The air in the cave clung thick and metallic, the remnants of decay seeping into their lungs as the group huddled around the intact pod. Its faint bioluminescence cast ghostly shadows on the walls, illuminating the skeletal remains of the other refugees. Liu Jian's fingers traced the glyphs on the pod's surface, the alien hieroglyphs pulsing weakly under his touch.
"It's failing," he murmured. "The stasis field—it's degrading. If we don't act soon, whatever's inside dies with it."
Yumi stared at the vial in her palm, its obsidian liquid swirling as though alive. The others had argued for hours, voices sharpened by fear and desperation. *She* was the logical choice, they'd insisted. Her vial remained untainted, her DNA unburdened by the fusions that had warped the others. But logic couldn't quiet the tremor in her hands. She is the only one weak in the group. So now she also want to get strong.
"You don't have to do this," Aisha said quietly, her bioluminescent skin dimming as she stepped closer. Three years ago, her eyes had been brown. Now they were voids, pupils swallowed by the dark.
Yumi tightened her grip on the vial. "If we don't, the pod's secrets die here. And we're no closer to understanding *why* they were hunted."
The cave seemed to exhale around them, the weight of the predator's mission pressing down like stone.
——
The forest beyond the valley had become a festering labyrinth. Trees leaned like broken ribs, their bark sloughing off in necrotic patches. Vines strangled the light, and the ground crunched underfoot—not leaves, but the brittle carapaces of insects that had mutated and died. The group moved in silence, their senses honed by years of survival. Even Ravi, usually quick with a sneer, kept his serpentine gaze darting through the shadows.
They'd tracked the *baihou* for days. The monkeys were no ordinary primates. Tribesmen from nearby villages whispered of pale-furred demons that stole children and strung up their victims' bones like macabre wind chimes. The team had found one such grove weeks prior—a shrine of skulls, human and animal, their sockets filled with bioluminescent fungi. A warning.
Meili spotted the colony first.
Nestled in a gnarled kapok tree, the nest was a grotesque masterpiece. Branches woven with barbed wire and sinew formed a fortress, its walls studded with jagged glass and rusted blades. The stench of rot hung heavy, and the air buzzed with flies feasting on carcasses strung up like grisly trophies.
"They're watching us," Hiroto growled, his boar-like tusks twitching. His fusion had cost him speech's nuance, his words now guttural and thick.
A shadow moved—fluid, predatory—in the canopy above. Then another. Red eyes blinked in the gloom, reflecting the dim light like smoldering coals.
Yumi's pulse quickened. "They're not just animals. They're *waiting*."
The attack came in a deluge.
A guttural shriek echoed, and the forest erupted. Stones rained down, each aimed with lethal precision. Liu Jian yanked Yumi aside as a rock the size of a fist shattered against a tree trunk, spraying splinters.
"Flanking left!" Aisha hissed, her salamander-enhanced skin flaring bright, disorienting the swarm.
The *baihou* dropped from the trees—gangly, sinewy bodies clad in matted fur streaked with ash. Their faces were nightmares: elongated jaws bristling with filed teeth, claws caked with dried blood and viscera. They moved with eerie coordination, herding the group into a kill zone.
Ravi laughed, a sound like grinding bones, as his body contorted. Scales erupted across his skin, his spine elongating into a serpent's whip. He lashed out, catching a *baihou* mid-leap, its ribs snapping audibly. "Come on, furballs! Let's dance!"
Meili took to the air, her storm-petrel wings slicing through the fetid haze. A *baihou* lunged, leaping impossibly high, claws raking her thigh. She swore, spiraling upward. "They're targeting the wings! Don't let them isolate us!"
Yumi ducked behind a boulder, the vial burning in her grip. The others were already shifting—Aisha's bioluminescence flaring into a blinding strobe, Hiroto's bulk charging through the swarm like a battering ram. Liu Jian's howl split the chaos as he blurred into his wolf form, fangs tearing into fur and flesh.
But Yumi hesitated.
The vial's liquid seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat. *One sip*, the predator's voice echoed in her memory. *One sip, and the bond is forged.* She'd seen what it did to the others—the way Ravi's laughter grew colder with every scale, how Aisha's humanity dimmed with each glow.
A snarl ripped her from her thoughts. A *baihou* landed before her, its claws clutching a shiv of human femur. Its eyes locked onto hers, intelligent and hateful.
*Now.*
She drank.
Fire flooded her veins, a wildfire scorching through muscle and bone. She collapsed, gagging, as her vision fractured—then sharpened. The world exploded into hyperfocus: the mites crawling in the *baihou*'s fur, the tremor in its grip as it lunged, the flex of its tendons a heartbeat before it struck.
*Too. Slow.*
Yumi moved.
Her body was no longer her own—lithe, feral, a tempest of claws and instinct. She sidestepped the lunge, her hand—now furred and taloned—snapping the creature's wrist. The bone cracked. The *baihou* screeched, but she was already pivoting, her tail (since when did she have a *tail*?) whipping to trip another attacker.
The alpha emerged with a ground-shaking roar. Twice the size of the others, its fur was streaked white with age, a crown of human finger bones clattering atop its skull. The tribe fell silent, their bloodied faces turning in reverence.
Liu Jian's wolf-form snarled. "They want a duel. Champion to champion."
Yumi stepped forward.
The alpha charged, a blur of muscle and malice. She met it mid-air, claws slashing. Fur and blood flecked her face. They rolled, a tangle of teeth and rage. The alpha fought dirty—scratches aimed at her eyes, bites at her throat. Yumi's borrowed instincts flared: *Use the terrain. Feint. Bait.*
She let the alpha drive her toward a thorned thicket, then pivoted at the last second. The beast stumbled, impaled on the spikes. Its shriek curdled the air.
The tribe froze.
Yumi stood panting, her hybrid form already fraying at the edges—the vial's power temporary, unstable. "Now!"
The others struck.
Aisha's light flared, blinding the swarm. Hiroto demolished nests with tusks and fists. Ravi's serpentine coils crushed stragglers, while Meili dive-bombed from above, talons slashing. Liu Jian herded the survivors into retreat, his howls echoing like a death knell.
When silence fell, the grove was a charnel house. The surviving *baihou* fled, their bone-crown shattered.
Yumi collapsed, her body snapping back to human with a gasp. Her hands shook—still hers, but streaked with opalescent blood. Liu Jian knelt beside her, pressing a canteen to her lips. "You held the form longer than any first try."
She spat bile. "Did we… get it?"
Aisha approached, her palm cradling a clump of white fur matted with the alpha's blood. "Essence extracted. It's… potent. Brutal, but intelligent."
Yumi stared at the vial. The liquid inside had changed—streaked with silver veins, the *baihou*'s feral cunning fused with the predator's gift.
*What have I become?*
The forest held its breath. Somewhere, the pod waited, its occupant suspended between life and oblivion.
Liu Jian pulled her upright. "Time to meet our ghost."
They carried the DNA like a covenant, its weight heavier than war. With this they can now open the pod.