The creature had no name.
Not yet.
But it would.
Because names were earned, and it would earn its name in blood.
It sprinted through the forest at the edge of campus, leaving a trail of shattered bark and melting snow. Birds didn't sing here anymore. Trees bent out of its way. Even the shadows tried not to touch it.
It had the bones of a werewolf, the sinew of a ghoul, the hunger of a vampire, and a mind it didn't ask for.
Not a full one. Not yet.
Fragments.
Echoes.
It remembered—
—pain.
—restraint.
—the cold voice of the one called Sheridan.
—the laughter of the one called Von.
—and someone else.
Watching.
Always watching.
Strange.
It didn't know what Strange was. But it hated him. The way a virus hates a firewall. The way prey hates the predator who wears its skin.
And so it ran.
Not to escape.
To evolve.
⸻
Its first kill was a mimic.
It found the creature hiding in the shape of a tree. Foolish. Weak. The mimic screeched when the beast tore off its disguise and cracked open its carapace.
Inside, it found mimic essence. Shifting cells. Adaptive DNA.
It consumed.
Changed.
Its hands grew long and warped, able to reshape slightly now. Its footsteps quieter. Its form less solid, more… suggestive. A silhouette wearing the idea of a body.
It liked that.
⸻
By dawn, it had taken three more.
A troll—too slow.
A dryad—too trusting.
A low-rank chimera—too loud.
Each one added to the storm of instincts inside its skull. It could feel itself growing smarter. Meaner. Sharper.
Soon, it wouldn't need to eat to change.
It would only need to see.
⸻
Back at Deadman's, alarms hadn't even gone off.
But one person knew.
Strange stood in the clock tower, coat still stained with Orion's blood. His eyes tracked the forest. He felt the pulse of the thing he made echo through the stones.
He didn't smile.
Not yet.
Beside him, Orion leaned on the balcony rail, his psychic form trembling, ghostly and unstable. His body was decaying by the hour. He had maybe a week left.
Behind him, Moratax grunted. No words, just breathing and pressure. Caged fury with a heartbeat.
"This is how we hunt it," Strange said finally. "We don't chase it."
Orion blinked slowly. "Then what?"
"We give it what it wants."
⸻
Across the school, students whispered about the disappearances. The administration claimed everything was under control.
But more eyes were opening. Suspicion was stirring.
One in particular—a banshee girl named Lye—had begun collecting notes.
She'd seen the pattern. The club. The names on the list.
She had her suspicions.
And her next stop…
Was the Strange Investigations Club.
⸻
The hunter was watching.
The hunted was growing.
The cracks were forming.
And somewhere, deep inside the monster stalking the woods…
Something stirred.
Something new.
Not Sheridan.
Not Von.
Not even Strange.
But Itself.
Lye hadn't screamed since she was six.
Not because she couldn't. Banshees were born for it—wails that cracked mirrors, split minds, and echoed across dimensions. Her mother told her she had the gift young. Too young.
But one day, she let loose a scream in the middle of an argument… and her father never walked again.
So, she stopped.
Now, she listened instead.
And what she heard inside Deadman's was wrong.
There were gaps in the school's energy, spaces that pulsed like bruises under the skin of reality. Places where students used to be. Where silence had taken root.
She followed those gaps like pressure in her ears, until they led her to the Strange Investigations Club.
It wasn't on the club board.
It wasn't on the website.
But it existed.
She found the door behind the library archive, sealed by a psychic signature. It didn't stop her—she just sang to the lock with a frequency older than the school itself.
Click.
The door creaked open.
⸻
The room was… neat.
Sterile, even.
Metal desks, some stained red. Specimen jars that blinked when she passed. Diagrams of creatures—some she recognized, others she wished she didn't.
And in the center of the room, a chalkboard.
Names.
Crossed out.
Twenty-four in total.
She felt their absence like holes in her lungs.
Then she found the newest entry:
Lye Nox.
Uncrossed.
Her fingers twitched.
Then the lights flickered.
"I was wondering when you'd show up," said a voice behind her.
She turned, slowly.
Strange stood in the doorway. Calm. Coat buttoned. Gloves clean now.
His eyes gleamed.
Not with menace.
With curiosity.
"Tell me, Lye," he said, stepping inside and closing the door. "When a banshee screams, do you know what really dies?"
She said nothing.
She didn't need to.
The air rippled, her jaw clenched.
Strange raised a hand. "Easy. I'm not here to harm you. You're… interesting. And I'm in need of interesting right now."
She tilted her head. "You put me on a list."
"You broke into my room," he countered. "Call it even."
He moved past her, brushing chalk dust from the board.
"The monster I made—it's evolving faster than I thought. I need help catching it. You want the disappearances to stop. We're on the same side."
"You experimented on students," she snapped.
"Only the ones who were dumb enough to follow me," he said, and smiled like it wasn't a joke. "But if it makes you feel better, they're part of something now. Something more."
She took a breath.
Felt the scream in her throat like a loaded gun.
"Don't," he said softly. "Not yet. Don't make me give them the light. Not Orion—he's barely holding on. And Moratax… even I don't know what he'll do."
The light, she thought.
Behind the mirror, Lye felt it—
a slow, steady pulse.
Something vast.
Waiting.
Caged.
Waiting.
"…What do you want?" she asked.
"I want to build the perfect monster," he said. "But first—I have to stop the one I let loose. And if we don't work together, it will learn to scream too."
Lye hesitated.
Then nodded once.
"Fine."
Strange smiled, and it didn't reach his eyes.
"Welcome to the club."
⸻
Meanwhile, in the woods…
The beast dragged a half-conscious cyclops into a shallow cave. Its claws clicked together in thought. It was learning speech. Syntax. Humor.
It muttered something to itself.
A word it had heard once, but never understood.
Now, it knew.
A name.
Its name.
"Apex."