The crater still smokes hours later, heat shimmering off twisted metal and something else—slick, almost organic—nestled in the heart. Marlene Dixon, a rancher with rough hands and a worn shovel, edges closer, her flashlight trembling. She prods the thing, steel scraping against its surface. It moves, unfurling with a sound like wet leaves, and clamps onto her wrist. Her last thought is the cold; not biting, but absolute, a chill that unravels from the inside out.

Sheriff Whitaker, broad and grizzled, kneels beside the body, eyes tracing the perfect eyelashes, the blue fingernails, the impossibly empty skin. "How does something get here so fast?" he mutters, voice brittle. Birds scatter overhead, and the only answer is the echo of wind through brittle stalks.

The thing wears Marlene Dixon’s face, but the details are off—her smile too wide, her movements jerky and uncertain. At night, it paces, opening drawers, sniffing at meat it does not eat. When hunger returns, it slips out, blending in just enough to wave at passing truckers, its gaze lingering on the blue of their veins.

The air turns sharp, laced with the phantom scent of burning wood—home. The Skinner presses its head to the boy’s, pupils dilating until only black remains. CDC Agent Rosenfeld later reviews the tape, knuckles white. "It doesn’t just kill. It curates the fear," he whispers, voice thin as the hum of the old security monitor.

Among the piles, the Skinner sits, fingers twitching as it watches footage of laughter and cake. It has learned voices now, dialing numbers, imitating a yoga teacher’s lilt to call her mother. Rosenfeld’s notes tremble as he writes: “The nest is a monument to fear. The spiral grows.”

She freezes, watching his smile spread too wide, teeth too many and too sharp. The Skinner lifts the cup, leaving no prints, only a smear of skin and the chemical stench of stress. "You have to exhale to fit better," it says, and the waitress’s scream is swallowed by thunder.

Lorna Voss[/@ch_5], forensic pathologist, stands over husks brought in by the CDC, dictating her findings, hands steady despite the horror.] Every victim’s adrenal glands are missing, dissected with clinical precision. When Rosenfeld finds Lorna’s body, it is different: her ribs cracked open, inside a spiral of preserved glands glistening with syrupy residue. Her hands cradle a Dictaphone. He presses play. "Lesson learned. Fear tastes better when it’s aged. You’ll find the rest in Chicago, Phoenix, Austin. Look for the birthday parties." The recording ends with a slow, deliberate creak—the sound of a swingset on an empty playground.

He repeats three things to himself, a mantra to hold back the terror: The Skinner always leaves the eyelids intact. It can’t mimic involuntary tears. And when it feeds, the fingernails always turn blue. Across eleven states, 742 suspected cases. The Looking Glass protocol is all that stands between the world and something that learns, adapts, and hungers. If your reflection blinks before you do, just run. But don’t scream. It likes when you scream.