The makeshift fire crackled softly, its glow painting orange shadows across the jagged walls of the ruined convenience store. Kael sat near it, huddled inside an oversized hoodie they'd found among the debris. His fingers were numb despite the flames, and his stomach growled from the meager canned beans they'd shared.
Ellie hadn't spoken much since they escaped the swarm.
She sat on the far side of the fire, knees hugged to her chest, eyes staring out the broken storefront into the fog-choked street. Her skin, usually pale, now seemed almost translucent under the firelight. Kael could see the grime lining her cheekbones, the dried blood under her fingernails.
"Do you think it's still out there?" he finally asked.
She didn't respond at first. Then her eyes shifted toward him slowly, like waking from a trance. "It never left. Things like that… they don't just disappear."
Kael swallowed hard. The image of the creature still haunted him—eight feet tall, skin like torn rubber, jaws that split horizontally, eyes that shimmered with intelligence.
They had barely made it out alive. If not for Ellie's flare trap and Kael's moment of desperation with a crowbar, they'd have been reduced to just another bloody memory in this crumbling world.
"Sleep in shifts tonight?" he asked.
Ellie nodded.
Kael forced a smile. "I'll take first watch. You've been keeping me alive since day one. I owe you."
She didn't argue.
Kael's eyes scanned the street outside, but the mist was too thick. Shapes drifted in and out—cars twisted like paper, shattered lampposts, collapsed walls. The silence was unnerving. No birds. No wind. Not even the distant shrieks of monsters.
Just… absence.
He tightened his grip on the rebar he held across his lap. Every crack of cooling metal or hiss from the fire jolted his heart.
As the night deepened, his thoughts began to spiral.
How long had it been since the world fell?
Was there even a world left beyond this city?
Was his sister, Layna, still alive out there?
The guilt gnawed at him. He'd left her behind at the safehouse, promising to return with supplies. That was twelve days ago.
He thought he could find food, maybe medicine. But instead, he found Ellie, found the city had rotted into something out of nightmares. And now… the way back to her was sealed in rubble, fire, and claws.
His eyes began to droop, thoughts slipping toward dream.
But then—
A soft, metallic clatter.
His head snapped up. Silence. Then—another.
It wasn't inside.
He leaned forward, peering through the broken glass of the storefront. The mist shifted, parted.
Something moved.
A hunched figure—no more than five feet tall—dragging a rusted shovel. Its steps were uneven, like its legs were too long for its body.
Kael froze.
The creature stopped.
Sniffed the air.
Then it screamed.
A guttural, high-pitched screech that pierced his ears and made his vision blur. Ellie shot up before the echo even faded, her hand flying to the knife at her hip.
"What the hell is that!?" Kael shouted, stumbling to his feet.
Ellie grabbed her bag, slinging it over her shoulder in one motion. "We run. Now."
They bolted out the back, through the shattered employee entrance, into the narrow alley beyond. The air was colder here, the shadows thicker. The sound of clawed feet scraping pavement followed behind them, joined by others.
More screams. More steps.
"They called for backup!" Kael gasped.
"Just keep moving!"
They zigzagged through the maze of alleys, ducking under fallen signs and vaulting over trash bins. The fog swallowed them, but it swallowed their pursuers too.
At a collapsed tunnel entrance, Ellie paused. "In here!"
The tunnel yawned before them, its mouth black and fetid.
"No," Kael whispered. "We don't know what's in there."
"We do know what's behind us!"
They dove in.
The darkness was suffocating.
Their footsteps echoed off damp concrete. The only light came from Ellie's salvaged glowstick, casting a faint green sheen ahead.
It wasn't a tunnel—it was a maintenance shaft. Metal pipes lined the walls, some leaking water, others hissing steam.
The deeper they went, the colder it became.
Until they couldn't hear the pursuit anymore.
Kael leaned against the wall, panting. "That thing… screamed like it was dying."
"No. It screamed like it was calling," Ellie muttered, eyes scanning the shadows.
Silence again.
Only their breath, and the steady drip of water somewhere deeper in the shaft.
They started moving again, slower this time.
Eventually, they emerged into a larger chamber—an old water treatment room. Rusted tanks sat like metal tombs in the corners. Chains dangled from the ceiling. And across the floor were scratch marks.
Not fresh.
But deep.
Kael shivered.
"What is this place?" he asked.
Ellie crouched by a wall, brushing away a layer of grime with her sleeve. Beneath, painted in faded red letters:
"NO EXIT. DON'T WAKE THEM."
Kael's blood went cold. "What the hell does that mean?"
Ellie didn't answer. She rose and stepped backward, her boot bumping something.
It was a shoe.
Attached to a foot.
Attached to a body.
Half of one, anyway.
The torso had been torn open, ribs exposed like cracked porcelain. The face was twisted in agony. But strangest of all—there were no flies. No smell. No rot.
Fresh.
Too fresh.
Kael turned to bolt—
And the chamber lights flickered on.
One by one, overhead bulbs flared to life, humming faintly.
Kael stared up in horror. "There's power?"
Then a deep, guttural voice echoed through the chamber. Not mechanical.
Organic.
It came from the speaker system overhead.
"Experiment Delta. Detected. Initiating wake sequence."
"What the hell does that mean!?" Kael shouted.
Ellie was already running—toward a metal door at the far end of the room. "Kael, MOVE!"
Behind them, something stirred in the tanks.
Something big.
Metal creaked. Water gushed. One of the tank lids burst open with a spray of black fluid, and a hand—long, pale, clawed—reached out.
Kael ran.
They barely made it through the door before it slammed shut behind them, auto-locks clanking into place.
They found themselves in a clean hallway—white tiles, flickering fluorescent lights, surveillance cameras hanging like flies.
"What the hell was that!?" Kael demanded.
Ellie's face was pale. "We've stumbled into something worse than the creatures outside."
"You think this was a lab?"
"No. I think this was a prison."
They walked slowly, the hallway dead silent. At the far end, another door marked "Observation Chamber 4."
Behind the glass wall, dozens of cots lined the room. And on them—people.
But not moving.
Kael stepped closer.
Their skin was grey, mottled with black veins. Their eyes were open. Staring. But unmoving.
"Are they… dead?"
"No." Ellie's voice cracked. "They're in stasis."
"Why? Why would someone—?"
A screen flickered to life behind them.
Static. Then a face.
A man, maybe fifty. Bald. Eyes sunken, pupils too large.
"If you're watching this, it means I've failed," the man said. "They woke up. The experiments broke containment. But the true danger isn't them."
The screen flickered again. The man looked over his shoulder. "It's what's beneath this facility. The thing we tried to bury under steel and lies. The original signal came from down there—"
A growl.
The man turned—then the feed cut.
Silence.
Kael looked at Ellie.
"Do we keep going?" he asked.
She nodded.
But neither of them said the truth aloud.
They had already gone too far to turn back.