IT BEGINS (5)

Chapter 47

It begins (5)

The black liquid launched toward the group with the speed of a bullet—fast, silent, and absolutely merciless. It moved so swiftly, so seamlessly through the heavy air, that it was impossible to track. By the time IAM registered that something had been shot from the Devil above, it was already too late.

His feet wouldn't move. His breath caught in his throat. He had trained, he had trained so hard—but in this moment, every drill, every scenario, every warning Milo had given, meant nothing. He stood frozen, not in thought, but in sheer instinctual terror. All the strength in his limbs turned to ash.

A half-second passed.

Not nearly enough time for IAM to act, but more than enough time for fate to choose someone else.

The liquid struck Bryan.

It hit with a sickening thud—like raw meat slapped against stone—but the speed, the force behind it… it was like a boulder had been hurled from the heavens.

Bryan's body was lifted, yanked by the impact. His head hit the stone floor first. The sound it made was not just a crack, but a cacophony: skull splitting, cartilage tearing, a wet crunch that sounded final. His limbs sprawled, twitchless.

The black liquid didn't explode or splatter. It crawled—purposeful and vile—spreading across Bryan's head like a leech sucking its fill. It enveloped his scalp slowly, coating the surface like it was feeding, or worse, merging. It didn't drip. It adhered.

Then—stillness.

Horrible, unnatural stillness.

A silence fell upon the group that wasn't just the absence of sound, but a void. The world felt muted. Like reality itself had taken a horrified breath and refused to exhale.

IAM couldn't move. None of them could. They stood as if strung up by invisible wires, their bodies unwilling to acknowledge what they'd just seen. What they were still seeing. The worst hadn't even started.

Then it twitched.

Bryan's corpse spasmed like a puppet whose strings had just been yanked. First his arm jerked, stiff and strange, then his torso snapped upright unnaturally fast. His metal claws clanged loosely in his fists, but his posture—his posture was wrong. Off. His chest pushed forward, head sagging like a broken doll's.

And then the head turned.

IAM could only watch as Bryan's head began to rotate—not a slow, natural turn, but a forced, mechanical twist. The body didn't shift. Only the neck moved, as if something inside were testing its limits.

It turned… past normal. Way past.

The moment Bryan's chin reached his shoulder, it should have stopped. Should have. But it didn't.

Instead, with grotesque resistance, it kept going.

Cartilage popped. Muscles stretched with an audible squelch. Then came the first crack—followed by another, louder, deeper, wetter.

Bryan's head spun like a screw being forced into flesh.

IAM wanted to scream but found his voice gone. A knot built in his stomach and climbed his throat.

360 degrees.

The head completed a full circle, now facing forward again—though the way it lolled and bounced on the slack neck suggested the bones were now shards, and the spine was little more than jelly. The face was hidden beneath that unnatural black coating, faceless and yet still looking.

Then came the bobbing.

The head flopped side to side with every step, the neck clearly broken. The rubbery swing of it—up, down, left, right—was almost rhythmic, mocking. It reminded IAM of a child's toy, loose and silly.

But this wasn't a toy.

This was Bryan. Or what had been Bryan.

Jas collapsed to her knees, her body convulsing as she threw up violently. Her sobs were drowned out by her own retching, thick strings of vomit dribbling down her chin as she gasped between fits. Hacking bile up her stomach but not quite the terror. She had just seen one of her teammates mutilated and turned into something worse than dead—something used, and twisted. She wasn't strong enough to hold that kind of horror inside.

Leo grabbed her shoulders, but his hands shook so badly it was like he was vibrating. Tears streamed down his cheeks, mixing with his own spit and snot. He looked ten years younger in this moment—helpless, scared, and overwhelmed.

Kon's jaw was clenched tight, his expression a grim, chiseled mask. But his eyes betrayed him. They glistened with something awful. Something that resembled pain. He didn't blink. He didn't breathe. He simply stared.It wasn't fear—it was guilt. Deep, cutting guilt. He had trained Bryan, laughed, joked and talked. And now... Kon had to watch his friend die without even a chance to scream, reduced to a puppet, a sick joke. His eyes weren't just holding pain—they were holding failure.The helplessness clawed at him.

The reanimated Bryan took a step.

Another.

Its gait was unnatural at first, jerky and unfamiliar, but with each passing moment, it became smoother, more coordinated, more confident—more practiced. The black liquid inside was learning. Mastering. It was getting used to Bryan's body like a man adjusting to a new suit of armor.

Mia stumbled forward a half-step.

Her lips trembled.

"Jamie…" she whispered, her voice broken and distant. "No… No…"

Her hand reached out—not in attack, but in sorrow. In longing.

She wasn't here. Not anymore. Her gaze was fixed on a different battlefield, a different decade, a different boy. A memory,She wasn't seeing Bryan. She was seeing another corpse—someone from long ago.

IAM's heart thundered as he looked up.

Another droplet.

Another mass of that horrific black ooze was forming in the gaping Devil's maw above.

This was not going to stop.

They couldn't win.

"We have to run!!" IAM screamed, snapping out of his paralysis.

His voice pierced the silence like shattered glass. It was too loud, too desperate, and yet somehow, exactly what they needed.

But the Devil had already decided.

The Bryan-puppet surged forward, its clawed hands lurching out with stunning speed and brutal intent.

And this time—it wasn't just death coming for them.

It was betrayal in a friend's body.

It was grief wielding steel.

It was horror made real.