The scream shook the floor.
Nice had heard Swarm howls before—high-pitched, rage-filled, inhuman. But this was worse. This was layered. A distortion of agony, language, and hunger, all folding in on itself.
The cocoon split down the center like a rotten fruit. Captain Royce tumbled forward, half-human, half something else. Veins ran across his pale skin like spiderwebs. His chest rose and fell in uneven heaves, cords still attached to his back like umbilical tubes.
He looked up.
His eyes were gone.
In their place: polished, jet-black domes pulsing with green light.
Nice didn't hesitate.
"Ezra, run!"
He fired twice, bullets ripping into Royce's upper chest. It staggered him—but didn't drop him. Behind Royce, something crawled out of the cocoon cavity. It was boneless, wet, and fast. Tendrils uncoiled from its sides like the limbs of a starfish dipped in acid.
Ezra stumbled back with a scream. "That's not him! That's not him anymore!"
"Go!" Nice shouted again, emptying the rest of his clip into the crawling thing. It squealed, its form flickering—phasing in and out of solidity like it couldn't decide what it was yet.
Cleo moved past both of them, smooth and focused. She didn't scream, didn't shout. She simply threw two knives—one into Royce's throat, the other directly into the crawling thing's center mass. Both hit true.
The room shuddered.
The entire floor breathed.
Nice grabbed Ezra by the collar and yanked him toward the hallway. "Move! We're not staying here to find out what phase two looks like!"
They ran.
Behind them, Royce rose again—limping, leaking, muttering in a voice not his own.
"They… were beautiful… until they screamed…"
Ezra turned to look. "Oh my god. He's still… he's still in there."
"Not anymore," Nice snapped.
They hit the stairwell. Nice slammed the door shut behind them. "Seal it!"
Ezra grabbed a rusted pipe from the ground and jammed it between the door handles. Royce's fists hit the other side a second later. The door bulged from the impact.
Nice took point, leading them down the stairs three at a time. "Cleo, eyes on corners."
"Already watching."
They made it to the eighth floor before the lights cut out.
The entire building went dark.
No buzzing. No hum. No generator.
Nothing.
Just the wet, gurgling sound of something alive inside the walls.
Then came the whisper.
Not from behind them.
Not ahead.
Everywhere.
"We see you."
Ezra screamed and slapped his scanner. "They're inside the damn grid! They're bouncing signals off the walls! The Swarm's talking through the building!"
Cleo stopped on the landing, her voice calm. "They're not just broadcasting. They're watching how we react."
Nice grit his teeth and turned to Ezra. "How fast can you kill the signal?"
"I can't! It's—there's no source. It's the whole building."
A hiss rose from the stairwell below.
Then claws.
Then movement.
A Swarm drone—not stitched like the others. Sleek, evolved. Its head was long, jaw unhinged, teeth arranged like spirals. It crawled up the railing at impossible speed, saliva trailing from its split jaw.
Nice fired. One shot. Center mass.
The creature jerked, then screamed—and split into two smaller versions of itself mid-air.
"New morph pattern!" Ezra shouted. "They're fragmenting!"
Cleo dropped both with a fluid motion—one slash, two strikes. No fear. Only control.
They kept moving.
The last two floors were collapsed—broken by roots of the alien architecture digging into the foundation. They had to slide down a metal chute and drop into the back of a ruined café.
Nice landed hard, rolled, pulled Ezra down beside him.
"Tell me you've got an exit route."
Ezra yanked a small receiver from his vest. "There's a storm tunnel two blocks west. If the signal's right, it's clear."
"If?"
"Seventy percent confidence."
"That's failing in school."
"This isn't school!"
They moved, half-crouched through the skeletal remains of downtown. The city felt worse than before—quieter, like it was holding its breath. Something watched them from above—Nice could feel it. In the haze-covered sky, pulsing lines twisted like veins through the clouds.
Ezra looked back once, just as the top of the tower exploded outward—swarmlight erupting like a flare.
"They're signaling something," he whispered.
Nice grabbed his shoulder. "Then we don't stop running."
They made it to the tunnel. Just before they dropped down, Cleo paused and turned her head slightly, as if listening to something.
"What?" Nice asked.
"They're changing shape," she said. "Next time, they'll remember us better."
Then she jumped.