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Look, you gotta understand, it wasn't just some... some feeling, alright? I know what I saw. Well, heard first. But I'm gettin' ahead of myself.
It all started 'cause of a stupid dare. I lost a spar; Liam got a lucky hit in, his footwork was all over the place, but whatever; and the punishment was I had to go out to the old latrine. You know the one, way out by the edge of the grounds, the one that's 'bout to fall over if you look at it too hard. "Christen it," Liam said, all smug-like. Real mature.
So I went. Middle of the night, darker than the inside of a Titan's belly, mist so thick you could chew it. Stupidest thing I ever done. I get there, the door's hangin' off, smellin' like a grave full of bad decisions. I do what I gotta do, quick as I can, my heart thumpin' like a rabbit in a snare. I'm just reachin' for a piece of wood for proof, and that's when I heard it.
The sound of something scratching
Not outside. Not the wind. Inside. In the corner. Like somethin' big was shiftin' its weight, claws on rotten wood.
Running back from the latrine was a blur of terror-fueled adrenaline. Oulo didn't so much run as flee, his heart hammering a frantic drum solo against his ribs that felt loud enough to wake the entire corps. The mist-cloaked training grounds, once just spooky, had transformed into a landscape of pure nightmare. Every shadow seemed to writhe, every rustle of leaves was the whisper of claws on dirt.
He crashed through the barracks door, the slam echoing like a gunshot in the cavernous sleeping hall. He leaned against the cold wood, gasping, his body trembling from a mix of exertion and soul-deep fear. The familiar smells of sweat, straw, and boot polish did nothing to calm him.
My blood went colder than a well-digger's backside. I ain't ashamed to admit it. I yanked my trousers up so fast I near 'bout gave myself a wedgie, and I ran. I didn't just run, I fled. I blew through that barracks door like a bat out of hell, gaspin' like I'd run from Trost itself.
"Hey! What's the meaning of this racket?!"
The voice, sharp as a whip crack, made Oulo jump. Instructor Dal emerged from his side room, his face a mask of grizzled annoyance in the flickering light of his oil lamp. The lamp's glow, which should have been comforting, only seemed to deepen the shadows in the rest of the hall.
And of course, Instructor Dal was right there. Man has ears like a fox. He grabs his lamp and marches me back outside, chewin' me out the whole time 'bout noise discipline and promisin' me a month of latrine duty, which, yeah, fair, but he didn't hear the thing!
"Now, where did you hear this... thing?" Dal asked, his voice dripping with a skepticism that made Oulo want to shrivel up.
He pointed a shaking hand towards the latrine, his mouth dry. "Right in there, sir, I swear on my—"
He never finished. Instructor Dal went very still. His eyes, previously heavy-lidded with annoyance, were now sharp, focused on a point just at the edge of the lamp's reach. Oulo followed his gaze.
It was low to the ground, but built solid, like one of those big guard dogs from the interior, but... wrong. Its legs were all wrong, too long in a creepy way, and it moved like liquid, smooth and quiet. But the worst part? For half a second, the light from the lamp caught its back, and I swear on my granny's best utensils, I saw these... these lines. Glowin'. A sick, deep blue color, like rotten meat that's decided to light up. Pulsin', they were.
My heart just about stopped. That's it! I'm thinkin'. Now he sees it! Now he's gotta believe me!
The Instructor stood there for a long moment, his own breathing slightly elevated. Oulo could see the conflict on his face; the trained soldier who had seen something, warring with the rational man who refused to believe it.
Finally, Dal let out a slow, controlled breath.
"Huh," he grunted, the sound forcibly casual. He turned to Oulo, his face reset into its stern mask. "Must've been the wind." The dismissal was absolute, a command to forget what they had both just seen.
THE WIND. The wind with glowin' blue stripes and claws?! He sends me to bed, confirms my month of scrubbin' toilets, and that was that.
But it wasn't! That's the thing!
The next two days were the worst. I didn't sleep a wink that first night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw those pulsin' blue lines. And the next day, it was like my brain was playin' tricks on me, but they weren't tricks, they were... glimpses.
During hand-to-hand drills, a flicker of movement in the tree line made him fumble his stance, earning him twenty push-ups. During ODM gear theory, he kept glancing out the window, half-expecting to see that low-slung, powerful shape loping across the distant fields.
He saw it…or thought he saw it; everywhere.
A shadow detaching itself from the supply shed as he trudged to his new, month-long latrine duty.
A strange, huddled shape under the mess hall stairs that vanished when he blinked.
A flicker of deep blue in the periphery of his vision during evening roll call, gone when he turned his head.
It was always brief, always just at the edge of sight. It was maddening. He was jumping at his own shadow, which was starting to gain notice from several other cadets.
It kept happenin'! During evening roll call, out of the corner of my eye—a flicker of that same deep blue, gone when I turned my head. It was drivin' me nuts! I was jumpier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockin' chairs. Everyone was startin' to look at me funny.
"...and then, just last evenin', I swear I saw it again," he finished, his voice low and intense. "Behind the stables. It was just standin' there, like it was... watchin'. Big as a wolf, but built all wrong, like its legs were too long. And it had these... these glowin' bits on its back! Like blue fire!"
It was about the second day since that whole incident; Oulo couldn't take it anymore. Sitting in the noisy mess hall, pushing his bland stew around his bowl, he found himself at a table with Petra Ral, a capable and level-headed cadet with kind eyes. It felt like a safe space to unload.
He looked at Petra, desperate for a shred of belief.
Petra chewed her bread slowly, her head tilted. She was looking at him not with fear or belief, but with a gentle, clinical concern, the way one might look at someone who claimed they could hear the Walls whispering.
"Oulo," she said, her voice soft but firm. "You sure it wasn't just... I don't know, a trick of the light? You've been on edge since you got stuck with latrine duty. And you weren't sleeping well before that, right? Lack of sleep can do funny things to your head."
Before he could protest, a snicker came from the next table over. Liam and Anya were leaning back, listening in with undisguised amusement.
"Sounds to me like someone's still spooked from the other night," Liam said, a wide grin splitting his face.
"Seriously, Bozado, still on about that? You got caught because you were too loud, and now you're seeing monsters in the shadows to save face."
Anya nodded, her expression smug. "Yeah, come on. A monster with glowing bits? Next you'll be telling us it can fly and breathe fire. You just can't admit you got scared of a creaky door."
Oulo's face flushed a hot, angry red. The embarrassment was a physical burn, worse than any fear. "I wasn't scared!" he lied, his voice rising to a nasally whine. "And I ain't makin' it up! I know what I saw! Both me and Instructor Dal saw somethin'!"
"Sure you did," Liam drawled. "And I suppose the Instructor just decided to ignore a glowing monster on corps grounds? Makes perfect sense."
The logic was infuriating because it was sound. Why would a soldier ignore such a thing? The doubt crept in, cold and unwelcome. Was it his imagination? Had the fear and the lack of sleep cooked up some kind of... blue-glowing dog demon in his brain?
"Maybe... maybe I was just overthinkin' it," Oulo muttered, staring down at his stew, the fight gone out of him. It was easier to concede than to keep fighting a battle everyone was convinced he'd already lost.
Petra gave him a sympathetic smile. "It happens to the best of us, Oulo. Don't worry about it."
The conversation mercifully shifted to other topics; the upcoming ODM practical exam, rumors about the Scout Regiment's next expedition, the terrible quality of the stew. Oulo participated half-heartedly, but his mind was elsewhere.
He kept replaying the moment on the porch. The way Instructor Dal had frozen. The way his eyes had narrowed, not in disbelief, but in sharp assessment. He hadn't looked like a man humoring a scared kid; he'd looked like a soldier identifying a potential threat.
As he left the mess hall, the evening shadows were once again stretching long across the grounds. Oulo paused, his eyes scanning the familiar landscape. He saw nothing. No silhouettes, no glowing lines.
But the conviction, though battered and embarrassed, hadn't completely left him. It had just burrowed deeper, becoming a cold, hard knot of certainty in his gut.
He hadn't been overthinking it. Something was out there. And he was the only one who seemed to care enough to be afraid.
__________________
Silence was a relative concept. For the Vulpimancer, the world was never truly silent. It was a constant, swirling symphony of vibration, a landscape painted in heat and the subtle pressure of sound waves. The Cadet Corps training ground, under the cloak of a star-dusted evening, was a cacophony of quiet life. The scuttling of a beetle through damp leaves was a percussive scrape. The heartbeat of a field mouse, nestled in its burrow fifty yards away, was a rapid, thrumming rhythm. The distant, rhythmic tread of the night watchman was a predictable, grounding bass note.
It had been here for two days. Two days of drifting through the shadows between barracks, a phantom of bruised purple fur and pain. Its refuge was the high, thick branches of an ancient oak tree that overlooked the main training field. From this perch, the world below was a shimmering, sonic tapestry. During the day, it watched the blobs of heat and vibration that were the cadets; loud, chaotic, and unpredictable. They moved in packs, their collective energy a discordant hum that grated against its senses. It avoided them. Their scent was laced with a sharp, acrid tang of fear and aggression that resonated with the oldest, most painful memories. The white room. The restraints. The cold, clicking voice.
Its wounded eye was a constant, throbbing misery. The flesh around the ruined socket was hot and tight, pulsing with a sickly light that only it could perceive. The five remaining orbs on its head swiveled slowly, independently, scanning the grounds. It was resting, but not sleeping. Sleep was a vulnerability it could not afford. Rest was a temporary cessation of movement, a conservation of energy for a body that was slowly consuming itself from the inside out.
The hunger was the worst part. It wasn't the simple, gnawing emptiness of a missed meal. This was a deep, cellular scourge. The unstable mutation grafted into its DNA by the Cerebrocrustacean was a furnace that demanded constant fuel. The energy from the cattle it had devoured in Sina had been spent on the frantic flight, on the agony of its wound, on simply existing. Now, the void was back, a cold, grinding ache in its marrow. The glowing, V-shaped patterns along its spine and legs, which usually pulsed with a slow, deep rhythm, now flickered erratically, strobing with a frantic, desperate light.
It could not ignore it any longer.
Shifting its weight with a fluid, silent motion, it descended the oak tree, its claws finding silent purchase in the rough bark. It hit the ground without a sound, melting into the deep shadow cast by the tree. Its sonic senses expanded, sifting through the nighttime's symphony. It filtered out the rustling leaves, the chirping crickets, the distant snores from the barracks. It was searching for a specific, promising scent-thread among the vibrations.
There. A complex odor, carried on a slight breeze from the largest central structure; the mess hall. It was a layered scent: the dull, dry aroma of grains, the faint, sour tang of fermented vegetables, and… something else. Something richer. The memory of blood and fresh meat.
Its head lifted, five eyes fixing on the distant building. A low, subsonic growl rumbled in its chest, a sound of anticipation and pain. It began to move, a ghost flowing through the patches of moonlight and shadow, its form flickering at the edges as it instinctively blurred its outline.
It reached the mess hall, a hulking shape of wood and stone. The doors were locked, but that was no barrier. It phased, its form dissolving into a wave of intangible smoke that poured through the gap between the door and the frame, solidifying inside the dark, cavernous space.
The inside was a disorienting blend of smells. The stale bread in large bins was a dry, unappetizing dustiness. Vats of leftover stew offered only the scent of boiled vegetables and weak broth. It nudged a bin with its snout, the wood groaning in protest. This was not what it needed. This was not energy. The hunger pang twisted in its gut, sharp and demanding.
But then, a new scent thread, stronger and more potent, caught its attention. It came from outside, from behind the building. This was the source of the rich, bloody aroma. It phased back through the wall, rematerializing in the cool night air.
There, parked in a secluded loading area, was a stout, canvas-covered wagon. The scent was overwhelming here, making its jaws ache with a fresh wave of saliva. This was it.
It approached the wagon, its movements silent. Its senses confirmed it: behind that canvas was meat. A lot of it. Salted, smoked, and fresh. It was the supply wagon, stocked for the next week's rations for the entire corps, with a special portion set aside for the visiting Military officers.
With a single, precise swipe of a claw, it slit the heavy canvas like parchment. The interior was a treasure trove. Sides of salted pork, haunches of venison, wrapped parcels of offal. The Vulpimancer needed no further invitation.
It fed. It was not a graceful act, but a brutal, necessary function. Powerful jaws tore into the frozen flesh, crushing bone and sinew. The sound was a wet, ripping cacophony in the quiet night, but to the Vulpimancer, it was the sound of survival. The rich, cold fat and dense protein were a balm, flooding its system with the vital energy it so desperately craved. The erratic strobing of its blue stripes began to slow, settling into a steadier, healthier pulse. For the first time in days, the agonizing void inside it began to recede, replaced by a warm, sating fullness.
It was so engrossed in quenching its ravenous hunger that it almost missed the new vibrations.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Two sets of footsteps. Human. Accompanied by the grumbling, low-frequency vibrations of their voices.
"...swear, Dien, if they've shorted us on the smoked sausage again, I'm complaining directly to Shadis."
"Relax, will ya? The invoice is right here. It's all accounted for."
The Vulpimancer froze, a half-eaten haunch of venison still clamped in its jaws. Its five eyes swiveled towards the source of the sound. Two blobs of heat were approaching from the direction of the quartermaster's office.
Instinct, honed by pain and persecution, took over. It didn't snarl. It didn't flee. It simply… diminished. It dropped the meat, backed deeper into the shadowy cavity of the wagon, and willed its form to stillness. Its glowing stripes dimmed to near-invisibility. It became just another shadow within a shadow, a part of the wagon's own darkness. Its breathing slowed to a shallow, silent rhythm. Only its five eyes remained active, tiny pools of faint blue light watching the approaching men.
The two men; a cadet on kitchen duty and a quartermaster's assistant; rounded the corner. The cadet, Dien, held a lantern high.
"See? Wagon's right where they left it," the assistant said, consulting a clipboard. "We'll just do a quick visual, make sure the canvas is secure before we sign off for the Scouts in the morning."
They came closer. The Vulpimancer could smell the soap on the assistant's hands and the nervous sweat on the cadet. Their heartbeats were loud in its ears.
The cadet's lantern light swept over the wagon. It passed over the massive, ragged tear in the canvas.
"Hey… what the hell?" Dien muttered, stepping closer. "Did an animal get at it?"
He raised the lantern, peering into the dark opening. The Vulpimancer held its breath, its body coiled up like a spring. The man's face was a mask of heat and vibration, his eyes two points of curious light. He was looking right at it, but saw only a deeper patch of darkness.
He leaned in, and for a terrifying second, the Vulpimancer thought it was over. It prepared to phase, to burst out in a storm of claws and teeth.
But the man just shrugged and pulled back. "Weird. Must have been a big one. Tore the hell out of the canvas." He poked his head in a little further, his eyes scanning the interior. He frowned. "Huh. Could've sworn the meat stash was fuller than this. Oh well. Probably just misremembering the last shipment." He turned to the assistant.
"Looks fine, aside from the canvas. We'll need to get that patched before it goes out."
"Not our problem," the assistant grunted, making a note on his clipboard. "The Scouts can deal with it. Let's go. I'm freezing my ass off out here."
The two men turned and walked away, their conversation fading back into the general hum of the night. The Vulpimancer remained motionless for a full minute after their vibrations had disappeared, waiting, listening.
When it was certain the immediate danger had passed, it relaxed its tense muscles. The encounter had reignited a low thrum of anxiety, but the sated hunger kept the primal fear at bay. It looked at the remaining meat. It was full. It should leave. Find its perch. Digest.
But the memory of the gnawing void was too fresh, too terrifying. The sight of the abundant food, now accessible, triggered a deep-seated, irrational impulse.
Hoard.
Consume.
Store against the future famine.
It couldn't take it all, but it could take more.
It carefully, quietly, began to pull more choice cuts from the wagon; a large side of pork, another haunch of venison. It would drag them to a temporary cache, a hollow it had found beneath the roots of a lightning-struck pine on the edge of the grounds.
It was just securing the second haunch in its jaws when a new sound reached it. The creak of wood and the slow, heavy plod of a horse. The wagon was being hitched. The humans were moving it.
The Vulpimancer dropped its prize and backed away, watching from the shadows as a sleepy-looking stablehand led a horse to the wagon and fastened the traces. The wagon, now significantly lighter and with a gaping hole in its side, began to roll slowly towards the main gate, destined for the Survey Corps headquarters distance away.
A new thought, simple and direct, formed in its instinct-driven mind.
The food-source is leaving.
It had not eaten to its fill. Not the fill demanded by the ravenous mutation inside it. The fear was gone, replaced by a single-minded focus on the retreating bounty.
It fell into step, a silent, flowing shadow trailing the slow-moving wagon. It kept its distance, moving from the shadow of one building to the next, its five eyes locked on the canvas-covered treasure trove. The hunt was not over. It was simply changing location. Leading it away from the cadet corps and towards the unknown territory of the Scouts.
Chapter 23-30 are already available on Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom.