The rain didn't stop.
By the time we made it off the roof and into the next sector, the storm had swallowed the sky whole. Our soaked clothes clung to us like a second skin, mud splashing up to our knees with every step. The city behind us burned, and the screams had faded into silence—an eerie silence that made your skin crawl.
"We need cover," Zeke rasped, limping harder now. His wound had reopened. Blood left a trail in the muck.
Elle gripped my hand tightly. Her eyes searched everything—the crumbling buildings, the shadows between alleys, the flicker of lightning behind towers. She didn't ask for reassurance. She knew better now.
Just ahead, half-buried beneath a collapsed overpass, we found it.
A service tunnel. Old. Forgotten. The rusted sign above its broken door simply read: M14 – Emergency Maintenance Access.
I pulled the door open with a screech of metal. The air that greeted us was stale, thick with dust and something faintly sweet—like rot left too long in the dark.
"It's cover," I said. "That's all we need."
Elle nodded. Zeke grunted something between a curse and a prayer. And we stepped inside.
---
The tunnel stretched far beneath the city. Rows of broken lights hung from the ceiling like crooked teeth. Most were dead, but a few flickered weakly, casting stuttering shadows on the stained walls.
We moved carefully, every footstep echoing like a drumbeat.
"This used to be a way out of the lower districts," Zeke said, eyes scanning the walls. "They closed these tunnels down years ago. Said they were too unstable."
"Perfect for us then," I muttered.
We found a maintenance room a few hundred feet in—four walls, a door, and a heavy bench. It wasn't much. But it was safe. For now.
Elle helped Zeke sit and wrapped his leg again with strips from her shirt.
I leaned against the wall, trying to catch my breath.
And then I felt it.
A hum.
Low. Vibrating through the floor. Not quite sound—more like a presence.
I looked around. "Do you feel that?"
Elle froze. "Yes."
Zeke didn't reply. His head was leaned back, eyes closed.
Then something moved in the dark.
A whisper. A shuffle. Not from the tunnel behind us—but from further ahead.
The part we hadn't explored yet.
I stepped out into the corridor again, blood rushing in my ears.
That's when I saw the writing.
On the wall—scrawled in dried black ink or maybe old blood.
"It's not the dark that kills you. It's what waits inside it."
A chill spidered up my spine.
"Elle," I called softly. "Stay with Zeke."
She stepped to the doorway. "What is it?"
I pointed.
She read the words. Her jaw clenched.
Then, a sound.
Not a scream. Not a growl.
Breathing.
Slow, labored breathing. Wet. Inhuman.
From the tunnel ahead.
Zeke stirred. "Someone there?"
Elle reached for her knife.
I moved quietly, every step measured, until I rounded the corner.
And saw it.
Not one of the infected.
Not like the horde.
It was different.
Hunched. Long limbs. No face—only a mass of veins pulsing like a jellyfish in the shape of a skull. Tubes stuck out of its back, blinking faint green. Military tech—half-alive, half-manufactured.
And it was feeding.
On a body.
A man—one of the workers who must've once monitored these tunnels. His chest was torn open. The thing was siphoning something from him, glowing fluid dripping from its tendrils.
I stepped back.
The thing stopped.
Its head lifted.
No eyes—but I knew it was looking at me.
It screamed—a warbled, electric shriek that echoed through every pipe and wire in the place.
"RUN!" I yelled, bolting back to the room.
Elle grabbed Zeke's arm. "What is it?!"
"We're not alone!" I shouted.
Just as I slammed the door, the corridor exploded with movement.
The thing was fast.
It slammed into the steel like a battering ram.
Elle pushed a storage shelf against it. "What WAS that?"
"Something they made," I said, voice shaking. "One of the early experiments. Maybe something they couldn't control."
Zeke pulled his knife. "It's in here with us. Locked in."
"No," I corrected, pulse pounding.
"We're locked in with it."
Outside, the shrieking stopped.
The lights flickered once.
Twice.
And then died.
Total darkness.
Not even shadows now.
Only the sound of breathing.
Closer.
And closer.
The lights were dead.
The air turned colder, like the tunnel itself had stopped breathing.
We couldn't see anything—not even each other. Just the steady sound of that wet, mechanical breathing. It moved closer, a slithering drag of limbs across the concrete floor.
Elle's hand found mine in the dark. Her grip trembled, but she didn't scream. Neither of us did. It was like we all knew—sound would only bring it faster.
Then a whisper. Barely audible. Like it came from inside my skull.
"You're one of us."
I froze.
"What did you say?" I whispered.
Elle's breath hitched. "I didn't say anything."
Zeke hissed in pain as something brushed past him.
It wasn't attacking.
It was studying.
Choosing.
I drew the blade I kept tucked in my belt, holding it out in the dark like it could protect me from the thing that shouldn't exist.
Then—
A flicker.
A single emergency light sparked on from the backup generator. It bathed the corridor in red.
And there it was.
Not just one.
Three of them.
Lurking. Towering. Part-machine, part-organism. Tubes pulsed across their chests, and strange black fluid leaked from vents in their sides. Their heads turned slowly—synchronized, like dancers in a grotesque ballet.
And all three were staring at me.
Not Elle.
Not Zeke.
Just me.
One stepped forward. Its voice rasped through a shredded speaker embedded in its neck.
"You've been chosen, Allen."
Zeke backed up into the wall. "What the hell is happening?!"
The lead creature reached out, tendrils unraveling like it wanted to embrace me.
"Allen—don't," Elle warned. "Don't move."
But my feet felt nailed to the floor.
The thing stopped just inches from my face.
Then whispered with a sound like grinding bone—
"We remember what you were made from."
And the light went out again.
Total silence.
And then a scream—not from the creatures.
From Zeke.
---