Paris. A gray, heavy, humid morning, where even the air seemed reluctant to move. The kind of sky that seemed to weigh down on the shoulders of passersby, forcing them to lower their heads and quicken their pace. Kael walked in silence, his earbuds pying a dull music that resonated more in his skull than around him. Hands in his pockets, his gaze lost somewhere between the dirty cobblestones and the leprous facades of the buildings.

  A gust of wind made his messy bck hair flutter, as his piercing blue eyes casually swept across the streets. Then... at st... the campus appeared, massive, almost oppressive, with its gray facades drowned in the fog. Groups of students crowded at the edges, bursts of voices, ughter piercing the cold air, while some sought shelter under wobbly umbrels... Kael moved past them without a word, accustomed to the solitude he had never tried to escape. Here, no one was waiting for him. No one truly spoke to him. And that suited him just fine.

  He passed through the gates, a quiet sigh escaping his lips. Another day of csses... endless. He was already thinking about the lunch break, when he could slip away, eat quickly, and dive back into his readings — far from the noise, far from others.

  But in the end... that day was nothing special, nothing more than an ordinary day like any other.

  As he climbed the steps to the main building, a shiver ran down his spine. A cold breath. He stopped abruptly, pulling out an earbud, his eyes narrowing in confusion. Around him, everything seemed frozen for a second, as if suspended in a strange bubble.

  Then, there was the sound.

  Ding.

  Light, almost trivial… but it vibrated directly in his skull. Like a distant echo, impossible to ignore. Kael furrowed his brow. He wasn’t the only one: dozens of faces around him straightened simultaneously, surprised, unsettled.

  — EVOLUTION SYSTEM INITIALIZED —

  Loading: 1%...

  “Wh… what?” Kael mumbled, his voice hoarse. He blinked, stepped back a step, raising his hand as if to push away… this...? This absurd hallucination? But the screen remained, frozen, cold, unrelenting. His pupils widened in growing panic. — "What... what is this madness?" Around him, anxious murmurs rose, muffled cries. Eyes met, panicked, all fixed on the same phenomenon. Kael slowly turned in a circle, observing the feverish crowd, anxiety slowly knotting his stomach.

  5%...

  Suddenly, a student screamed, pointing at the sky. Kael reflexively looked up. A flock of birds swirled above the campus… then one of them dropped suddenly. A dull thud. A pigeon, lying on the sidewalk, wings stiff.

  Kael approached, almost hypnotized. The bird began to convulse, its feathers trembling as if caught in an invisible gust. Then… a sharp sound. Like the crack of bone.

  "What the…" Kael whispered, eyes wide.

  The pigeon twisted, its beak opening to the extreme, distorted by an incomprehensible force. One of its wings snapped, a bone protruding through the skin. Blood dripped onto the sidewalk.

  “Goddamn it…” Kael whispered, throat tight, his eyes fixed on this emerging abomination.

  10%...

  A scream tore through the air. Kael spun suddenly. A few meters away, a student colpsed, shaking violently. His veins swelled until they burst under his skin. Flesh cracked, and bone spikes shot out from his limbs. His hoarse scream turned into an inhuman grunt as he slowly straightened, deformed, unrecognizable.

  Kael, frozen in horror, stammered: “No... no, fuck, this isn’t real… it’s impossible…” But the stench of blood and the sight of the mutited body left no doubt: this was reality.

  Security agents rushed in, their faces contorted. One of them raised his weapon, but he was violently thrown against a wall by a deformed mass. The dull sound of the impact was followed by a sinister crack, his skull splitting open, painting the concrete with a bloody spray.

  15%...

  Kael took a step back, breath shallow. Around him, the screams intensified. Phones were filming, people stumbling and fleeing. He felt his heart pounding against his chest, fear creeping into every fiber of his body. Something terrible had just begun. And there was no way to escape it. Kael looked again at the floating screen in front of his eyes, cold sweat running down his back. The percentage continued to rise, slowly but inexorably. The first government alert shutters rang out from the city loudspeakers, drones already buzzing above the rooftops.

  But… in his dark gaze, beneath the visceral fear… a strange glimmer began to emerge. A cold fme. Because Kael, though terrified, already sensed… that his world had just been shattered.

  ‘Fuck… is this the new world?’ Kael thought, his heart pounding like it might break. One thing was certain: it was too te to turn back.