The silence pressing down from the shaft above was heavier than any sound. Damon kept still, listening—counting the seconds between each breath.
Shadow’s ears twitched.
Ember pressed closer to Lira’s leg.
Nothing.
No footsteps.
No dragging.
No voice stretching his na like a corrupted mory.
Just the stillness of a place that should never have been built.
Damon finally exhaled. “We move. Quietly.”
The lower platform stretched into a narrow catwalk suspended over a dark chamber filled with massive ventilation turbines. Their blades were motionless, as though the entire system had been shut down long ago. Pipes hissed with faint steam, and the catwalk creaked under their weight.
The girl whispered, “Why is it so warm down here?”
Lira glanced at the pipes. “Because sothing is still running.”
Damon nodded. “This level... isn’t abandoned.”
The corridor at the edge of the catwalk opened into a wide, dimly lit hall. Flickering lights illuminated doors on each side—each labeled with peeling red stencils:
HOLDING CELL A1
HOLDING CELL A2
HOLDING CELL A3 – QUARANTINE
Shadow snarled at that last one, tail tucked low.
“Let’s not go near that,” Lira whispered.
A sudden tallic clang echoed from sowhere deeper, bouncing between the walls like a scream trapped in steel.
Damon raised a finger. He wasn’t just listening for sounds—
He was searching for movent.
Sothing shifted.
Not around them.
Below.
He leaned over the catwalk railing.
At first, the dark rippled like heat waves.
Then sothing enormous moved.
A slow swell.
A rise.
A shape shifting beneath the machinery like a shadow with mass.
Lira stepped back. “Damon... what is that?”
“I don’t know.” He swallowed. “And we’re not staying to learn.”
They slipped into the main corridor, the air growing warr with each step. The faint urge to turn back tugged at Damon’s instincts—but the creature above had already started hunting again. He could feel it. The facility trembled softly, as if reacting to two predators stalking separate paths.
They reached a sealed blast door marked:
B3 CORE LAB — AUTHORIZED GENETIC DIVISION ONLY
Damon pushed the small rectangular window, clearing the dust.
What he saw inside made his chest tighten.
Rows of containnt pods lined the room, all cracked open. So shattered. So lted. Wires dangled like roots torn from soil, and the center of the room held a massive cylinder—dark, hollow, ruptured wide open as though sothing had torn its way out from within.
Lira whispered, “This place... it made monsters.”
Damon didn’t answer. His eyes had locked on the console beside the cylinder.
A screen flickered weakly.
One file remained accessible.
SUBJECT 01: PROJECT ECHO
STATUS: ESCAPED
PRIMARY TRAIT: MORY MIMICRY
SECONDARY TRAIT: VOCAL IMPRINT EXTRACTION
NOTES: DIRECT CONTACT HIGHLY FATAL
Lira’s breath turned to ice. “mory mimicry... Damon. That’s how it knew your na.”
The girl tugged his arm urgently. “We can’t stay here.”
Shadow barked once—sharp, alert.
Sothing thumped above the ceiling panels.
Dust rained down.
The creature was close. Too close.
Damon grabbed Lira’s wrist. “We move now. Find stairs or an exit—anywhere away from B3.”
A second thump.
Closer.
The pipes shook.
A tal grate overhead bent from the force of sothing pressing against it.
The creature had found the lower level.
All of it.
And it wasn’t hiding anymore.
“It’s hunting us,” Lira whispered.
Damon drew his knife—not because it would help, but because he needed to hold sothing.
He looked down the dark hallway.
“Then we make it earn our lives.”
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