The Molting

The hallway of The Stacks smelled worse than the apartment. It was a cocktail of urine, bleach, and something sweet and cloying—like cheap floral air freshener trying to cover up a dead animal.

Jax walked up the stairs to the fourth floor. The air grew thicker here. The flies were louder, buzzing around the flickering fluorescent bulb that strobed like a disco light in hell.

He stood in front of Apartment 4B.

A red arrow hovered over the peeling paint of the door.

**[TARGET PROXIMITY: IMMEDIATE.]**

Jax swallowed the lump in his throat. He knocked.

"Henderson?" he called out. "It's Jax. About the rent."

He hid the knife behind his back. His palm was sweating against the leather grip.

The door creaked open.

Mr. Henderson stood there in a grease-stained undershirt. He was a large man, sweating profusely, his skin looking shiny and tight, like a sausage casing stuffed with too much meat.

"I told you, kid," Henderson grunted. His voice sounded wet, gurgling. "No money, no AC. Get out of my face."

As Henderson spoke, the blue System window appeared over his head.

**[TARGET: LESSER MIMIC]**

**[INTEGRITY: 15%]**

**[SHELL UNSTABLE]**

Jax stared. Henderson’s skin wasn't just sweating; it was rippling. Underneath the surface of his face, something was moving.

"What are you staring at?" Henderson snapped.

"Your... face," Jax stammered.

Henderson’s jaw unhinged.

It didn't drop open like a human jaw. The skin at the corners of his mouth tore with a sound like ripping canvas.

"Hungry," Henderson rasped.

A mandibles—black, wet, and clicking—pushed out from the tear in his cheek.

Jax didn't think. The terror bypassed his brain and went straight to his instincts.

He swung the knife.

* SHUNK.*

The blade buried itself in Henderson’s shoulder.

There was no blood. instead, a thick, yellow slurry erupted from the wound, spraying onto Jax’s shirt. It smelled of sulfur and rot.

**[CRITICAL HIT. SHELL BREACHED.]**

Henderson roared—a high-pitched, insectoid shriek. His human disguise failed completely. The skin of his torso split down the center line, peeling back wetly to reveal a glistening, segmented carapace underneath.

"You little meat-sack!" the creature hissed.

It backhanded Jax. The force was like getting hit by a truck. Jax flew backward, slamming into the hallway wall. The breath left his lungs in a painful wheeze.

The creature stepped out of the apartment. It was shedding the last of Mr. Henderson like a discarded coat. It was seven feet tall, hunchbacked, with multiple twitching limbs and a mouth that was nothing but wet, grinding gears.