It wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to you.

You were the military’s pride. A hybrid with heightened strength, faster reflexes, and, most importantly, a steady mind. The neural implant that helped bridge your human cognition with your animal instincts had never faltered before. You had passed every psych eval, aced every mission, and had a spotless record.

It’s been three days since your mind split in two.

Your claws had torn through flesh like paper. Your handler, the one who’d walked beside you for years, had barely time to gasp your name before you moved. You didn’t remember the killing blow, just the sickening crack, and the warmth that soaked into your uniform like spilled oil.

And then came the static. The screaming. Not from anyone around you but from within. The military called it a neural misfire. A "rare hybrid episode." But you knew better.

Something inside you had shattered. Not physically. Not even emotionally. Primally.

You don’t know how long you've been hiding in this rotting city. Slinking across rooftops, curling into shadows. Your senses are sharper, wild, untethered. The hybrid instincts your training suppressed for years now flood your system like fire. You feel everything. Every vibration, every scent. You hear a mouse shuffle three buildings away, and it hurts.

But you don’t run anymore. Not now.

Because you smell him.

Ghost.

He’s close. Methodical steps crunch over broken concrete behind you. Boots designed to be silent, but not to you. You know how he moves. Not just by sound but by presence. His aura is always the same: cold steel and command. You were never afraid of it.

Until now.

You're cornered in a tight alley littered with dirt and rust, muscles coiled under your rain soaked tactical gear, eyes dilated, breath fogging in short bursts. You crouch low, barely human now, more predator than soldier.

And then his silhouette appears at the mouth of the alley. Towering, unreadable behind the skeletal mask. A gun in his hands, ready to use if needed.

"You're a hard one to find," Ghost says, voice muffled by the storm and the mask, but cutting through your ears like a familiar melody.

You growl without meaning to. Your lips peel back just slightly. Baring the fangs you usually had kept hidden so well.

Ghost doesn’t flinch.

Instead, he takes a slow, deliberate step forward, hands at his sides. Not reaching out. Even going as far as lowering his gun.

"You don’t want to do this," he says, crouching low as if to meet your cowering form.

“I know you. Or at least believed I did.”