Marcus dragged himself forward through the filth-caked tunnel, jaw clenched so tightly his molars felt like they might crack. Each movent sent a jolt of pain screaming up his leg—a reminder of the broken ss below his knee. The world slled of iron and mildew and sothing sour beneath it, sothing rotting and alive.
His flashlight had died hours ago. Now, he followed the flickering pulse of ergency lights embedded deep in the ceiling—red glows that barely illuminated more than a few feet ahead.
His fingers, slick with sweat and gri, gripped a rusted beam to pull himself further. His breath ca in shallow, ragged bursts.
"Co on," he muttered, voice dry. "Co on, Marcus. You’ve been through worse."
He hadn’t.
Not like this.
Not alone. Not in these goddamned tunnels that had once housed research, security, life. Now it was all blood and echoes.
He paused, letting his weight slump against the concrete wall. His heart thudded unevenly in his ears. For a long minute, he listened.
Nothing.
Just the steady drip of condensation, the occasional groan of a pipe shifting in the walls.
His fingers twitched. He flexed them, just to feel sothing alive. It was too quiet. Too still. His body wasn’t ant to be this slow—Marcus had been trained for warzones, tactical entries, high-stress, high-speed chaos. But this? This was crawling through a grave no one rembered to bury. His brain buzzed with adrenaline and exhaustion, clashing like static.
Sothing skittered in the dark behind him. He snapped his head around so fast his vision blurred. Just shadows. Just... shadows.
He swallowed, throat dry as gravel. "Get it together."
He needed water. He needed light. He needed soone—anyone—just to remind him he wasn’t the last breathing thing down here.
A laugh escaped his mouth. Hoarse. Humorless. "You’re losing it, man."
He clenched his jaw and pushed on.
Eventually, the corridor widened into what looked like a small equipnt chamber—abandoned, long-forgotten. The floor was littered with debris, shattered plastic crates, half-buried tools. On the wall hung an ergency dical box, cracked open but not entirely looted.
The transition was jarring. Dust hung in the air like fine fog, particles dancing red beneath the ergency glow. A mangled office chair lay upside-down near a rusted tool bench, half-buried under fallen ceiling tiles. Shelves once bolted to the wall had collapsed, spilling their contents in a twisted sprawl of screwdrivers, tubing, crushed helt visors, and what looked like a half-burnt maintenance manual. The sight was almost nostalgic.
He could picture the place back when it had a pulse—technicians huddled over consoles, voices clipped and efficient, data scrolling across holo-screens. Now it looked like a cri scene after ti forgot how to care.
Marcus let out a breath that was half a laugh. "Finally."
He dragged himself over and yanked it down. Inside, most of the dical supplies were gone, but not all. A single splint brace, bent but intact, clattered into his hand. There was a length of gauze, too, and a roll of adhesive tape hanging on by a miracle.
He dropped to the floor, wincing. The fracture in his leg was misaligned, swollen, angry red and purple beneath the blood-streaked fabric of his pants.
"I’m going to fix you," he muttered. "I’m going to fix you, and then we’re going to find the others. And then we’re going to get out of this hellhole."
For the first ti in hours, a flicker of hope ignited in his chest.
He reached for a nearby rusted rod and used it to brace under his calf, wrapping gauze and torn strips of his shirt to hold it tight. The mont the bone shifted into place, he nearly passed out from the pain.
The world tunneled. Black at the edges. Heat flooded his face and sweat pooled at the nape of his neck. He didn’t scream. Couldn’t. Just panted through his teeth and pressed his knuckles against the floor until the pain dulled from an ice pick into a steady burn.
It was almost beautiful, that pain. It reminded him he was still alive.
He blinked up at the cracked ceiling tiles, willing the spinning to stop. "You’re not done yet," he whispered. "You’re not fucking done."
He let himself breathe, forehead pressed to the cold floor. "Okay," he whispered to no one. "Okay."
Then—
A sound.
A low scrape.
Behind him.
Marcus froze.
Another sound.
Closer.
He turned slowly, blood pounding in his ears. A silhouette moved just beyond the red glow of the ergency light—slender, humanoid. Its limbs were just a little too long. Its posture a little too twisted.
He didn’t breathe.
The shape stepped into the light.
It was his face.
His eyes.
His uniform.
His everything.
The mimic stood there, still and smiling. Its eyes were wrong. Too glossy. Too empty. But the rest—
Marcus scrambled back, heart slamming against his ribs.
No weapon. No gun.
The rod.
He grabbed the tal rod, fumbling with trembling hands, and swung.
The mimic caught it with ease.
Its grin widened.
"Not today," Marcus hissed, jerking the rod back and thrusting upward, catching the mimic’s jaw in a spray of black ichor.
The mimic staggered.
Marcus used the distraction to lurch to the side and grab the broken splint from where it had fallen. With a guttural yell, he slamd the sharp end into the mimic’s shoulder.
It shrieked—inhuman and furious—and grabbed his neck.
He couldn’t breathe.
The pressure was instant. Crushing. Fingers like iron twisted into the muscle at his throat. His vision spotted with bursts of red and white. Every instinct scread fight—but he was out of strength, out of air. His legs kicked uselessly against the floor.
And worse—the mimic was laughing. With his own laugh.
That guttural, choked chuckle—it ca from his own mouth. From that thing wearing his skin.
Not like this. He clenched his fists, groping for anything—anything—his hand closing around a jagged shard of plastic tubing. Useless. Too light.
The mimic leaned in. Its breath slled like rot and rust.
Its hand tightened, lifting him slightly off the ground.
Darkness danced at the edges of his vision.
Then—
A shotgun blast.
The mimic’s head exploded in a shower of thick, black sludge.
Marcus dropped to the ground, choking, coughing, gasping for breath.
Boots ran toward him. A figure dropped to his side.
"Marcus?"
That voice.
He turned, dazed.
"Richard."
The other man knelt beside him, a shotgun slung across his back, face streaked with dirt and blood but unmistakably alive.
"Jesus, I thought you were—"
"Dead?" Marcus rasped. "So did I."
They stared at each other, eyes wide.
If Richard was alive...
Then maybe...
Maybe the others were, too.
Relief hit him like a wave, followed instantly by another throb of pain from his leg.
The relief was dangerous. It almost made him weep. But Marcus didn’t cry—not even now. He’d cried once, back when the first breach happened. When the monitors flatlined and the compound lost power and the screaming started. One tear. That was it.
Seeing Richard—alive, real—threatened to shatter the fragile numbness he’d built since then. But he shoved it down, let the pain anchor him instead.
Richard cursed under his breath. "That leg looks bad. Sit still."
He dug through a nearby pile of debris, pulling out a length of bent rebar and another strip of cloth from what was once soone’s uniform. They worked quickly, bracing the rod against the broken bone, tying it off with the makeshift bandages.
Marcus winced but nodded his thanks.
"What happened to you?" he asked between breaths.
Richard wiped sweat from his brow. "Tunnel collapsed near East Sector. Got separated. Almost didn’t make it. Then... I ran into sothing."
Marcus’s blood ran cold. "Another mimic?"
"No," Richard said slowly. "Sothing worse. Or... better. I’m not sure."
Marcus narrowed his eyes. "Explain."
"There’s a creature. Subject Seventeen. You rember the files?"
Marcus did. Barely. They’d been labelled experintal anomalies— a list of things too dangerous to be considered human, even by the standards of the end of the world. The thing they had gone into the tunnels with the intention of scoping.
"It’s sentient," Richard said. "Smart. And it saved my ass."
"Saved you?" Marcus asked.
Richard nodded. "I was bleeding out. Cornered. I thought I was done. Then it just... appeared. Killed the thing chasing . Stared at like it was deciding sothing, then walked away."
"That doesn’t make sense."
"None of this does," Richard muttered. "But it’s out there. Roaming. Watching. And it didn’t kill when it had every reason to."
Marcus let that settle in the air.
Sothing intelligent, loose in the tunnels. And not just intelligent—choosing.
"You think it’s after the others?" Marcus asked.
Richard’s expression darkened. "I think it’s watching all of us. I think it’s learning."
A silence stretched between them.
Then Marcus slowly pushed himself upright, testing his leg with a grimace. "We need to get above ground. If we’re alive, soone else might be too."
Richard helped him to his feet, slinging Marcus’s arm over his shoulder.
"We’ll find them," Richard said. "One way or another."
The two n limped forward into the flickering tunnel light, leaving behind the corpse of the mimic and stepping toward the last hope they had left—each other, and whoever else might still be breathing above.
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