under your skin
The rain poured mercilessly over the dormitory gardens, drowning the campus in a cacophony of droplets splashing against leaves and stone. A shadow flitted through the soaked underbrush, slipping past the skeletal outlines of trees with ghostly silence. Its movements were quick and calculated, the faint rustle of bushes the only hint of its presence.
The figure darted between the towering oaks, its footsteps muffled by the deluge, until it reached a secluded ditch where the rainwater pooled. Hidden beneath a crumbling tunnel leading to an ancient, long-sealed sewer access pipe, the shadow finally paused. It crouched low, the dim glow of an old utility light from a rusting fuse box barely illuminating its form.
With a sickening squelch, the figure's form began to change. The sleek, golden-fleeced body of a sheep girl collapsed to the muddy ground, lifeless, discarded like an empty wrapper. What remained was something… other. A presence that seemed to absorb the faint light, its form shifting, its edges hazy as if reality itself recoiled from defining it.
The shadow extended a hand—long fingers tipped with something too sharp to be nails—and reached behind a rusted pipe. From its hiding spot, it retrieved a battered canvas bag, unzipping it with mechanical precision. Inside, a neatly folded rifle gleamed faintly, its matte finish still immaculate despite the damp conditions. A handful of ammunition spilled out as the figure rummaged, along with survival tools and a weathered notebook stuffed with cryptic papers.
The shadowed figure exhaled—or made a sound like it. The noise didn't match the rain or the rustling trees. It was too low, too resonant, as if the air itself bent unnaturally around its presence. It glanced at the discarded sheep body, its expression unreadable, and muttered in a voice that dripped with contempt.
"Incompatible. Worthless host. Could barely speak with that thing. Domestic animals—brain-dead, the lot of them. The nerve endings were sluggish, the motor control primitive. Do they even have enough synapses to string a coherent thought together? I doubt it."
The figure crouched lower, shielding itself from the rain, and flipped open a phone—an old, scratched model, but functional. The faint light from the screen illuminated jagged, blackened features as it tapped with methodical precision. A list of objectives scrolled across the screen, punctuated with timestamps and encrypted notes. The figure paused to study the text, its free hand brushing over the notebook's crumbling pages, filled with hasty scrawls and diagrams.
"I need to get in contact with the overseer," it growled, the words reverberating with a guttural resonance, "but I can't do that if all these bodies keep falling apart. No stamina, no coordination, no intellect. Useless. I'll have to find a better one. Soon."
It shifted, the rifle's parts clicking softly as it folded the weapon back into its compact form and tucked it away. The shadow's amorphous form rippled as if agitated, merging briefly with the darkness around it.
The rain masked any sound as the figure checked its surroundings, its eyes—or whatever served as eyes—peering toward the distant dormitory buildings. Somewhere in there, past the dimly glowing windows and rain-slicked walls, lay its target. Or targets. It wasn't sure yet. But the overseer's instructions would clarify everything in time.
For now, it would wait. This body was spent, but patience was a tool sharper than any blade. And the school? The school was teeming with potential hosts. One of them would be perfect.
The figure settled into the shadows, vanishing entirely save for the faint reflection of light glinting off a golden coin lying beside the discarded sheep body, next to the pile of bones.