Behind them, the man Darian had dragged away from the sewer sat against the wall, trembling and clutching his ribs.
Darian crouched beside him again.
"You're not bleeding badly," Darian said, scanning the bruised ribs and the ugly scrape along the man's shoulder. "But those hits are going to lock up your breathing. You should get medical help."
The man let out a shaky laugh that quickly turned into a cough.
"Medical help?" he wheezed. "Down here?"
He gestured weakly toward the surrounding buildings—rotting walls, broken lights, people watching from the shadows.
"Clinics don't come this far down," he muttered. "You either walk it off… or you don't."
Darian reached into a small pouch on his belt and pulled out a compact injector.
The device clicked softly as he primed it.
The man blinked.
"Wait—"
"Hold still," Darian said.
He pressed the injector against the man's side.
The device hissed.
A measured dose of pale blue fluid entered the bloodstream.
The man inhaled sharply as the stimulant hit his system.
"Pain suppressor and clot stabilizer," Darian said, pocketing the injector. "Won't fix everything, but it'll keep you standing."
The man stared at him, stunned.
"You just… carry that around?"
"Part of the job," Darian said simply.
Behind them, Ravion had moved to the creature's corpse.
The catlike hybrid lay twisted across the pavement, its elongated limbs slack, its malformed wings half-spread like broken scaffolding. Patchy fur clung to its skin, matted with black fluid.
Ravion nudged one of its limbs aside with the shaft of his spear.
"Hmph," he muttered.
He crouched slightly, inspecting the exposed flesh, the warped bone structure, the unfinished wings.
"Fresh," Ravion said.
He paused.
"No," he corrected a moment later, voice colder. "New."
Zeri folded her arms.
"That makes zero sense."
Ravion dragged the spear tip lightly along the creature's underside, lifting the carcass slightly.
Zeri's gaze lingered on the creature's face.
What remained of it.
Her expression shifted.
"Wait," she said slowly. "That… looks like—"
Darian glanced back.
"The missing cat," he said.
Silence.
Zeri blinked.
"No way," she said. "You're saying that thing was—what—someone's pet?"
Ravion stood.
"Possible," he said. "The structure aligns. The transformation is incomplete."
Zeri frowned.
"Animals turning into monsters is a thing now?"
Ravion's expression didn't change.
"Humans. Animals. It makes little difference," he said. "When survival instinct distorts beyond its limit—when negative emotions deepen far enough—"
He looked down at the corpse.
"—the result is this."
Zeri exhaled slowly.
"That's… messed up."
Darian's attention drifted away from them.
His gaze moved down the street.
The fog seemed thicker the further the road stretched.
Rusting transit rails hung overhead like skeletal ribs.
Then—
He felt it.
Faint.
A thread of Essence.
Deeper ahead.
Not strong.
But present.
"There's more," Darian said quietly.
Ravion looked at him.
"You sense it?"
Darian nodded.
"Deeper in," he said. "I sense similar essence. Yeah."
Ravion lifted his spear and rested it across his shoulder.
"Then we follow," he said.
Zeri sighed.
"Great," she muttered.
The deeper they moved into the district, the worse the city became.
Buildings leaned at impossible angles, patched together with scrap metal and welded beams. Entire walkways had collapsed, leaving hanging bridges of rusted pipe that residents still used as paths. The air smelled like rot and industrial runoff.
People watched them.
Not openly.
Just from windows. Doorways. Shadows.
POND uniforms did not belong here.
Zeri kicked aside a broken drone shell as they passed.
"I hate this place," she muttered.
Ravion walked ahead of them like a blade cutting through fog.
"The weak congregate where structure fails," he said coldly.
"Yeah well," Zeri replied, "structure failed because no one bothered helping them."
Ravion didn't answer.
Darian stopped suddenly.
Near a corner stall made of corrugated metal, a small crowd had gathered.
Voices murmured nervously.
"Another one," someone whispered.
"Same as last week."
"The sky thing took him."
Zeri looked at Darian.
"...Did he say another one?"
Darian stepped forward.
A woman stood near the stall, clutching a torn jacket to her chest. Her face was pale beneath layers of grime.
"What happened here?" Darian asked.
The woman looked at the POND insignia and immediately grabbed his sleeve.
"He disappeared!" she cried. "My nephew—he just vanished!"
"Slow down," Darian said gently. "What happened exactly?"
The woman wiped her face with trembling hands.
"He was here with the other kids," she said, pointing shakily toward the street. "They were messing around like they always do. I went inside for a minute and when I came back—he was gone. Just… gone."
Zeri frowned.
"Gone how?" she asked. "You didn't hear anything?"
The woman shook her head.
"Nothing," she said. "No screaming. No fighting. Just… gone."
Darian's voice lowered slightly.
"How old?"
"Ten," the woman replied.
Darian felt something tighten behind his ribs.
"You said he was playing with others?"
The woman nodded quickly and pointed deeper into the district.
"The kids who run around the old rail yard."
Zeri tilted her head.
"Rail yard?"
The woman's expression darkened.
"Government place," she said quietly. "Old transit hub. Been abandoned since before I was a kid."
She shook her head again.
"Nobody goes there."
Ravion's eyes sharpened.
"Yet children do," he said.
"Yeah," the woman muttered bitterly. "They don't go to school. No parents half the time. They just wander around that place."
She swallowed.
"I kept telling him not to go there."
Her voice cracked.
"That place isn't right."
Ravion glanced at Darian.
"And the boy taken from the apartment," he said slowly. "Did he know them?"
The woman nodded.
"Yeah," she said. "They all run together."
Darian exhaled slowly.
"Friends," he murmured.
Zeri rubbed the back of her neck.
"Okay that's way creepier," she said.
Darian tapped his comm.
"Halden," he said.
Static buzzed briefly before the instructor's voice answered.
"Go ahead, Squad Nine."
"We've got a pattern," Darian said. "Multiple missing children. No signs of struggle. Targets appear connected—kids from the same group."
There was a short pause.
"Location?" Halden asked.
Darian looked toward the deeper fog where the street ended.
"Old rail yard sector," he replied.
Halden sighed faintly through the comm.
"Of course it is," she muttered.
"You know it?" Zeri asked.
"Everyone knows it," Halden said. "Old government transit hub from the previous city grid. Shut down decades ago."
"Why?" Darian asked.
Halden paused.
"Officially? Infrastructure collapse," she said.
Another beat of silence.
"Unofficially… people stopped going there."
Zeri raised an eyebrow.
"That's not reassuring."
"Be careful," Halden added.
The comm went quiet.