I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see. The world had collapsed into suffocating darkness.
My limbs wouldn't respond. Every part of my hands and legs was severely torn beyond use.
My memories were blurring, but I could still see them. The ugly creatures that my neighbors, my teachers, my friends had become.
I might turn into one of those beasts any moment now.
This is it. This is how I die. Not in battle, not saving anyone, not having fulfilled my quest to become one of the strongest Shadow Crane members. Just a weak worm fading away in the rubble like trash.
I was slipping away, inch by inch, into cold nothingness.
Then a blue light pierced the darkness. A digital screen hovered before my dying eyes.
[๐ฆ๐ฌ๐ฆ๐ง๐๐ ๐๐ก๐๐ง๐๐๐๐๐ญ๐๐ก๐...]
[๐๐ฅ๐๐ง๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ข๐ฅ. ๐๐ข๐ฆ๐ง ๐ฉ๐๐ง๐๐๐๐ง๐ฌ ๐๐ง ๐ฎ%]
[๐ฆ๐๐๐ฅ๐๐๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ข๐ฅ ๐๐ข๐ ๐ฃ๐๐ง๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ก๐...]
****
THREE DAYS EARLIER
I woke up to the smell of burnt toast drifting from the kitchen, which meant my little sister Yuna was attempting breakfast again. I could hear her humming some annoying pop song while Mom yelled at her to stop scraping the charred bits into the sink.
Just another Tuesday in the Hajidan household.
I pressed my hand against my chest, over my heart, and felt a pulse that wasn't quite synchronized with my heartbeat. Something else moving beneath the surface, rhythmic but separate, like a second circulatory system.
"Not again," I whispered to the ceiling.
The pain spiked again, and I gasped, my back arching off the bed involuntarily.
The burning sensation was getting worse. It had been a dull ache for months, but now it felt like barbed wire tightening around my ribs. But lately, especially since last night, the progression had accelerated like someone had hit fast-forward on whatever was happening to my body.
I sat up slowly, fumbling for the buttons of my shirt. I'd slept in yesterday's clothes again, which explained the wrinkled disaster situation.
I looked down at what I'd been looking at since I was a child.
The Blue Veins.
That's what I'd called it as a kid, back when I'd first noticed it and asked Mom what the blue veins on my chest were. She'd gone pale, made me promise never to show anyone, never tell anyone, and had immediately scheduled an appointment with a specialist who'd run tests and found absolutely nothing wrong.
"Some children have unusual pigmentation patterns. Birthmarks can present in unusual ways. As long as it's not causing pain or discomfortโ" the doctor had said.
But it did cause pain. And discomfort. And it had been growing for years.
The blue veins covered my chest in an intricate web pattern that centered directly over my heart. They'd started as just a small cluster, maybe the size of a coin, right above my left ventricle.
Now they covered my entire torso.
An intricate network of blue lines that pulsed with my heartbeatโthump-pulse-thump-pulseโbut also moved independently, like they had their own agenda.
And this morning, they were spreading faster than ever.
I watched one of them extend from the main cluster over my heart, this thin blue line that crawled across my pectoral muscle like a living thing, branching into smaller tributaries, those splitting into even smaller vessels.
My phone buzzed: another message from Commander Yuza. Remedial knife training, 0500 tomorrow. Don't embarrass yourself further. Bring your own Band-Aids this time. -Yuza
I deleted it without responding. Two months in the Shadow Crane and I'd managed to become their mascot for failure. Last week, I'd somehow tangled myself in my own rope during rappelling practice. Sensei Takeda had actually walked away mid-exercise. Just turned around and left. I could still see his shoulders shaking, either with rage or laughter, I wasn't sure which was worse.
I dragged myself out of bed, took a quick shower, put on my uniform, then stumbled downstairs. Dad was already gone; the night shift at the research facility meant I barely saw him anymore. Yuna grinned at me from the table, a smudge of butter on her cheek.
"Morning, loser," she chirped.
"Morning, brat," I replied, ruffling her hair until she swatted my hand away.
Mom handed me a plate with slightly less burnt toast. "Don't forget you have that project due today."
"I got it covered," I lied, taking a bite of the dry bread.
Her expression told me she saw right through my excuses but was too exhausted to call them out.
"Zenjiro, you need to take school seriously. You're eighteen now. What are you going to do with your life if you keep drifting? Mrs. Tanaka told me her son aced his mock exams. Do you want to be the only one on this block flipping burgers after graduation?" She took a deep breath. "Most of the neighborhood kids are your classmates. Don't disappoint me by letting your grades slip, those jealous parents would never let me hear the end of it if you fail."
"Oh, so that's what you're worried about?" I raised a brow.
The truth was, I had been trying. Two months ago, right after my eighteenth birthday, I joined the Shadow Cranes, an underground martial arts collective that trained people in covert operations and silent elimination techniques, training to combat threats most people didn't even know existed. Covert ops. Assassination techniques. Counter-insurgency tactics against things that went bump in the night. At least, that's what the recruiter told me when he approached me outside the dojo where I took basic self-defense classes.
"We see potential in you," he'd said.
The Shadow Cranes didn't train ordinary people. They created elite operatives, handpicking only skilled fighters with proven track records against hoodlums and criminals.
My claim to fame? I'd caught a shoplifter once. My speed let me catch up to him, and my height plus what people called my "fierce face" scared him off. The store made a big deal of it and called the news, because he'd been wanted for months. They asked how I'd handled it, so I gave them some vague story about using physical restraint and tackling him to the ground.
The acceptance letter was still pinned to my wall, right next to my middle school karate tournament participation certificate.
๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐ฆ๐ต๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ผ๐ ๐๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฒ ๐ฒ๐ ๐๐ฒ๐ป๐ฑ๐ ๐ถ๐๐ ๐ถ๐ป๐๐ถ๐๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐๐ผ ๐ญ๐ฒ๐ป๐ท๐ถ๐ฟ๐ผ ๐๐ฎ๐ท๐ถ๐ฑ๐ฎ๐ป. ๐ฌ๐ผ๐ ๐ต๐ฎ๐๐ฒ ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ป ๐ถ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ป๐๐ถ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ฎ๐ ๐ต๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ฝ๐ผ๐๐ฒ๐ป๐๐ถ๐ฎ๐น ๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ ๐ผ๐๐ฟ ๐๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ฎ๐น๐ถ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ถ๐ป๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ฝ๐ฟ๐ผ๐ด๐ฟ๐ฎ๐บ.
I still wasn't sure if my dad had paid them a huge amount of money to get me in, or if they simply needed one weak link on the team.
It had sounded incredible. Like something out of a movie.
The reality? I was the worst student they'd ever had.
I couldn't master the breathing techniques. My strikes were sloppy. During knife training, I'd actually dropped the blade and nearly impaled my own foot. The senior members were real operatives who'd supposedly completed actual missions. They looked at me like I was a lost puppy that had wandered into a wolf den. I'd failed every major exercise. Couldn't pass the combat trials. My infiltration skills were a joke. I was dead weight, and everyone knew it.
The bruises from last week's training session still ached under my uniform.
I grabbed my bag and headed out before the lecture of my nagging mother could continue. The walk to school was the same as always. Fifteen minutes through the residential district, past the convenience store where old man Takeshi always waved at me, across the bridge over the dried-up river, and through the park where the elementary kids played.
Everything was wonderfully normal.
Then I saw the news broadcast on the electronics store display. A small crowd had gathered.
"...mysterious meteor sighting last night over Jonakvi Forest. Authorities are asking residents to avoid the areas listed on the screen while the police and scientists investigate..."
A meteor? In our boring little city? That explains the earthquake from last night.
The footage showed a streak of fire cutting across the night sky, then an explosion of light somewhere in the dense forest north of the city. The newscaster looked concerned, but not alarmed. Just another weird space rock, right?
I felt a strange knot in my gut, a primal warning I couldn't explain. Commander Yuza's words from the emergency briefing three days ago echoed in my mind: "Stay alert. We've detected anomalous readings from the northern quadrant. If you see anything unusual, report immediately."
But I ignored it. I was too busy being an average, oblivious teenager worried about a stupid school project. Besides, what could I do? I was the washout of the Shadow Crane. The liability.
By the time I reached school, everyone was talking about the meteor. Miraza caught up with me at the entrance, her eyes bright with excitement.
Miraza Nakamura was five-foot-six, which meant the top of her head came exactly to my shoulder, the perfect height for me to smell her shampoo (cherry blossoms) and that vanilla body spray she always wore.
"Did you see the news? How crazy is that?" she said, falling into step beside me. When she linked her arm through mine like this, certain anatomical realities meant that her right breast specifically, pressed against my arm, this soft pressure that my nervous system interpreted as the most important thing currently happening in the universe.
"Pretty crazy," I agreed, noting how Miraza was one of those people who made everything seem more interesting just by being excited about it. We had known each other since middle school, but I had never had the guts to tell her I liked her because I felt certain there was no way our feelings were mutual. She was wearing her hair down today instead of her usual ponytail, which meant it kept brushing against my neck and shoulder, and each touch felt electric, like static shocks made of pure want.
"They're saying it might be a satellite or something. Can you imagine if it was aliens?" She laughed, but there was a nervous edge to it.
"Aliens don't exist," I said automatically, though I knew better. The Shadow Crane had files on things that made aliens seem comforting by comparison.
"How do you know? The universe is massive. It'd be pretty arrogant to think we're alone."
That was typical Miraza. I couldn't beat her in an argument, so I just shrugged.
We made it through first period. Then second. By lunch, the rumors had evolved. Someone's cousin who worked at the hospital said people were coming in sick. Really sick. High fevers, aggression, weird black rashes spreading across their skin like spiderwebs.
"It's probably just flu season," I said, biting into my sandwich.
"In April?" Miraza raised an eyebrow. "And since when does the flu make people bite nurses?"
โMy blood ran cold at the mention of biting and aggression. It sounded like Infection Protocol Sigma, a theoretical bioweapon I had read about in the Shadow Crane archives that could turn humans into something hungry and inhuman. I tried to dismiss it as an urban legend, but my voice wavered. Unfortunately, I was dead wrong.
"Aaaaaah!" The agonizing scream of a girl broke the quiet murmur during fifth period.