Piko - Where every story finds its reader

The Lord Token rests in Alicia's palm like a promise she doesn't know how to keep. The stone pulses with warmth_lmost alive_ut the System's cryptic requirement for "perimeter security" makes it useless without understanding what that means.

She turns the Token over, watching golden light shift beneath its surface. The interface hovers at the edge of her vision, translucent and persistent. When she focuses on the Token's description, new text scrolls across the screen:

[Lord Token - Unique Item] [Effect: Establishes Safe Zone - Area: Variable] [Requirement: Secure perimeter from active threats] [Warning: Token consumed upon activation]

"Secure perimeter," Alicia mutters. "How am I supposed to secure anything when I can barely stand upright?"

Elder Finn limps to the warehouse window, his injured leg dragging. The System's basic first aid from the emergency protocol stopped his bleeding, but he moves like a man twice his seventy years. His own interface flickers_ale blue instead of her gold_howing the [Survivor's Instinct] skill he received.

"The stone won't help us if we're dead," Finn says, pressing his hand against the cracked glass. "We need to understand these skills before"

His words cut off. His entire body goes rigid.

"Finn?"

"My skill." His voice drops to a whisper. "It's... pulsing. Red. Danger within fifty yards."

Alicia's stomach clenches. She slides the Lord Token back into her System inventory_he stone vanishes into particles of light_nd grips the rusted pipe she grabbed from the warehouse floor. It's pathetic protection, but it's all she has.

The sound comes from the loading dock. Not the shambling shuffle of Ferals, but something faster. Deliberate.

Three of them crash through the bay door in an explosion of rotting wood.

Alicia's breath stops. She's seen Ferals before_atched them tear through her pack_ut seeing them up close is different. Their eyes are milky white, filmed over with death. Skin hangs in gray strips from exposed muscle. They move with predatory speed that shouldn't be possible for corpses.

The closest one locks onto her. Its jaw unhinges with a wet crack.

Move. The thought screams through her panic. Move or die.

Alicia stumbles backward as the Feral lunges. She thinks the skill nameAlpha Tamer_nd desperately activates it.

A faint shimmer appears around the creature. Gold light traces its outline for half a heartbeat.

Then nothing.

The Feral keeps coming.

"No!" Alicia throws herself sideways as claws rake the air where her throat was. "Why isn't it working?"

Finn grabs a metal pipe from a stack of debris and swings with surprising strength. The impact cracks against the Feral's skull, buying them seconds. Not enough.

"The back exit!" Finn shouts. "Now!"

They run. Alicia's legs shake with exhaustion and terror, but adrenaline drives her forward. Behind them, the Ferals shriek_hat inhuman sound that's part rage, part hunger, part something worse.

The warehouse's back door leads to an alley choked with abandoned cars. Alicia tries Alpha Tamer twice more on pursuing Ferals. Each time the same useless shimmer appears and fades. Each time the creatures keep attacking.

"The Goddess gave me a broken skill!" She screams the words as they vault over a rusted sedan. "It doesn't work!"

"Or you're using it wrong." Finn pulls her toward a drainage grate in the alley floor. "Down. Go!"

The tunnel reeks of sewage and decay, but it's escape. They drop into darkness as Feral claws scrape metal above their heads. The creatures are too large to follow into the narrow passage.

Alicia collapses against the tunnel wall, chest heaving. Her System interface shows her status: [Stamina: Critical] [Condition: Exhausted]. The baby_ax's child_ulses like a second heartbeat in her awareness. Eleven weeks along. Barely showing. But undeniably there.

I can't protect you, she thinks at the tiny life inside her. I can't even protect myself.

Then the roar comes again.

It reverberates through the tunnel_ sound of pure violence that makes the Feral shrieks sound like whispers. But beneath the bestial fury, there's something else. Structure. Purpose. Intelligence.

"That's close," Finn whispers.

They follow the tunnel to a maintenance ladder. Alicia's arms scream as she climbs, but the alternative is staying in the dark with Ferals likely circling above. She emerges near a collapsed office building_ix stories of concrete and steel that fell sideways across the street.

The roar comes from inside the rubble.

Finn's Survivor's Instinct flares orange instead of red. Uncertain threat. Danger, but not immediate death.

"We should run," he says, but he's staring at the collapsed building like Alicia is.

Because this isn't the mindless howl of Ferals. This is something fighting them. Winning.

Alicia approaches the rubble on shaking legs. Through a gap in the collapsed concrete, she sees movement. A figure_assive, blood-soaked_ears through three Ferals with bare hands and claws. The bodies hit the ground in pieces.

The figure is pinned beneath concrete slabs crushing its legs. But it's still killing everything that gets close.

Alicia moves closer to the gap. Sees the creature's face through shadows and blood.

Human features beneath the gore. Lycan features. Alpha bone structure_he heavy jaw, the thick brow. But the eyes burn feral red, the same death-white as the Ferals.

This isn't a zombie.

This is something else.

The creature's head snaps toward her with predatory precision. Those red eyes lock onto hers. And then_mpossibly_t speaks.

"Run."

The voice is gravel and broken glass. Barely coherent. But it's language. Communication. A warning from something that still remembers what mercy means.

Alicia should run. Should grab Finn and find anywhere else to be.

Instead, she activates Alpha Tamer one more time.

The golden shimmer appears around the trapped figure_ut this time it doesn't fade. This time the light brightens, pulsing in rhythm with something deeper than her heartbeat.

[Alpha Tamer: Compatible Target Detected] [Target: Feral-Alpha - Subdued State Required for Ritual] [Warning: Ritual Dangerous to Heir-Bearer]

The System's text scrolls across her vision, and suddenly Alicia understands.

Her skill isn't for zombies. It never was.

It's for Alphas who have gone feral. The ones too powerful for the Blood-Mist to kill, whose minds shattered instead. The ones who became immortal monsters.

"Oh, Goddess," Finn breathes beside her. "The old legends. The Chain of Sovereigns. Alicia, your skill is"

The Feral-Alpha roars again. Blood pools beneath the concrete trapping him. He's dying slowly, or he's about to break free and kill everything nearby.

Alicia stares at those red eyes that flashed silver for one impossible instant when her skill touched him.

She sees the man trapped inside the monster.

And she knows she has a choice to make: save him, or run before he breaks free and kills them both.

The Lord Token pulses in her System inventory. Secure the perimeter, it whispers. Clear the threats.

Alicia's hand moves to her stomach. To the child who will need a world with fewer monsters.

"I'm going to try," she tells Finn.

"You're pregnant. You're weak. That thing will"

"That thing just told me to run." Alicia steps toward the gap in the rubble. "Which means somewhere in there, he's still a person."

The Feral-Alpha watches her approach with predatory stillness.

And in the depths of his red eyes, something almost human flickers and waits.