?"Ready," I said, trying to force confidence into my voice. It sounded brittle, even to my own ears.

  ?"Then let's move," Jin commanded.

  ?We bypassed the elevator. Instead, Jin led us to a service hatch at the rear of the armory. We dropped into a specialized rapid-deployment chute, sliding into the dark. Gravity lurched in my stomach as we plummeted, the sterile, recycled air of the HQ instantly replaced by a blast of stale, humid wind.

  ?The chute deposited us directly into a hidden sub-level of the New York City subway system—the dark, forgotten veins of the city where the public never ventured.

  ?The air here was viscous, suffocating. It smelled of damp concrete, rusted iron, and something else... something metallic and sour.

  ?Blood.

  ?The scent coated the back of my throat, triggering a biological response I couldn't suppress. My fangs ached, pushing sharply against my gums. The darkness of the L-train tunnel seemed to swallow the beam of my flashlight whole. Even the shadows felt heavier here.

  ?"Here. Take this."

  ?I flinched as Jin shoved a heavy, matte-black object into my chest.

  ?"This is...?"

  ?I gripped the cold metal. It was a handgun, but it felt denser, far more substantial than anything I’d seen in movies. My fingers wrapped around the grip awkwardly, seeking comfort in its lethal weight.

  ?"Standard-issue VX-4," Jin explained, his eyes never leaving the darkness ahead. "Loaded with UV-gel hollow points. You’re a Weaver, but you’re untrained. If you panic, or if your blood manipulation fails, point this at center mass and pull the trigger. It won't kill a Feral, but it will hurt enough to buy you time to run."

  ?He turned, locking eyes with me.

  ?"Don't drop it."

  ?I nodded, clutching the weapon tighter. Jin turned to the others. "We’re splitting up to cover more ground. Hana, take the rookie down the east tunnel. Mina and I will sweep the west."

  ?"Copy that!" Hana chirped, offering a playful salute, though her eyes remained sharp, dissecting the shadows.

  ?Jin looked at me one last time, his expression hardening. "You okay with this, rookie?"

  ?"Y-yes. I think," I stammered.

  ?Do I really have a choice?

  ?"Mina, move out," Jin commanded.

  ?"Sure," Mina muttered, popping a stick of gum into her mouth and checking her daggers.

  ?As we split off into the diverging tunnels, the oppressive silence of the underground began to press against my ears. For a moment, the absurdity hit me—I wasn't a delivery boy anymore. I was part of some supernatural Special Forces unit.

  ?Except the "terrorists" we were hunting didn't use bombs—they used teeth.

  ?Hana and I walked in silence for a few minutes, our footsteps slapping wetly against the damp concrete. The darkness here was absolute, a physical weight pressing against my chest. It was broken only by the sharp beams of our shoulder-mounted lights cutting through the murky, dust-filled air.

  ?Every shadow looked like a claw; every dripping pipe sounded like a footstep.

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  ?Suddenly, her voice crackled through my earpiece, loud and startling in the quiet.

  ?“Hey, Kang Eun-Woo?”

  ?“Yes?” I whispered, flinching. My hand flew to the gun, knuckles turning white on the grip.

  ?“Do you have a girlfriend?”

  ?“Wha—what?”

  ?I nearly tripped over a rusted sleeper on the tracks. I grabbed a damp concrete pillar to steady myself, staring at the back of her head in disbelief.

  ?“I mean... no. But why ask that now?”

  ?My heart—or the phantom sensation of it—was pounding against my ribs. We were walking through a literal dungeon, surrounded by the metallic stench of ancient rust and blood, and she was making small talk?

  ?“Just curious,” she said. Her tone was light, almost playful, as if we were strolling through a mall instead of a sewer. “Newborns usually have... attachments. Just checking if there’s anyone waiting for you back home.”

  ?Attachments.

  ?The word hung in the humid air. I looked down at my muddy boots, a bitter taste filling my mouth. A girlfriend? I barely had time to sleep, let alone date. Who would wait for a guy whose idea of a romantic dinner was sharing discounted, day-old kimbap on a park bench?

  ?For a split second, Maya’s face flashed in my mind. Her smile, the way she tucked her hair behind her ear at the coffee shop.

  ?I pushed the image away instantly. Yeah, right. As if a delivery boy like me ever stood a chance with a girl like that. And now? Now I was a monster walking through a sewer.

  ?"No," I muttered, turning my head away from her light to hide the sudden, burning embarrassment. "I was too busy surviving to have anyone waiting for me. It's just me."

  ?I waited for her reply. A joke, maybe. Or perhaps the pity I hated so much.

  ?But there was only silence.

  ?Scritch. Scritch.

  ?A sound like nails dragging on stone echoed from somewhere above.

  ?"Hana?"

  ?I turned my head back, expecting to see the reassuring glow of her pink tactical armor, ready to scold me for being jumpy.

  ?"Look, I know it's pathetic, but—"

  ?The words died in my throat.

  ?The tunnel in front of me was empty.

  ?The beam of her flashlight, which had been blinding me just seconds ago, was gone. Not faded. Not distant. Gone. As if a giant hand had simply snuffed it out.

  ?The darkness rushed back in to fill the void, thick and suffocating.

  ?"Hana?" I whispered, spinning in a full circle, my light dancing frantically across the wet walls.

  ?Nothing. No footsteps. No receding light. Just the endless, oppressive dark.

  ?Did she leave? Did she... vanish?

  ?A cold chill that had nothing to do with the temperature crawled up my spine. My grip on the VX-4 handgun became slippery with sweat.

  ?"This isn't funny!" I hissed into the mic, panic rising in my chest like bile. "Hana, answer me!"

  ?Static hissed in my ear. Then, a sharp click. And then, silence.

  ?I was alone. Deep under New York, with a gun I barely knew how to use, in a darkness that suddenly felt very, very alive.

  ?I tried to steady my breathing, forcing myself to remember the training. Focus on the blood. Sense the life around you.

  ?But before I could close my eyes...

  ?Scritch. Scritch.

  ?I froze.

  ?The sound came from the darkness ahead, somewhere directly above me. It sounded like nails dragging across stone. Not the rhythmic sound of a machine, but the jagged, desperate scratching of something hungry.

  ?“Hey Hana... if you're pranking me, stop,” I whispered into the mic, stopping dead in my tracks.

  ?There was no response. Just the low, rhythmic hum of the tunnel's ventilation system.

  ?Then, the smell hit me. A wave of rotting meat and stale copper.

  ?Static filled my earpiece.

  ?Had it already taken her? No scream? No sound?

  ?A cold sweat—or the closest thing a vampire has to it—broke out on my forehead. I pulled the gun from my belt with trembling hands, my knuckles turning white against the grip. As I slowly approached the spot where I'd last seen her, the air suddenly turned frigid.

  ?Plip.

  ?A drop of something thick, warm, and sticky landed on my cheek.

  ?I slowly looked up.

  ?Too late.

  ?A heavy weight slammed into my chest with the force of a wrecking ball.

  ?“Gah—!”

  ?The wind was knocked out of me instantly. I hit the ground hard, the back of my head bouncing off the steel rail with a sickening crunch. The impact jarred my arm like an electric shock, sending the VX-4—my only lifeline—clattering out of my numb fingers and sliding across the tracks into the shadows.

  ?No!

  ?I reached out desperately, my fingers scraping against damp gravel, grasping at nothing.

  ?I gasped for air I didn't need, my blood freezing in my veins.

  ?Pinned against the floor, I finally saw it.

  ?It looked... terrifyingly human. It was a man, or it had been once. His hair was mostly gone, leaving only thin, wispy strands clinging to a pale, mottled scalp that looked like rotting dough. But it was the eyes—bright, glowing crimson, devoid of any pupil or iris—and the jagged, yellowed nails digging into my shoulders that told the real story.

  ?The Feral hissed, a string of black, viscous bile dripping from its mouth onto my chest. It reeked of old meat and burning copper. Its face was contorted into a mask of pure, mindless hunger.

  ?It didn't look at me like a person.

  ?It looked at me like a juice box.

  ?It opened its jaws, revealing rows of needle-like teeth, and shrieked right into my face.