The abomination moved like a living tide, a grotesque symphony of fused flesh and screaming faces that pulsed through the corridors of Sub-Level 7.
It was a singular entity at first, but became a collective—a writhing mass of the forgotten, the experimented upon, the consumed.
Scientists, technicians, security personnel—their bodies had been broken and remade into this monstrous whole, their features still visible beneath the shifting, glistening surface like ghosts trapped beneath ice.
Eyes blinked open and shut at random across its form, their gazes unfocused yet seeing everything.
Mouths stretched in silent, endless screams, teeth clicking together in a discordant rhythm that echoed through the metal halls.
Hands—some skeletal, some still plump with rotting flesh—reached out from the mass, fingers twitching as if trying to remember how to grasp, how to hurt.
The abomination did not walk.
It flowed, its bulk oozing forward in a wave of glistening meat and snapping bone, its progress slow but inexorable.
The walls shuddered as it passed, the metal groaning under the weight of its hatred.
Aether veins embedded in the ceiling sparked and died as tendrils of corrupted flesh slithered into their housings, drinking greedily from the energy within.
The abomination was not just moving through the facility—it was becoming part of it, its flesh knitting with steel, its rage seeping into the very foundations.
The abomination paused as the speakers crackled to life once more. "Containment failure in Sector Seven. All security protocols compromised. This is curious." The voice was exactly as it remembered—polished, detached, inhuman in its calm.
The abomination rippled, its surface boiling with sudden fury.
The memories came in waves—not as thoughts, but as screams.
A technician's last moment, his hands pressed against the observation glass as the containment field failed.
A security officer's final breath, her fingers still clutching the emergency alarm that never sounded.
A test subject's wordless howl as his skin split and reformed, over and over, until he forgot his own name.
The abomination was them.
All of them.
Their terror, their rage, their shattered minds woven together into something greater—and yet, beneath the chorus of voices, there was... something else.
A single thread of memory, frayed and fading.
Its own.
It remembered the cold room.
It remembered the bright white light at that room.
It remembered the pain—not the sharp sting of scalpels, but something deeper, older.
The pain of losing someone important to it.
The abomination shuddered, its mass rippling as it dragged itself through the corridor.
The walls peeled back before it, the metal dissolving where its flesh touched, absorbed into the whole.
It could feel the facility around it—the hum of the Aether flowing through the facility, the frantic pulse of the security systems, the distant beat of the trio's heartbeat as they fought.
But none of that mattered.
Only the voice did.
"Specimen retrieval protocols failing. Containment at 19%. Adjusting parameters."
Dr. Havel Rhys.
The abomination knew that voice.
It had heard it through the haze of sedation, through the agony of procedures that stripped it apart piece by piece.
It had heard him laugh as the Aether burned through its veins.
It had heard of him as he gave order to the cleaners to remove the dead bodies from Sub-Level 3.
The way he would stand by the observation window, fingers steepled, as bodies were dragged away—some still twitching, still breathing.
It had heard of him—how he told the guards to loosen the security for some people, only to laugh cruelly afterward.
From the depths of its form came a sound—a wail of wrath and misery.
The walls shuddered in response.
Panels buckled.
Lights exploded in showers of sparks.
It wanted him.
It wanted Dr. Havel Rhys.
A security drone skittered across the ceiling, its single red eye scanning the carnage below.
The abomination did not hesitate.
Flesh surged upward, swallowing the machine whole.
The abomination screamed, the sound vibrating through the facility's bones.
The walls split, flesh bursting forth in thick ropes, consuming, digesting the metal, the wiring, the very structure of the labs.
It would tear this place apart.
It would unmake it, piece by piece, until nothing remained but the echoes of suffering.
And when it found the source of that voice—when it finally reached the heart of this nightmare—it would make sure that Dr. Rhys felt everything it had.
It remembered these halls with painful clarity.
The way the fluorescent lights had hummed overhead.
The antiseptic sting of sterilized air that never quite masked the coppery scent of blood.
The abomination surged forward, its mass crashing against the walls, the floor, the ceiling.
Metal groaned, then it split, peeling back like rotting skin.
The facility trembled as the abomination pushed itself through the massive metal door.
It could feel the trio fighting ahead—could taste their fear, their sweat—but they were nothing.
Insignificant.
Only the voice mattered.
Only him.
***
The massive metal door groaned, its reinforced frame trembling as something colossal pressed against it from the other side.
The Aether veins threading through the walls pulsed erratically, their blue-white light flickering like a dying heartbeat.
For a moment—just a moment—the door held.
Then the first dent appeared.
A fist-sized bulge erupted in the steel, the metal screaming as it warped inward.
Then another.
And another.
The abomination wasn't knocking.
It wasn't testing.
It was reminding the facility that nothing here could contain it.
Not anymore.
The trio froze, their fight with the Hollowed forgotten as the door's surface rippled, the polished steel turning liquid under some unimaginable pressure.
The Hollowed recoiled, their synchronized movements breaking into something like panic.
One stumbled back, its milky eyes wide.
Another let out a shuddering click—not a threat, but a warning.
Then—
The door split down the middle, a jagged fissure racing from ceiling to floor.
Black fluid oozed through the gap, thick and glistening, carrying with it the scent of rust and spoiled meat.
The edges of the fracture breathed, pulsing outward as something pushed against them from the other side.
The Hollowed turned to run.
Too late.
The door exploded inward in a storm of shrapnel and twisted metal.
The abomination poured through the gap like a tidal wave of flesh and teeth and grasping hands, its form shifting, churning, as it consumed the fleeing Hollowed whole.
One moment they were there—the next, they were simply gone, swallowed into the writhing mass without even time to scream.
The trio barely had time to react.
Lucent hauled Kai back by his jacket collar as a tendril of blackened flesh lashed past, missing his throat by inches.
Karen's Conduit flared to life in her palm, the spell fizzling as the abomination's mere presence disrupted the Aether around them.
And then—
Silence.
The abomination loomed over them, its faceless head tilting, that single vertical slit pulsing wetly as it studied them.
The abomination did not attack.
Not yet.
Its mass shifted, tendrils—if they could even be called that—lashing out with terrifying precision.
The remaining Hollowed barely had time to twitch before the blackened flesh enveloped them, absorbing their forms into the greater whole.
Their glowing Aether veins pulsed once, twice, before dissolving into the abomination's churning depths.
No screams.
No struggle.
Just gone.
Lucent's fingers twitched toward the Q-Serin vial in his pocket.
Now.
Now was the time.
His nerves were already alight with the anticipation of the drug's burn, the way it would sharpen his reflexes to inhuman levels—just long enough to—
"I guess you three got lucky."
The voice crackled through the intercom, smooth, amused, and utterly detached.
"Never in my mind that my plan to contain that abomination was not enough."
The abomination froze.
Its faceless head snapped toward the nearest speaker, the vertical slit where a mouth should be pulsing open, then shut, then open again.
A sound spilled out—not a roar, not a scream, but a frequency, as if it was trying to talk.
The walls shuddered in response, dust raining from the ceiling.
Lucent didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
The Q-Serin was a cold weight against his thigh, but his hand stayed still.
Because the abomination wasn't looking at them anymore.
It was listening.
"Ah, but you always were a fascinating specimen," the voice continued, his voice dripping with clinical admiration. "To think, after all these years, you still remember me. How... touching."
The abomination's flesh rippled, its surface boiling with half-formed faces, hands, mouths—all straining toward the sound of that voice. Hatred. Pure, unfiltered hatred.
And then—
It moved.
Not toward the trio.
Past them.
The abomination surged down the corridor, its mass crashing through walls, consuming metal, glass, light—everything in its path.
It wasn't running.
It was hunting.
And the trio stood in its wake, untouched.
For now.
The silence that followed was thick, heavy—like the air before a storm.
Kai let out a shaky breath, his fingers trembling around his Conduit. "Did... did we just get saved by that thing?"
Karen didn't answer right away. Her gaze tracked the path the abomination had torn through the facility—the walls ruined, the metal warped and glistening with a slick, black residue.
The lights were dead, their shattered remains scattered across the floor like broken teeth.
Only the faint, erratic pulse of the Aether veins provided any illumination, casting long, jagged shadows down the ruined corridor.
"It just ignored us," she muttered, her voice low.
Lucent didn't relax. His knife was still in his hand, his body coiled tight. "Don't lower your guard yet."
Karen exhaled sharply, rolling her injured shoulder. "Should we use another path to go back?"
Kai swallowed hard, his eyes darting to the darkness where the abomination came from. "...I agree."
Lucent didn't respond. He was staring down the ruined hallway, his expression unreadable.
The abomination was gone—for now. But the facility was alive with its presence.
The walls breathed.
The floor shivered.
And somewhere, deep in the bowels of Sub-Level 7, Dr. Havel Rhys was still speaking.
Still taunting.
Still laughing.
Lucent turned away. "Move."
The word wasn't a suggestion.
It was an order.
And as the trio slipped into the shadows, the facility groaned around them—not in pain, not in fear, but in something far worse.
Anticipation.
***
The corridors of Sub-Level 7 stretched before them, their once-pristine metal walls now slick with an unnatural sheen, the Aether veins pulsing erratically like a dying heartbeat.
The air was thick with the scent of aether and something else—something wet and metallic, like old blood left to dry on surgical steel trays.
Kai's boots squelched against the damp floor as he glanced over his shoulder, his voice barely above a whisper. "What's with that thing, anyway? Just suddenly appearing out of nowhere."
Karen kept her pistol raised, her eyes scanning the darkness ahead. "As far as I can see, it seems like it's following the guy behind that voice."
Lucent didn't slow his pace. His knife was still in hand, his grip unyielding. "No matter." His tone was final, allowing no argument. "As long as we got saved. Let's talk about what we're going to do—we will go straight out of here. No more looking for the weapon. No more distractions."
Karen shot him a sideways glance. "You're not curious? That thing just tore through those Hollowed like they were nothing. If we had something like that—"
"We don't." Lucent cut her off sharply. "And we're not staying to find out what else is down here."
Kai swallowed hard, his fingers tightening around his Conduit. "But the way back is—"
"Gone. I know." Lucent didn't stop walking. "We find another path. And we move fast."
The facility groaned around them, the walls shuddering as if in response to the abomination's distant rage.
The Aether veins flickered, their light dimming for a heartbeat before flaring back to life—brighter this time, almost angry.
Karen exhaled sharply. "Fine. But if we run into that thing again—"
"We won't." Lucent's voice was steel. "Because we're not stopping until we're out."
And with that, the trio pressed deeper into the dark, the weight of the abomination's presence heavy in the air behind them.
The deeper they went, the more the facility unraveled.
Doors had been torn from their frames, walls peeled back like wet paper, leaving gaping wounds where laboratories and containment chambers once stood.
The trio moved carefully, stepping over twisted metal and shattered glass, the air thick with the scent of sterile coolant and something older—something wrong.
Karen couldn't help herself.
She paused at the threshold of a ruined doorway, peering inside.
Kai followed, his curiosity outweighing his fear.
Lucent didn't stop.
He scanned the rooms only for exits, for paths, for anything that would lead them out of this nightmare.
Then—
"Hey guys! Check this out." Kai's voice echoed slightly in the hollowed-out chamber.
Lucent turned, his patience thinning, but what he saw made his breath catch.
The room was lined with containment pods—dozens of them, frost still clinging to their glass despite the failing systems.
Inside each one, a Hollowed lay frozen in suspended animation, their bodies preserved in perfect stillness.
Subject #68244 read the label on the nearest pod.
The creature inside was unlike the others they'd faced—its flesh was almost pristine, its limbs elongated but not twisted, its face eerily human save for the faint blue veins glowing beneath its skin.
Lucent's eyes narrowed.
He stepped deeper into the room, his boots crunching over broken shards of glass.
At the far end, a terminal flickered weakly, its screen cracked but still functional.
He didn't hope for much.
A map.
A schematic.
Anything to guide them out.
Instead, the only thing accessible was the logs.
He tapped the screen.
It stuttered to life, lines of corrupted text scrolling before resolving into a single entry:
LOG #682-NL
SUBJECT: 68244
STATUS: TERMINATED
NOTES: Subject exhibited rapid cellular degeneration post-thaw. Neural activity persisted despite physical decay. Recommend incineration.
A chill ran down Lucent's spine.
Karen leaned over his shoulder, her breath fogging the cracked screen. "They were freezing them?"
Kai's fingers hovered over another pod. "Not just freezing. Studying them."
Lucent straightened. "We're leaving."
But the terminal wasn't done.
Kai's fingers danced across the flickering terminal, his curiosity overriding Lucent's implicit order to leave.
The screen stuttered as it loaded another corrupted log entry:
LOG #135-E
SUBJECT: [REDACTED]
OBSERVATION: Phase 3 neural integration successful. Subject retains motor function despite 87% cortical degeneration. The Cradle protocol appears to be—
The text dissolved into static. Kai jammed his palm against the screen. "Damn it! Why is everything—"
"Because we're not supposed to see it," Lucent growled, prying open a maintenance panel beneath the terminal.
Wires spilled out like entrails, the connections fused beyond repair.
No hacking this.
No rerouting.
Just another dead end.
Karen's boot crunched on broken glass as she approached a steel worktable.
A scattered pile of files lay strewn across its surface, their edges curled with age.
She flipped one open with her pistol barrel.
PROJECT CRADLE
CLASSIFICATION: EYES ONLY
Most pages were blacked out entirely, but a few fragmented sentences remained legible:
"...initial subjects demonstrated unacceptable cognitive retention during repurposing..."
"...Aether assimilation remains the primary obstacle to full neural overwrite..."
"...Hollowing is not the end, but the beginning of..."
Her finger traced the last unredacted line:
"...when the Cradle wakes, [REDACTED] will become the womb for the next evolution."
The paper trembled in her hand.
Not from fear.
From recognition.
"Nex was right," she whispered. "They weren't just making weapons. They were making—"
A deafening clang echoed through the chamber.
The trio spun toward the sound as one of the containment pods hissed violently.
Frost billowed from its seams as the preservation seals failed.
Lucent's knife was in his hand before the second pod shuddered awake. "Run. Now."
But the exit corridor pulsed with sudden crimson light.
Somewhere in the facility's dying neural network, an automated voice crackled to life:
"Containment breach detected. Activating final contingency."
The doors didn't seal.
The vents didn't close.
Every single containment pod in the room simultaneously depressurized with a chorus of mechanical screams.
And in the distance, the abomination's wail answered.