Trenn checked his watch. Too slow.

  He rolled his shoulders back, forcing his chest up. He was supposed to be a Phys Ed teacher in a year; he couldn’t let finals week turn him soft. He needed this burn. It was the best way to clear his head.

  The rhythm of his running shoes on the gravel path was the only sound in his world, until a flash of violet light fractured his vision. A hum resonated deep within his skull, vibrating his teeth.

  He skidded to a halt, chest heaving. The light vanished as quickly as it had appeared, but the silence that followed was heavy. The air suddenly tasted metallic. The rustle of the leaves sounded too loud, too sharp against his ears.

  Dehydrated, he told himself, rubbing his temples. Finals are frying my brain.

  As he reached for his water bottle, a grey blur dropped from an oak branch ten feet away, landing with a wet thud that made him jump.

  Trenn blinked. It was a squirrel. A big one, but just a squirrel. A nervous laugh bubbled in his chest.

  Shit. Spooked by a rodent. Get a grip.

  But then he squinted. The thing was... wrong. Its shoulders were too broad, its posture too rigid. And its paws—they looked tangled in something.

  Is it caught in a wire? He thought, leaning forward slightly. Or holding twigs?

  No. The long, curved hooks weren't holding anything. They were claws, growing out of its fingers.

  Trenn’s mind scrambled for a biology textbook answer. Some deformity?

  "Go on," Trenn said, waving a hand dismissively. "Get lost, buddy."

  The squirrel didn't flinch. Instead, it slowly rose onto its hind legs, with a balance that felt uncomfortably human.

  A series of sharp, guttural clicks echoed from its throat.

  A shadow darted from a maple in the corner of his eye. Another dropped from a pine to his right. Horror seized him. They moved with an unsettlingly fluid coordination—a pack of wolves hunting in unison.

  The air filled with the scent of wet fur and something else, something feral and musky that made his stomach churn as more sprang from the branches and undergrowth.

  His hiking boots skidded on the loose gravel after jumping a large root. He threw a frantic glance over his shoulder, and his heart seized—it was a closing net of grey fur and black stripes, a dozen blurs moving with impossible agility through the trees.

  A chittering screech came from directly overhead.

  Trenn didn’t look; he just veered off the trail, diving into the dense woods as the leading squirrel dove into the spot he had occupied a second before.

  Low branches clawed at his face. He vaulted a moss-covered log, the impact jarring his teeth.

  The killer squirrels crashed through the undergrowth on both sides, their unnerving clicks echoing back and forth.

  His lungs burned. The familiar forest warped, the world smearing at the edge of his vision. One moment, he was dodging a familiar birch; the next, he was swerving to avoid a tree made of cloudy crystal.

  He burst through a curtain of hanging moss and skidded into a small clearing. The chittering behind him was too close.

  Something struck his lower leg—not a light tap, but a dense, heavy weight, like a medicine ball thrown at his shin.

  He felt the pressure first. A hot, crushing vice clamped around his calf. Then came the sound—the dry rip of denim followed by a scream as skin gave way.

  Trenn looked down. The creature was attached to him, its claws buried in his muscle. There was a thick, coppery smell of blood and animal musk.

  Then the nerves caught up. Agony shot up his leg, buckling his knee.

  He kicked out with all his might, the impact jarring his leg as the creature flew through the air, slamming into a crystalline tree with a sickening crack.

  The other squirrels were entering the clearing, their clicking growing louder and more frantic.

  Trenn scrambled backward, his boots kicking up dirt, until his heel met nothing but air. He flailed, catching his balance just on the edge of a pit.

  Behind him, a large pool of light swirled. It looked like liquid electricity—a gold and violet soup that hummed with a terrifying, radioactive vibration. The hair on his arms stood up.

  Don't touch it, his brain screamed. It’ll boil you alive.

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  He spun back toward the trees. Climb? No. They lived in the trees. Fight? With a water bottle against a pack of miniature wolves?

  The pack emerged from the ferns. The leader—the one he’d kicked—dragged itself forward, its jaw hanging loose, eyes burning with a hateful intelligence. It wasn't hunting anymore. It was punishing.

  Trenn looked at the chittering creatures, then at the hissing, radioactive pool.

  They’re going to peel the meat off my bones.

  The leader bunched its muscles to spring.

  Fine.

  Trenn squeezed his eyes shut, whispered a curse, and let his weight tip backward into the void.

  The moment he hit the surface, the world dissolved into a profound, bone-deep cold that stole his breath.

  A thousand needles of ice and light pierced him, followed by a violent, wrenching sensation.

  There was a crash. A jarring shock against his spine. Damp earth under his cheek.

  Pain shot through his wounded leg. He tried to draw a breath but choked on the thick, wet air. It smelled of salt and rot. The sea? He opened his eyes.

  No crystalline trees, no pools of swirling gold. Instead, the silhouettes of gnarled, weather-beaten pines clawed at the starless sky, their bark rough and real. The sound grew louder, more distinct.

  Waves. Crashing waves. In Montreal?

  He staggered to his feet, hobbling towards the sound. He pushed through a curtain of low-hanging, salt-stiffened branches, and his boots sank into soft sand.

  A vast ocean of black water roiled before him.

  Trenn froze. His brain stuttered, trying to overlay the map of Montreal onto what he was seeing.

  Where are the city lights?

  He tilted his head back, searching for the North Star. Searching for an airplane. Searching for anything familiar.

  He found two moons.

  One was a thin, silver crescent. The other was a bloated, orange sphere, pockmarked with craters he didn’t recognize, looming impossibly large in a violet sky.

  I’m dying. Or someone drugged me—or both.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. He pressed the heels of his hands into his sockets until stars exploded behind his lids, praying—begging—that when he opened them, the orange moon would be gone.

  He opened them. It was still there, hanging heavy and hateful in the sky.

  His limbs turned to lead.

  He retched. Dry, violent heaves turned his stomach inside out, bringing up nothing but bile and terror. He spat into the black sand, gasping for air that smelled wrong—too much salt, too much rot.

  "HELP!" he screamed at the empty beach, his voice cracking. "IS ANYBODY THERE?"

  Silence. Just the crashing waves.

  He curled into a ball, wrapping his arms around his head to shut out the alien sky, and shook so hard his teeth clicked together. He lay there for a long time, shivering in the damp sand, waiting to wake up in a hospital bed.

  He lay there until the shivering stopped being fear and started being cold. The adrenaline that had carried him through the forest drained away, leaving him hollow.

  That was when the leg made itself known.

  It started as a throb, pulsing in time with his heartbeat, then sharpened into a searing, hot iron burn. Trenn gasped, unfurling from his ball, his hand going instinctively to his calf. His fingers came away wet and sticky.

  Infection. The word floated up from his medical training, detached and clinical.

  Animal bite. Bacteria. Septic shock.

  He looked at the black water. It looked oily, thick, and freezing.

  It’s going to hurt, he thought, staring at the white foam churning on the black sand.

  He dragged himself toward the surf, digging his elbows into the sand, his injured leg trailing uselessly behind him. He reached the water’s edge and paused. He had to do this. If he didn't...

  He grit his teeth and plunged his leg into the surf.

  His back arched, his spine locking rigid as the saltwater found the raw nerve endings. He didn’t have the breath to scream. The cold was shocking, but the salt was liquid fire.

  He scrubbed at the gouges with a trembling hand, washing away the mud.

  He dragged himself back up the beach, away from the tide, and collapsed again. He tore the bottom of his damaged pant leg—clumsy, shaking work—and wrapped it tight.

  Leaning back on his elbows, panting, the adrenaline rush abandoned him, leaving him shivering and slick with a cold sweat.

  Adrenaline had abandoned him, leaving him shivering. He was exposed. Unarmed. If those things followed him...

  His gaze snagged on a round, grey shape half-buried in the sand. A stone? Or an egg?

  Paranoia spiked. He didn't think. He launched himself forward, ignoring the pain in his calf, and drove his boot into the object to launch it away from him.

  His boot connected, but the jarring, bone-rattling shock he expected never came. Instead, the surface yielded. It was dense, heavy, and undeniably... organic.

  The strange sphere flew from the sand, arcing against the alien moons. It struck a tree with a muffled thud, but instead of dropping to the ground, it rebounded high into the air with unnatural force.

  At the peak of its arc, the sphere lurched, its shape morphing like a jellied mass shifting its weight. The wobble seemed to kill its momentum for a second—but instead, it modified its trajectory in mid-air.

  It was coming back. Fast. His body reacted before he could think, arms flying up to shield his face. But the flying object didn't crash into him. It hit the ground, bounced softly, and landed with a gentle poof in the sand not two feet from where it had started.

  A low, palpable hum rose from the sphere, a vibration that traveled through the sand and up the soles of Trenn’s boots. The anger and fear in his chest vanished, snuffed out by a sudden, sharp spike of something else.

  The strange rock remained still, its surface smooth and unbroken. He lifted his foot and gently nudged it with the tip of his boot.

  The creature—he couldn't think of it as a round stone anymore—rolled and bounced smoothly away from his foot. It moved with a fluid, self-propelled grace, completing a circle in the sand, and returned to his foot.

  Its thrumming became a palpable, expectant buzz that traveled up his leg. The feeling was… playful. Eager, almost. Like a dog wagging its tail.

  "You..." He stared at the vibrating sphere. "You came back?"

  In response to his voice, the creature went wild. It nudged his foot more insistently, bumping against his ankle with a happy, rhythmic cadence.

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