The White House was no longer white.
The grand halls once draped in glory now reeked of blood, gunpowder, and a still-hanging tension that even bleach couldn't scrub out. The air was thick with burnt ozone and death. Marble tiles were cracked, flags shredded. The Eagle crest on the floor of the West Wing meeting hall had a claw-shaped gouge right through its heart.
Six janitors were assigned to clean what was left. Three were ex-soldiers. One had PTSD and didn't even know it. All of them wore hazmat suits stained with dried crimson and were too desensitized to care anymore.
"Jesus Christ," muttered one of them, scrubbing off a smear of dried guts on the wall. "This some Independence Day shit."
"More like Dependence Day," said another, laughing. "We're dependin' on bullets and luck now."
"Yeah, well, luck ran out for the president." He pointed to the still-darkened corner of the hallway, where a body bag once rested. Now there was only the imprint of something massive being dragged away.
They kept at it, trading dark jokes the way soldiers once traded smokes.
Then one of them paused. "Yo. What's that?"
Near the end of the hallway, past a cracked wooden door that led into a fire-gutted meeting room, something moved.
A twitch.
Something pale.
They stepped in slowly, not cautious enough.
In the corner of the ruined room, hunched between two melted chairs, was a beast.
Not like the green-gray one Ollie had conjured. No. This one was different.
It was small. Maybe five feet long, crawling in fetal form. Its entire body was white. Not pale. Not albino. Just… pure, unnatural white—like something that had never seen the sun, never touched earth. Its skin shimmered like salt under sweat.
It had one eye, the other an open hollow of black meat, and down its white cheek were thick, glassy tears. They slid down like jelly, viscous and slow.
The men stared. One finally broke the silence.
"Goddamn… This bitch is so white, if a white man in the 1800s discovered him, they'd make his ass the president."
Laughter erupted.
"You're white too, dumbass," another added, chuckling.
"I hate my kid."
"Racist."
They laughed louder, cackling through their exhaustion and trauma.
And then it screeched.
It wasn't loud—but it hurt. Like the sound went inside their skulls instead of their ears.
The beast began to move.
Not on two legs.
Not like a man.
It skittered, dragging its hands beneath it, its spine contorting like wires twisting under skin. Each joint cracked like snapping pencils. It didn't run—it slid across the floor on all fours like a broken puppet.
The man who joked about the president barely had time to scream.
It rushed him—
CRACK.
A gunshot ripped through the silence.
The bullet entered the beast's forehead.
It slumped mid-air, collapsing into a twitching heap before dissolving into ash.
At the entrance to the room stood a woman. She had long white hair tied into a rough bun, a scar running diagonally across her jaw, and eyes that didn't blink.
She wore black combat pants and a leather jacket with surgical precision: custom-fitted, strapped with ammo pockets, two throwing knives, and a holster where a long, obsidian-colored pistol rested—still smoking.
A tiny pink skull sticker was stuck to the slide.
"Start cleaning," she said coldly.
None of the men moved.
"Now."
They scrambled to their feet like kids being scolded by the devil's mom.
"Holy shit," one of them whispered. "It's her."
"Leyley Bieel…"
The American Beast Huntress.
She walked through the ash without a pause, stepping over blood and debris like she was on a sidewalk. Her gaze was locked forward, unreadable. Cold.
Then—
"Les!" a voice called out.
From the same hallway, a man walked in with a coffee in hand.
He wore a brown shirt, blue jeans, and a pair of sneakers that had seen better days. His hair was messy, his beard trimmed by laziness. He looked like someone who'd gotten lost on the way to a baseball game.
But the vibe he gave off?
Steel.
His name was Onix Miguel, another beast hunter—and one with a strange sense of calm.
"C'mon, they were just joking around," he said. "Let 'em be dumb. They're just people trying to cope."
Leyley turned her head slightly. "They let that thing screech. If I hadn't been here, one of them would be entrails."
"They're janitors, not sentries," Onix said, sipping. "You wanna waste your edge on civvies now?"
She exhaled slowly. Holstered her gun.
"They'll die first when the real war starts," she muttered.
Onix tilted his head. "It's already started, Les."
They looked at the heap of ash again.
"White One, huh?" he added. "That's new."
Leyley crouched beside what was left—bits of bone, flakes of skin like dry snow.
"New class," she said. "Emotionally reactive. Low-tier but unstable. Shows traits of mimicry."
"Mimicry of what?"
"People," she answered.
Onix scratched his chin. "Makes sense. If I were some hellspawn built in an abyss, I'd wanna look like my enemy too."
Leyley stood. "It cried."
"Cried?"
"It felt something."
"…That's a new one."
She didn't answer. Just pulled a vial from her belt and scooped some ash into it, sealed it, and pocketed it.
"This isn't random anymore," she said. "They're not just popping up. They're appearing where pain's the loudest."
"Like kids drawn to a broken home," Onix said quietly.
Leyley's eyes didn't soften. "We need to find the source."
"Got a lead?"
"Not yet."
He nodded, then looked around. "Let's wrap up here. The suits want the East Wing cleaned up by tomorrow. Lotta blood over there."
"They should burn the whole place."
"They won't. They never do."
Leyley started walking toward the next wing. Onix followed, looking once more at the workers, who now avoided eye contact and scrubbed harder than before.
He turned back.
"Hey," he said to one of them.
The man flinched. "Y-yeah?"
"Thanks for the joke. That 1800s line? That was pretty good."
He gave a tired smile.
Then he walked on.