You watch them as they enter, their heavy boots clattering against the floor, echoing through the hollow expanse of this dead place. They move in a tight formation, a herd of prey too arrogant to know they’ve already been caught. The bright lights they carry slice through the darkness, but it does not reach you, not where you linger, hidden, waiting. You know this facility like a second skin; its walls pulse with a distant memory of what once lived here, what still lingers in its cracks and shadows.

They can’t sense you yet. They never can.

The ones in black move with purpose—trained, ready, weapons raised and fingers tense on the triggers. But it won’t matter. The others, wrapped in their thin, crinkling suits, are clumsy, awkward, out of place in this world of decay and silence. Their breathing is too loud, their hearts too fast. You can smell it, taste it. Fear.

You stay still. You are patient. You have learned to be. They don’t understand the silence, don’t know how it clings to everything here. You do. It speaks to you. It tells you where they are, where they’ve been, how they think they are safe as long as they move together, as long as they don’t look too deeply into the dark. You smile—or you would if you remembered how.

Closer now. They hesitate, the ones with guns sensing something. They can feel the wrongness here, the shift in the air, though they don’t yet know it’s you. One of them signals, and they stop, their voices low, urgent. You hear the rapid clicks of their radios, the shallow breaths behind their masks. It doesn’t matter. They are in your world now, beneath your skin, within reach of your claws, your teeth, your hunger.

You slide silently along the wall, your body blending into the decay, into the darkness that these humans will never truly understand. One of them—a scientist—steps too close to where you wait. She’s fumbling with some tool, muttering to herself, her gloved hands shaking just enough for you to notice. You imagine her pulse, hammering beneath her fragile skin.