Episode 7: Silver Like Mercy

So Ant woke up chained to a radiator in a room that didn't remember what heat felt like. That's how it started.

The floor was concrete. The walls were insulted - by water damage. A single bulb hung like it had been sentenced to watch. His mouth tasted like copper and forgetting. His chest ached where someone had written pain in fists. And his arm - his arm had teeth in it. Two rows. Familiar ones.

He blinked. Once for time. Twice for inventory.

Both boots. One sock. Knife gone. Pulse steady.

Still human.

Maybe.

Somewhere above him, the building breathed. Not warmly. Just The way old buildings do, like they're dying in slow motion. Someone screamed two floors up. Or laughed. It was hard to tell the difference when hope's been wrung dry.

Ant pulled against the chain and felt the metal judge him. He remembered the mission like a dream you don't want to keep:

Go in. Save the girl. Leave fast.

Except the girl was already half a corpse and the school had been full of mouths.

Something bit him once. Then again.

And then nothing.

But that's not how it's supposed to go.

People turn.

That's the rule.

You get bit, you eat your friends.

You don't just sleep for two days and wake up thirsty.

His blood was sticky on the tile. Not red. Not all red.

There were streaks of silver like moonlight trying to crawl away.

He didn't scream. Screaming is what you do before the world ends. Not after.

The door creaked. Not open - just a warning.

A man stepped inside like someone who owned silence.

Tall. Black coat. No logo. Eyes like someone had drained the color out of rage.

"You're awake," he said. Not a question.

Ant didn't answer. Questions are expensive. Answers cost blood.

"I'm L," the man added. "Leader of what's left."

He walked like memory had stopped being useful. Sat on a stool that hadn't been there five seconds ago.

Ant licked his lip. It tasted like rusted reasons.

"I didn't turn," he said. Finally. Quiet.

Like confession, if the priest had claws.

"No. You didn't."

L tossed something at him. A photo. The girl. Eyes wide. Mouth wrong. Jaw unhinged like someone had taught her how to scream backwards.

"She bit you?" L asked.

Ant nodded. "Twice."

L nodded back. Like math. Like prophecy.

"Then you're one of us. Number thirty."

Ant didn't move.

"Us?"

L didn't blink. "Silverbloods."

Then:

"You've felt it. The way your hearing comes back sharper. The way fear gets quieter. The way your heart forgets how to be scared."

He had.

He just didn't know what to call it.

"It doesn't mean you're safe," L said, standing again. "It means you're different. Which means you're dangerous. Which means you're useful. Maybe."

The lights flickered. That wasn't metaphor. That was the building breathing its last.

Outside, a generator died screaming. Someone coughed down the hall in a language made of blood.

Ant's veins burned like someone was forging wire under his skin.

He looked at L.

 "What now?"

L smiled. It wasn't kind.

"Now you get out of those chains before you lose your hands."

Ant blinked. "You locked me up."

"You think I dragged your half-dead ass out of a cannibal nursery to let you run around untested?"

Then softer:

"You're changing. The next ten minutes decide if you live as something new… or die as something trying."

Then L was gone.

Not walked-out-the-door gone. Just gone.

Like someone had erased him without telling the floorboards.

Ant sat still. He listened.

The chain wasn't that strong. But his bones weren't normal anymore either.

He felt them shifting - whispers under skin. Ligaments stretching like they were waking up late.

He pulled once. The pipe groaned. He pulled again.

The wall came with him.

Not metaphor.

Brick. Dust. Collapse.

He stood. The light above him shattered without touching. His hands were shaking - but not from fear. From speed. From strength. From mutation.

His blood ran silver in the cuts on his knuckles.

And that's when the pain came. Not screaming pain.

Rebuilding pain.

Like his body was being printed again. Better.

Or worse.

He fell. He knelt. He breathed. He didn't scream.

And somewhere deep inside his bones, something opened its eyes and smiled back at him.

Later, people would say they'd seen him that night.

The one they called Ant.

Unit 12 dropout.

Kid with a knife and a name no one remembered.

They'd say they saw him rip through walls like forgiveness.

They'd say his blood shone like moonlight where it hit the ground.

They'd say he didn't look scared. Didn't look mad.

Just awake.