Rain poured like the sky was mourning something holy and irretrievable. The city bled neon through puddles on the cracked asphalt. Sirens howled in the distance, fading into the screech of tires and the drunken curses of men who’d already lost too much. In a dim, flickering corner of Saint Jude’s ER, walls stained by time, tiles yellowed, prayers long since stopped working. Jay de Hout was born.

  Didn’t cry.

  Didn’t scream.

  Didn’t wail for air like he’d been suffocating inside the womb.

  He opened his golden, unnatural eyes and just… stared. Quiet. Watching. Fur white as hospital linens. Muzzle damp with birth fluid. Clawed hands twitching slightly. Ears folded close to a skull too smooth for any normal child. A thing made wrong. Born knowing too much.

  The nurse, a middle-aged Haitian woman named Claudine, who’d seen blood and bullets and bad omens before, trembled slightly. She wrapped the infant tighter, hesitating. Her hands betrayed her nerves. She’d heard tales in church, old Creole stories whispered between rosaries and soup pots. About children born during storms. Children whose eyes never cried. Children that carried marks.

  She glanced at the mother.

  Tyra de Hout, a dutch woman, rail-thin, her brown skin drained of color, dreadlocks sticking to her forehead from sweat. lay crumpled on the bed like a popped balloon. Her chest heaved. Her eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling, avoiding her baby, the nurse, and the shadow in the doorway.

  That shadow was Marcus Jackson.

  Six-foot-two. Jaw hard as concrete. A face cut from harsh memories and harsher streets. Tattoos spoke stories across his arms, some for brothers dead, some for sins paid in blood. His Glock was still tucked under his hoodie, but the tension in his fists said he was thinking about using it. Just not sure on who.

  He stared at the creature in the nurse’s arms.

  “…The f*ck is this?” he asked, flat, each word landing like a brick on concrete.

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  Claudine stepped back. “Sir, he-... he your son. He healthy. Strong lungs, strong heart. Just…” She didn’t finish.

  Marcus took a step in. His eyes twitched when he saw the fur. The yellow eyes. The slight twitch of a not-quite-human lip.

  “What the f*ck is this, Tyra?”

  She flinched like the words hit her physically. Her lips parted, but no sound came.

  “You- you tryna play me?” Marcus barked, louder now. “This shi some joke, huh? This shi a prank to you? You let one of them freak-ass furries touches yo a*s? In my f*ckin house?!”

  “I-...Marcus-...please.” Tyra’s voice cracked like a window under pressure. “I was gonna tell you-...I tried-...I didn’t know how...”

  “Oh, you didn’t know?” he sneered, laughing once, sharp and hollow. “You didn’t know how to tell me you bein' f*cked by a f*ckin’ animal?!”

  “I didn’t know what he was!” she screamed back. Her voice echoed off the hospital walls, startling Claudine. “I thought he was just...just different! He was sweet! He listened! You! Marcus, you don’t listen! You only ever take!”

  “Don’t you dare flip this on me...” Marcus growled, stepping closer. “Don’t you f*ckin dare make this about me when you birthed a monsta'....”

  The word 'monsta' echoes.

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen...” Tyra sobbed. “It was one night, after one of your fights, you didn’t come home for three days....”

  “I was hustling for you, Tyra! So we could eat! So you could sit your a*s at home and not be on some OnlyF*ns sh*t like every other broad on the block.”

  “And I was lonely!” she cried. “He was kind. He told me I mattered. He told me, he told me things I needed to hear, Marcus…”

  Marcus’s chest rose and fell like he was trying to breathe through fire. His eyes dropped to the baby.

  The baby, Jay was still silent. Still staring. The gold of his eyes reflected the buzzing light above like twin moons. His tiny claws twitched again. Something ancient moved in that stare. Something not meant for this time.

  Claudine placed him in the outdated crib beside the bed, her hands gently lingering on his small chest. “He’s quiet...” she said softly. “That’s rare. Babies scream. But this one… watching like he’s judging the world already...”

  Marcus turned slowly to her. “You religious?”

  Claudine hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Then pray for him.” His voice dropped. “Pray hard.”

  He turned to Tyra. His voice went low, dark, and distant. “You cursed him the second you opened your legs to that thing. You cursed all of us.”

  Tyra reached for him. “Please, Marcus, just hold him, maybe if you hold him you’ll feel, he’s still part of me.”

  “He ain’t part of me.” Marcus snapped. “And he never will be.”

  He walked to the door.

  “Marcus... please don’t go, I can’t raise him alone... Marcus, pleasee...”

  Tyra's rage boil inside her sobbing self, like she is going to do something... unexpectable soon.

  But he was already gone. The door swung shut behind him like a final judgment.

  The storm outside screamed louder.

  Jay blinked once.

  There, the lore starts...