It was cold in December.
Especially when you're wrapped in hole-ridden rags that barely qualify as clothes. My fingers are going numb. My balls have retreated to Canada. And I probably look like a sunburnt lobster, shaking on a street corner.
What the hell was I thinking?
No—scratch that. I wasn't thinking. That's the point.
Just a cocktail of angst, pride, and that stupid hero complex I've never got passed since eighth grade.
I should've asked for more. From Ezekiel.
The guy's loaded. Old money, new money, mystical-spider-totem money—I could've fed my whole family tree with a single breath from him. Hell, I could've walked away with a penthouse and a trust fund if I'd played it smart.
But no. I used my three requests on "noble" shit. Stuff that helps other people. Stuff that doesn't stop me from freezing my ass off in New York winter, starving, homeless, and muttering to pigeons like I'm two steps from a mental breakdown.
I'm a goddamn idiot.
No. It's the media. The indoctrination. Too many Saturday morning cartoons, too many capes and masks, too many feel-good messages about doing the right thing.
Ask yourself this: what kind of lunatic gets three wishes from a rich, guilt-ridden spider-sage and doesn't ask for a lifetime supply of money and heat?
This kind of lunatic.
Mom always said I wasn't the brightest tool in the shed. Looking back, I might've been the dullest.
Bet Ezekiel laughed his wrinkled ass off after I walked away. I was all puffed-up attitude and moral high ground—he probably gave me those three wishes just to see how bad I'd mess it up.
Never negotiate with millionaires. Especially the self-made kind. They're like devils in designer suits.
And why three requests? Why not five? Ten? A subscription plan, maybe?
Blame Disney. Blame Aladdin. Blame that damn blue genie and his catchy songs.
(Not you, Robin Williams. I take it back. I love you. You were a treasure. Please don't haunt me.)
GOD. DAMN. IT.
Fuck this weather. Fuck this city. Fuck its skyline, its subways, its pigeons. Fuck everything and everyone.
Especially that purple piece of shit.
Oooh, when I find you… when I finally get my hands on you…
I don't know what I'll do, but it'll hurt. A lot. And it'll be worth every frozen toe.
It takes another 30-something frozen minutes before I finally reach the place.
Which makes it—according to my internal clock—very-late-at-night o'clock.
Even in the so-called "city that never sleeps," this stretch of road is unusually still. Quiet. Dimly lit. Practically abandoned.
But then again, I'm far from Midtown. Out here, silence isn't creepy—it's expected.
Not that the place is completely dead.
Ten people are still up, judging by the light leaking from their windows. Three more linger on the sidewalks, probably smoking or loitering or both. And at least four others are around—people I can't see but can feel.
One of them, in particular, is watching me.
It's like a splinter in my spine. I can't tell where it's coming from, only that it's there—an itch behind the ears, a pinprick just beneath the skin.
I need cover. Fast.
I duck into the nearest alley, and just like that, the sensation fades. No more phantom stares boring into the back of my neck.
Now I can focus.
Killgrave's supposed to be nearby. If Ezekiel's intel is right, the bastard just "paid" his rent, which means he should be stationary—for at least a little while.
Of course, that's assuming the intel's still good… and that the purple freak hasn't vanished on one of his whims.
I wish I could be more certain. But Ezekiel's money can only do so much—and I'm running on fumes.
Tracking someone like Killgrave is hard enough with resources. Without them? It's a prayer and a coin toss.
I plant my palms on the wall and begin to climb. Slow and steady. Stick to shadows. Avoid windows.
The last thing I need is some half-asleep New Yorker calling the cops on the wall-crawling hobo outside their apartment.
As I crest the roof's ledge, I flip over and drop flat to the surface, hugging the floor.
Paranoid? Maybe. But I'm not taking chances. Not tonight. Not when some guy on a smoke break could ruin everything.
I've got one shot at this.
If the Purple Man realizes I'm tracking him, he'll vanish, or worse—turn me into his puppet, or just flat-out kill me. Whichever mood strikes him.
So yeah. I'm fucked. Properly, existentially fucked.
And it all comes back to two things: that damn hero complex and the delusions of grandeur.
One of those is already enough to get you killed in this world.
Both?
Might as well write my will and dive headfirst into the Hudson.
Okay. Focus. No spiraling. Just remember the goal.
I know Killgrave is somewhere around here.
Where, exactly? No clue.
I warned the old man about Killgrave's powers, so all I got was a rough area. Guesses. Best-case estimates. The bastard's in the vicinity, and that's gonna have to be good enough.
Which brings me to the real problem: how the hell do you track a purple-skinned, mind-controlling sociopath without knowing his exact location?
I can't exactly go window to window playing neighborhood creeper. Aside from the visibility and time issues, I'd pass out from holding my breath too long. And let's be real—"peekaboo with predators" isn't a viable long-term strategy.
Ask for help? From who?
The streets are dead, and anyone I do manage to find is more likely to mistake me for a cracked-out hobo than take me seriously. "Hey, have you seen a purple guy who can control minds?" Yeah. That'll go over great.
Pray? Yeah, no. If the big guy upstairs gave a damn, I wouldn't be in this frozen hellhole to begin with.
Abandon the mission?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Do you even remember how much you've given up for this? Hell no. If I turn back now, I'll lose my only shot—and once he's gone, he's gone.
So that leaves one option: power.
But which one?
Strength? Speed? Useless if I don't know where to go.
My senses are better now, sure—but I'm nowhere near trained enough to track someone like this. No echolocation. No touch-based radar. Night vision still needs me to look, and getting that close to Killgrave would be signing my death warrant.
Smell? Hah. Let's not even go there.
What about the weird stuff? The freaky sense?
I've never really tested it before.
Supposed to be some kind of danger precognition, like a sixth sense that flares up when something bad's about to happen. Of course, that's in theory. And it's only gotten murkier ever since my powers started overlapping like spaghetti.
Some stories make it sound like a simple alarm bell. Others? Near-omniscient spider god levels of precog.
Whatever version I've got… It's still my best shot.
Besides, maybe the overlapping powers could actually help me here.
Zeke's senses are pretty standard for spider-folk—enhanced, sure, but manageable. Cindy's, on the other hand? Hers are cranked to eleven. Freakishly sharp, even by spider-person standards. I usually have to keep them on a leash, or I'll flinch at every passing breeze. But right now? That hypersensitivity might be exactly what I need. Hopefully.
Zebediah Killgrave is dangerous. Capital-D Dangerous. Even now, the logical part of my brain is screaming at me to bail. But will the spider-sense actually register that? Logic and instinct don't always agree. Knowing someone's dangerous isn't the same as feeling the cold terror of a predator's stare.
Will the sense pick up on that distinction?
And do I really want to turn it on over a guess?
I hate pain. Loathe it. Despise it. I psych myself out over vaccines—turn a pinch into a three-day existential crisis. Volunteering for a one-way brain-zap via sensory overload? Not exactly high on my bucket list.
God, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And not knowing is making me hesitate even more.
Fuck. Shit. Goddamn it.
After one deep, reluctant breath, I prod at Social Spider—poke the beast awake.
It stirs.
The weird dog-cat-power-hybrid-thing inside me shakes off the sleep like it's stretching after a nap… and then, with an eager jolt, it gives me everything.
Right before the full onslaught of power hits, I clamp down—tight—drawing only a trickle, focusing everything on the precognitive sixth sense.
A low hum rises, steady and growing. Then—thirteen tethers pierce onto my brain, jolting me like a live wire and yanking in every direction.
More try to latch on—less intense, but still screaming for attention. I shut it all down before they can dig in.
Holy shit. That's what Spider-Sense feels like at full blast?
Goddamn.
No wonder it activates in bursts.
I'm soaked in cold sweat. Muscles twitch like I'm tweaking out—any passerby would think I just snorted bath salts.
Forget tracking someone. I'm lucky I didn't black out.
I need another plan. One that doesn't melt my brain like fondue.
I need all the brain cells I can get as it is.
But, there is no other way. Spider-sense is my best bet. It works, somewhat, the previous experience has just proven that. Those who are awake, rang loud and early compared to those who are asleep. If that were signals only for regular folks (presumably), I can only imagine what an enhanced person like Zebediah Killgrave would do to my poor cranium.
Wait. No. I don't want to imagine that.
Okay. Let's just pack it up. Call it a night. I'm not hero material, never was.
Hell, if that beatdown with Morlun didn't prove it, today sure did.
And hey, this world has heroes. Didn't Daredevil kick Killgrave's purple ass before?
I could drop by Nelson & Murdock, give Matt a nudge in the right direction, and boom—he handles it. The Devil goes clubbing while I sip cocoa.
Zero pain. Zero risk. Zero downside.
…Except for letting someone else take the hits.
Was I really about to hide behind a blind guy?
A blind guy who, yeah, could kick my ass three times before breakfast—but still.
Matt Murdock is one bad day away from eating a bullet. Meeting the Purple Man, that might push him to the point of no return.
These secret-identity types? All of them are barely hanging on. Playing dress up just to keep their own demons in check.
And me? I was ready to throw one of them at my problem—just because I'm scared.
Just because I don't want to hurt.
Just because I can.
When I've got powers that Matt couldn't dream of.
When there's probably a girl locked in Killgrave's place right now.
Awake.
Aware.
Dying inside.
Fuck.
How did I sink this low?
No. Killgrave is going down.
Tonight.
There is no questioning that.
People deserve to live their life free of his putrid taint. Jessica, Luke, Matt, Carol, Peter, all their lives would be better without this piece of shit roaming the street; not to mention the thousands of unnamed civilian lives this fucker ruin.
The question, then, is how to track down this motherfucker, and make him stay down. Which brings it full circle back to the pain problem.
A sigh comes unbidden, leaving curling, white fogs in its wake.
Power is not supposed to hurt the user. Even more so for my case with Singularity.
When acquiring Social Spider, I have made sure that the power is compatible and functional. Even now, examining it, the powers are enthusiastic, giving everything at a single request; not unlike a very eager pup.
Yet, three weeks removed from acquiring it. My body still violently rejects spider-sense, an ability that refuses to heel, unlike everything else.
Granted, I have not used that subset much compared to its other perks, but even then, a free electro-therapy session for my noodle is not what I expect from such an eager to please power.
I reflexively use Singularity to check Social Spider one more time. Yep—still all green. Singularity insists Social Spider should be seamless. No setbacks.
So where is this issue coming from?
Zeke, and Cindy did not have any issue of this caliber.
Sure, Cindy Silk-Senses are the most sensitive among the spider people, and there are instances in the comic of her ignoring her precognitive danger sense, but it has never caused her pain or discomfort before, just mild annoyances.
Zeke's Spider-Sense is just the run of the mill variant. It has even gotten duller with age, I doubt that is where the sensitivity issue stems from.
What else could it be then?
It's not other subsets of power interacting with it. The physical enhancements are prevalent within all spider people, so we can rule that out.
Cannot be wall crawling, even if mine are more exotic than most, at least one of the spider-people has had exotic wall crawling at some point, and none have my problem.
Claws. No.
Fangs. No.
Swarm Conver— Wait, what?
Swarm Conversion? Since when did I have th— Right. Carl King.
The blonde jock that was bullying Peter at the Oscorp expo. The dumbass who thought eating the irradiated spider was a good idea.
Nasty piece of shit. Shove me to the ground when I bump into him to get his power. Honestly, the idiot should've thanked me—I saved him from turning into a spider-swarm.
Is that what is causing the severe pain? It's possible, I haven't looked too closely at it on the account of I like staying as a human. Maybe some elements of his power are boosting the Spider-Sense to an unnatural degree.
Let's see.
Physical Enhancement, whatever.
Wall Crawling, standard.
Swarm Conversion, not touching that with a ten foot pole.
Psychic Alignment with Arthropods, no.
Arachnids Control. No.
Consumption Empowerment, that's neat, it also has a thin line connecting to Parasitic Predator. Wonder if that meant that I can grow permanently stronger by consuming lifeforce, that would be co— Focus. Not the time.
Precognitive Nullification, could be useful.
No Spider-Sense, though. Meaning that this is a dead end as well.
Well, shit.
No visible problem in Carl's powerset, meaning that my problem is a mutative one.
If I really wanted to gamble this hard, I should've gone to Vegas—not played roulette with unstable powers.
Mutative abilities are a problem. Sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker. Always unpredictable. Definitely dangerous.
This isn't something I can patch up with duct tape and grit. It's the kind of mess that needs gene therapy and a genius geneticist—neither of which are exactly in my back pocket right now.
But still… this doesn't make sense.
I would've known if there were mutations embedded in Social Spider. Hell, Singularity should've prevented them altogether—one of its lesser-known perks is managing compatibility and power integrity. If something went wrong, I'd know.
But everything checks out. Clean. No errors. Which means the power works. I just haven't figured out how to use it properly yet.
So I go over every ability again—especially the lesser-known ones, the ones I skimmed the first time. And there it is.
Hive Mind. Carl King's freaky little trick that let his consciousness exist across a thousand spiders. In his case, it was just a cockroach-level survival tactic. Kill one body, the rest live on. Creepy, but limited.
But I'm not Carl King.
In his hands, it was persistence. In mine, it's potential. Real, terrifying potential.
Multitasking. Parallel thinking. Accelerated learning. Distributed processing. Partitioned awareness.
I am now an army of a thousand minds... in one body.
And this—this is the key. The solution to the hypersensitivity. If one mind can't handle the full weight of a mutated Spider-Sense, then I'll use the other 999 to help carry the load.
For the first time in weeks, I feel something solid: certainty. I call out to Social Spider, nudging Hive Mind to the front of the line.
And my mind blossoms.
Thoughts duplicate. Multiply. A hundred voices whisper, not in confusion, but in harmony. My consciousness expands outward like a fractal mandala, infinitely spiraling inward and outward at once.
It's loud—deafening, even—but never painful. Like a great bronze bell resonating with ideas, memories, solutions. An echo chamber of clarity.
My older brother always joked my head was empty. Pretty sure this isn't what he meant.
I snort at the thought—and then ask Social Spider to dig up Spider-Sense.
It obeys, eager as ever. My precognition expands outward like a balloon filling too fast. But just as it hits the edge of unbearable—
One of my other minds steps in and takes the weight.
And then another.
And another.
Until the discomfort fades completely.
Careful not to mistake the quiet for a power shutdown, I run a few tests. Layer all the senses—sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, danger. Stack them. Crank the volume.
In the past, this would've liquefied my brain and left me drooling in an alley. Now?
I feel... nothing. Just input. Calm, controlled input.
150 minds. That's what it takes to process the full sensory suite—leaving the core me free to think, to act, to be.
It's absurd. Insane. Beyond anything I imagined possible when this all began. But I have the bandwidth now. This is no longer the same game. I'm not even playing the same sport.
The data floods in—scent, temperature gradients, electromagnetic signals, micro-vibrations—parsed, processed, delivered as neat facts to my conscious brain. No sensory overload. No static. Just answers.
Like a psychic Wikipedia plug-in.
And yet…
Something still doesn't sit right.
I was seeing everything—but not experiencing it.
My emotional state no longer spirals. It's still present—somewhere—but held at a distance. Sealed away in a soundproof room, waiting for the right moment to be acknowledged.
Right now, there is only one mission.
And yet… a note of dissonance persists. Dissatisfaction. Not fear. Not doubt. Just a quiet alert, a flag raised by something deep within.
An error. Not in logic, but in method.
The signal is subtle, but clear. It originates from Social Spider.
The power is… suggesting something.
That shouldn't be possible. It's not sentient. Not really. Is it?
Still, the suggestion is there, humming through the connection like a low-frequency sound. And I follow.
I release the power across every partitioned mind, letting instinct—not thought—guide the process. The reaction is immediate.
The system floods with energy. And for the first time, I see.
Between one blink and the next, the world transforms.
The spectrum expands. Color no longer behaves as it once did—now it blooms, layered and complex, like ink in water. The air dances across my skin with measurable shifts in temperature and pressure, curling into the spaces between each hair.
Above, where light pollution should reign, the stars return. Tiny anchors of light in the velvet sky—impossible, and yet undeniable.
Within this block, I register 216 discrete human presences. 199 are dormant. Seventeen remain awake—soon to be ten, as the rhythm of breath and heartbeat slows in seven of them. Sleep approaches.
I feel my muscles tighten—steel cables under flesh. My nerves hum like cello strings pulled taut. Power moves through me in waves, precise and responsive.
With one movement, I could drive my hand through concrete. With another, I could cradle a moth without damaging a wing. The range is absolute.
Sensory input layers atop itself. Stacked. Organized. Filtered.
But one sensation rises above the rest.
At nine o'clock, the air shifts. A foul taste spreads across my tongue—bitter, wrong, purple. The breeze sharpens, cold and adhesive, brushing across my skin like damp velvet. My skin crawls. My Spider-Sense pulses.
Danger.
Zebediah Killgrave.
The Purple Man coils in the dark, steeped in his own stench of control and violation.
Target acquired.
Let's end this.
A townhouse.
That's where Killgrave decided to stay, at least for now.
Huh. Guess that explains the rent nonsense. I figured the Purple Man for a penthouse kind of guy—evil lair, skyline view, the works. But this is New York. A well-located townhouse is basically a castle. Price tag fits the villainy.
That said, I'm picking up a lot of people inside. Twenty, maybe twenty-five.
Light from the main hallway, plus windows lit up on the second and third floors.
A party, then.
The finer things, indeed.
Well… this is a fucking pickle.
I was hoping for something easier—hotel room, apartment, back-alley murder den. Something I could kick the door in, one-shot the guy, and be out before anyone realized their pants were purple.
But a townhouse? With twenty-plus people inside?
That complicates things.
If this were a normal creep, I'd just break in and improvise. But this is Killgrave. Every single one of those people could be unwilling. Puppets. Shields.
Force becomes a problem.
Two people? I can subdue. Twenty? That's a slaughter waiting to happen.
And with my new strength… let's just say the phrase "non-lethal takedown" gets tricky. Very tricky.
Then there's the signal.
My Spider-Sense pings hard from inside—sharp, clean, unmistakably predator-tier. That's Killgrave. The others are background noise. Civilians.
But it's imprecise. The signal is too strong—it muddies everything else. I know he's in there, but not where. Not how many people are in the same room. Not how many floors up.
Getting closer would help. Clearer signals. Layout. Numbers. Precise data.
But getting closer also means risk.
Killgrave's powers are scent and sound-based. Pheromones to slip past defenses, commands to seal the deal. Get too close, breathe too deep, and suddenly I'm volunteering to stab myself in the eye because he asked nicely.
Yeah. No thanks.
So. Plan B.
I'm not a genius—not Peter Parker, or Reed Richard. But I can stack enough thoughts together to fake it for a bit.
Enter: Hive Mind.
Honestly, it's cheating. No shame admitting it. A thousand minds, all thinking at once. Processing. Calculating. One man's LAN party of neurons.
Sure, it's not elegant. A bit janky. But when your goal is taking down a mind-controlling sociopath? Volume beats elegance any day.
Plans spill in like a brainstorm turned tsunami. Most are garbage. Some are violent. A few… promising.
But every path runs into the same roadblock:
Not. Enough. Intel.
I don't know what room he's in. What floor? How many civilians are with him? Kids? Adults?
And force—force has consequences now. I'm not quite Superman-level "world of cardboard," but if I sneeze too hard, someone's jaw might go flying. I don't want that. Not even for Killgrave.
I don't want his blood. I want his freedom—gone. A prison cell with no key. Life sentence. He deserves it.
But to pull that off, I need information.
And I need it without falling under his control.
Which… yeah. That's a problem.
Especially since there's a non-zero chance that this isn't even Killgrave.
New York's crawling with weirdos these days. Since the Four showed up, it's been like shaking a snow globe of freaks. Some of them dangerous. Most of them annoying.
Could be Kingpin. Could be a rogue magician throwing a rave. Could be someone like me.
Doubt it's one of Peter's rogues—kid only got his power three weeks ago. And if Zeke does his part? He never will.
Definitely not the Maggia. Too soon. No turf to consolidate yet.
If it's Kingpin?
I walk.
Not because I'm scared. Okay—partly because I'm scared. But mostly because there's no clean way to win against Fisk. Even if you "win," you lose. That man doesn't break. He waits. And then he ruins you.
Killgrave's already a stretch. Fisk? That's suicide.
So—circle back.
I need to get close enough to gather intel without breathing in a lungful of mind control.
My senses can map out the entire building. Walls, footsteps, heartbeats, patterns. But I need proximity. Not long—just a few passes, a few seconds each.
If I can hold my breath long enough, I can blitz in, soak in the data, and get out before the pheromones get me.
Probably.
Two passes, maybe three. Each mind memorizes a different section. A thousand partitions. The house isn't that big.
Yeah, okay—it sounds insane. Olympic swimmers can hold their breath for five minutes. Me? Before all this? I got winded walking up stairs.
But I'm not normal anymore.
Haven't been since a month ago.
Especially not since Social Spider joined the party.
How long can a pair of superpowered lungs hold their breath?
The world changes when you're blind.
Your other senses kick into overdrive, hypersensitive to make up for the absence of sight. Emotions get tangled in the process—fear, adrenaline, anxiety—amplifying everything. You twitch at every breeze, every brush of air, every shift in space. It's instinctive. It's survival.
Even more so if you're… different. Superable.
People forget that air is a fluid. Like water, it bends and weaves around obstacles, slipping through gaps, flowing along the path of least resistance. But unlike water, it's invisible. You can't track it by eye. You need tools—sensors, machines—to read its flow.
Unless you've become the sensor.
Unless your body has learned to read the whispers of the wind like Braille—each swirl a word, each gust a sentence, pressed against your skin like prophecy.
The biting December air should be freezing me to the bone. Instead, it dances across my back, a subtle current brushing along the nerves. I can feel it shift, bend, and funnel between buildings. It's like sonar, only quieter—soft, gentle... terrifyingly precise.
My face is sealed behind a thick weave of web, layered and dense. No light gets through. No scent, no sound, no taste. Nothing. I've shut everything off.
And yet, I can see better than I ever have.
Every muscle moves with purpose, cords of steel beneath skin pulling me forward on all fours as I run. Not walk—run. The Danger Sense hums in my head, mapping ledges, obstacles, exposed beams. I dodge before I know I need to. I know the city's shape in the dark.
The wind rushes past me, leaving trails of dust that stick to my palms. I feel the grain of fabric on my legs, the tension in my joints, the shape of every breath.
And beyond that… I feel them.
The den of the snake. What once was a chaotic tangle of hostile signals now has clarity. Each presence is distinct—separated, labeled.
Killgrave.
There's no mistake now.
Maybe it's the web cocoon wrapped around my face, sealing out every breath and whisper. No pheromones. No commands. No entry.
He used to register like a snake coiled in the grass—sharp, sudden, lethal. But now? His signal is dimmer. Still dangerous, but wounded. The predator is limping.
And I'm not the only one who sees it.
Yes… you're right, Parasitic Predator. You always are when it comes to prey.
The viper's fangs are cracked. He is weak. Not a predator, but prey.
However… the old viper is cautious. Experienced.
He knows to coil high above the treetops, digesting his feast in silence.
If only I were a fully grown goshawk—sharp-eyed, talons honed—then there'd be no canopy thick enough to shield him. But my feathers are still growing, my wings too short for that kind of flight.
One day.
But not tonight.
So, maybe a different tactic.
If Flight drains too much stamina, why not let physics carry the burden?
A well-timed arc, a web-assisted divebomb. I have the strength. The durability. The Organic Spinnerets to sling myself like a missile. And once I'm close enough, my senses will do the rest. They'll find him. They always do.
Yes… that feels right. Even my powers seem to agree—each one nudging me with what I can only describe as anticipation.
Poor old viper.
Does he not realize?
That mongoose knows how to climb trees.
Teresa wants to wake up from this unending nightmare.
She wants to scream until her throat rips, to claw out her eyes until all she can see is void.
She wants to rage, roar, scream, weep, and sob.
Yet… she can't.
Her face can only smile, as her body dances on unseen strings.
Around her, countless other marionettes move along to soundless tunes. Their faces twist into facsimiles of human expression—smiles that are empty, eyes flashing purple.
They play pretend and dress up.
Wearing pompous, expensive clothing, they throw themselves into the party. Some sit on the couches, chatting delicately as they nibble on canapés. Others cluster in groups of three or more, sipping their high-end drinks and laughing uproariously at one joke or another.
It's the textbook definition of a lively, upper-class soirée.
But the unspoken truth hangs in the air like a leering guillotine.
The host of the party, however, seems blissfully unaware of the tension in the room.
He flits from group to group, joining and leaving conversations with a grace that borders on the supernatural.
Every woman he talks to laughs at his every word, their hands brushing his arms and thighs, gazes heavy-lidded.
The men respond with similar enthusiasm. From the broad-shouldered to the brainy, the host slips effortlessly into place. Wherever he goes, that group becomes the center of attention, as if a missing puzzle piece has finally clicked into place.
Some of the burlier men clap him on the back or strong-arm him to stay longer, but he always leaves on his own terms—charming and checking each guest in turn.
After completing his rounds, the man pours himself a drink at the bar. A satisfied smile graces his lips as droplets of sweat glisten on his indigo skin.
'Go to him.' An unbidden voice surfaces in Teresa's mind.
'No… Don't go. Please. Don't go. Stop. Please. PLEASE. STOP. STOP.'
Her own voice screams, louder than ever.
Yet, as if drunk from a poisoned chalice, Teresa's body moves forward toward the host.
The smile on her face deepens.
"Rough night, Zebediah?" Her voice carries across the room, snapping the man from his thoughts. A lilt that makes a mockery of true adoration.
If the man noticed her approach, he didn't show it.
"Well… there are a lot of guests tonight," Killgrave said, his voice low and smooth. "But I've got a feeling tonight's about to get a whole lot better."
He smiled.
To a stranger, it might've looked charming—disarming, even. But Teresa knew better.
There was no warmth in it. No sincerity.
It was a practiced expression, a polished lie.
A mask worn a thousand times before, and one he'd wear a thousand more.
'Comfort him.' The voice urged again.
That sickly-sweet whisper deep inside her skull.
To her horror, her body obeyed.
Her hand reached out, fingers brushing his shoulder with a lover's tenderness.
She felt her palm move in practiced circles, massaging away imaginary knots, while her head leaned in—cheek brushing his, her breath grazing his ear.
A message. A signal. A second passed.
'NOOO!'
Teresa screamed inside, her soul thrashing in its cage.
'OH GOD, PLEASE NO! PLEASE LET ME OUT! SOMEBODY—PLEASE!'
Killgrave looked up.
For the first time that night, his eyes—dull and disinterested till now—sparkled with a cruel satisfaction.
"After you, dear Teresa," he murmured, the words slick with predatory delight.
Her hand slipped into his.
A marionette's hand in the monster's grasp.
Together, they walked.
Each step toward the master bedroom felt like a march to the gallows.
Inside her mind, once a swirling storm of fear, rage, and despair, a bleak numbness took hold.
Hope drained away as her own fingers pushed open the double doors.
Hell.
There was no other word for it.
Her mind wandered—grasping for anything—flashing back to the other girls.
The ones who'd gone before.
Their screams still echoed in her memory.
Their tears.
The wild-eyed desperation as they rushed for scissors or shattered mirrors—anything sharp—before freezing in place, mid-swing, when he reclaimed control.
He always took back control.
Always.
And now, it was her turn.
Her body moved like it had done this before.
Clothes fell away. Skin bared.
Her limbs didn't tremble, but inside, she was withering. Fading.
Killgrave waited on the king-sized bed, leering. Expectant.
But then—just as her foot crossed the threshold—
A deafening sound.
A cacophony of wailing metal, splintering wood, and crumbling stone.
As shrill as the dying screams of wounded animals. As loud as cannon fire.
Teresa imagines this is what it must sound like when the gates of the Underworld yawn open to welcome the damned.
Through the dust and shattered beams of the collapsed roof, something rises.
Something wrong.
Ominous.
It stands tall amidst the debris, a grotesque parody of an Olympic sprinter.
Ribs protrude from an emaciated frame, and its limbs—thin as twigs—are strung with taut, dehydrated muscles that look haphazardly sewn into place.
Despite its frailty, it radiates strength.
It dangles Killgrave by the throat with one hand, effortlessly.
Amidst the dust, Teresa can barely make out the creature's upper half.
Its head is bald and featureless—no eyes, no nose, no mouth.
Only scars.
Dozens of them.
Crisscrossing across its skull.
This is not the angel Teresa prayed for in the depths of her despair.
No… this is something far worse.
A demon.
A demon has come to claim Zebediah Killgrave's twisted soul.
And yet, even amid the terror, Teresa feels it—
A sliver of satisfaction.
A deep, primal relief.
Killgrave's once-slicked hair is in disarray, coated in dust and caked with drying blood.
His eyes bulge with pure, naked terror.
His face has turned a darker shade of purple than she thought possible.
His mouth opens and closes in a futile attempt to speak.
'HELP M—'
The voice in her mind screams, then—
Silence.
Teresa moved just as the command was cut off.
She lunged for the standing lamp in the corner, her body surging forward with sudden, hysterical strength. All pretense of civility shattered.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of herself in the hanging mirror.
She didn't recognize what she saw.
Eyes glowing fully purple. A fine crust of gray dust clinging to her skin.
Charging like an animal, wide-eyed with feral madness.
Was that really her?
The demon didn't even turn to face her.
Its free hand snapped backward—at an unnatural angle—faster than a bullet.
In an instant, her grip went light.
The head of the lamp sailed through the air.
She staggered, her ankle twisting as her body pitched forward, nearly crashing into the mahogany bed frame—
Something yanked her back.
She flew through the air like a ragdoll and slammed into the far wall.
The breath tore from her lungs.
Pain.
Crushing, blooming pain.
She could barely think, barely move—but forced herself upright, blinking through tears.
Across the room, she saw it—
The demon… finishing Killgrave.
Thin strands of golden light flowed out from the purple man's mouth like smoke. His face contorted in silent horror, every muscle seizing.
Then, as the demon finished feasting, his eyes rolled back.
His body sagged.
Like a puppet with its strings cut, he collapsed to the floor, limbs folding awkwardly beneath him.
The creature looked down at Killgrave's heap for a moment—then slowly turned its head toward her.
Its movements were strange—jittery, wrong. Like something pretending to be human and not quite getting it right.
Then—blink—
It was right beside her.
Teresa's pulse spiked.
The creature raised a hand toward her face, claws gleaming faintly in the dim light.
Golden light began to leak from her mouth and orifice. She felt it—her life, her strength—draining away.
Her body tried to move, to recoil—but she was stuck.
Her limbs were pressed against the wall by some sticky, flexible substance. Webbing.
More light escaped. Her senses dulled. Her thoughts slowed.
She heard movement—footsteps—somewhere in the hall.
Shouts.
Commotion.
But it was muffled, far away.
Her eyes drooped.
Just before they closed completely, she saw it.
The creature's head wasn't featureless after all.
It was wrapped in white, organic webbing—so thick it obscured every detail.
Little golden motes danced at the surface of the webbed mask—then slipped through it.
And Teresa went still.
"So. What do we have?"
North's voice broke the silence—crisp, low, slicing through the stale air like a blade through still water.
"Christ, man. You scared me half to death," Jeff muttered, shooting him a tired glare. It was half-hearted, no real malice behind it—but coming from Jeff, it could still shake anyone unfamiliar.
Officer Nolan North, however, was made of sterner stuff.
One raised eyebrow was all Jeff got. Behind those dark eyes, something unreadable simmered—watchful, calculating.
"Nothing on my end," Nolan said, tone clipped. "Neighbors were out cold by midnight. A few complaints about noise—late-night parties, usual stuff—but nothing they thought was worth calling in. Most of 'em woke around two, when the ceiling gave out. Called it in right away."
He gave a dry snort. "So. What have you got?"
Jeff exhaled, rubbing a hand over his jaw as his eyes swept across the wreckage of the suite.
"Well… this is officially the weirdest case I've ever had."
North didn't respond. His eyes moved methodically, cataloging everything. Two weeks of working together had taught Jeff that North's silence wasn't indifference. It was patience. He listened first, then dissected.
Jeff exhaled, flipping open a small, battered notebook.
"The main victim is one Zebediah Killgrave. The guy with purple skin. No ID, no record, nothing in the system. Forensics hasn't turned up anything yet. As far as our database is concerned, the guy's a ghost."
His eyes flit across the floor, zeroing in on the ruin king-size bed.
"Still alive, by the way. Paramedics say his body shut itself down—entered a coma, maybe to protect itself."
Jeff paused, lips pressing into a thin line.
"But that's not the whole story."
North's gaze shifted to him, ever so slightly.
Jeff looked down at his notes again, though he wasn't really reading them. He just needed a second.
"Our records may be blank, but the victims… They have a lot to say about this piece of work."
He swallowed hard. His hand trembled slightly, and he tucked it into his coat pocket.
"I've done interviews before—trafficking, cult rescues, gang raids—but this?" He shook his head. "This was different. Some of those women couldn't even speak. One just… kept laughing. Another wouldn't stop apologizing, like she was the one who did something wrong."
His voice cracked at the edges.
For a moment, silence hung between them—thick, tense, as if the air itself had to recover from the weight of what they'd seen.
"Apparently, our purple friend had superpowers," Jeff finally muttered.
North looked up sharply, calm eyes now clouded with something harder—shock, disbelief. "What kind?"
"Mind control," Jeff said, voice low. "He used it pretty liberally, too. Most of the victims… they're women."
Another pause. North didn't speak, but his jaw tightened.
"He was planning to do the same thing here," Jeff added, waving vaguely toward the yawning hole in the ceiling. "Before that happened."
North's eyes shifted—first to the wrecked ceiling, then to the scorched furniture, then back to Jeff. He was piecing things together, slowly and carefully. Jeff, meanwhile, felt miles away.
He thought he'd seen the worst of humanity already. Growing up in the projects had been its own education—smack houses, gunshots in the night, friends disappearing into gang life. Becoming a cop hadn't saved him from the darkness either; it just gave him the badge to stand in front of it. Human trafficking. Child prostitution. Corpses in alleys. Names that still haunted him.
That's why he joined. To stop that cycle. To give his kid—sweet little Miles—and his wife Rio a world that didn't chew people up.
But this man—no, this monster—was something else entirely.
Jeff's hand drifted toward the holstered gun on his hip, fingers brushing the grip without thought.
How could his son be safe with things like this walking around?
"—vis. Davis." North's voice cut through the haze. "Hey. You with me?"
Jeff blinked, startled. His partner was watching him closely, his gaze softer now, tempered by something Jeff didn't expect—concern.
"Yeah… yeah. Long shift, that's all." Jeff rubbed his forehead and looked away.
"Well," he said after a breath, "according to the only person who was with him—Teresa Lawson—something crashed through the roof."
"Something?" North's voice lifted with the first trace of surprise.
"Some creature," Jeff said, sighing. "That's the only way any of them could describe it. Humanoid, with claws. Lanky, but strong. Threw two guys across the room like they were cardboard. Didn't even flinch when hit with furniture."
He pointed toward the ruined coffee table and the cracked plaster on the far wall.
"Hell, one of the victims/witnesses said it caught a bullet with its bare hands."
North arched an eyebrow. Jeff gestured at the ground near the debris—where a single shell casing lay half-buried in dust.
"That casing was found right there. Witness swears he shot it. Claims it snatched the round mid-air."
"It was premeditated," North murmured. "The break-in. This thing wasn't here for chaos—it was going for Killgrave."
Jeff nodded slowly. "Yeah. All the witnesses said Killgrave shouted for help. Ordered them to defend him. They attacked the creature like puppets. But it... it didn't go after them unless it had to."
He paused, flipping a few pages in his notebook.
"It went straight for Killgrave. Everything else was self-defense."
North gave a low whistle. "Hell of a self-defense. Seven people were concussed. One guy's got a broken arm, another's leg twisted backwards—it'll be a miracle if he walks right again."
Jeff ran a hand through his cropped hair and sighed. "Think it was that vigilante?"
North's brow furrowed. "Vigilante?"
"Oh come on, man, you've had to hear the rumors from the 10th precinct. Every beat cop heard them."
"I thought you said it was a creature," North countered, dark eyes locking onto Jeff's.
"Yeah… Most of the witnesses described its face as a mess of scars. Some said it had no features at all. Others swore it only had a mouth. Nobody said it was human." Jeff tapped the side of his notebook. "Except one."
North perked up.
"Teresa Lawson. The girl with Killgrave, clearest look. Said its face wasn't a face at all—it was a mask."
"A mask?"
"She described it as a cocoon of webs, covering its whole head."
North hummed, thoughtful. "So our suspects range from demons, to mutant vigilantes, to the Devil of Hell's Kitchen himself."
"You don't get this stuff back in Chicago?" Jeff quipped, trying to lighten the mood.
"No," North said flatly. "No, we do not."
Jeff gave a short, dry laugh. "Come on. Let's poke around a bit more before we head back to the precinct."
He needs to call Rio. Looks like it's going to be one of those shifts.
Caliban, one of the original founders of the Morlocks, found himself once more in a similar place.
As part of his self-imposed duty, he often traveled to the world above, scouring the surface for news to bring back to the Alleys.
Sometimes, he found others—mutants like himself who couldn't hide their changes. Monsters, as the surface dwellers called them.
He brought them below, offering shelter where the world above only offered cruelty.
It was a thankless task, but a necessary one.
The world was not kind to mutants—especially those who were visibly different.
Bringing them underground not only saved lives, but also brought new hands and fresh hope to the Alleys.
A better life for all. In theory, anyway.
Of course, it didn't always work out.
Caliban's power allowed him to sense others of his kind. But not all mutants were outcasts. Some could pass. Some still clung to the illusion of belonging.
Those were the worst. They looked at him with fear or disgust—ran from him, sometimes beat him.
And those who followed him below…
They resented him soon enough. Blamed him for the darkness, for the rot. For introducing them to Masque.
And sometimes, in his weakest moments—alone in the silence of the tunnels—Caliban blamed himself, too.
But he always remembered why he did this. Why he had to. It wasn't just because of Callisto's orders from that first night long ago.
It was because mutants were hated by all.
Because humans—the "normal people"—would never rest until every last mutant was gone.
Because even among their own kind, the Morlocks were outcasts.
Because even other mutants looked at them and saw monsters.
That was why he had to keep going.
To find them.
To bring them home.
Down into the Alleys. Down to the Morlocks.
Still, the stares bothered him.
Some days were worse than others, of course.
But, the connotation remains the same.
Even among outcasts, Caliban is alone.
Tonight, at least, was a better one.
Analee had given them all one of her psychic "pick-me-ups," a little burst of euphoria to dull the pain.
And the stares… they hadn't felt quite as sharp tonight.
But they were still there.
Even in bliss, some Morlocks never forgot what Masque had done to them. And they never forgot who brought them down here in the first place.
So, Caliban did the only thing he could do in moments like these.
He went above ground.
Exiting from one of the main entrances, Caliban ensures that none of his more exaggerated features are visible before slipping into the night.
Some nights have a clear objective. His detection powers sweep wide, cutting through the static of the city like sonar. He knows exactly where the new mutants are, even among a sea of strangers.
Other nights are quieter. He walks the surface, careful to stay out of sight, gathering scraps of news to bring back to the Morlocks. Now and then, he even senses someone new—mutants who've strayed beyond the usual range of his post.
But tonight?
Tonight, Caliban just wants to get away.
Away from the tunnels. Away from the stares.
Away from the responsibility that clings to his shoulders, dragging them lower with each passing day.
His mind drifts as his body moves on instinct. By the time he blinks free of the daydream, he's in Broadway.
Broadway. The place that represents everything Caliban has ever dreamed of—and everything he dreads.
Here, the heart of New York beats loud and fast. Day and night, it never stops. Never softens.
Crowds flood the sidewalks, spilling from theaters and subways, laughing, shouting, living. Neon spills across glass and concrete like a second sunrise.
Caliban yearns for it. To be normal. To not be a freak. To stand proudly under the lights without fear of the stares or whispers. To breathe without shame. To live a life worth living—like the countless others basking beneath the glow, unafraid, untouched.
But it was never meant to be.
Like the twisted creature his father named him after, Caliban will never be normal. Never walk among the stars. Never be more than a shadow beneath the city.
Still… he wishes. Just once. To see the play. His play. To sit in the audience, not in fear, but in understanding. To hear the words. To feel like more than a mistake.
To not be Caliban.
He sighs as he turns away. The night has made him sentimental.
There's no time for dreams.
His power calls. Another mutant needs help.
Weaning himself off the light, Caliban moves quickly.
The signal leads him north, past Central Park. He doesn't question it. Not yet.
Uptown.
The mutant is in the Upper East Side—a place of money, legacy, and unspoken walls.
Here, his very existence is a threat. His protection becomes a brand. Not mutant. Not even monsters. Simply… wrong.
He considers turning back.
But curiosity lingers.
There have been Morlocks from wealth before. They often fared worse than the rest. Especially the children.
Jaw tight, Caliban presses forward.
Who, he wonders, could survive here?
The trail ends at a sprawling estate. Wrought iron gates. Trees manicured into privacy screens.
Caliban lies low behind a hedge, breath shallow, still and silent. The iron gate was easy to slip past—an old service entrance cracked open just wide enough for someone wiry and cautious. He had waited for the patrolling guards to finish their lap, counting their pace, matching his timing with the wind. Then he moved quickly, ducking under beams of light, body pressed to the manicured earth like a shadow.
He chose his hiding spot carefully—a thick cluster of boxwood shrubs angled just right. From here, his view is clear but concealed. His eyesight, sharper than most, picks out every detail with eerie precision.
A party.
Of course.
There are hundreds of young women—very pretty young women—scattered across the back lawns of the mansion. They wear sheer silks and leather straps, outfits more suited to a warm summer stage than a winter night. The fabrics cling to their skin, glittering faintly in the moonlight, but they do little to ward off the cold. Breath plumes in front of their painted lips, and the goosebumps on their exposed arms are clearly visible, even from here.
They shiver—but they smile.
They dance, spin, and sprint with rehearsed grace across the frozen grass, their movements choreographed, fluid. Each step calculated to please. Their bodies, lithe and honed like dancers, gleam under the moonlight, casting the entire display in an eerie, unreal beauty.
For a brief moment, Caliban wonders if he's crossed into another world—one pulled from myth or fevered fantasy. Some of them are even prettier than the worn magazine covers Mole sometimes brings down to the tunnels. They don't look real. Not in this cold. Not in this place.
They look like illusions. Cold ones.
Their beauty stings. It gnaws at something old in Caliban, something that has never quite healed. They are everything he isn't—admired, adorned, desired.
Chasing them are men—burly, powerful, and nearly naked themselves, wearing loincloths or absurdly elaborate costumes. Some wear powdered wigs or exaggerated makeup, like living caricatures of another era. They charge forward with theatrical laughter, lunging and calling after the girls.
The girls shriek and dart just out of reach, never quite running. They perform avoidance, not escape. Every now and then, one of the men brushes a shoulder or catches a wrist, only to be laughed off. A game. A pageant. A performance meant for the people watching above.
And above them, on the third-floor veranda, is the audience.
Older men and women, dressed like something out of a masquerade ball. Tight corsets, flamboyant coats, powdered hair, and jeweled masks. They sip from tall glasses, wine glinting like garnet in crystal stems. They laugh too loudly. Point too eagerly. Nothing about their enjoyment is natural—it is ravenous.
The chill fades. The signal thrums in his bones, pulling him away from the spectacle. The strange party, for all its surreal opulence, is not what he came for.
The signal.
That's what matters.
He shuts out the laughter, the music, the twisted fairy-tale playing out on the lawn. His power pulses again—close, clearer now.
Scanning the grounds with careful precision, Caliban's gaze locked onto a curious sight.
One of the girls stood apart from the others—off in the corner of the yard, bathed in moonlight that caught the shimmer of her white outfit. Her posture was effortless, statuesque. Long golden locks cascaded over her shoulders, and she twirled a strand between her fingers with idle detachment.
What drew Caliban's focus even more were the men around her.
Three of them, circling like wolves with foolish grins stretched across their faces. Unlike the other girls, each attended by only one oddly-dressed man, if they were lucky, this girl had drawn a trio. They jostled, lunged, and mocked each other as they competed for her attention, but none of them ever got close enough to truly touch her.
And stranger still—no one reacted.
Not the girls. Not the veranda guests. In fact, some of the onlookers laughed louder, pointing, cheering, jeering the men on as if this farce was the height of entertainment. The girl in white did not even acknowledge the chaos at her feet.
The mutant.
Her head snapped toward Caliban.
His breath caught.
Even from the shadows, even at a distance, her frost-blue eyes met his. And for a split second, Caliban felt as though time had frozen.
He ducked, but it was too late.
A suffocating force crashed into him—like the crushing pressure of ice settling on his chest, locking every muscle in place.
'WHO ARE YOU?'
The voice was not spoken aloud, but echoed within him, clear and cold, cutting through thought. Female. Commanding. Clipped and precise like a blade drawn across polished glass.
Caliban had encountered telepaths before—there were a few among the Morlocks—but never one like this. Never one who made the air itself feel thinner, the world sharper.
'I WILL NOT ASK AGAIN, CRETIN. WHO. ARE. YOU.'
The pressure doubled, crushing his thoughts into fragments. Pain pulsed through his skull in waves of white-hot agony.
'Ca…li…ban…' he gasped mentally, barely able to form the word.
'HOW DID YOU FIND OUT I WAS A MUTANT? ANSWER ME.'
Caliban couldn't answer, the pain was too much to bear.
The girl's power was a glacier slamming into his consciousness, freezing every instinct and ripping into his mind with surgical violence. He tried to push back—to raise walls, to deflect—but it was like holding a matchstick against a winter storm.
'YOU DARE HIDE FROM ME?'
The voice howled.
Then it struck—an unrelenting force that tore through Caliban's mind like a glacier.
He didn't scream. He couldn't. The pain wasn't external—it lived deeper, buried in thought and memory, in instinct and fear.
But something held.
Something stirred.
It had always been there—humming in the background like static. His sense for others like him. A thread. A pulse.
Now it surged.
Not a flare. Not a flash. A slow ignition. Old. Instinctive.
But it wasn't just power. It was shape. Texture. Foreign patterns mapping themselves over familiar instincts—something inhuman pretending to be homegrown.
His mind, once flickering and faint, began to burn—not with rage, but with clarity. Not bright. Not blinding. Steady. Controlled. A fire that didn't scorch, only revealed.
For a heartbeat, he held the line.
And in that space—he felt her.
Not with eyes.
With presence.
She was a glacier in a black sea—sharp, unyielding, honed by pressure and cold intent. Wrapped in elegance and venom. There was no welcome. Only dominion.
Yet deeper still... a flicker. Not warmth, but pressure. A sealed ache behind frostbitten walls. Something wounded. Unspoken.
He hadn't meant to see it.
Then—
The ice slammed shut like a vault.
She felt it.
The moment shattered.
The cold screamed back, sharper than before. Winds howled through the corridors of his mind, tearing him open.
He fell.
But even as her blizzard drowned him, something shifted.
Not in her. Not in the fight.
Beyond.
Something vast.
At the edge of his senses, where even this new clarity barely reached, something waited.
Not a presence.
An absence.
A void punched into the fabric of the world—black, endless, silent. A gravity that pulled, not because it wanted to—but because it existed.
It was moving.
Caliban didn't understand. Even now—even like this—he shouldn't have sensed something that far.
But he did.
And he wasn't alone.
The pressure in his mind wavered.
Through the haze, he saw her eyes widen. Not fear. Not fury.
Surprise.
The ice cracked.
Her grip faltered—just for a breath.
It was enough.
A Morlock knows when to run.
And Caliban—whatever else he might be—was a Morlock.
He fled.
Through the lawn. Past the gates. Away from the white-clad psychic and her diamond-edged mind.
Toward the darkness.
Toward the new mutant.
His recruitment here had failed.
But perhaps the roaming void—whatever it was—might be kinder.
After surviving the girl on the lawn, Caliban felt like he could survive anything.
But that confidence ebbed quickly as Caliban continued to track the mutant south.
Like a fishing boat following a submerged whale, he was always just behind—close enough to feel the wake, never close enough to glimpse the creature itself.
This one moved fast. Too fast. It cut through city blocks like water through cupped hands, slipping between the cracks of alleys and rooftops, never lingering, never slowing.
Without his newly awakened senses, Caliban would've lost it beneath the dense layers of concrete and steel that blanketed New York City. The shadows here swallowed sound and stifled presence. Even gifted as he was, this thing—this mutant—was a phantom.
So when the presence finally stopped moving, just on the cusp of Lower Manhattan, Caliban let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. The strain was catching up with him. His legs ached. His mind throbbed. He wasn't sure he could have kept up much longer if the shadow kept sprinting.
Still, he didn't rush. He stayed cautious, checking and double-checking to ensure the mutant had truly gone still.
Once certain, he pressed forward.
But the closer he got, the more a familiar dread began to resurface. The glittering estate. The blonde girl. The blizzard behind her eyes. That memory clung to him like wet clothes. Even underground—where death and violence were the daily rhythm of life—that encounter had felt different. Raw. Violating.
He pushed it down.
The scenery helped. The glitzy sparkle of the Upper East Side had faded behind him. Here, things were familiar. The streets were cracked and uneven. Graffiti spilled across the brick like desperate prayers. A few homeless figures huddled near barrel fires, muttering to themselves, barely sparing Caliban a glance.
This place... this place felt like home.
But even here, the void made things different.
There was something about this alley—narrow and ink-dark, lined with old pipes and broken dumpsters—that warned him off. A primal thing. Not quite fear, but... instinct.
Still, he was a Morlock.
And Morlocks knew how to walk where they weren't welcome.
After a long moment of hesitation, Caliban stepped into the alley.
Usually, places like this were dangerous for someone like him. Too secluded. Too easy to disappear in. Even among mutants, a face like his made for an easy target. But tonight, the alley was strangely... quiet. Not just silent. Empty.
He took that as a sign. Perhaps a good one.
He moved forward.
And stepped in something.
Sticky. Elastic. Wrong.
Glancing down, his stomach churned. A tangled mess of white threads crisscrossed the concrete, caked in gray dust, splinters of wood, and smears of blood. It wasn't neat. It looked thrown—discarded. Like a failed experiment. Or worse, like a cocoon cracked open from the inside.
More blood spotted the wall nearby. Just above it, a smeared palm print—red against peeling green paint. At the base, a splatter of vomit still glistened under the alley light. Sharp chemical stench stung his nostrils.
And buried in the bile—something small and silver caught the light.
A badge? A button?
He leaned in closer.
That's when the voice came.
Low. Rough. Bone-tired.
"What are you doing?"
Caliban froze.
Something moved in the dark.
Two faint crimson glows blinked into life from deeper in the alley, hovering like eyes—unblinking, watchful.
They stared into him.
A pressure slithered up his spine. Cold. Animals.
He swallowed hard, and took a cautious step back.
Voice steady. Hands raised.
"Caliban i—is a friend," he said carefully. "A mutant... just like you."
The crimson orbs didn't respond.
They just watched—quiet, calculating. Not hostile. Not yet.
But not attacking.
That was good. Very good.
"You're tired, yes?" Caliban swallowed, voice low and careful. "There is a place. A good place. Safe. For mutants. With warm food. Warm shelter."
As if to underscore his words, the wind picked up—icy and sharp, slicing across his covered face.
"Come, friend," he said gently. "Come. Follow Caliban. To warmth. To safety. To home."
There was the sound of shifting fabric—clothing rustling, weight shifting.
Then a figure emerged from the shadows.
A tired young man. Barely more than a boy. Black, greasy hair hung low over his eyes. His clothes were a patchwork—layered, scavenged, and stained. One sleeve was soaked with blood, and he held that arm close, shielding it from view.
Caliban smiled. A real smile—the first he'd managed all night.
The boy looked at him, hollow-eyed, dark like a pit, but alert. He said nothing.
He didn't need to.
With quiet steps, Caliban turned. And the boy followed.
Together, they vanished into the deeper dark—down, beneath the streets of the city that never sleeps.
Home.
...
Author Notes
Hello. I am not a good writer, and its take me at least a day to type out 600 words. However I have this idea in my heads that just refuse to leave. So considered it a one shot for now, if I find the idea interesting, I'll come back to add more.
This is mainly inspired by Scriviner (o7) 'With Great Power One Must Go Further Beyond', which I adore with all my heart. I suggest you checked it out if you want just a better and longer version of this.
Enjoy.