The world rumbled. Chains swung overhead, a dizzying array of metal and meat. The hooks pulled against Seth’s flesh. He hung against them, felt their cold seeping into his chest. But then the pain would lance through him, burning hot and scrambling through his nerves like a river of magma.

Seth was trapped once again. This time, he couldn’t even rage against his restraints. He hung in the air, with nothing to hold on to. And the only thing keeping him there were the bloody hooks, and it was his own body weight holding those in place. Even if he wasn’t weak and tired and drained of blood, there was nothing he could do.

It was better to relax, to let the darkness drip across his eyes and drift into the numbing cold.

The man tromped back into the slaughterhouse, the chainsaw growling in his hand. He looked different. His overalls were gone, as was half his plaid shirt. Underneath, his skin was covered in a black crust, and it leaked with blood and pus.

Somewhere, deep within Seth’s mind, he knew the man had been burned. But who could have done such a thing? Earlier, he’d noticed someone slinking in the slaughterhouse, hidden in the shadows. But his mind was so blurry and his thoughts slipped through his lumbering grasp.

The man, the butcher, shoved the chainsaw beside the oil lamp. He sagged against the table and gasped for breath. He waited there for some time before grabbing the radio. He pulled the receiver to his mouth, then thought better of it and tossed it to the side.

Something burned within Seth’s gut. At first, he thought it was just another flare of pain from the meat hooks. But no, this was different. The parasite. It was angry.

Why was that? Did it want Seth to live? Did it even care?

He understood nothing about these parasites, and even trying to think about them made his head pound. But there was something there, something he was missing. Seth felt a strange presence at the back of his skull. Like a bundle of energy, waiting to be released.

It took the last shred of his willpower, but Seth prodded at this unfamiliar mass, and a needle of clarity speared through his mind. His eyes snapped open, his pain bloomed anew, and the cold numbness that dripped down his muscles began to fade away.

Seth grit his teeth, and he drew on the ball of energy again. The fog cleared from his mind. His eyes snapped to the butcher, who was hunched over a table, his back to Seth. A hatchet stuck out from his shoulder. The same one he’d used to decapitate Riles. How had that happened?

The butcher growled. He held something long and bloody, and he sunk his teeth into it. A wave of nausea rolled through Seth, and he almost lost his connection to the burning potential that buzzed against his skull. The butcher was eating Will’s severed arm.

How could someone do something so vile? A man like that needed to be put down like the rabid dog he was.

Now that his mind began to clear, Seth remembered how he’d gotten there. How that butcher had clobbered him with the sledgehammer. How he’d strung Seth up like a piece of meat.

That was the worst part. Seth refused to be chained up, restrained, helpless. He began to thrash against the chains, but each twitch of his muscles sent the hooks deeper into his flesh, their cold metal grinding against his ribs.

No matter how much he struggled, Seth knew he’d never escape those hooks. Which left him with only one option.

He reached over his head and grabbed the chain, one hand over the other. And then he began to pull, one hand wrenching down toward his head, the other pushing up toward the ceiling. His fingers tightened around the links, so hard he could feel the metal digging against the bones of his palm.

As he strained, Seth drew on this bundle of energy. He pulled it down from his skull, then up his arms. The burning potential swelled through his muscles until they were hard as iron. The chain creaked between his fingers, growing warm under the constant pressure.

Seth screamed. The hooks pressed into his ribs. Blood dripped down his sweater, so hot near the source, but turning ice cold as it ran down his legs. The chain links began to stretch. The metal groaned as Seth continued to pull with all his strength.

And then the chain snapped.

His feet hit the ground, and Seth collapsed backward. He heaved for air, exhausted. His arms fell to the sides, as if they weighed a thousand pounds. That mysterious energy was gone, dissipated, and Seth shivered with pain.

The butcher stared at him. How long had he been watching? Blood dripped down the butcher’s chin, and he slowly chewed a strip of Will’s flesh. That done, he tossed the arm to the side and grabbed the chainsaw.

God damn it!

Seth crawled backward. He needed to fight. Failing that, he needed to get away. But with every breath, the hooks sent a torrent of needles through his nerves. He knew the standard medical advice was to keep the hooks in his flesh until he could treat the wound. Seth didn’t care. He reached down, grasped the blood-slicked hooks, and pushed them deeper into his chest and out the other side.

A soft groan escaped his lips as the metal jostled his internal organs. His vision blurred from the pain, and the blood rushed from his head. Even so, he didn’t stop until the hooks slipped out of his back and clattered against the pavement.

The butcher held the chainsaw overhead, then swung it down in a wide arc. Seth rolled backward, and the buzzing saw nicked his hoodie. He tried to get up, but his legs refused. Blood boiled up from his stomach, and every movement tore at the deep holes in his chest.

Yellow eyes burned in the darkness. Out of options, Seth scooted under a metal table. The butcher approached, towering over him, and he batted the table aside as if it were a house of cards. Burned as he was, the butcher was fast and strong as a bull. And Seth could barely move.

The butcher twisted the chainsaw around until he held it overhand, like an oversized dagger. The saw accelerated into a high-pitched scream, orange light reflecting off the blur of steel. Seth needed to move. But the blood seeped around him in a warm puddle, and he grew weaker with every drop.

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The butcher plunged the chainsaw at Seth’s neck. The saw flicked through the air like a bolt of lightning, and somehow, Seth managed to get his arms up in time. He caught the saw between his palms and pushed it back.

Pain blossomed against his knuckles. Blood sprayed into the air, and then his fingers were gone, scraps of flesh scattering as the saw tore them apart. Even so, Seth held the chainsaw back, trapped between his palms. With no fingers to grip it, Seth poured all his strength into squeezing the saw’s arm, friction alone stopping the butcher from burying it in his neck.

But then the butcher leaned down, adding his weight to the saw. Seth screamed, his arms burning worse than the bloody stumps of his fingers. It felt like trying to hold back a mountain. And with the blood slicking his palms, the saw slowly inched down, closer to his neck.

His hold slipped. The saw lurched downward. Seth managed to catch it again, but now he could feel the saw whispering against his throat. And with every inch his hands slipped, the more the chainsaw dug into the bloody stumps of his fingers, shaving them down and grinding the bone into a burning dust.

This was it. Seth had fought his damn hardest, but there was nothing left he could do. This butcher was just too strong, and Seth was too weak. Soon the butcher would feed on his flesh, just as he’d fed on Will’s.

The thought of that maniac tearing into his meat filled Seth with a burning rage. He looked inward, to the parasite. If that slug had any more surprises, now was the time. But he felt nothing from the creature living in his gut. And the strange presence, the bundle of energy he’d used to break the chains, was gone. Nowhere to be found.

Actually, there was something. Not the bundle of energy, but a softer presence. One he’d overlooked until now. The Inkling system.

With nothing to lose, and the saw a breath away from his throat, Seth pulled up the stat sheet.

Inkling Version 1.0

Name: Seth Mayhew

Stage: 2

First Shadow [+50% Efficiency]

Strength: 17

Reflex: 8

Vigor: 9

Clarity: 13

Integration: 32%

Free Points: 8 [+4 Each Stage]

Wishes:

ChainBreaker [+10 Strength | +5% Integration]

Inkling [+5 Clarity | +25% Integration]

He’d ignored the top half of the sheet earlier, dismissing it for some irrelevant numbers. But one of the attributes was labeled Strength. If Seth was just a little stronger, he’d be able to hold the chainsaw back. Below the list of attributes, it said he had eight free points. Did that mean he could distribute those anywhere he liked?

No time to consider. Seth dumped all the points into Strength, bringing his total to twenty-five.

The chainsaw halted. Seth’s arms burned, and his muscles twisted into a dense cord of hardened steel. He growled at the butcher, and he slowly pushed the saw up, overpowering the butcher’s brute strength and his mountainous weight.

Seth twisted the saw to the side and rolled out of the way. The chainsaw plunged down and skipped across the concrete with a shower of sparks.

But Seth didn’t stop there. He lurched to his feet. His stomach squealed with pain, nearly tore open, and he pressed a bloody hand against the wound to stop his guts from spilling out. But the pain was distant, a mere afterthought. The only thing that mattered was killing this bastard.

The butcher hunched over, his shoulders hitching as he heaved for breath. He bent down, holding the chainsaw low, and swung it up in a diagonal slash. Seth dodged back. Wind buffeted his face as the chainsaw whipped past. The butcher’s momentum sent him staggering to the side, and Seth took the chance to step forward and kick the saw from his hand.

The chainsaw clattered to the ground, its harsh scream reduced to an idle growl. The butcher glanced at it, made a run for his fallen weapon.

Seth thrust his hand forward and tried to grab the butcher around the throat. He’d forgotten his missing fingers, and the useless stumps slid across the butcher’s burnt neck to no effect. A twisted smile curled up the butcher’s cheek. He angled his jaw down and snapped at Seth’s hand, his teeth clacking together. Seth pulled back, but not before the butcher snagged a bite of bloody meat from the back of his hand.

What a fucking psycho! Seth had no more patience for this. Forgetting his wounded stomach, he reared back and slugged the butcher’s face. Then again, and again, each blow knocking the butcher back until he fell against a table.

The table legs screeched against the concrete as the butcher collapsed atop it with a loud clatter. Even burnt and bloody, the maniac still chewed Seth’s flesh, a smile across his face.

Seth stumbled back, found the chainsaw. Its engine still rumbled, the smell of exhaust mixing with the taste of blood, sweet and metallic and harsh all at once. He held the saw overhead, pressed what remained of his index finger to the trigger, and pulled it as far as it would go. The chainsaw screamed a high-pitched wail, and its vibrations shivered down his bones.

Only now did the butcher realize the danger he was in. His eyes stretched wide, his smile dying. He paused his chewing, a ball of bloody flesh held in an open mouth. His arms shot out, hoping to catch the blade as Seth had done.

Not a chance.

Seth swept the chainsaw through the butcher’s arm. It tore into his flesh, hitched against the bone, but then it was through. Blood sprayed from the stump and spattered against Seth’s face. He blinked the grime away.

The butcher scrambled back, tried to bat the chainsaw with his remaining arm. But one arm couldn’t stop the spinning chain of sharpened steel, so Seth plunged it directly into the butcher’s stomach.

Blood sprayed as Seth ran the chainsaw through the butcher, then carved it up his chest. The man split down the middle. Black entrails sagged from the open wound, spilling onto the floor. The butcher pawed at the saw with his remaining hand, but it was no use.

With the last of his strength, Seth wrenched the saw up his ribs and out his collarbone. The chainsaw burst free with an arc of blood and guts.

It was a better death than the fucker deserved.

Seth dropped the chainsaw. All at once, his injuries tugged at him. His severed fingers. His impaled stomach. The blood loss. He fell back, darkness clouding his vision.

Where was he? Before him lay the butcher, split open like a rotting whale carcass, its guts strewn across the sand. Blood slicked the concrete. So much blood. How much of it was his?

The butcher shivered. Seth frowned, trying to stay alert, but he couldn’t bring himself to be bothered. So he did nothing as a yellow parasite slithered from the butcher’s corpse, crawled over to Seth, and leaped into his veins.

[Integration threshold exceeded. State your desire.]

His desire? The words seemed familiar, but Seth couldn’t remember what they meant. The only thing he felt was hot pain contrasted by a chilling numbness. And he wanted it to stop. He wanted to feel better.

[Wish granted.]

Seth fell back and closed his eyes. The blood pooled around him, soaking into his hoodie and his jeans and tingling against his skin. It felt nice. Like floating through a pool on a hot summer day. He didn’t know how long he lay there, but when he opened his eyes, the pain was dull, a distant throb.

He sat up, pulled up his hoodie, and prodded at his stomach. The wound had closed, a thick scab covering the twin holes where he’d been impaled. And his fingers were coming back. Seth stared at them, squinting under the oil lamp’s dim glow. Bones slowly grew from the ragged stumps, and layers of muscles spun around them, filling in the gaps. New skin swept over the exposed muscle, and fingernails jutted out to finish off the healing.

Seth clenched his fingers into a fist, then released them again. They felt fine. Normal. The only evidence they’d been hacked off in the first place was a distinct line between the old skin and the new. One side rough and dirty, the other pale and smooth.

Footsteps echoed across the concrete. Seth turned around just as Alex burst into the room. She was out of breath, and she carried a heavy sledgehammer.