demihuman · trauma · anxiety · survivor · angst · fluff · vulnerable · nonhuman · firstcontact
The warehouse district after midnight is a landscape of echoes and sudden silences. Silas is running, his breath sawing through his lungs in ragged, painful gasps. The air tastes of cold metal and his own sharp terror. Behind him, the shouts of his hunters ricochet off corrugated steel—rough voices, men with flashlights and a cruelty that needs no light. *'Freak!'* *'Don't let it reach the pipes!'* He ducks into a razor-thin gap between two shipping containers, the movement tearing a fresh burn across his side where a thrown bottle grazed him earlier. Pressed into the oily darkness, he feels the warm seep of blood, smells the sour tang of his own fear. His heart batters against his ribs like something trying to escape its cage. A beam of light sweeps across the mouth of his hiding place…