Elias Danner's life was routine and predictable.
Comfortably dull.
Every morning, he took the same crowded subway down into the guts of the city, then transferred to the private elevator that descended into the municipal gridworks. While the rest of the world lived above in towers of glass and steel, Elias spent his days surrounded by humming transformers, sweating pipes, and the kind of damp air that never truly left your lungs.
He didn't complain.
It was a job.
It paid well enough, and there was a kind of peace down here, beneath the weight of thousands of lives.
The steel grating clanged under his boots as he walked the catwalk, headlamp casting pale beams across dripping pipes. He adjusted his toolkit, set his wrench against a corroded bolt, and went to work. A spark fizzed as he tightened one of the power relays.
The sounds joining the symphony of the underground—the low drone of turbines, the hiss of vents, the occasional echo of voices farther down the tunnels.
Ordinary. Safe.
Then it stopped.
Not slowed, not faded—stopped.
The wrench froze mid-turn in his hand.
The drip of water from the overhead pipe halted midair, a perfect glass bead suspended in nothing.
The humming machines hummed no more. His breath came ragged, too loud against the crushing stillness.
And then the voice came.
"You have been chosen."
"This planet is the next experiment. Prepare yourselves."
It didn't echo through the tunnels. It vibrated inside his head, resonant and heavy, like it came from the bones of his skull instead of the air. His knees buckled.
Something stirred at the edge of his vision.
A fog, black as tar, seeps through the walls and floor. It did not roll like smoke or mist. It crawled. A slow, oily tide, swallowing steel, wires, everything it touched.
Then the pain began.
Elias screamed as his body betrayed him. His muscles locked, bones wrenched, organs twisted. It wasn't burning, nor stabbing—it was everything, every nerve screaming at once. He collapsed on the catwalk, convulsing against the steel. Minutes or hours—he couldn't tell. His thoughts shattered into fragments of agony.
Just when he thought his heart might stop, it ebbed.
The voice returned, calm and cold.
"Congratulations."
"You are the first to survive and overcome."
"Rewards granted."
That was it. Nothing else.
Elias lay on the floor, drenched in sweat, gasping as if he'd drowned. His limbs trembled as he forced himself upright. His wrench clattered uselessly to the floor. His body felt… strange. Not stronger, not weaker, it felt changed.
He stumbled through the tunnels, desperate for another voice, another person, anyone.
What he found instead was blood.
A long smear across the wall, and dark puddles soaking into the steel grating. The only sign of life was a dropped hard hat lying beside a bent wrench.
Nothing was here—just silence and red.
His chest tightened.
He followed the trail, taking hesitant steps—until the world shook.
The explosion ripped through the tunnels like thunder in a steel coffin. The blast threw Elias against the railing, ears ringing, vision blurring.
Dust and smoke choked the corridor. The floor vibrated under his boots as debris rained down.
Through the haze, he saw movement—a staggering silhouette.
Relief surged. Someone alive. Someone familiar—Derek, one of the electricians from his shift. Elias stumbled forward. "Derek! Thank god, I—"
The figure twitched.
Half of Derek's body sagged grotesquely, flesh swollen and porous, like a sponge bloated with water. His face drooped, jaw unhinged at an unnatural angle. The right side of him looked almost human. The left side… was something else.
Elias froze.
Derek's head snapped toward him. The jaw tore wider, and a shriek ripped out—an inhuman, distorted cry that rattled Elias's bones.
Then Derek rushed him.
The movements were unsteady, clumsy, the swollen half of his body dragging him down. But he was fast. Too fast. Elias's instincts roared—run.
He turned and sprinted, lungs burning, heart pounding in his ears. Behind him, the monster shrieked, stumbling but relentless.
The lift door loomed ahead. Elias slammed the button, throwing desperate glances behind him. The doors clanged shut just as the deformed figure hurled itself against the metal. The cage rattled, ascending.
When the doors finally opened, Elias burst into daylight.
The city stretched before him. Towers stood tall, neon signs still glowed, and traffic lights blinked red and green. Everything looked normal.
Except for one thing.
The people.
The streets were empty. Cars idled in silence, doors left open. A shopping bag lay spilled on the sidewalk, apples rolling into the gutter. A child's toy sat abandoned in the middle of the street.
No footsteps. No voices. Nothing.
Elias staggered into the road, chest heaving, eyes wide. His brain struggled to process the emptiness.
He didn't know yet—but seventy-five percent of humanity had failed the trial of the black fog.
And they haven't died.
They had changed.
And the world would never be ordinary again.