Marked by the last white heir

The Red Axe

The tarp came off just before dawn and the night guard’s stomach dropped.

He had expected roadkill or a discarded sack. Instead the thing beneath the plastic lay twisted in the grass near the farm fence, limbs too long, joints folded at angles no human bone could manage. Its skin flickered even in death, dark and oily, like smoke trying to remember a shape. Black blood pooled beneath it, thick and slow, soaking into the soil with a faint hiss that sounded almost like breathing.

The guard stumbled back, radio already in his hand. “Control, Unit Three. Backup now. This isn’t… this isn’t anything I know.”

By the time the first light broke through the fog, black cars, about 7 of them had taken the scene.

The Red Axe circle.

Black-clad agents moved in silence, their boots barely disturbing the dew. Commander Selene Vire arrived last, coat snapping in the damp wind. She knelt beside the body without flinching, gloved fingers hovering over the torn throat and the strange gashes across the ribs.

One agent scanned the ground with a low-humming device. Grids of pale light swept the dirt, picking out footprints that dissolved mid-step and faint scorch marks that smelled of burnt iron. Another agent lifted a vial to the black blood; the liquid inside glowed briefly, then darkened.

Selene straightened, jaw tight. “Bag it. Every drop. Run full spectral analysis. I want to know exactly what this thing was. Any idea of what must have attacked it?” she asked.

“No ma’am, one of the students said she saw something that looked like a bear." The chief security officer answered.

The agents exchanged uneasy glances. No one spoke the obvious: this was no ordinary campus incident. The Red Axe Circle dealt in rumors and sealed files, legends whispered among faculties who had been here long enough to remember older disappearances. Students watched from a distance, wide-eyed, as the black uniforms moved like they owned the fog itself.

In the infirmary, Lexi sat wrapped in a blanket, and was being interrogated, voice raw. “We thought we were alone. Ralph had me down behind the bushes and then… something was just there. Bigger than a man. Claws like knives. It slashed him and I screamed. That’s it. That’s all I saw.”

Ralph lay two beds over, half his face bandaged, jaw tight. “It didn’t want me dead. It just wanted me to be quiet. Like it had something else to finish.”

"Your school director would soon address you students, rest assured that you're in safe hands." Serene said raising to her feet.

“Well, that's okay. Report to us when you notice anything else” She added leaving the infirmary.

The officer taking notes closed his ledger. “You two were in a restricted zone after hours. Count yourselves lucky. The Red Axe will handle the rest.”

By midday the whole university felt wrong. Lectures droned on but no one listened. Students clustered in corners, voices low and urgent. “They found a body near the farm.” “It wasn’t human.”

“How do you know that?"

“The Red Axe people showed up, black coats, weird machines. I heard they’ve been around for decades, handling things the rest of us aren’t supposed to know about.”

"like a secret association or something…”

Mira found Alya at their usual table in the lounge, sliding into the seat with a quick glance over her shoulder. “Lexi’s telling anyone who’ll listen it had gray eyes and moved like a bear. Ralph’s face looks like something tore at it. And those Red Axe agents? The faculties say they’ve been around for decades, handling things the rest of us aren’t supposed to know about.”

“Dear Lord, she must have been so frightened and still in shock. Poor girl. Ralph's face sounds like a hot mess, I feel sorry for them.” Alya said as she turned her coffee cup slowly between her hands. The ceramic was warm, but her fingers still felt cold.

“Yeah me too, me too.”

In his dorm room, Drex sat on the edge of the bed with his shirt off. The gashes across his ribs had closed to angry red lines, but the skin still pulled tight with every slow breath. He had stripped off the blood-soaked hoodie in the dark, washed pink water down the sink until the basin ran clear, then burned the fabric in the small metal trash can outside his window.

The smoke had smelled like failure and scorched cotton. He had gone back out before the alarms died, slipping through the farm’s rear fields under cover of lingering dark to make sure no loose traces remained. Now fatigue sat heavy in his muscles while the silver lupus flower rested cold and safe in his pocket. Each shallow inhale sent fresh sparks of pain along the wounds, a constant reminder of how narrowly he had kept the wolf leashed.

Selene’s voice carried faintly on the wind from the sealed farm. “The analysis is running. Whatever this was, it wasn’t born here. Keep the perimeter tight. We need answers before whatever killed it decides the campus is next.”

Drex pressed two fingers to the healing wounds and winced. The eastern breach felt wider, the air itself tasting of burnt iron and something new.

A low, wet laugh rolled from the forest, closer now, as if the rift itself had tasted the blood and liked the flavor.

The laugh swelled into something sharper, a wet tearing sound that echoed across the campus like an invitation no one could refuse.

And from the eastern woods, something massive answered, moving fast, straight toward the sealed farm and the scent of fresh black blood still hanging in the air.

Its footfalls shook the ground with a deep, rhythmic thud that vibrated through the floor of Drex’s dorm room. The window rattled once. Then twice.

Drex’s head snapped up.

The sound was not coming from the farm anymore.

It was coming straight for the dormitory buildings.

And it was already too close.