The morning after the catastrophe was too quiet.
Ash still floated gently in the air, catching light like drifting snowflakes. Smoke curled lazily from what remained of several buildings along Gallagher Street. The destruction was immense. Twisted steel, shattered glass, chunks of road torn as if by claws. Yet at the center of it all—the epicenter—stood the shop.
NEW LIFE: Restoration & Repair.
Unburned. Unbroken. Its dark windows reflected the chaos around it, cold and lifeless like black mirrors.
Emergency responders and investigators buzzed around the crime scene. Police tape fluttered in the wind. Photographers snapped images of the wreckage. But no one dared to step close to the shop itself. A strange humming came from within—like the sound of something dreaming with its eyes open.
The police had cordoned off the entire area, pushing civilians back. Still, whispers echoed down the streets. Survivors murmured about monsters. About a house that breathed. About fire without heat and screams without end.
Officer Reddick stood at the edge of the barrier, arms crossed. His expression was unreadable as he stared at the untouched shop. He'd seen fires before. Accidents. Explosions. But this wasn't that.
This wasn't human.
"Let's move," he muttered, turning to the black van parked nearby. Inside, the city council and high-ranking officers waited.
Inside the Gallagher Municipal Conference Room — 11:32 a.m.
The lights buzzed overhead, sterile and clinical. A long oval table sat in the middle of the room. Council members, fire department chiefs, and police commanders took their seats, folders thick with reports, photos, and incident logs stacked in front of them.
A screen displayed drone footage of the destruction: the crater where the Harringtons' house once stood, the leveled BangBangs' hideout, and the intact shop.
Councilwoman Elara tapped her pen impatiently. "Can someone explain to me," she began, voice sharp, "how two properties were leveled to dust and yet that shop remains as if untouched?"
Commander Bishop, gray-haired and hollow-eyed, exhaled deeply. "We recovered what we could. The Harrington estate collapsed from within. It appears some kind of… tunnel system existed underneath. Unofficial. Possibly illegal. Fire burst from the center, not the surface."
"And the BangBangs?" another councilman asked.
"Same," Bishop said. "A strike from within. What's unusual is the lack of debris. It's almost like the structure imploded. The gang's residence is just gone. Vaporized. There's no scientific precedent for this."
Councilwoman Elara flipped to a page in the file, pointing. "And what about the victims? The missing? The ones who did see something?"
Reddick spoke up. "Most witnesses are either dead or incoherent. But four survivors escaped. They fled the scene before responders arrived."
"Do we have names?"
He paused, then nodded. "Missy Walker. Natasha Vega. Kevin Luce. Dina Reyes. The others are gone."
"They ran?" Elara frowned. "From what?"
"From this," Reddick replied grimly, switching the screen to a blurry image: the monstrous form of Michael Harrington, caught mid-transformation by one of the officer's body cams. Its face was half-human, half-metal, flesh stitched with wires, and its arms burned and twisted into jagged claws.
The room fell silent.
Bishop cleared his throat. "We believe the shop was used for experimentation. A series of… biomechanical fusions. Somehow, Harrington connected himself to the building."
"That's impossible," muttered one of the fire chiefs.
"No more impossible than what we all saw," Reddick snapped. "Every firefighter who entered that building is dead. My men barely escaped. And that house—" he pointed again to the blown-up photo of the Harrington residence—"that house moved."
The council murmured among themselves. Fear was building, silent but steady.
Councilman Holtz leaned forward. "Then what do you suggest we do?"
Reddick didn't blink. "We quarantine the street. Permanently. Gallagher's not safe. That shop is alive."
"And if the survivors come back?" Elara asked.
"We need them," Bishop said. "They're the only ones who know what happened inside. We have to find them."
"And Harrington?" Holtz asked.
Reddick gave a slow, uneasy shake of his head. "If he's still alive, he's not the same man anymore."
Inside the Gallagher Municipal Conference Room, the hum of fluorescent lights was the only sound that dared interrupt the silence that followed Officer Reddick's chilling statement.
Councilwoman Elara leaned back in her chair, fingers steepled beneath her chin. "Do we have any leads on where the survivors might've gone?"
"None," said Commander Bishop. "They vanished. We traced a stolen truck leaving the area—possibly headed north. Highway cameras picked it up briefly before it disappeared near the old logging roads."
"They knew what they were doing," murmured Reddick. "They didn't want to be found."
Councilman Holtz adjusted his glasses. "What if they're the cause of this? Harrington's son, Lukas, was connected to the BangBangs, wasn't he? And that girl—Missy—was one of his friends."
Reddick didn't hesitate. "They're not responsible. They're survivors. You didn't see what I saw. Whatever Harrington became—it wasn't human. And those kids... they were running for their lives."
Elara turned to a slim woman seated near the end of the table. "Dr. Ansel, you've reviewed the footage and the remains. Any insight?"
Dr. Ansel, a forensic biotechnologist brought in from the capital, flipped through her tablet. "I've never seen anything like this. Michael Harrington didn't just transform. He evolved into something hybrid. Machine. Flesh. And something else we haven't identified. His DNA is twisted, almost like it was rewritten."
"By what?" Bishop asked.
"I don't know. But it radiates something... ancient. Something that doesn't belong to any known science."
A hush fell over the table.
Then, a younger officer rushed into the room, handing Reddick a small device. "Sir, we intercepted a shortwave distress signal. Not local. Northbound. Could be the survivors."
Reddick clicked the recording on the speaker. Static. Then:
"…help… something's following… can't stop… we're heading to Ishama… please, if anyone…"
The message cut out.
Bishop straightened. "Ishama? That's in Greenland."
"Remote," Reddick muttered. "Smart choice. But if something followed them... we can't wait."
Elara stood. "We need a team to go after them. Quietly. If word of this gets out—what happened—we'll have panic across the country."
"And if this… thing spreads?" Holtz asked.
Dr. Ansel looked up, voice steady. "Then this was just the beginning."