At dawn, the new stronghold stirred with uneasy life. Thin sunlight filtered through cracked stained glass, scattering broken rainbows across dust-choked tiles. The survivors moved about in hushed tones, stacking furniture, digging through desks for anything useful — candles, batteries, old notebooks.
Kael was already at work, dragging heavy oak doors from an old lecture hall to reinforce the foyer barricade. Zane tested the strength of his conjured shadows along the stairwell, making sure any intruder would be skewered before they got far. Renn roamed the halls humming to himself, occasionally bursting into giddy laughter when he found a splatter of old gore or claw marks in the walls.
Rix woke with a start from uneasy dreams of grasping hands and teeth like broken glass. His breath clouded in the morning chill. For a moment, he wondered if he was back in his tiny bed before the world ended — then the distant echo of someone sobbing crushed that illusion.
He rose, stretching muscles still bruised from their fight in the streets. Outside the boarded-up windows, something large shuffled past. Its shadow fell over the glass, blotting out the pale sun, then moved on. Rix waited for his heart to slow.
---
By midmorning, Kael called them all to the foyer.
"We're secure up here for now," he began, wiping sweat from his brow with a strip of cloth. "But food's low. Water's worse. This place is huge. Some of the older maps we found show kitchens, storage cellars… maybe old labs."
Zane's eyes narrowed. "Or something left alive. You've heard them under the floor at night."
Rix nodded grimly. "We clear it. Floor by floor. Room by room."
Renn cracked his knuckles, sparks snapping across his shoulders. "Finally. Sitting around makes my skin itch."
Mira — hugging her elbows, eyes haunted — whispered, "What if we find more of them? The ones with claws like hooks…"
Kael met her gaze. "Then we kill them."
---
The group descended a wide marble staircase, every step echoing into the depths. The air grew damp, tinged with mildew and something fouler. Old banners bearing the university crest — a quill thrust through a serpent — hung limp on the walls.
They passed lecture rooms filled with overturned desks, some scorched by fire. Hallways twisted in odd directions, some ending abruptly at collapsed ceilings. More than once they found piles of bones in old robes, as if professors had simply curled up and waited for the end.
Rix's hand stayed tight on the iron pipe he'd scavenged. It wasn't much, but after seeing what his strength could do, it was enough. Kael's knives gleamed in either hand. Zane let oily shadows writhe around his fingers, testing them. Renn twitched like he couldn't wait for something to move.
---
They found the first of the horrors near the old archives.
The door was ajar, the hinges splintered. Inside, filing cabinets lay in tangled heaps. Papers covered the floor like leaves, all slick with dark slime.
Then something moved.
It rose from behind a collapsed shelf — a thing once human, maybe, but its torso stretched unnaturally long, ribs jutting like hooks through shredded skin. Its eyes were gone, sockets brimming with twitching black tendrils that reached blindly across the papers. When it sniffed the air, its jaw distended with a wet crack.
Rix felt his stomach lurch. But Renn was already moving, electricity bursting off him in crackling arcs. With a howl, he slammed a fist into the creature's skull. The thing spasmed, its spine bending backward, before it collapsed in a convulsing heap that spat out more of the writhing tendrils.
Zane stepped forward, shadows lancing from his palm to slice the tendrils to ribbons. When it was still, Kael approached, knives flashing, and made sure nothing remained to twitch.
Mira gagged. Jeyna wept softly into Kross's shoulder.
---
Deeper they went, down a back stairwell into the old labs. There, the smell changed — sharper, metallic. Broken vials crunched underfoot. Here and there, strange symbols were scrawled on the walls in brownish stains, looping designs that seemed to squirm if stared at too long.
Kael's brow furrowed. "Not just a plague. Someone was trying to do something down here. To the infected. To themselves."
They found cages — some still rattling with half-dead things that scraped at the bars. Tubes ran between the cages and cracked vats filled with dark fluid. The survivors shied away, breath fogging in the cold, as a low growl echoed from deeper in the maze of labs.
"We check every room," Rix ordered, voice tight. "Then we torch this place. I'm not sleeping above this shit."
---
They almost missed the vault door, tucked behind hanging sheets of moldy canvas. Unlike the rest, it was clean. Polished steel, unmarked by time. A strange symbol was etched at its center — a coiled figure that seemed both dragon and vine.
Zane traced it with a finger, eyes distant. "Feels like… power. Old. Hungry."
"Can you open it?" Kael asked.
Zane smiled thinly. "I can try."
Dark tendrils snaked from his palm, sinking into the seams. There was a sound like ice cracking. The wheel on the vault shuddered, then slowly began to turn.
When it swung open, a breath of frozen air spilled out, carrying a scent of old metal and something sweet, almost floral. Inside was a single pedestal. Upon it lay a box of black glass, etched with runes that crawled when not directly looked at.
Rix felt a shiver crawl up his spine. "What the hell is that?"
Kael's grey eyes narrowed. "Something worth killing or dying for, I'd wager."
---
Behind them, a laugh rang out, high and wild.
They spun. From the dark lab corridor, a figure emerged — ragged coat, goggles perched on a wild tangle of hair. His hands were stained to the elbows with something dark.
"Marvelous," the stranger crooned. "You children found it for me. All my little experiments out there, and it's you who wander straight to the key."
Renn stepped forward, lightning building. "Who the fuck are you?"
The man spread his arms. "Call me Veros. I'm the reason your world is so delightfully broken. And I'll be taking that now."
Rix's pulse spiked. "Like hell you will."
Veros only grinned wider. "Then let's see if you can survive your own evolution."
He snapped his fingers. All around them, the cages burst open. Snarling shapes poured into the hall — more Hollowed, but bigger, twisted into new and awful forms.
Rix braced himself as Renn let out a whoop of savage joy and charged. The lab exploded into chaos.