to her chest. The night breeze lifted her indigo schoolgirl skirt ever so slightly. Her gaze swept over the claw marks on the wall before settling on Thin Yu's distorted fingers.
She crouched and picked up the broken wolf-head pendant. Moonlight caught the runes engraved into its surface, sending a faint golden glow through the ancient bronze. "Ah, I see," she murmured, her voice barely audible but sending a chill down Thin Yu's spine.
The pendant clattered to the ground at his feet. Tang Yao turned, her hair catching the light as it swirled around her in a delicate arc. Without consciously deciding,Thin Yu's eyes recorded every detail—the thirteen strands falling through the air, each following a perfect Fibonacci spiral.
He opened his mouth to speak but only managed a guttural growl—a sound halfway between an injured animal and rusted machinery.
"Get yourself to a vet for that rabies shot," Tang Yao said coolly. Her voice blended with the night breeze as she stepped through the bloodied alley toward the street, her loafers squelching slightly in the gore—each step accompanied by a series of distinct vibrations that Thin Yu could almost visualize as sound waves.
As Zhao Xu helped Thin Yu to his feet, the veins beneath his skin began to recede. The overwhelming power dissipated, leaving behind an intense burning sensation deep within his bones.
He fumbled with the broken chain and slipped it back around his neck. The wolf-head amulet grew alarmingly hot in his hand, and a resin-like substance seeped out of the engravings on its surface.
In the distance, the wail of police sirens approached from the convenience store. Yet forThin Yu, something far stranger lingered at the edge of his vision—the air seemed to shimmer faintly where Tang Yao had disappeared, as if she'd left behind a trail of static electricity in her wake.