Osteology

Ever since he was born, Lucas Crane suffered from an unidentified bone disorder—his skeleton elongates, retracts, and shifts unpredictably, leaving him hunched over and deformed. His parents and doctors could never explain it. His classmates never let him forget it.

Then, one day in class, a voice whispers: “Kill him.”

His body moves before he can think. His arm stretches unnaturally, tearing through skin, twisting beyond human limits— until his fingers are wrapped around his bully’s throat, pinning him to the wall. As the class watches in horror, his skin stitches itself back together like something alive. His body reverts. His hunch returns. And he runs.

Now, he’s being hunted. Not just by the public, who flood the streets screaming for his capture, for his eradication—a monster, an abomination that should never have existed. The police don’t want justice. They want him dead.

But they aren’t the only ones.

There are others—ones who have been watching him for years. Ones who know what he is. Ones who have been waiting.

His bones aren’t his own.

They never were.

And now that it has awakened, it will not be stopped.