The sky rumbled like a living thing.
I stood on the roof of the house I'd made into my base—my sanctuary, my cell, my bunker—watching the clouds churn above like a simmering storm on the brink of snapping.
Black and bruised purple bled into each other in twisted, churning shapes.
Lightning cracked silently in the distance. For the past day, the sky had been growing more agitated, like it was angry, or waking up.
My knees bent slightly with each subtle sway of the house.
The shingles beneath me were warped and slick with rot, the edges curled up like peeling skin. I didn't care. I'd memorized every inch of this rooftop, every ledge, every fault.
Strapped to my forearms, over the makeshift padding I'd built from scavenged cloth and clothing wrapped tight with duct tape, were sharpened wooden spikes—about the length of my hand, broken from ruined chairs and splintered bannisters.
Double-ended, honed down over days. A dozen total. Held in place beneath the tape.
Far in the distance, barely visible through the misty, toxic haze of this dead town, was the house.
The one that had been buried under the hive until I destroyed it all. The blast from the day before had cleared the area, leaving behind a crater—and a single home standing untouched, exposed like a secret that wanted to be forgotten.
The Hive had hidden it. Which meant it mattered.
Time to find out why.
I crouched, adjusted my breath, and leapt off the roof.
THUD.
My feet hit the ground with unnatural softness. I barely paused. My legs were still sore and my body still ached from my injuries, but I pushed through, boosting my weak body with lightened telekinetic pressure, pushing me forward again.
Fence.
I vaulted over it, brandishing the minimal skills in parkour I honed while locked in my base.
Car.
I landed on the hood and sprang from it like it was a trampoline.
House.
I cleared the roof, tumbled midair, and hit the ground in a slide, wiping the blood from my nose.
The new way I moved still felt unnatural sometimes—too smooth, too light, like I wasn't fully part of the ground anymore.
But that was the point.
The less I let this place weigh me down, the more I could survive it.
I reached the neighborhood edge near the house. I crouched behind a half-toppled mailbox and peered around the ruined street.
There they were.
Demodogs.
Half a dozen of them, sniffing, twitching, moving with their usual animalistic precision. Sharp claws scraped at the asphalt. Their heads lifted occasionally, twitching to sounds too faint for me to hear.
I breathed in through my nose.
Out through my mouth.
Calm.
I counted them one by one. Six. All scattered, none close enough to one another to swarm effectively. No shrieking yet. They hadn't noticed me.
Perfect.
I raised both arms, fingers stretched, and focused.
The air around me bent with pressure until…
THWOMP.
They flew. All of them. Sent careening through the air like toys tossed by a tantrum. Some hit cars. One slammed into a house wall with a splatter. They shrieked midair.
No time to admire it.
With my other hand, I ripped free half a dozen of the sharpened needles from my left arm and flung them skyward. They spun wildly—until I gritted my teeth, focused, and guided each one midair. Six little missiles.
One for each leg.
SHUNK.
The needles pierced tendon and flesh. Not enough to kill—I wasn't trying to. Just enough to make running a whole lot harder.
They'd survive. But they wouldn't chase me.
And the best part?
They hadn't seen me. I made sure of it, sending them away from the home, crashing headfirst.
I blurred forward, leaping over tendrils and whatever else blocked my path, diving into the house and slamming the decaying door shut behind me.
Thump-thump. My heart still pounded, but my hands didn't shake.
I leaned against the wall, listening.
No screeches. No crashing. No stampede.
Good.
"Risky," I muttered aloud. "Stupid, even." I wiped the blood from under my nose with the back of my wrist.
"But worth it."
This is what I'd learned while tailing the humanoid figure and its Demodog companion the other day.
The hive didn't care about miscellaneous sounds and noises unless they saw a threat, or in their case, prey.
No target? No threat.
They'd forget this soon. No scent trail. No memory beyond shared signals.
Which made now the perfect window.
I turned deeper into the house, one step at a time.
"Well then," I whispered, adjusting the cloth mask over my face. "Let's see what's so special about this place.", stepping forward, immediately noticing what smelled like a rotting wound.
Every breath I took in through my mask tasted like mildew, dust, and something sweetly sour—like fruit gone bad. The floorboards creaked under me, but the tension wasn't in the sound. It was in the stillness.
This place had been sealed for a long time.
The living room was first.
Collapsed furniture, mold-covered wallpaper, and pictures on the walls I couldn't make out anymore. Time and decay had smeared everything.
But there was one photo on the shelf that caught my eye.
I reached for it.
A faded picture. A woman, smiling. Mid-30s maybe. Hugging a man whose face was entirely covered by black mold. They stood outside what looked like this very house.
I tilted my head.
Pondering for a second, I soon turned away, eyes scanning again.
Nothing. Just dust, broken glass, and stale memories.
Why this house? The hive had a reason. It didn't build randomly.
My boots creaked on the stairs as I climbed. Half the steps were cracked. I had to leap three at a time, hovering briefly in the air as my telekinesis kept my weight light enough to avoid collapse.
The upstairs hall was worse. Roof partially caved in. I ducked through and entered the only room still somewhat intact.
A bedroom.
My eyes caught it instantly: a faded gray coat on a hanger behind the door. A patch was stitched onto the sleeve. It read: Hawkins National Laboratory.
'W-What…'
My chest tightened.
This was it.
On the bed sat scattered items: personal effects, old ID cards curled at the edges, photos half-burnt and water-damaged.
But the way it lay there, it didn't look random. It was organised. As if someone placed them side by side.
Stepping closer, I picked up one.
A group photo. Three scientists. I could barely make them out.
But I knew them.
My eyes narrowed.
One of them had handed me my rations. The other used to escort Subject 032 to testing rooms.
This was their house.
On the bed lay a file. Just one. The outside was stamped in red: CONFIDENTIAL.
I opened it.
Only one page.
An image.
The gate.
The same gate they threw me into.
No words. No diagrams. Just the gate, distorted and monstrous, growing out of a wall like an infection.
That was enough.
I set the file down slowly.
This place…no wonder the Hive built over it. This place was their home…or rather, the home of someone they absorbed.
The home of the only other human…well, once human individual other than me.
"You lived here," I whispered, remembering the humanoid figure in the hazmat suit. The last time I saw him was when he entered this place, before I was ambushed by the hive. I had some doubt when I saw it, but turns out it really was true.
"You worked there. And they sent you through." I spoke out loud, remembering the man who posed with the female in the photo downstairs. The man whose face was decayed.
This house belonged to him. And when he died and the hive absorbed him...
It remembered this place.
"That's why they built their hive over it," I muttered. "The hive recognized it as home."
A part of me clicked my teeth upon realising this. He, like me, tried to survive here. But ultimately lost.
His very presence was almost a constant reminder, a mockery from the world to me for my inevitable end.
This wasn't just war.
This was personal.
I turned and looked to the wall, seeing a map. Surprisingly, most of it was still preserved and it fashioned markings on its face.
'Shit…'
The more time I spent here, the more I began to think of this place as not only a hell to survive, but also a question to be answered.
And unfortunately for me, it seemed if I wanted these answers, he had to do something he never thought he'd ever do.
"All roads lead back…to the facility."
He spoke, seeing the marking on the map circling a specific location, labelling it "The Lab. Way back home."
If I wanted to know how to get home and beat this place…
"It all started there…and hopefully, it's where it will all end."
I quickly snatched the map, folding it as I stuffed it into my pocket.
"Fuck it…" I remarked, also pocketing everything else I found, standing before the window, in a direction that looked as though it was filled with nothing but trees, it was almost as though I could see what I knew lay behind it.
A hell worse than that which he was in.
"We go back to the facility!"
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