Serial · ongoing
THE GOAT CORE
Nineteen-year-old Ash Kessler wakes trapped in a morgue drawer in derelict Coldwater County Hospital, with no memory of how he got there, one missing eye, and only a faded ID to confirm his name. The hospital is stalked by a towering goat-headed anomaly—a near-immortal mutant from an old underground biohazard leak, powered by an internal glowing "morph core" hunted and traded by private containment firms. Ash’s desperate call draws ruthless Underline section chief Sol Whitlock, who offers him a high-stakes interview: survive the night and harvest the beast’s core. To stay alive, Ash embeds a goat core in his empty eye socket, and discovers he can freely remove and swap cores—a rare, invaluable ability no other human carrier has.
Chapter 1: Cold Storage
Midnight. The drawer was knocking from the inside. Four thuds against steel. A pause. Four more. The bolt on the drawer's edge had been pain…
Chapter 2: Precision Instruments
The next door that gave was four rooms down. He put his shoulder into it and came through fast — two steps, hands on the frame — before he r…
Chapter 3: Improvised Weapons
He came out of the supply room with the pack riding high on his shoulder, heavier than it had gone in, and he didn't take inventory of it. T…
Chapter 4: End of the Corridor
End of the Corridor He came off the pipe feet first and hit the desk. The desk jumped. The monitor tilted. The goat head was already swingin…
Chapter 5: Required Course
He finished the swing. He'd gone for the head, and he'd gone for it because the man had come through the door at the end of the corridor wit…
Chapter 6: Self-Defense
He'd tried his thigh, his sleeve, the inside of the coat where nobody would see it. The red was still on his palm, brown at the edges now, d…
Chapter 7: Bad Luck, Little Lamb
The screen on the case had changed on its own. The goat was on the left side of it now, small and flat, cut down to an icon. On the right, w…
Chapter 8: A High Margin for Beginners
The man got a fistful of his collar and pulled. Ash came up onto the balls of his feet and stayed there, the coat taking his weight across t…
Chapter 9: Cores Don't Change Hands
The powder was still coming down when the man spoke. "Nice work." He was standing with his weight on the leg the blood wasn't running down.…