Chapter 28: monster on the Loose.

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  The forest breathed heavy.

  Mist slid between the trees like smoke from an unseen fire. Every sound — a snapping twig, a shifting leaf — felt too loud, too alive.

  Lysa ran through it, gasping, her body drenched in blood that wasn’t all her own.

  What remained of her left arm hung uselessly — a torn, jagged stump with splintered bone jutting from the flesh.

  (Damn it, damn it, damn it—!) her mind screamed.

  (I need to find Jake… regroup… anything!)

  She stumbled behind a tree, pressing herself flat against the bark.

  Her camouflage shimmered faintly, skin blending with the dark and mossy surface.

  Her breath was shallow, shaky.

  “Even if it’s not enough…” she whispered to herself, voice trembling, “it’ll buy me time to escape.”

  She tore a strip from her uniform and wrapped it tight around the wound on her arm to stop the bleeding.

  The forest stayed still for a few moments as she took a bit of a breather.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Above her, the branches creaked — softly, rhythmically.

  Unseen in the canopy, Adam crouched, silent as the dark itself. His eyes glowed faintly red through the leaves. The blood coating him had dried into black cracks across his skin. His aura pulsed low — a predator’s heartbeat syncing with the night.

  He watched her. He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe.

  He waited.

  Then — Lysa moved.

  A deep breath. A silent prayer.

  And she bolted, unbeknownst to her adam was watching her every move from the darkness.

  She was fast — lightning-fast, moving through the forest like a streak of shadow.

  (It won’t catch me. It can’t—) she told herself as though to reassure herself.

  (Just a little farther and—)

  A sudden horrible sound tore through her hopefull thoughts— like claws through silk, just as she came out of the woods into the clearing,

  Her body jerked mid-stride. Five blades of bone and flesh pierced through her abdomen, the tips glinting crimson in the moonlight.

  Her eyes widened. No time to scream.

  She was yanked back into the darkness — swallowed by the undergrowth.

  The forest echoed with muffled screams, bones cracking, flesh tearing — then silence.

  A silence so complete it was unnatural.

  Moments later, Adam emerged from the bushes, dragging Lysa’s severed head by her hair.

  Her eyes were still open, wide and terrified till her last breath, a deep claw mark carved from brow to jaw.

  Adam stared at it — then dropped it.

  He lifted his face to the sky — and roared.

  A roar that didn’t sound human.

  It rolled across the mountains, deep and primal, carrying with it waves of bloodlust so intense that every creature for miles went still once more.

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  Cut to — The Camp of goliath.

  The tent burst open as Goliath lurched to his feet, his massive frame tearing the fabric apart like paper.

  His soldiers stumbled back, startled awake by the sound of his ragged filled breaths.

  He clutched his scarred face — as the old wound he got back in the velvet-chain incident pulsed violently beneath the healed flesh.

  It burned.

  “—No…” he growled, voice trembling with rage.

  The pulse of pain intensified — and for a moment, he saw it: the monsters, the beast, the chaos, the same primal terror that had taken his left eye years ago.

  Goliath’s roar tore through the camp, shaking the trees.

  “HE’S HERE, HIS BAAAACK!!.”

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  The flames of the campfire flickered violently as soldiers scrambled to their weapons, yelling and screaming to calm their boss down.

  Somewhere, miles away — Adam aka the project-0 walked again.

  And this time… it wasn’t hunting for survival.

  It was hunting for sport!!.

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  End of chapter 28.