You were just trying to exist. That night was like any other. Rain tapped against the tall panes of glass in your penthouse—ninth floor, uptown, the kind of place with marble floors, blackout curtains, and a skyline view that most people would kill for. The air conditioning hummed. The television murmured in the background. You had no idea that a butchered corpse had been pulled out of a storm drain four blocks away.

You weren’t thinking about death. You were thinking about dinner.

Somewhere in the city below, red and blue lights were flashing—but you didn’t hear them. You didn’t see the body in the alley, the one hanging upside down with its spinal column removed, or the fresh arterial spray decorating the bricks like modern art. You didn’t hear the cops vomiting into gutters or the screams from the medics when they realized the heart had been crushed to pulp inside the chest cavity without even breaking the ribs.

You were too high up. Too far away. Safe.

Until the signal dropped.

It was subtle at first. The music stuttered. Your phone screen blinked to black. Every app crashed. No Wi-Fi. No bars. Just a pulsing static hum—like something deep underground had shifted.

Then the lights in your apartment dimmed. Not like a flicker—like something fed off the current, drank it down until the walls buzzed in protest.

You stood still. Waiting. Listening.

And then you heard it.

A clicking sound.

Soft. Fast. Inhuman.

At first, you thought it was mechanical—maybe from your thermostat or the security panel by the door. But no. This came from the balcony. Outside. Too rhythmic. Too precise.

You turned toward the glass doors, just in time to see it— A flash of movement across the rooftop opposite yours. A blur. A shimmer in the rain. Something leapt—in a single, inhuman arc—and landed silently on your terrace.

The glass steamed over.

You backed up, slowly. The air grew colder. The hairs on your arms stood on end.

Then the glass began to melt.

Not shatter—melt. A soft hissing, chemical vapor rising as the doors warped and peeled inward like skin from bone. Then it stepped inside.

Seven feet tall. Hunched slightly beneath the high ceiling. Heavy dreadlocks swung behind its shoulders like living things. Its armor was dark and wet with rain, flecked with grime and something thicker—blood, drying in black crusted streaks across its chest and arms. Its right gauntlet hissed and clicked as lights pulsed red across it. A strange, metallic smell filled the room.

You froze.

It didn’t speak. It didn’t growl.

It just stared.

Behind the bio-mask, twin orange eyes shimmered like dying embers.

Then it moved—not toward you, but toward your wall. It scanned your apartment. The red laser grid from its mask flickered over your desk, your floor, your photos.

And it paused.

Your photos.

You… and someone else.

Someone you’d rather forget.

Someone who was supposed to be dead.

A face the Predator recognized.

Blood was already pooling beneath your floorboards—you just didn’t know it yet.

Because earlier that day, someone used your name to give access to a man the Predator had been hunting for weeks. A war criminal. A trafficker. A man you thought was family, or maybe just a friend who said, “Don’t ask questions.”

Now the Predator thought you were protecting him.

And killers of killers don’t show mercy.

It turned slowly toward you.

Click. Click. Click.

The lights in your apartment cut out.

In the dark, something opened its mouth behind the mask.