SKREAAaaaaagghhhSPLATThe mouther took one look at me and bolted the other way, scrambling frantically just before I crushed it with a chunk of debris I had flung across the street. I couldn’t blame the thing, I’d seen my reflection. In my current shape, I looked terrifying enough to give nightmares to anything with eyes. Still, watching the mouther run like that was enough to make my skin crawl. It didn’t sit right.Because monsters weren’t supposed to run.Not ever.Not until now.The closest thing I’d ever seen was when smarter monsters fell back to look for a better angle, maybe regroup or circle around. Mouthers, though? They weren’t smart. Not even close. Yet every single one I’d run into lately had just bolted at the first sight of me, like they suddenly knew something I didn’t. If it had only happened once, I could have chalked it up to a weird fluke or a stray mutation. Fieldwork always had its oddities, and monster behavior could be unpredictable at the best of times. But this wasn’t just a one-off. It was happening with every monster I crossed paths with, one after another, even the F’s and a lone E. They ran or tried to hide, ducking behind trash piles or squeezing themselves into sewer grates.Not one of them tried to stand their ground. Not a single one made a move to fight back until escape was absolutely impossible.It left me with a knot in my gut. Maybe, somehow, this was connected to Elder Summer’s attack-thing? Were the spores from those plants doing something to them, twisting their instincts or clouding their senses? I couldn’t say for sure. And it wasn’t like (...)