Jessica crept down the basement stairs, her sneakers squeaking against the linoleum floor. Each step created tiny echoes that bounced off the concrete walls. Her enhanced hearing picked up every drip of water from the ancient pipes, every skitter of mice in the walls. She could even hear the subtle hum of the emergency lights overhead, their red glow casting everything in a bloody sheen that turned ordinary shadows into lurking monsters.

  Her friends needed her.

  She paused at the bottom of the stairs, nostrils flaring as she caught a whiff of something chemical and wrong. It reminded her of melted plastic mixed with rotting meat, with undertones of ozone and decay that made her enhanced senses recoil. The smell was unlike anything she'd encountered in her years as a werewolf, worse than decomposing bodies or toxic waste. Her stomach churned violently as she fought the urge to gag, bile rising in her throat.

  As she rounded the corner, her enhanced vision caught something pale gleaming in the emergency lights. At first, she thought it was just more of the pink substance coating the walls, but as she drew closer, her heart nearly stopped. Suspended in a web of translucent pink slime was a skeleton, still partially clothed in the unmistakable navy blue janitor's uniform of Moon High. The nametag, somehow still attached to the decaying fabric, read "ROSSO" in faded letters.

  "Mr. Rosso," Jessica whispered, her voice catching in her throat. She remembered how he cheered with her squad during the games, how he'd whistle old jazz tunes while mopping the halls. The skeleton's jaw hung open in an eternal scream, pink slime dripping between yellowed teeth like some horrible parody of saliva.

  Bad enough, but what she found next nearly broke her. Farther down the corridor, partially hidden behind a pipe, was what remained of Ms. Becker. The pink substance had done something horrible to her body–it looked partially melted, like a candle left too close to a fire. Her dress had fused with her flesh, creating a grotesque tableau of fabric and tissue that made Jessica's enhanced senses revolt. What was worse, Jessica could see where Ms. Becker had tried to write something in her own blood on the wall, but the ever-spreading slime had consumed the message, leaving only a faint reddish tinge in the translucent ooze.

  "My god," she muttered, her voice barely a whisper in the oppressive silence. "I can’t help them, but I hope the others are okay." The words echoed slightly in the narrow corridor, and she immediately regretted making any noise at all.

  But even her wolf side, usually so eager for confrontation, recoiled from that smell. Every primal instinct, both human and lupine, screamed at her to turn back, to run far away from whatever produced that nauseating stench. The wolf inside her, normally a source of strength and confidence, was pawing anxiously at the edges of her consciousness, whimpering like a frightened pup.

  Instead of retreating, she forced herself forward, following her nose deeper into the maze of basement corridors. The emergency lights flickered overhead, creating moving shadows that made her jump at every corner. The walls seemed to press in closer with each step, the ceiling lower, as if the building itself was trying to warn her away.

  Her enhanced hearing picked up the subtle creaking of the building's foundations, the distant rumble of machinery, and - was that a heartbeat? Multiple heartbeats, slow and faint but steady. Hope flared in her chest, giving her renewed purpose.

  The smell grew stronger as she approached the old boiler room, becoming almost unbearable. Thick pink goo oozed from beneath the door, glowing faintly in the dim light with an unnatural phosphorescence. It moved in ways that liquid shouldn't, seeming to pulse with its own rhythm. Jessica's heart hammered against her ribs as she reached for the handle, her enhanced strength making the metal creak under her grip.

  "Please be alive," she whispered, though she wasn't sure if she was talking to her friends or herself. "Please, please be alive." The words came out as a prayer, her voice trembling despite her best efforts to stay calm. She thought of Tiffany's laugh, Amber's quiet determination, Camella's fierce loyalty - all the reasons she couldn't turn back now.

  The door creaked open with agonizing slowness; the hinges protesting every inch. Jessica's enhanced vision adjusted instantly to the darkness within, her pupils dilating to catch every scrap of light. She had to clamp a hand over her mouth to stifle her gasp, teeth pressing into her palm hard enough to draw blood.

  Something alien and horrific had transformed the boiler room, like a scene from her worst nightmares. Pink, translucent cocoons hung from the ceiling like grotesque Christmas ornaments, each one pulsing with an inner light that cast sickly shadows across the walls. Inside each cocoon was a familiar face, suspended in a moment of terror or defiance.

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  Tiffany’s face frozen mid-scream with her hands pressed against the membrane. Her usually perfect makeup was smeared across her face, mascara running in dark trails down her cheeks. Next to her, Amber looked almost peaceful with her eyes closed as if sleeping, but her fingers were curled into claws at her sides. Camella had her fists raised in defiance even in stasis, her expression fierce and determined.

  On the ceiling above Jessica, Salina and Kevin hung in cocoons like caterpillars waiting to turn into butterflies. Slime coated both their mouths shut while their eyes were closed.

  They were alive. Jessica could hear their heartbeats, slow but steady, like drums beating underwater. Relief made her knees weak, and she had to grab onto a nearby pipe to stay upright. The metal was cold under her fingers, grounding her in reality.

  Still, why didn’t the creature devoured them like Ms. Becker and the janitor? Did it saved them for a shack later, or…

  It doesn’t matter.

  "Thank god," she breathed, her voice barely audible even to her own enhanced hearing. "Hang on, guys. I'm going to get you out of—"

  A wet, slithering sound behind her made her spin around, her werewolf reflexes turning her faster than any human could move. The door slammed shut with a metallic boom that made her ears ring, and pink goo began oozing from the walls like living paint, sealing her in. The substance moved with purpose, with intelligence, forming a barrier between her and escape.

  The creature emerged from the shadows with terrible grace, its form constantly shifting and flowing like liquid mercury caught in a lava lamp. It moved with an unnatural fluidity that defied physics, rippling and undulating as it approached. The sight of it made Jessica's human mind want to shut down, unable to process what she was seeing, while her wolf side growled in confused terror.

  Jessica backed away, her shoulders hitting the wall with a thud that sent vibrations through her bones. The thing—Globulus, as Kevin had called it based on a dumb movie—towered over her, its amorphous body taking up most of the room. It had no face, no features she could distinguish, just an ever-shifting mass of translucent pink slime that pulsed with an internal light. Looking at it for too long made her head hurt, as if her brain was rebelling against processing what her eyes were seeing.

  The creature let out a high-pitched shriek that made Jessica's sensitive ears ring, the sound like metal scraping against metal mixed with the screech of a thousand bats. She clapped her hands over her ears, but it didn't help - the sound seemed to penetrate directly into her skull. Tentacles of pink goo shot out from its mass with frightening speed, wrapping around a pipe near her head. The metal crumpled like paper in its grip, water spraying from the broken pipe in a fine mist.

  "Okay," Jessica muttered, ducking under another tentacle that whistled through the air where her head had been. "So you're strong. Good to know." The wolf inside her was fully awake now, lending her its enhanced reflexes and strength, though it still shied away from direct confrontation with this impossible thing.

  She dove between two more tentacles, rolling to her feet near the boiler in a move that would have made her P.E teacher proud. Her eyes darted between her cocooned friends and the monster blocking her path to them, mind racing to form a plan. The creature's body spread across the floor like spilled paint, creeping toward her feet like a living tide.

  Jessica jumped onto a cluster of pipes, using her enhanced agility to stay above the encroaching slime. Her mind raced as she tried to remember everything Kevin had told her about the creature. Something about temperature affecting it, about it being vulnerable to extreme heat or cold... But the specifics slipped away like water through her fingers as adrenaline coursed through her system.

  But she couldn't focus on that now. First, she had to get to her friends. She launched herself from the pipes toward the nearest cocoon - Tiffany's - fingers outstretched to tear through the membrane. For a moment, she thought she would make it.

  A tentacle caught her in mid-air, wrapping around her waist like a giant icy hand. The touch was wrong on a fundamental level, sending shivers of revulsion through her entire body. It felt like being grabbed by death itself, a cold that went deeper than skin and muscle, reaching for her very soul. Before she could react, something yanked her backward, and she slammed into the wall. Stars exploded behind her eyes as her head cracked against the concrete, and the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.

  The creature's shriek this time sounded almost triumphant, like the cry of a bird of prey that had caught its dinner. More tentacles emerged from its mass, creeping toward her like hungry snakes. Jessica struggled against the one holding her, but the goo was incredibly strong, and getting stronger with each passing second. She could feel it trying to seep through her clothes, to touch her skin directly. The thought of that made her struggle harder, panic giving her strength.

  Panic clawed at her throat, threatening to overwhelm her. The wolf inside her was going crazy, howling and scratching to get out, desperate to fight or flee. But she couldn't let it—not yet. She had to think this through, had to figure out a plan. Losing control now could get her killed, or worse, leave her friends trapped forever in their pink prisons.

  The tentacles reached her arms, wrapping around them with inexorable strength. The icy touch of the slime sent fresh waves of revulsion through her, like being caressed by something that had crawled out of a nightmare. Jessica kicked and thrashed, but it was like fighting quicksand. Every movement just seemed to draw her deeper into the creature's grip, the substance adapting and flowing around her struggles.

  Pink goo began creeping up her neck, and real fear set in - not the controlled panic of before, but genuine terror that threatened to overwhelm her completely. She could feel her wolf rising in response, feel the familiar heat building in her chest that preceded transformation. Her bones ached with the need to change, to let become something stronger, something that could fight back. But would even her wolf form be enough against this impossible creature?

  The creature lifted her higher, bringing her face-to-face with its shapeless mass. This close, she could see things moving within it—shadows and shapes that made no sense, that hurt her eyes to look at. Geometric patterns that shouldn't exist in three-dimensional space, colors that had no names in any human language. It opened what might have been a mouth, revealing a void filled with writhing tentacles that seemed to go on forever, a portal to some impossible dimension.

  Jessica's heart pounded against her ribs as the thing drew her closer, the cold emanating from it making her teeth chatter. The wolf inside her howled louder, desperate to be free. She could feel her teeth beginning to sharpen, her muscles shifting beneath her skin as the change began...

  But before she could complete the transformation, the creature struck.