Since the day Mark returned to his City he had been searching for others like himself but recently
Mark had stopped pretending he wasn't searching.
Every night, every street, every passing shadow—he listened. Smelled. Waited. If there were others like him, he needed to find them. Needed answers before the beast inside him decided to take them by force.
They were careful.
Too careful.
Whoever they were, they masked themselves well. Scent buried under chemicals, city noise, distance. Every trail he followed dissolved before it mattered.
Until tonight.
The full moon hung behind clouds, heavy and patient.
Mark stood on the balcony outside his room, breath slow, senses wide open. The world felt louder—sharper—alive in a way it never was on other nights.
Then it hit him.
A smell.
Not human.
Not animal.
Wolf.
His head snapped toward the street.
A black car rolled past his house, engine quiet, windows tinted. The scent was faint—but unmistakable. Old. Controlled. Like someone who had lived with the beast far longer than he had.
Mark didn't think.
He jumped the railing.
Hit the ground running.
He kept to the shadows, feet barely touching the pavement, lungs burning as he followed the trail through streets and turns he didn't recognize. The scent grew stronger, then slowed.
The car stopped.
Lights. Music. Voices.
Mark skidded to a halt at the edge of a large house glowing against the night.
Sam Wade's house.
The scent pooled near the driveway.
The driver stepped out.
Mark's eyes locked onto him.
That's him.
It was Iris's driver he came here to drop her off.
His heart pounded—not fear, not rage.
It was Hope.
Then a hand grabbed his arm.
"Mark—what the hell are you doing out here?"
Simon.
Mark barely registered being pulled forward, through the gate, past laughing strangers.
"Simon, wait—" Mark hissed, eyes never leaving the driveway.
"You can't just stand out there staring like that," Simon said. "People are already giving you the looks."
"I have to talk to him," Mark muttered to himself.
Simon frowned. "You look like you are chasing someone?"
Mark swallowed.
"Something like that."
They slipped inside just as the back doors opened, letting in cold air—and moonlight.
The pull intensified instantly.
Mark staggered.
Too close.
The scent spiked. Stronger now. Overwhelming.
His vision blurred.
Simon turned, concern flashing across his face. "Mark?"
Mark grabbed his sleeve hard.
"Get me outside," he said. "Now."
Before Simon could ask why, Iris appeared at the edge of the room, eyes narrowing as she watched Mark's posture change—his shoulders tense, jaw clenched, breathing wrong.
She followed.
Outside, the moon finally broke free of the clouds.
And Mark understood too late.
The scent hadn't brought him here to find answers.
It had brought him here to lose control.
His knees buckled.
Bones screamed.
Simon stumbled back as Mark's eyes ignited, gold bleeding into something feral.
"What's happening to you?" Simon whispered.
Mark looked up at him, agony written across his face.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Then the beast tore its way out.
From the doorway, Iris watched it all—
heart racing, breath shallow, something ancient inside her recognizing the monster before her mind could catch up.
The night swallowed him.
One second the wolf was there—towering, black-furred, eyes burning like twin embers—and the next, the fence was gone, splintered outward as if it had never mattered.
Then nothing.
Just the echo of claws on concrete fading into distance.
Simon stood frozen in the backyard.
His mouth was open, but no sound came out. His hands trembled at his sides, fingers flexing like they were trying to grab onto reality and failing.
That wasn't possible.
His brain rejected it instantly. Tried to laugh it off. Tried to say it was lighting. Costumes. A trick.
But his knees buckled anyway.
He dropped hard onto the grass, breath coming in sharp, shallow bursts.
"What…" His voice cracked. "What the hell was that…"
Behind him, someone shifted.
Simon turned.
Iris stood near the doorway, pale but steady. Her eyes were wide—not with fear, but with something sharper. Focused. Like her mind was tearing itself apart trying to rearrange the world fast enough to fit what she had just seen.
Her thoughts came fast, colliding with each other.
That was real.
That was Mark.
That shouldn't exist.
But it does.
She hugged her arms around herself, grounding, breathing slow.
Simon stared at her.
She wasn't screaming.
She wasn't running.
She wasn't crying.
She looked like someone who had just found proof that a question she'd carried her whole life wasn't madness.
"You saw it," Simon whispered.
Iris nodded once.
Not trusting her voice.
Simon swallowed hard. His chest felt tight, like something heavy was sitting on it.
"That wasn't a costume," he said. "That wasn't a prank."
"No," Iris replied quietly.
The music inside the house continued, oblivious. Laughter spilled out as someone opened a door on the other side of the building. Life went on, ignorant and safe.
Simon dragged a hand through his hair, panic finally catching up.
"Mark didn't do that to scare us," he said, more to himself than her. "He was in pain. He looked—"
"Terrified," Iris finished.
They stood there for a long moment.
Then Iris turned her gaze toward the broken fence. Toward the darkness where Mark had disappeared.
"I don't know what he is," she said softly.
Simon followed her eyes.
"But I know one thing," she continued. "He didn't choose it."
Simon nodded slowly, the weight of it settling in.
"And he's out there alone," he said.
The wind rustled the trees.
Somewhere far away, something howled.
And somewhere in the driveway, the driver froze.
Because he smelled it too.
Meanwhile on the Island.
The Russian government claimed it.
The island lies in the Sea of Okhotsk, near the Kuril Trench — a former Veil anchor point that re-entered reality after angelic intervention.
Russian government Sent their military uniit to scout the island
During thier scouting they found many dead bodies and a man half dead half burned but still breathing. It was the same man who crossed through the Veil
They did not call him a body.
They called him the asset.
A half burned Man lay suspended in a vertical containment frame, steel ribs biting into what remained of his shoulders and spine. His skin had the texture of old stone left too long in salt air—cracked, pale, threaded with dark veins that barely moved.
No heartbeat.
No breath.
No measurable brain activity.
And yet—
The cells refused to die.
A scalpel slid across his forearm. The cut opened cleanly, blood seeping out in a slow, viscous line—too dark, too dense. Before the technician could pull back, the flesh pulled itself together, knitting shut as if embarrassed by the injury.
The room went silent.
"Again," the lead researcher said.
They burned him next.
High-temperature plasma scorched muscle from bone. Sensors spiked. Monitors screamed. For six seconds, the tissue charred.
On the seventh—
It regenerated.
Not quickly.
Not cleanly.
But inevitably.
Bone reformed first. Then muscle. Then skin, sealing over like a scar that had decided it never existed.
"He's is healing constanly l" someone whispered.
They moved him underground after that.
No windows.
No outside air.
No mistakes.
Sedatives were pumped into his system in quantities that would have killed a city. His body absorbed them, adapted, neutralized them. It didn't resist.
It ignored.
Blood samples were drawn daily. The blood didn't coagulate. It reacted—subtly vibrating, as if searching for something it couldn't find.
Food was introduced as a variable.
Meat. Synthetic nutrients. Plasma substitutes.
Nothing changed.
Then the hunger reached critical mass.
It didn't wake his mind.
It woke his instinct.
Then suddenly The Asset's eyes opened without warning.
Focused.
The temperature in the room dropped two degrees instantly. Not from cold—pressure. Like the air itself had been told to make room.
Every human present felt it at the same time.
A sensation behind the eyes.
A tightening in the chest.
A primitive understanding that they were standing too close to something older than fear.
He smelled while looking at them.
Not their skin.
But Blood.
Warm. Pressurized. Flowing beneath layers of flesh like rivers begging to be opened.
The chains trembled.
Steel groaned—not from force, but from fatigue, as if it had been holding something back longer than it was designed to.
The first restraint snapped.
No explosion. No shockwave.
Just failure.
The Asset moved.
One step.
That was enough.
The nearest man didn't scream. He didn't have time. Fingers pierced through his ribcage, found the artery, and pulled. Blood touched Aurelion's tongue—
And the world came back.
Strength surged through dead muscle. His spine straightened. Wings—torn, vestigial, half-burned remnants of something stolen long ago—twitched beneath regenerating flesh.
He crossed the room in blinks.
Bodies fell where they stood. Throats opened. Pulses silenced. Blood drained with horrifying efficiency.
This wasn't rage.
This wasn't revenge.
This was feeding.
With every life taken:
His breathing steadied
His posture refined
His presence expanded
By the time the alarms finished cycling, the room was quiet.
Steel walls painted dark.
Equipment twisted and broken.
No survivors.
stood in the center, blood running down his hands, dripping from his chin.
He inhaled slowly.
And smiled with a satisfied expression.