Chapter Text
The door swung with a clank, and the body fell without a sound.
Step. Step. Step. Step.
Silence.
White, cushioned ceiling above, and white, cushioned floor beneath. Walls, white and cushioned too. Everywhere, white and soft and bright.
A low laugh filled the empty room, small and ragged and bigger and stronger as time went on. It was hysterical, crazed, soft chokes and high-pitched wheezes crashing in between. A throaty cry and muffled pounding joined the chorus.
Silence again. Sudden, inexplicable. Worse than any cacophony.
Terror.
Then.
A sniff. Smaller than the first laughter. Softer than the hits against the cushioned floors or walls or ceiling. Insignificant.
Thud.
Another sniff. And another. Tiny drops tinted the cushions below, watery and clear and unstoppable. Over and over, down and down, falling and hitting and rolling and disappearing.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Purple bruises, profound cuts, fingers flesh-deep, hands holding, metal scraping, vision white, throat dry, sharp edge, nonstopping.
And pain.
Pain.
Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain.
An explosion.
Then, darkness.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
His eyes dragged open with a heavy effort, his eyelids sticking together as if fused with glue. A blur of beige and black shapes swam in his vision, distorted by a thick, milky film that refused to clear.
He groaned, the sound catching in his dry, sandpaper throat. His head throbbed to the beat of a frantic alarm, the rhythm driving like a rusted nail into his skull, making it impossible to string a single thought together.
Beep.
He blinked once, twice, forcing his vision to sharpen through the haze. Dust swirled in heavy, stagnant clouds, the white powder coating every surface until the room looked like a bleached bone. But the world looked wrong – tilted and fractured like a broken mirror.
He tried to move, digging his fingers into the grit of the floor to heave himself up. But the moment he shifted, a sharp, metallic clack rang out, followed by a searing jolt of agony that shot through his bone. The force snagged his entire skeleton, dragging his body back down with a violent, jarring jerk that knocked the breath from his lungs.
Gasping, his vision swimming with white sparks, he forced his head to turn. He followed the line of his own aching limb to the source of the resistance. There, he saw it: a heavy leather cuff bolted directly into the gleaming base of a surgical table.
Beep.
His heart raced, hammering painfully against his ribs like it wanted to escape. A million questions rushed through the static in his mind, all muffled by the insistent drumming against his skull.
How long had he been out? Why was the air so thin?
Not safe. He wasn’t safe.
Beep.
He swallowed down the panic threatening to submerge him, and with a primal, desperate snarl, yanked his wrist sideways. His vision exploded into a kaleidoscope of pain, but he felt his arm come free, the limb flying back with the force of the release and falling heavily onto a cold surface.
After catching his breath, he wiggled his fingers, testing for sensation, and they responded slowly – sickly little twitches that sent pinpricks of ice down his bone.
With his left hand free, he levered himself upward, dragging his torso off the floor. His right cheek tingled, leaden and prickling after being numb for an eternity, and his right shoulder protested, a dull, radiating ache traveling to his head, pounding in time with the alarm.
He moved his head, and the world shifted.
Beep.
He had been slumped on his side, he realized after a disorienting second of reorientation, the room’s ruinous landscape coming into focus in the strobing emergency light.
The lab was a graveyard of shattered glass and overturned shelves. Wires hung from the ceiling like severed nerves, sparking weakly in the dim emergency light. Strewn across the floor were dozens of surgical tools – bent, mangled, and coated with an unidentifiable, viscous liquid that shimmered like oil. There were bone saws and a vast collection of knives hanging by a thread on the far wall, their polished blades pulsing threateningly with the rhythm of the insistent red light that drenched the room.
A cloying pit of dread opened in his stomach.
Where was he?
The smell of blood clogged his nostrils – sickly sweet and metallic – and the need to escape or vomit clawed at his throat.
With trembling limbs, he contorted his body to release his feet from their restraints. It was a clumsy struggle; feeling hadn't yet returned to his toes, and the oversized, white laboratory trousers tangled around his ankles like a shroud.
When the last of the leather straps finally gave way, he collapsed back against the freezing metal flank of the table.
He forced himself to go still, waiting for the world to stop spinning and for the fire in his joints to subside.
He gasped for one last breath, then turned his head to the right.
Beep.
Bile burned his throat. Metal glinted against the red light in a series of sharp, predatory angles. It showed off its intricate, terrifying details: bolts, seams of dark steel, and exposed hydraulics. It was grey and industrial, scarred with deep gouges and scratches that spoke of a violent history.
A metal wrist. Metal fingers.
Throat tight with horror, he willed those artificial digits to move. Immediately, they responded – there was no lethargic delay like there had been with his left hand. He let them drop, recoiling in terror, and they hit the floor with a heavy, hollow clang, but the sensation of cold tile against his fingertips never came.
He forced the air into his lungs, but it felt like swallowing needles. A metal arm. No, not a simple metal arm – it was his metal arm. The thought didn't sit right in his brain; it felt like a foreign object lodged in his mind. It was a cold, mechanical parasite grafted where his flesh should have been.
The realization made his skin turn to ice. He took one forceful gulp of air, choking on the grit and plaster dust, then took another, and another, until his heartbeat receded into a low thrum that no longer threatened to burst from his chest.
From the corner of his eye, he watched as his flesh hand worked at the remaining clamps, his skin crawling every time his fingertips brushed the cold, unresponsive steel. When the metal hand was finally free, it felt like a dead weight hanging from his shoulder.
Beep.
At last, he was free. There were no more leather straps to struggle against, no more cold buckles biting into his skin. Finally, he could move his body – well, what was left of his body – on his own.
He should get a move on.
He stood up, lurching and nearly collapsing multiple times when his leg gave out, the left feeling unsettlingly surer than the right. He looked to the far wall, a side of the room he hadn’t been able to see from his position on the floor. A jagged, gaping hole had been torn through the concrete, as if an explosion had ripped outward from the center of the room. The wall was a mangled mess of rebar and dust, but right beside the wreckage, a heavy steel door stood slightly ajar.
Stumbling and weaving through the debris, he made his way toward it. With a tentative push, the door opened without a sound, revealing a darkness that seemed to swallow the red pulse of the room.
Beep.
A long, featureless corridor stretched to his right, choked by the white plaster dust that billowed from the shattered wall to the left. The ruins blocked the view of anything but for the black void that peeked through the jagged gaps in the concrete from the left. Above him, the lamps were failing, plunging the hallway into total darkness every few seconds. They emitted a persistent, buzzing hum of a dying circuit, a sound that burrowed under his skin and left his nerves raw.
Stepping out into the haze, he turned right.
His steps were muffled by his socks, the only sounds in the corridor being the flicker of the dying lights and the ragged rhythm of his own breathing.
He walked slowly, but the scenery was a nightmare of repetition. There were no other doors aside from the one he had just exited, and there were no windows, no frames, or chairs to break the monotony – just a long, oppressive tunnel that ended at a sharp turn to the left.
Beep.
When he reached the end of the stretch, his body locked up in a sudden, instinctive halt. A violent jolt traveled up his spine, and the hairs on his nape bristled.
There was a presence here, a thick, heavy aura of hunger that felt almost physical.
Something was watching him.
He looked around, spinning on his heels, his eyes darting through the dust and shadow.
But he didn’t see anything.
Unable to suppress it, he shuddered, running a hand through his short hair and gripping the nape of his neck. With a last fearful glance behind him, he steeled himself and rounded the corner.
Beep.
The smell of blood hit him like a physical blow, so strong and iron-thick he almost doubled over. He gasped, the sound echoing loud and wet in the silence of the corridor.
A trail of red was smeared across the floor, tortuous and jagged, punctuated by bloody handprints on the empty walls. It led to the only thing out of place: a body, leaning against the wall, head slumped forward and chest caved in.
And missing half of its torso.
He couldn’t tear his eyes away. A sick, magnetic feeling wrenched his stomach and made him unable to stop his feet as they carried him toward it. He crouched in front of the cadaver – a middle-aged man with glasses hanging precariously from one ear and a mouth agape in a scream that would never be heard. The lab coat he wore was a ruin of frayed fabric and gore where something had torn his side away. He didn't want to look – didn't want to see the viscera glistening next to the man’s thigh – but, by some morbid miracle, one thing remained intact. An ID badge hung from the breast pocket, gleaming under the strobing red light.
A beat of expectant silence followed.
He leaned in closer, holding his breath against the cloying stench of decay. The badge contained the expected information: name, occupation, rank, and number; but behind it, tucked deeply into the pocket, its outline stark against the thin fabric, there was the one thing he needed.
A master key.
He felt his heart beating faster, drumming against his ribs. That was it – his way out, the key to any locked sections he might find in this forsaken place.
The taste of adrenaline, metallic and sharp, filled his mouth. He was going to be free.
He reached out and, with a shaking, hesitant hand, reached for the metal.
His fingers touched the key, closed around its ridges, and with a swift move, he pulled it free.
A low growl vibrated through the floor to his left.
Beep.
He froze. The hair on his left arm stood on end, and his hold on the key tightened.
It was the same feeling as before – the crushing weight of a predator's gaze.
Something was here.
Beep.
Slowly, he turned his head.
Red eyes watched him from the shadows behind the bend in the wall. They were wide, unblinking, and filled with a terrible, starving intelligence.
The lights flickered out.
Beep.
They came back on.
The corridor was empty.
His breath hitched. His fingers went lax with shock, and the key slipped from his grasp.
Clack.
For a moment, everything stood still. The metal piece lay on the tile between him and the darkness.
He breathed.
The thing lunged.
It closed the distance with terrifying speed. The beast jumped, a mass of shadow and hunger. He rolled away desperately, his back slamming painfully into the concrete wall, the impact punching a jagged cry from his lungs.
The beast’s own momentum carried it past him, and it smashed into the far end of the hallway with a sickening thud.
He didn’t wait to see if the thing would clamber back to its feet. With frantic, shaking movements, he snatched the now blood-soaked key from the floor and ran.
The skittering sound of claws scraping against the tiles erupted right behind him. He pushed his legs harder, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. The end of the corridor loomed, and he snatched at the corner of the wall to swing himself into a tight turn. He slipped on the slick floor, feet skidding through a patch of something wet, and scrambled to find his footing. Behind him, the creature smashed into the wall again, but it recovered instantly, undeterred and obsessed.
The air burned in his lungs, a sharp, icy fire. He didn't look back; he couldn’t. He knew the moment he saw those crimson eyes again, he would lose the will to move.
Another corridor appeared, but this one bifurcated into three separate paths.
Left? Right? Straight ahead?
The creature shrieked – a sound like grinding gears and tearing metal – closer than before.
He made to go left, feinting a heavy step to slow his momentum. The beast’s footfalls thundered, and just as he felt its hot, rancid breath graze the back of his neck, he ducked. He let the creature’s own speed carry it straight past him, then he spun on his heel and bolted right.
The creature howled, a sound thick with feral rage, but he didn't stop. His lungs screamed in agony as he forced his legs to keep churning. He hit another junction and turned left, then right at the next corner, then left again, trying to lose the thing in the labyrinth.
He almost stumbled and fell at the sight ahead.
Where the previous corridors had been sterile and empty, this one was a charnel house. It was filled with overturned tables and splintered chairs – and it was filled with death.
Dead bodies were piled upon one another, mangled beyond recognition, a pool of violent red spreading across the floor like a rising tide.
The light went out again, and for a heartbeat, he felt like death had finally reached out to claim him. But then, a dim glow shone from the far end of the hall. It was red, just like the blood and the beast's eyes, but instead of dread, this light filled him with a desperate hope.
A red light, blinking sluggishly.
An emergency exit.
The heavy weight in his chest loosened, and a small, tentative smile bloomed on his lips. There it was – his way out, the only thing in the world he wanted.
He took a stumbling, hopeful step toward the light.
A single drop of viscous, warm liquid fell onto his hair.
The smile vanished, and the hope he had been nursing curdled into ice.
He had been so immersed in his revelation that for a few seconds of lethal distraction, he had forgotten the predator at his back.
The creature howled directly into his ear.
In a last-ditch effort, he tried to sprint for the exit, but the thing swiped at his legs. He fell headfirst, the floor rushing up to meet him. Pain exploded behind his eyelids. His face was instantly sticky with the blood of previous victims, and his nose felt broken, but he couldn't stay down. He had to run.
Gasping in pure panic, he pressed a knee to the floor to shove himself up. A giant paw slammed into his side, the claws slashing through his thin scrubs and throwing him bodily against the wall. He cried out at the impact and slumped onto his back. He could feel the deep furrows of the gashes, the grime of the floor seeping into the wounds as they began to ooze. The metallic taste of blood coated the back of his throat.
The creature was over him in an instant, pinning him to the floor with its heavy paws on his shoulders. In a frenzy of panic, he screamed and contorted his body against the weight, but the thing didn't budge. It simply pressed down harder, its massive bulk crushing the air from his chest.
Its talons dug deep into his shoulders, and its eyes gleamed with an animalistic, unwavering rage. A need to hunt. A need to kill.
He stared up into the face of his end, his own reflection flickering in those wide, red pupils.
“HELP!”
His cry reverberated off the cold, uncaring walls, but only the hollow buzz of the failing lights answered his call.
No one was going to save him.
He searched frantically for something – anything – to defend himself. A knife, a shard of glass, a jagged piece of rebar. Anything to put between his throat and the monster.
He looked to his left and saw one of the bodies piled nearby. Another man, slumped over, red streaked all over his cold body, his dead stare fixed on the ceiling.
He was going to die, just like him.
The beast’s rancid, humid breath warmed the side of his face, smelling of old copper and decay.
But he didn’t want to die.
His own ribcage felt like it was being crushed, his lungs exposed beneath the shredded fabric of his scrubs, the white of his bones peeking through the raw, red gashes in his side.
He didn't want to die.
The thing’s teeth grazed his cheek, a sharp, predatory promise.
Not like this.
The monster roared, its teeth glinting a slick, wet red when the lights failed once more, plunging them into a heartbeat of absolute darkness.
In the dark, a terrifying instinct took over.
His hands came together, palms meeting in a sharp, definitive crack.
“GET–”
He wouldn’t die like this.
He slammed his palms onto the cold, tacky ground.
“– OFF!”
A violent burst of electric blue light exploded from his palms, searing the darkness. The floor beneath him rumbled with a tectonic groan, and a massive beam of compacted earth and stone shot upward from his side. It tore through the narrow space between his arm and torso, driving straight into the thing’s chest with the force of a battering ram.
The creature howled, a sound of sheer agony, as it was lifted off him. It clawed desperately at the solidified dirt, its black blood spraying out in hot, rhythmic pulses, raining down across his face. Another beam sprouted from the tile, slamming into the monster’s belly with a sickening crunch. And another one caught it in the throat. And another. And another.
The beast was being dragged backward, pinned and pierced by the sheer force of the spikes. And yet, it fought, its muscles bulging as it tried to snap the earthen spears with its bare claws.
It frothed at the mouth, those hateful red eyes never leaving him, even as it was being impaled.
More beams erupted from the hallway floor, piercing its limbs and torso until it looked like a grotesque insect pinned to a board.
It gave one final, gurgling screech, and with a last, desperate roar, he swept its claw at his face.
He flung his arms over his head, bracing himself against the hit.
A shaky, agonizing silence filled the corridor, followed by the heavy, wet thud of the creature’s weight finally settling.
Silence.
For several long, breathless seconds, he didn’t move. His heart hammered against the floorboards, the only sign that he was still among the living.
He slowly lowered his arms from his head.
The thing had fallen still, its blood pooling in a dark, shimmering lake that stained the floor beneath it.
A deafening silence permeated the hallway – a sick requiem for all the death, fear, and anguish that had taken place in this concrete tomb.
Still convulsing with adrenaline, he forced himself to his feet. His limbs were shaking uncontrollably, his breath coming in shallow, jagged gasps. He didn't take his eyes off the creature for a single second. It didn't move; the earthen pillars remained embedded deep in its mangled carcass, its body finally, mercifully, at rest.
He took a stumbling step, then another, and before he knew it, he was sprinting toward the end of the hallway. His own ragged breaths clogged his ears like an unforgiving drum. He didn’t try to slow his pace, crashing against the wall and frantically shoving the key he had snatched from the floor into the keyhole. His left hand trembled violently, making it impossible to slot the key correctly; he shoved it over and over again, his fingers clammy and weak. Yet, he refused to use the right hand – it was metal, not his, what was happening, NOT HIS–
The light over the hole turned green, and the door depressurized with a soft, mechanical hiss. When it finally opened, a gust of freezing wind howled inside, cleansing his nostrils of the vile stench that had chased him since the moment he woke. Light streamed in – soft, blue, and wan. It was snowing, the ground covered in white fluff that turned the landscape into an infinite, blinding maze. The mountains were giant, looming, and everlasting.
Where would he go?
He left that hellish place without looking back once.
Minutes turned into hours, and still, he kept walking. The wind bit into his sensitive skin like a million glass shards, and his feet burrowed deep into the snow. His socks were ruined by now, and the cold seeped into every crevice of his being, leaving him with a deep, unrelenting trembling. The gashes in his shirt let the ice-laden wind sting against his wounds, the sharp pain the only thing keeping him from drifting away.
At some point, he lost the feeling in his hand, then his fingers, and finally, his lips. His breath condensed in front of his face, and his eyes followed the white mist helplessly. He imagined it was the smoke of a hearth – warm and welcoming to his tired bones, a respite for his restless body. A fire to ward off danger, to keep him company, to watch over him while he slept so he could keep going the next morning.
His eyelids felt like lead, and for a mere moment, they fell shut.
His foot caught on a hidden root.
The world began to spin. Dead leaves whirled overhead. Bare tree trunks swayed and tilted. The ground rushed up to meet him.
He fell without a sound, and his head struck something hard. The pain was a treacherous, heavy sensation that made his soul drag him down, down, down. It pulled him deeper into the snow, rendering him unable to move a single finger.
There was something warm spreading against the side of his head – a wet sludge that smelled faintly of copper – and he thought that maybe he had finally found help. Maybe they were washing his head with tender hands and tepid water. Maybe he was safe, after all, with a roaring fire by his side and friends at the other.
Yes, he thought as his eyes dragged shut against the dying shine of the setting sun. I’m safe.
He smiled, and the world was encased by darkness.