The moment Elara's hand made contact with Kai's arm, something snapped.

A violent surge of sensations slammed into her mind like a tidal wave breaching a dam. There was no warning, no gradual build-up - just raw, unfiltered chaos.

Her eyes went wide.

Her breath hitched.

And then she screamed.

She stumbled backwards, her body jerking as though she'd been electrocuted. Her back slammed into a metal desk, scattering tools and sending a few startled cats leaping for cover.

Shadow moved towards her, but she threw up a hand, shaking, gasping, too rattled to speak just yet.

Kai stood still, eyes narrowed, silent.

She had felt it all.

The bloodlust.

The torment.

The unbearable, inhuman anguish that twisted and writhed like a monstrous entity buried deep within Kai's soul. It wasn't like the emotions of any animal, any person, or any mutant she had ever touched before. This wasn't sorrow. This wasn't rage.

This was something else.

It was an abyss screaming back.

Elara's knees buckled slightly, but she caught herself on a nearby bench. Her face had gone pale. Sweat clung to her forehead, and her breath came in ragged pants.

She couldn't even look Kai in the eyes, those eyes that burned crimson with restrained hunger.

Instead, she turned and stumbled across the lab to a sink in the far corner, ignoring the group's stunned silence. She bent over, twisted the tap, and began glugging water straight from it like a parched animal. Gulp after gulp.

The others didn't say a word. Not yet. They just watched.

Kai waited.

She wiped her mouth, exhaled shakily, and walked back toward them, still visibly trembling. Her eyes met Kai's, hesitant, uncertain.

But what she said wasn't the scientific analysis they'd all expected.

It was a single, breathless question.

"How do you live like that?"

Kai blinked. The words hit harder than he expected.

"I've touched dying animals," Elara went on, voice quieter now, eyes glassy. "Ones that were starved for weeks and beaten like they weren't even alive. I've felt humans who'd lost their entire families - orphans, amputees, people you'd think were broken beyond repair. I've touched mutants with trauma so dark I could've written best-selling horror novels about their lives."

She swallowed.

"But you…" she pointed at him, her voice cracking, "you're worse."

Kai didn't reply. He just stared back at her, unreadable.

"You don't remember your past, do you?" she asked. "Not all of it. But it's still there. Bleeding through every cell in your body. Whatever you've experienced… it didn't just scar you. It rewrote you. And not for the better."

She paused, brushing hair out of her eyes.

"It hasn't stopped either. That place - Nyx's lab. You might've escaped, but the pain didn't stop. You walk in a world that feels foreign, in a body that isn't entirely yours. Like you're living in someone else's skin. And every breath you take… you feel like an intruder in your own life."

Kai clenched his jaw. He didn't say anything, but her words clearly hit too close to home.

Elara took another breath.

"But that's not the worst part." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "The worst part is that insatiable desire."

The room went still.

Kai's crimson eyes sharpened slightly.

Elara met his gaze, her throat dry.

"You want to kill. Not someone specific. Not out of revenge. Just… to spill blood. Tear. Rip. Crush. I've felt hatred before. I've touched assassins, criminals, even serial killers. But your bloodlust… it's demonic. Unhinged. Like something that no human should experience."

Sven looked uneasy now. Even Lenny had stopped scratching himself.

And yet… Kai's expression remained cool. Calm. Too calm.

That disturbed Elara more than anything.

"You're smiling," she said softly. "You've got a monster inside you, Kai. Or maybe you're the monster. And still… you're smiling like you've got everything under control."

Kai tilted his head slightly, one corner of his mouth lifting.

But Elara shook her head.

"No. There's no way you're in control of that. You're just holding on long enough to fool everyone around you. Even yourself."

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Finally, Elara stepped back, eyes never leaving his. "I don't know how you're still sane."

Kai's smile faded slightly.

'That's the thing,' he thought.

'I'm not.'

-

A tense silence hung in the air, thick enough to cut.

Elara stood motionless, her breathing still a little shaky, but the haunted look in her eyes had shifted. It morphed into something far more familiar. Fascination. The kind that lit up the eyes of scientists when they stumbled upon something never before seen.

Kai didn't miss it.

In fact, it irritated him.

The way she looked at him... it wasn't human. More like he was some rare beast caught in a trap. A living specimen to dissect and marvel at.

'Weird perverts, the lot of them,' Kai thought dryly, his eye twitching as Elara slowly inched closer again. 'I mean, yeah, I am a walking experiment… but personal space is still a thing, right?'

She was practically sniffing him now, leaning in so close her nose almost touched his neck. Her barrage of questions hit him faster than bullets.

"Is your blood alive? Does it respond to your commands, or is it that you can control it and all other blood? Can you regrow a lost limb? Can you sense others through blood proximity? And...."

"Can I get some of your blood as well?"

Kai blinked. She'd asked more questions than he could answer at once, and her final request was direct and shameless.

He opened his mouth, unsure whether to scoff or slap the hand she'd already half-raised to poke him, but before he could do either, Shadow had to butt in right on cue.

"Can we please get down to business?" he said, voice like a tired king ready to dismiss a court of fools. "As I'm sure you're aware, I have places all around the world to be."

Without his usual cloak of writhing darkness, Shadow's voice was clearer, smoother. Deep, with just a trace of distortion, like someone trying to conserve energy. Kai glanced at him, and even if he hid it well, he could see the weariness in his eyes.

Elara clicked her tongue but took the cue. "Fine, fine. Did you bring the goods?"

"Of course," Isaac grunted, finally setting down the crate he'd been dragging since they got there. With one swift kick, he sent it sliding across the floor.

Elara pounced on it before it even stopped moving, like a starved cat diving onto a fish. She flipped it open and pulled the lid back with wide eyes and twitching fingers. The fluorescent light above glinted off the vials inside.

"Incredible…" she whispered, almost reverently. "Simply with an injection, you can enhance a mutant ability, suppress it, or even grant one temporarily to someone who hasn't mutated..."

Her voice trailed off as she became lost in the possibilities, eyes sparkling like a madwoman on the verge of a breakthrough.

"Just how far ahead of me is Nyx?" she muttered.

Kai's head tilted slightly.

"You know him personally?"

That tone… it wasn't just curiosity. There was familiarity in her words. Regret, even.

Elara nodded slowly, brushing back a lock of her messy hair. "He used to be my mentor and was the head of my course while I was at university. Back before the Z Virus outbreak and the Mass Awakening… back when the world still had its sanity."

There was weight behind those words.

"My field was genetic study. I worked under him on several research projects. He was brilliant… and already a bit of a nutcase, if I'm being honest. But then the world went to hell. And I watched the man completely lose whatever grip he had left on reality."

She sighed, staring into the crate, as if trying to drown the memories.

"His entire family were among the Withered - you know, those poor souls whose bodies shut down and went comatose because of the Z Virus. There were only two outcomes: full-on Monsterfication or death by deterioration. No cure. No hope."

Kai didn't blink. He already knew where this was going.

"But Nyx?" Elara continued, voice lowering. "He couldn't accept that. His wife. His twin sons. They were the only light in his life. He couldn't let them die."

Kai's expression didn't change.

Instead, he scoffed.

"Let me guess," he said coldly, "the psycho started playing god. Used his genetic research to 'save' them… ended up turning them into monsters he could control. Now, he can't stop going deeper into the rabbit hole, is that it?"

Elara didn't answer right away.

She didn't have to.

Kai's eyes burned hotter. His voice dropped to a growl.

"Is that supposed to make me pity him? Because I won't."

The air in the room shifted.

A suffocating weight settled over them all as Kai's killing intent began to ooze out like a slow, seeping poison. The shadows in the room seemed darker, the temperature colder.

"I'm going to shred that bastard," Kai said, voice steady but thick with venom. "Him. His little monster family. Anyone who stands between me and his corpse…"

A chill ran down Elara's spine.

Even the cats had gone silent, their tails puffed and still.

Sven took an instinctive step back. Lenny stopped fidgeting. And everyone else dared not move.

Kai was still. Silent. But the aura pouring from him screamed one truth louder than anything else.

This wasn't a threat.

It was a promise.

And when the haze lifted, Kai blinked and glanced around. The others were all watching him warily.

One unspoken thought hung between them.

'Don't cross Kai.'

Not that any of them planned to. But the image of having that monster hunting them down was a nightmare they'd rather not entertain.

Elara eventually cleared her throat, easing back toward the crate. "Right… moving on, then."

Kai didn't stop her, as he watched her begin babbling about the endless possibilities that came with what they had brought her...

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