Chapter 336: Evolving
The creature slipped through the thin places of reality, flickering from one shadow to another. It moved without sound, without shape. Just a smear of darkness crawling across alleys, flickering through train yards, curling up the sides of buildings like smoke caught in a rising draft.
It didn’t understand what it was yet.
It only knew it was here.
This place... this world... it was heavy. Slow. Thick with smells and sounds it couldn’t parse. It tasted metal and blood in the air, felt vibrations through the cracked ground that rattled against its flickering form. It heard birds screaming overhead, wind whispering against crumbling concrete, distant music pulsing from glowing windows.
And underneath it all... hearts beating. Billions of hearts. Each thump radiating warmth and hunger and terror.
It paused in the crawlspace beneath an old warehouse, shadows folding around its unstable body. It flickered again, twitching through shapes—an insect with too many legs, a pale beast with eyeless sockets, a pulsing red orb that dripped black light onto the dirt floor. None of them felt right. None of them held.
Its mass rippled and shifted, colours bursting across its skin like oil floating over water—reds and yellows and deep bruised blues. Its edges flickered with tiny static pops, burning the dust motes that floated too close. Rats squealed and scrambled away, driven mad by the silent frequencies vibrating from its unstable core.
It stretched out with senses it didn’t yet understand. Tasting. Searching. Learning.
It felt them far away—the four who tried to bind it. Their energy was bright and hot like young suns. It tasted rage and duty and fear from them. Especially the dark one, the one with wings that dripped shadow instead of light.
They would come again.
It would be ready next time.
The creature’s form flickered once more, then collapsed into darkness. The shadows coiled inward until there was nothing left under the warehouse but dust and rotting wood.
It reappeared in a drainage tunnel beneath the city. Water trickled over moss-streaked concrete, echoing softly through the dark. The creature drifted down the tunnel, its body scraping the ceiling, leaving faint burn marks wherever its flickering skin brushed the damp stone.
It paused at an old iron grate, sensing vibrations beyond it.
Life.
It curled around the grate’s rusted bars and oozed out the other side, dripping down into a dry channel lined with discarded soda cans, broken bottles, a sleeping homeless man curled under a filthy blanket.
The creature studied him.
His dreams spilled out of his half-awake mind like warm fog. Fear. Hunger. Old grief that burned at the edges. A memory of childhood—someone’s hand stroking his hair while he cried into a thin pillow. The taste of stale bread in his mouth. The ache of lost teeth and rotting gums.
The creature flickered forward, its form curling around him without touching. His heart beat faster. His breathing changed. His dreams shifted from empty grief to screaming terror as his subconscious felt the thing lurking over him.
The creature tasted the fear. Rolled it across its flickering mind like dark honey. But it didn’t feed on it. Not yet. It only wanted to know.
Slowly, it began to shift.
Its outline folded inward, flickering between impossible forms. Colours burned out and faded. The static glow in its core dimmed. Bones formed—long, thin bones wrapped in pulsing violet muscle. Skin stretched across them, pale at first, then darkening into warm brown. Hair curled out from its scalp, black and slightly wavy, falling over its growing forehead. Its eyes flickered between colours—gold, blue, red—before settling into a calm, human brown.
It exhaled.
A quiet, rattling breath that rustled the filthy blanket of the man below it. Its new chest rose and fell. Lungs expanding. Heart pulsing with fresh blood it hadn’t needed seconds before.
It stood there for a moment, naked under the faint flickering light of a broken tunnel lamp. Water dripped down onto its shoulders, running across new skin.
It flexed its fingers slowly. Curled and uncurled its toes. Rolled its neck side to side, listening to the tiny pops of vertebrae adjusting into place.
It felt heavy now. The air no longer flickered against it in invisible currents. The gravity of this world held it down. Tethered it. Each breath scraped its lungs, each heartbeat thumped painfully inside its chest.
It hurt.
But the pain was... clarifying.
It turned to a broken shard of mirror half-buried in the dirt. Squatted down. Looked at itself for the first time.
The face staring back was young. Sharp jaw. Strong cheekbones. Black hair falling in wet strands over its brow. Its eyes blinked once. Twice. The pupils dilated, adjusting to the dim tunnel glow. Its lips twitched as it learned the shape of a smile.
It stood again, lifting its face to the dripping tunnel roof. The water ran down its naked chest in thin rivulets, pooling at its feet before seeping away into cracks.
Then it walked forward.
Each step heavy. Human.
The flickering light washed across its skin, revealing no scars. No flaws. Just a perfect form moving deeper down the tunnel. The rats scurried away from its bare feet. The sleeping man whimpered and rolled away, pressing his filthy blanket tighter over his shoulders.
It didn’t look back.
It climbed a rusted ladder and pushed open a maintenance hatch, emerging into a silent alley behind a shuttered supermarket. The sky above had turned bright with morning. Birds chirped on nearby wires. The breeze carried warm hints of cooking oil and fresh bread from early cafes.
It stood there for a moment, eyes half-closed, letting the sunlight brush across its new skin.
Then it smiled again.
It reached down, picked up an old coat someone had left draped over a dumpster, and pulled it around its shoulders. It fit well enough. The creature raised the collar and tucked its hands into the pockets.
It walked to the end of the alley, each step smoother than the last, learning balance, learning the natural sway of hips and the tension of muscle with each stride.
When it reached the street, it paused.
Cars rolled past. Cyclists sped down painted lanes. Pedestrians crossed under blinking walk signals. No one looked at it. No one sensed what it truly was.
The creature breathed in the smell of exhaust and fresh bread and damp city air.
Its smile widened slightly.
Then it turned left and joined the crowd, walking down the sunlit street with silent steps, eyes calm and brown and perfectly human.