The first thing I felt was cold.
Not just the chill of metal beneath my back, but the hollow, gnawing cold of a place that didn't know life—only experiments, only control.
I'd been conscious longer than they thought as I stood adrift in the chemical fog.
Fully Aware and conscious as i Watched my entire surroundings.
I studied everything that I could.
Every pattern. Every flaw. guards' rotations by breath and by footstep, noted every emergency exit, every vent too small for an adult but large enough for a desperate man.
The scent of cheap antiseptic, thick enough to gag on, trying to cover the deeper, sour stink of rot and failure that filled this entire god forsaken facility.
I catalogued the codes muttered under my breath, the way security lapsed during shift changes.
After that I stood Patiently as I stayed Silent, Waiting for the small opportunity that I only needed to make my escape. Blinding white light buzzed behind my eyelids.
The hum of Machines droned, their mindless rhythm filled the background as my wrists were strapped to the table, leather biting into my skin with my ankles cinched tight.
Standard procedure.
But that day....unknown to me…were the chance to escape this hellhole.
A low rumble crawled up through the floor that were usually quiet as Instruments were rattled on their trays. I could hear Voices shouted, muffled by concrete and flesh walls.
Chaos.
The perfect storm.
I cracked one eye open, careful, deliberate.
Dr. Kate Mercer. one of Hamilton's lackeys, assigned to "monitor" him during his downtime. She was younger than most of the others, probably mid-30s, with sharp green eyes and a face that might've been kind if it weren't for the stress lines carved into it standing, hunched across the room with her back facing me. Her Fingers dug into the bulbous skull of a G-Gnome, another one of Hamilton's experiment subjects, a grotesque little genomorph with an oversized head and milky white eyes. Its lips were moving in a frantic, broken whisper as Mercer's hand covered its head—telepathic relay. She was trying to coordinate something.
Good.
No guards were on sight to guard her this time. Nor does one of her orderlies were to be seen.
Only her. Only weakness.
I looked around, scanning the entire room trying to find anything that could be of use to me until the scalpel on the nearby tray caught my eye, winked under the fluorescent lights, a sliver of opportunity.
Another tremor shook the walls, this time it's even harder. Loose equipment crashed to the floor, clattering sharp and loud. However Mercer didn't even flinch, still focused with her telepathy over the Gnome.
They thought I was broken. Harmless.
They thought sedation was enough.
Too bad for them, bunch of fools.
I flexed my right wrist, A muted pop crack through my arm as the joint gave, pain bright and immediate, but distant. Background noise.
With methodical precision, I slipped my hand free, snatched the scalpel from the tray.
Three cuts. Clean. One wrist, then the other, then my ankles.
The heart monitor shrieked.
Mercer's head snapped up, her mouth falling open.
"How—?"
I slid off the table, muscles slow to respond but moving nonetheless. My wrist reset with a crack. I flexed my fingers, feeling the familiar surge of heat behind my ribs.
"That's why the restraints were leather," I rasped.
The G-Gnome shrieked, a burst of psychic agony stabbing into my mind.
It lunged.
I caught it by the throat mid-air, squeezing until its body convulsed. Psychic backlash pounded against my skull—raw, panicked. I pushed through it.
Two strides closed the distance.
My hand clamped around Mercer's throat, pinning her to the organic wall. The wall pulsed under the impact, like living flesh.
"Transfer the link," I said, voice cold as the slab I'd just vacated.
She gasped, nails scraping uselessly at my wrist.
"Now."
Tears welled in her green eyes. Trembling fingers pressed against the G-Gnome's temple.
The moment the link shifted, the visions hit me—
Explosions ripping through corridors. Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad—moving like chaos given form. Screams. Gunfire. Sirens.
Cadmus was falling apart.
Good.
"They're freeing Project Kr," Mercer gasped.
Even better.
I loosened my grip slightly.
"Who won the last Super Bowl?" I asked, voice casual, clinical.
She blinked. Confused. Terrified.
"Wh-what?"
"Answer."
"Cowboys," she whimpered.
I sighed theatrically.
"Still unfair."
I smashed her skull against the wall.
The crack was wet, final. Blood splattered the twitching wall behind her.
She sagged. Lifeless.
I looked down at the G-Gnome twitching weakly in my hand.
"Guide me," I whispered.
It obeyed.
I stripped Mercer's lab coat from her corpse, slipping it over my hospital gown. The fabric clung to my skin, reeking of fear and old antiseptic. Her ID badge slid into my pocket, and I pulled her goggles down low, masking my face.
The psychic link buzzed inside my skull—a storm of chaos, screams, explosions.
I moved through Cadmus like a ghost slipping through a graveyard.
The facility was crumbling from the inside out.
Lights flickered overhead, casting sickly, jerking shadows across cracked walls. Sirens wailed a broken symphony. Sprinklers hissed weakly, dripping water that mixed with the rivers of blood running through the halls.
Genomorphs rampaged freely—flesh-twisted horrors finally unleashed. I passed one tearing a screaming guard apart at the joints, another battering down a steel door with mindless, brute strength.
I drifted through the wreckage. Invisible. Purposeful.
The G-Gnome's psychic link fed me constant updates: danger ahead, safe path left, right, down.
I moved like a breath between cracks, silent and uncatchable.
A squad of guards stormed past, shouting into radios that screeched static. One brushed my shoulder—didn't even glance down. Their world was collapsing, and I was just another shadow in the maelstrom.
The ground shook violently underfoot. A hollow roar deep beneath us. The walls trembled as if the whole facility was alive and dying.
I passed a shattered security checkpoint. Monitors flickered with fractured images: Robin vaulting over barricades, Kid Flash disarming soldiers before they could even blink, Aqualad tearing metal apart with tidal surges.
They weren't here for me.
But they'd cracked the fortress wide open.
The elevator loomed ahead, a battered metal box waiting like salvation.
I stabbed the call button with Mercer's stolen hand.
The hum of machinery strained and coughed up the shaft.
Footsteps thundered—two genomorphs dragging a technician, his bloody hands scrabbling uselessly at the floor.
I hunched lower, pressing the G-Gnome closer under my stolen coat.
They passed me by without a glance, too drunk on freedom.
The elevator doors creaked open with a sound like dying breath.
I stepped inside. Alone.
The ride was an eternity wrapped in seconds.
I leaned against the cold wall, letting it press into my bones. The light overhead buzzed and popped, flickering on and off, bathing me in a broken strobe of grey and shadow.
I closed my eyes.
Freedom was close enough to taste.
The doors slid open.
Night air punched me in the lungs—raw, wild, real.
I staggered out onto wet asphalt, boots scraping against the ground. Above me, the stars stretched, cold and sharp, a shattered canopy.
The sky was impossibly wide.
I dropped to one knee, my chest heaving, every breath a jagged stab.
Alive.
Really alive.
Two years underground. Two years of silence, chains, and needles.
Gone.
I looked down at the G-Gnome, its frail body twitching feebly in my hand.
"Thanks," I whispered.
A quick twist of my wrist—a soft, final snap.
No witnesses.
No mistakes.
I rose to my feet, lab coat flaring behind me like torn wings.
The world—brutal, cold, wide open—waited.
Every step I took carved a deeper wound into the night.
Each breath fed the fire burning in my chest.
One name etched itself into my mind, searing and unstoppable.
Lou.
I was coming for him.
And nothing—nothing—was going to stop me.
Author's Note:
If you're enjoying the story and want to read ahead or support my work, you can check out my P@treon at P@treon.com/LordCampione. But don't worry—all chapters will eventually be public. Just being here and reading means the world to me. Thank you for your time and support.