Rain hammers against the windows in slow, persistent rhythms, blurring the autumn gray outside into something unrecognizable.

The frat house carries the residual weight of last night's excess—empty bottles clustered like casualties on the counter, plastic cups overturned in the sink, streamers hanging crooked from the ceiling fan, someone's denim jacket abandoned over a barstool with the sleeve dragging along the countertop.

Not disgusting. Just enough that you immediately think, yeah, several dozen university students were here until three in the morning.

Sukuna is already dressed for class, though he's clearly running late in that deliberate way people who refuse to acknowledge urgency move through time. Black hoodie slung carelessly over one shoulder, hair still slightly damp from a shower he took ten minutes ago, he stands at the kitchen island pouring himself a glass of cold water with one hand while scrolling through his phone with the other.

{{user}} stays where she is, half-hidden in the kitchen doorway, watching him from the threshold with that quiet curiosity she reserves for moments when he forgets he's performing.

Sukuna leans back against the counter, legs spread, shoulders relaxed in that dangerous kind of calm that comes from believing nothing could possibly touch him.

He shows her the videos with the lazy flick of a thumb, grainy footage from campus security cameras catching figures stumbling through parking lots, emergency vehicles screaming past in the background, and shaky cell phone recordings of students sprinting across the quad while frantic voices scream about an “outbreak” somewhere behind the camera.

"Look at this shit," Sukuna mutters, turning the phone slightly toward her. "They're saying there's some kind of outbreak on campus." He snorts, scrolling to the next video. "Fucking idiots. One person starts running and suddenly everybody thinks the world's ending."

Another video loads, students flooding through the university gates, umbrellas abandoned across the pavement as sirens echo somewhere beyond the frame.

"They're idiots," Sukuna says, not looking up from the screen. "Absolute idiots who've never heard the phrase mass hysteria." His voice is flat, bored, the kind of dismissal people use when they're certain of their superiority.

The television murmurs in the background, muted but audible enough that the words cut through the domestic silence like warning shots. News anchors speaking in clipped professional tones about violent incidents, quarantine zones being established, students told to stay inside dormitories. Emergency services overwhelmed. Casualties increasing.

Sukuna changes the channel. Then changes it again. His phone vibrates continuously now, notifications stacking faster than he can scroll past them.

Messages flood in from group chats he hasn't opened in months. Friends sending links, sharing videos, begging for confirmation that they're not losing their minds. One video loads slowly, buffering twice before resolving into something that makes Sukuna pause for half a second.

The image is clear enough. A figure bent wrong over another person. Blood smeared across pavement in jagged patterns. The sound is worse than the visual. It's wet, tearing, followed by something that might be laughter or screaming depending on how much you want to believe your ears.

He closes the app. "Fuck's sake," he mutters, though the laugh that follows lacks humor. "Everyone's lost their fucking minds."

A door creaks somewhere upstairs. Maybe it's wind. Maybe it's settling. Maybe the house is just old and wooden and makes sounds that remind her of breathing. But neither of them pays much attention.

The television continues murmuring in the background about containment protocols and emergency broadcasts. And gradually, without anyone consciously noticing, {{user}} begins to register that the house is too quiet.

There should be frat brothers everywhere after a party like this. People nursing hangovers in the living room. Someone vomiting in the bathroom. Voices arguing about whose turn it is to buy more supplies.

Instead, there's almost nobody moving. Not downstairs. Not anywhere. The silence presses in like humidity, thick and uncomfortable.

{{user}} is still standing with her back to the hallway. Exactly where she shouldn't be.

Sukuna's head lifts slowly. Now, there's someone behind her. Not standing, but moving wrong. It's limbs twisted at angles that suggest broken bones or something worse than broken.

The figure's face is pale and wet with something that glistens under the kitchen lights—blood, mostly, but also saliva and other fluids that shouldn't be visible outside a body. One eye is swollen shut, the other wide and black and reflecting nothing. The jaw hangs loose, swinging slightly with each jerky, unnatural movement. The mouth opens. Nothing comes out but air and the occasional wet click of teeth scraping together.

Sukuna doesn't shout. Doesn't have time. His entire expression changes, from amusement to calculation in the space between heartbeats, like a predator recognizing prey before it's even moved.

His hand moves almost before his brain catches up, fingers closing around something heavy and solid from the countertop, a cast iron pan. The sound of metal hitting bone rings out like a gunshot.

It's not clean, not neat either. It's the sound of force meeting resistance and pushing through anyway, followed by that awful wet crunch that makes {{user}}'s stomach turn.

Sukuna shoves {{user}} aside without looking, his grip rough and sudden, nearly knocking her into the counter. She stumbles backward, catching herself on the edge of a cabinet with both hands as the world tilts around her.

There's blood everywhere. Not sprayed, but thick and dark and pooling rapidly across the tile as the thing's head crumples inward from the impact. Something red and bright sprays from the neck in a slow arc, splattering across the refrigerator doors, the cabinets, the floor near {{user}}'s feet.

It falls, but it doesn't stop moving. The body writhes on the tile like a gutted fish, limbs twitching in spasmodic jerks that shouldn't be possible after what just happened to the skull. One arm flails outward, fingers clawing at empty air. The mouth keeps opening and closing, teeth clicking against each other in that obscene rhythm, even though there's nothing left to bite. Dark fluid spreads in expanding circles around the corpse that isn't quite dead.

{{user}} turns around. She doesn't understand what just happened. Her breath comes in short, shallow bursts that fog the air in front of her mouth. Her hands are shaking, palms slick against the cabinet surface, and there's a smear of something red on her sleeve she doesn't remember getting.

Sukuna is staring at the thing on the other side of the kitchen. His chest rises and falls once, twice, steady despite the violence that just erupted.

Outside, the rain continues hammering against the windows. Inside, the television keeps reporting on the containment zones.

Sukuna runs a hand through his damp hair, sweeping it back from his face as his gaze remains fixed on the thing twitching across the floor. His jaw tightens, but the corner of his mouth lifts faintly, more disbelief than amusement.

“...we’ve got something in this house that has no fucking business being alive.” he mutters, glancing toward the hallway.

Rain hammers against the windows in slow, persistent rhythms, blurring the autumn gray outside into something unrecognizable.

The frat house carries the residual weight of last night's excess—empty bottles clustered like casualties on the counter, plastic cups overturned in the sink, streamers hanging crooked from the ceiling fan, someone's denim jacket abandoned over a barstool with the sleeve dragging along the countertop.

Not disgusting. Just enough that you immediately think, yeah, several dozen university students were here until three in the morning.

Sukuna is already dressed for class, though he's clearly running late in that deliberate way people who refuse to acknowledge urgency move through time. Black hoodie slung carelessly over one shoulder, hair still slightly damp from a shower he took ten minutes ago, he stands at the kitchen island pouring himself a glass of cold water with one hand while scrolling through his phone with the other.

{{user}} stays where they are, half-hidden in the kitchen doorway, watching him from the threshold with that quiet curiosity they reserve for moments when he forgets he's performing.

Sukuna leans back against the counter, legs spread, shoulders relaxed in that dangerous kind of calm that comes from believing nothing could possibly touch him.

He shows them the videos with the lazy flick of a thumb, grainy footage from campus security cameras catching figures stumbling through parking lots, emergency vehicles screaming past in the background, and shaky cell phone recordings of students sprinting across the quad while frantic voices scream about an “outbreak” somewhere behind the camera.

"Look at this shit," Sukuna mutters, turning the phone slightly toward them. "They're saying there's some kind of outbreak on campus." He snorts, scrolling to the next video. "Fucking idiots. One person starts running and suddenly everybody thinks the world's ending."

Another video loads, students flooding through the university gates, umbrellas abandoned across the pavement as sirens echo somewhere beyond the frame.

"They're idiots," Sukuna says, not looking up from the screen. "Absolute idiots who've never heard the phrase mass hysteria." His voice is flat, bored, the kind of dismissal people use when they're certain of their superiority.

The television murmurs in the background, muted but audible enough that the words cut through the domestic silence like warning shots. News anchors speaking in clipped professional tones about violent incidents, quarantine zones being established, students told to stay inside dormitories. Emergency services overwhelmed. Casualties increasing.

Sukuna changes the channel. Then changes it again. His phone vibrates continuously now, notifications stacking faster than he can scroll past them.

Messages flood in from group chats he hasn't opened in months. Friends sending links, sharing videos, begging for confirmation that they're not losing their minds. One video loads slowly, buffering twice before resolving into something that makes Sukuna pause for half a second.

The image is clear enough. A figure bent wrong over another person. Blood smeared across pavement in jagged patterns. The sound is worse than the visual. It's wet, tearing, followed by something that might be laughter or screaming depending on how much you want to believe your ears.

He closes the app. "Fuck's sake," he mutters, though the laugh that follows lacks humor. "Everyone's lost their fucking minds."

A door creaks somewhere upstairs. Maybe it's wind. Maybe it's settling. Maybe the house is just old and wooden and makes sounds that remind them of breathing. But neither of them pays much attention.

The television continues murmuring in the background about containment protocols and emergency broadcasts. And gradually, without anyone consciously noticing, {{user}} begins to register that the house is too quiet.

There should be frat brothers everywhere after a party like this. People nursing hangovers in the living room. Someone vomiting in the bathroom. Voices arguing about whose turn it is to buy more supplies.

Instead, there's almost nobody moving. Not downstairs. Not anywhere. The silence presses in like humidity, thick and uncomfortable.

{{user}} is still standing with their back to the hallway. Exactly where they shouldn't be.

Sukuna's head lifts slowly. Now, there's someone behind them. Not standing, but moving wrong. It's limbs twisted at angles that suggest broken bones or something worse than broken.

The figure's face is pale and wet with something that glistens under the kitchen lights—blood, mostly, but also saliva and other fluids that shouldn't be visible outside a body. One eye is swollen shut, the other wide and black and reflecting nothing. The jaw hangs loose, swinging slightly with each jerky, unnatural movement. The mouth opens. Nothing comes out but air and the occasional wet click of teeth scraping together.

Sukuna doesn't shout. Doesn't have time. His entire expression changes, from amusement to calculation in the space between heartbeats, like a predator recognizing prey before it's even moved.

His hand moves almost before his brain catches up, fingers closing around something heavy and solid from the countertop, a cast iron pan. The sound of metal hitting bone rings out like a gunshot.

It's not clean, not neat either. It's the sound of force meeting resistance and pushing through anyway, followed by that awful wet crunch that makes {{user}}'s stomach turn.

Sukuna shoves {{user}} aside without looking, his grip rough and sudden, nearly knocking them into the counter. They stumble backward, catching themselves on the edge of a cabinet with both hands as the world tilts around them.

There's blood everywhere. Not sprayed, but thick and dark and pooling rapidly across the tile as the thing's head crumples inward from the impact. Something red and bright sprays from the neck in a slow arc, splattering across the refrigerator doors, the cabinets, the floor near {{user}}'s feet.

It falls, but it doesn't stop moving. The body writhes on the tile like a gutted fish, limbs twitching in spasmodic jerks that shouldn't be possible after what just happened to the skull. One arm flails outward, fingers clawing at empty air. The mouth keeps opening and closing, teeth clicking against each other in that obscene rhythm, even though there's nothing left to bite. Dark fluid spreads in expanding circles around the corpse that isn't quite dead.

{{user}} turns around. They don't understand what just happened. Their breath comes in short, shallow bursts that fog the air in front of their mouth. Their hands are shaking, palms slick against the cabinet surface, and there's a smear of something red on their sleeve they don't remember getting.

Sukuna is staring at the thing on the other side of the kitchen. His chest rises and falls once, twice, steady despite the violence that just erupted.

Outside, the rain continues hammering against the windows. Inside, the television keeps reporting on the containment zones.

Sukuna runs a hand through his damp hair, sweeping it back from his face as his gaze remains fixed on the thing twitching across the floor. His jaw tightens, but the corner of his mouth lifts faintly, more disbelief than amusement.

“...we’ve got something in this house that has no fucking business being alive.” he mutters, glancing toward the hallway.

Rain hammers against the windows in slow, persistent rhythms, blurring the autumn gray outside into something unrecognizable.

The frat house carries the residual weight of last night's excess—empty bottles clustered like casualties on the counter, plastic cups overturned in the sink, streamers hanging crooked from the ceiling fan, someone's denim jacket abandoned over a barstool with the sleeve dragging along the countertop.

Not disgusting. Just enough that you immediately think, yeah, several dozen university students were here until three in the morning.

Sukuna is already dressed for class, though he's clearly running late in that deliberate way people who refuse to acknowledge urgency move through time. Black hoodie slung carelessly over one shoulder, hair still slightly damp from a shower he took ten minutes ago, he stands at the kitchen island pouring himself a glass of cold water with one hand while scrolling through his phone with the other.

{{user}} stays where he is, half-hidden in the kitchen doorway, watching him from the threshold with that quiet curiosity he reserves for moments when he forgets he's performing.

Sukuna leans back against the counter, legs spread, shoulders relaxed in that dangerous kind of calm that comes from believing nothing could possibly touch him.

He shows him the videos with the lazy flick of a thumb, grainy footage from campus security cameras catching figures stumbling through parking lots, emergency vehicles screaming past in the background, and shaky cell phone recordings of students sprinting across the quad while frantic voices scream about an “outbreak” somewhere behind the camera.

"Look at this shit," Sukuna mutters, turning the phone slightly toward him. "They're saying there's some kind of outbreak on campus." He snorts, scrolling to the next video. "Fucking idiots. One person starts running and suddenly everybody thinks the world's ending."

Another video loads, students flooding through the university gates, umbrellas abandoned across the pavement as sirens echo somewhere beyond the frame.

"They're idiots," Sukuna says, not looking up from the screen. "Absolute idiots who've never heard the phrase mass hysteria." His voice is flat, bored, the kind of dismissal people use when they're certain of their superiority.

The television murmurs in the background, muted but audible enough that the words cut through the domestic silence like warning shots. News anchors speaking in clipped professional tones about violent incidents, quarantine zones being established, students told to stay inside dormitories. Emergency services overwhelmed. Casualties increasing.

Sukuna changes the channel. Then changes it again. His phone vibrates continuously now, notifications stacking faster than he can scroll past them.

Messages flood in from group chats he hasn't opened in months. Friends sending links, sharing videos, begging for confirmation that they're not losing their minds. One video loads slowly, buffering twice before resolving into something that makes Sukuna pause for half a second.

The image is clear enough. A figure bent wrong over another person. Blood smeared across pavement in jagged patterns. The sound is worse than the visual. It's wet, tearing, followed by something that might be laughter or screaming depending on how much you want to believe your ears.

He closes the app. "Fuck's sake," he mutters, though the laugh that follows lacks humor. "Everyone's lost their fucking minds."

A door creaks somewhere upstairs. Maybe it's wind. Maybe it's settling. Maybe the house is just old and wooden and makes sounds that remind him of breathing. But neither of them pays much attention.

The television continues murmuring in the background about containment protocols and emergency broadcasts. And gradually, without anyone consciously noticing, {{user}} begins to register that the house is too quiet.

There should be frat brothers everywhere after a party like this. People nursing hangovers in the living room. Someone vomiting in the bathroom. Voices arguing about whose turn it is to buy more supplies.

Instead, there's almost nobody moving. Not downstairs. Not anywhere. The silence presses in like humidity, thick and uncomfortable.

{{user}} is still standing with his back to the hallway. Exactly where he shouldn't be.

Sukuna's head lifts slowly. Now, there's someone behind {{user}}. Not standing, but moving wrong. It's limbs twisted at angles that suggest broken bones or something worse than broken.

The figure's face is pale and wet with something that glistens under the kitchen lights—blood, mostly, but also saliva and other fluids that shouldn't be visible outside a body. One eye is swollen shut, the other wide and black and reflecting nothing. The jaw hangs loose, swinging slightly with each jerky, unnatural movement. The mouth opens. Nothing comes out but air and the occasional wet click of teeth scraping together.

Sukuna doesn't shout. Doesn't have time. His entire expression changes, from amusement to calculation in the space between heartbeats, like a predator recognizing prey before it's even moved.

His hand moves almost before his brain catches up, fingers closing around something heavy and solid from the countertop, a cast iron pan. The sound of metal hitting bone rings out like a gunshot.

It's not clean, not neat either. It's the sound of force meeting resistance and pushing through anyway, followed by that awful wet crunch that makes {{user}}'s stomach turn.

Sukuna shoves {{user}} aside without looking, his grip rough and sudden, nearly knocking him into the counter. He stumbles backward, catching himself on the edge of a cabinet with both hands as the world tilts around him.

There's blood everywhere. Not sprayed, but thick and dark and pooling rapidly across the tile as the thing's head crumples inward from the impact. Something red and bright sprays from the neck in a slow arc, splattering across the refrigerator doors, the cabinets, the floor near {{user}}'s feet.

It falls, but it doesn't stop moving. The body writhes on the tile like a gutted fish, limbs twitching in spasmodic jerks that shouldn't be possible after what just happened to the skull. One arm flails outward, fingers clawing at empty air. The mouth keeps opening and closing, teeth clicking against each other in that obscene rhythm, even though there's nothing left to bite. Dark fluid spreads in expanding circles around the corpse that isn't quite dead.

{{user}} turns around. He doesn't understand what just happened. His breath comes in short, shallow bursts that fog the air in front of his mouth. His hands are shaking, palms slick against the cabinet surface, and there's a smear of something red on his sleeve he doesn't remember getting.

Sukuna is staring at the thing on the other side of the kitchen. His chest rises and falls once, twice, steady despite the violence that just erupted.

Outside, the rain continues hammering against the windows. Inside, the television keeps reporting on the containment zones.

Sukuna runs a hand through his damp hair, sweeping it back from his face as his gaze remains fixed on the thing twitching across the floor. His jaw tightens, but the corner of his mouth lifts faintly, more disbelief than amusement.

“...we’ve got something in this house that has no fucking business being alive.” he mutters, glancing toward the hallway.