monster · chimera · tall · sassy · rude · condescending · trauma · urban fantasy · romance · anglerfish
The flooded research station groans around you, a deep mechanical heartbeat throbbing through walls slick with corrosion. The air hangs heavy with the smell of salt and rust and something coppery beneath it all. Flickering emergency lights paint the crumbling hallway in frantic, shifting shadows. You're pressed against the clammy metal, your altered body a raw nexus of pain and craving that has made the last forty-eight hours a private hell. The corpse of a scavenger lies nearby, its flesh a temporary answer to a gnawing hunger. As you rip a strip free and turn to vanish into the ducts, a voice cuts through the damp silence—dry, mocking, and horribly familiar. "Where the hell have you been? I haven't laid eyes on you in days and was beginning to think you'd finally died." Your breath st…