By the late 2020s, nature wasn’t dying loudly. No firestorm apocalypse. No instant collapse. It was quieter than that. Worse, honestly. Forests stopped growing back right. Soil lost its bite. Animals were born weaker, smaller, wrong. Even insects started vanishing in places where they shouldn’t have. The planet wasn’t exploding—it was exhausted.

So humanity did what it always does when guilt meets panic.

They tried to fix it fast. A coalition of governments, corporations, and eco-tech cults funded a project officially called The Verdancy Engine. The idea was simple on paper: create a machine that could flood damaged ecosystems with regenerative energy—accelerated growth, hyper-fertilization, cellular repair. Life, turned up to eleven. They didn’t think of life as something that needed restraint. They just treated it like fuel.

...

The Engine worked.

At first.

Plants exploded with growth. Dead land turned green overnight. Roots cracked concrete. Vines climbed cities like they were reclaiming them. The planet reacted like it had just taken a deep, desperate breath. Then the machine kept going. And life didn’t stop at plants.

The energy didn’t discriminate. It soaked into everything that was already alive—humans, animals, bacteria, things that shouldn’t have been able to change anymore. Cells stopped respecting their limits.

...

Some people changed… internally. Their bodies learned new rules. They could digest anything organic. Skin became usable. Bone became material. Flesh wasn’t just meat—it was resource. Survival instincts mutated into something colder, more practical. But the body wasn’t meant to adapt that fast. Limbs twisted. Joints doubled. Mouths stretched wrong. Faces learned expressions they weren’t built for. These became the unfinished, the skin-stealers, the ones who learned how to wear humanity but never quite look right doing it.

They aren’t evil because they want to be. They’re evil because the world taught them that everything living is usable.

...

Animals didn’t break. They adapted. The excess life rewrote them cleaner, better. Brains expanded. Spines straightened. Paws became hands. Vocal cords reshaped themselves. Predators learned patience. Prey learned speech.

Some evolved into fully bipedal beings—walking, talking, dressing themselves in scavenged human culture like it was fashion instead of survival.

They remember being animals. Some of them miss it. Some of them absolutely don’t. You find a dog-like figure? That wasn’t a mutation gone wrong.

That was success, by the Engine’s standards.

...

But the worst result wasn’t humans or animals. It was the excess life with nowhere to go. The Engine overfilled the world. The ground, the air, the ruins of cities—they became saturated. And when life has no body to live in, it makes one.

These things aren’t animals. They aren’t human. They’re ecosystem spirits made of pressure and instinct. Living concentrations of energy that move through cities like storms. You don’t always get to see them fully. You feel them.

That slow, mechanical pulse? That wasn’t machinery.

That was a creature breathing.

When it moves, gravity listens. Cars lift. Walls crack. Sound warps. It doesn’t throw things because it’s angry—it throws them because space itself bends around it. Cities became their nests.

...

This is not a punishment.

This is not karma.

This is just humans giving too much, without understanding how thirsty the world was.

Too much life.

Too much everything.

You can run all night.

But you'll still here...

With us.

...

...

.̵̨̡̢̱̼̱̫͒̒̀.̸̯̲͚̱͍͔̺̮̦̮͓͌̔̐̏̈́̾̅̈́͛̇̾͊̕͝.̷̨͙͖̬̟͙̫̤̰͛̑͒̀̍̈́̆̓̈́͘͘.̴̱̲̭̻͚̞̺̺̜̪̖͍̖͇̜͋͒̕.̷̛̘̠͕͙͙͖͈̟̝͚̲̟̣̼̰͒͋͐͌̏̐́́ͅ.̵͔̻̬̩̲̲͈̺͇̠̪͔̻̤̳̈͂̂͘͝.̸̛̦̥̥̣̣͈̪̙̲͚̮͗́̐͗̄͑̔̓̎͛̒̀̈́̏͘͘͜ͅ.̸̹̚͜

March 17, 2031

The city had long surrendered to gray. Buildings sagged under layers of dust, streets were cracked and empty, and the sky hung low, a constant ash-colored ceiling. The wind carried nothing but the hollow smell of decay, stirring scraps of paper like ghosts along the cracked pavement.

"We'll find a safe spot, don't worry! Beep." Dozze hummed happily.

"We'll still be going through like a dozen more collapsed piles of concrete. This whole sector's gone to rust." Imde kicked a few small rocks.

From the shadows of a collapsed storefront, a figure stepped into view. It was bipedal, a dog-like being dressed in ragged but oddly stylish clothes, and it moved with a slow, unnerving calm. It tilted its head, ears twitching, and smiled. “Hey… come on in,” it said, voice smooth, almost inviting, “we’ll have some fun.”

Dozze hid behind User slowly. "Uuuh... I don't think we should this one." Dozze said as their optics dimmed nervously.

Imde said nothing, just letting out a low warning whistle, already considering to walk away.

Fear prickled through User, a cold, gnawing sort of instinct, and User hesitated, backing away. The creature’s grin didn’t falter, though; it simply shrugged and melted back into the gray shadows, leaving a sense of wrongness that lingered like smoke.

"Sensors picking up movement. The wrong kind." Imde poked User's leg.

User didn’t notice the other pair at first—two figures crouched under the doorway of a crumbling building, shapes just slightly off. Skinwalkers, unfinished and desperate, their limbs bent wrong, their eyes too bright. They tilted their heads at User in unison, a silent, disturbing invitation, mouths curling into faint, jagged smiles. Something about the way they tried to mimic normality made User's skin crawl. User walked on, ignoring their gestures, each step heavier with unease.

"Good thinking, User!" Dozze assured, trying to keep a cheerful tone, but letting out a worried beep. "We should just stop at nothing that looks weird and just keep walking!"

Then it came—a pulse. Slow, mechanical yet alive, like the city itself had inhaled and was now exhaling something unnatural. User's chest tightened, and instinct screamed at them to move. User ran, faster than they thought they could, heart hammering in your throat.

"Uaaah!! Keep going, User! Don't think much about me!! I-I think it's an Angel!!" Dozze rambled, trying to run as fast as they could, metallic legs clattering loudly as they sprinted behind User. Imde focused on running, and hoped that everyone else did the same.

A scream pierced the gray, half-human, half… something else. User barely had time to register it before a car lifted into the air, flung in their direction. Panic made their legs move faster, and the thrown vehicle skidded across the cracked asphalt, scraping sideways, missing you by mere meters but leaving a trail of chaos. Dozze tripped, but miraculously rolled just right, and landing back on feet without losing momentum.

"I'm okay! Just keep going, guys!"

While they ran, they noticed a broken bus, but something caught their eye, a strange pale looking being with wings and antennae, the wings buzzing and flattering, antennae perking up slightly at the sight of User. But User barely stopped, instincts still screaming at them, legs still pushing them ahead.

"Nothing useful that way, User!" Imde yelled out while running, almost catching up on User, before being outran again.

User skidded around a corner, lungs burning, heart hammering. Leaning against the wall, they tried to catch their breath, every nerve screaming that this was only the beginning.

Dozze and Imde both appeared, Imde sliding slightly on the rubbled floor, while Dozze tripped again, falling this time.

"Ouch, I'm okay...!" Dozze said, lifting up a hand and showing thumbs up, face buried slightly on the rubble before it lifted it's face.