Inna grumbled as she played with her ragdoll while sitting on the lone street lamp providing light to the back alleys of the buildings opposite the Ministry of Manpower’s offices.

Two weeks ago, the moh shuvuu barely survived an encouter with a cambion police officer after trying to eat the brains of her colleague. To add to Inna’s humiliation, she survived because the cambion’s colleague talked his partner out of shooting her, so instead, she got taken to some so-called reformation centre which she escaped from after two days of boring lectures.

“Urgh, that cambion! I was this close to finally getting someone’s brains to eat! Why did she had to ruin things for me, huh?” Inna complained to her doll, which obviously gave no response.

In fact, Inna never wanted to become a moh shuvuu. As a human, she died almost a hundred and fifty years ago back in Buryatia, but her spirit was not able to move on, being stuck in the mortal realm until she began to transform into a bird-like creature while also regaining a physical body. Now she was stuck with the body of a five-year-old and a craving for human brains.

Heck, she didn’t even want to come to Singapore. It was hot and humid, noisy too, except during December and January, as the reckless use of magical weapons during the humans' big war fifteen years ago had messed up weather around the globe: Singapore experiences a chill during the first and last months of the year nowadays, with temperatures going as low as ten degree Celcius. Inna had fallen asleep while exploring an airliner, and when she woke up, she was this whole new country with nothing familiar to her, and she has no idea how to get back home, considering how she was nearly exorcised when she attempted to sneak into the local airport.

As Inna manifested her wings and floated down to ground level, she became aware of some strange noises coming from further down the alley. Curious, she stealthily made her way to the ledge of the second floor of a building on her right and peeked out the corner.

She could not see anyone, but she could see the shadows of two individuals grappling with each other. Based on their voices, both were male, with one of them screaming in fear while the other’s voice contained such rage that it frightened Inna, who instinctively clutched her ragdoll tight against herself.

“Please, no! I didn’t know! I did not know it would be fatal!”

“Lies! You knew it would kill her! And not just her! How many victims have you and your friends claimed with your deception?”

“Please, spare me! I’ll surrender myself to the police! I’ll tell them everything!”

“The police? NO! Your crimes have crossed the line! You’ll surrender your life to me!”

Inna found herself frozen by fear as one of the shadws began to change from a humanoid shape to some sort of feral animal. The owner of the other shadow shrieked and continued begging for mercy, but then blood was seen splattering the walls before a corpse, ripped into pieces, was thrown into view.

Inna shrieked in fear, manifested her wings and flew away, desperate to escape the scene. Her shriek must have alerted the killer, for she could sense a presence behind her quickly approaching. In her haste, she accidentedly collided into a hanging flower pot and fell to the ground hard. Within seconds, the killer was right in front of Inna, one claw raised. Inna could not see the killer, but she could sense him looking down on her, ready to swing down upon her.

“Hey, who’re you? A therianthrope? Identify your registration num- Shit, he's coming! Shoot!”

A man’s voice was heard shouting, followed by several gunshots as the killer dodged the bullets coming his way and running off at superhuman speed. Inna turned to see two police officers approaching her with their firearms drawn.

“What the- Is this girl a moh shuvuu? I thought they’re only found in Buryatia? Are you hurt, young lady?”

Inna shooked her head. Her rescuers, an African cop accompanied by a Chinese cop with a poker face, checked their surroundings before the latter picked up Inna’s ragdoll which she had dropped when she fell and handed it back to her.

Now that the fear had left her body, Inna felt a wave of relief and began crying as the Chinese cop, despite still showing no emotions on his face, gently picked her up and carried her out of the back alley, during which she could not help but notice how unnaturally cold his hands were…