Kian Mshana never liked night shifts, but he took them anyway.
Someone had to pay the bills, and the day jobs in Mbayani city didn't pay enough for a guy who lived alone in a one-room bedsitter.
It was 2:13 AM.
The streets were quiet—too quiet. The kind of quiet that made the hairs behind his neck stand like something was watching.
Kian leaned on the rusted metal gate of the old port warehouse, yawning hard enough to make his eyes water.
"Mshana, you'll die of boredom one day," he muttered to himself.
He didn't know that death was listening.
A sudden clang echoed in the alley behind him.
Kian straightened immediately. His flashlight flickered uselessly—the battery had been dying since last week. Typical. Instead, he pulled his baton from his belt and stepped forward slowly.
Then he heard it.
A cry.
High-pitched. Desperate.
"Help! Tafadhali—!"
Kian didn't think twice. He sprinted down the corridor between warehouses, his boots slapping the ground loudly. The streetlights flickered above him, making the shadows stretch and twist like living things.
As he rounded a corner, he saw them:
Three men
surrounding a woman
pinned against a wall.
One had a knife.
Another had already struck her across the face.
The third noticed Kian and stepped forward.
"Back off," the man growled. "This has nothing to do with you."
Kian felt his pulse spike. He knew this was stupid—these men had weapons and he had a cheap baton and a tired body. But walking away wasn't an option.
"Let her go," he said.
The man with the knife snorted. "Or what?"
Kian didn't waste words. He charged.
The fight was sloppy, desperate, full of swinging fists and raw adrenaline. Kian managed to hit one of them in the throat, but another stabbed him in the ribs before he could react.
Pain exploded through him.
He gasped, stumbling back as his vision blurred. Warm blood soaked his shirt quickly.
The woman screamed.
One of the men fled.
The others followed, disappearing into the darkness.
Kian dropped to his knees.
Everything felt heavy. Slow. Distant.
The woman crawled toward him, crying. "Sir—sir, stay with me! Please!"
But he couldn't.
His limbs were losing strength. His heartbeat sounded like it was underwater.
This is it, he thought.
This is how I go?
Dying on dirty pavement because of someone else's mistake?
But even in those final seconds, he didn't regret helping.
At least I tried.
His eyes closed…
then opened again.
But what he saw wasn't the warehouse alley.
The sky above him was black
not night-black, but ink-black, swirling like smoke underwater.
A cold wind brushed his skin, carrying the smell of burnt metal and wet stone. The ground under him felt rough, uneven.
He blinked, trying to make sense of it.
"What… what the hell?"
He pushed himself up slowly, expecting stabbing pain from the wound—but the wound was gone. His shirt was torn but his skin was intact, clean, like nothing had happened.
Before he could process that, the ground trembled.
A shadow moved in front of him.
Huge. Beast-like.
It crawled out from behind a broken pillar
four glowing red eyes, a jaw lined with jagged bone, breathing like a furnace.
Kian's breath caught.
The thing was real.
And hungry.
It snarled, stepping toward him.
Kian stumbled back, heart racing. "S—stay away!"
The creature lunged.
For the first time in his life, Kian felt certain he was about to die for real—
but something inside his chest burned.
Hard.
A mark—black, circular, alive—flashed beneath his collarbone.
A deep voice echoed directly into his mind:
[ECHO SYSTEM INITIALIZING…]
Kian froze.
The beast froze.
The entire world seemed to hold its breath.
[USER IDENTIFIED. SURVIVAL PRIORITY ACTIVATED.]
A wave of energy burst from Kian's body, slamming straight into the monster. The beast flew backward, crashing into the rocks with a bone-shattering crack.
Kian fell to his knees, coughing, clutching his chest.
"What… what was that?!"
His vision blurred again, but this time not from pain
from someth
ing awakening inside him.
A final message echoed:
[Welcome, Kian Mshana.
Your rebirth begins now.]
The darkness swallowed him whole.