The ice was still cracking behind them.
Even after sealing the Cryochamber's blast door, Netoshka and the team could hear the muffled groans of freezing metal… and the faint, wet scraping of the Lober's thralls still trying to claw their way through, their fingers snapping off like brittle twigs.
Frost clung to the squad's gear as they descended the metal staircase leading into 3rd Sector Floor, a lower and older part of the metro complex. Every step echoed like ghosts tapping from below. The tunnel lights here flickered in sallow, dying hues. Pipes hissed overhead. Condensation dripped like a heartbeat.
Genrihk checked his scanner.
"Radiation spikes. Bio-signatures too. Multiple. Moving."
Twila wiped ice from her cheek.
"Is it the Lober's puppets?"
"No," Genrihk muttered.
"These ones… are alive."
The staircase opened into a massive industrial corridor—wide enough to fit a metro car, lined with rusted bulkhead doors. Warning symbols were everywhere. Some were new… others decades old, flaking off the walls.
NEW HORIZON CORP – SECTOR 3 BIOSTORAGE
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
FAILURE PROTOCOL ACTIVE
Netoshka's eyes narrowed.
"Kraustein had a lab here."
Zev swallowed.
"What the hell were they storing?"
Surgien's helmet light swept over something on the ground.
Tracks.
Boot prints—fresh. At least six individuals. Moving hurriedly, zigzagging, as if fleeing from something.
Rue knelt.
"Not like those Sawtooth Razors. These boots… smaller. lighter. Civilians?"
Before anyone could answer, the bulkhead at the far end shuddered.
A metallic clang.
Another.
Then a scream—muffled, desperate.
Netoshka raised her rifle.
"Move."
They advanced, fanning out, weapons trained. As they approached the bulkhead, the intercom above it crackled to life with choked static.
Then a voice—panicked, trembling:
"…stay away… stay away from the door… it's still in here—"
A wet, heavy impact cut the voice short.
Silence.
Then something dragged across the metal floor behind the bulkhead. Slow. Deliberate. Hunting.
Genrihk's scanner spiked red.
"Bioform detected," it announced tonelessly. "Unknown. Massive."
Twila whispered,
"Please don't tell me the Lober got down here."
"No," Netoshka said.
"This thing is bigger."
Zopi pointed her flashlight at the side of the bulkhead—its steel reinforced locking bars weren't just dented. They were bowed outward. As if something inside had swung at them from the darkness.
Rue whispered,
"Sector 3 Biostorage… what were they hiding down here?"
Netoshka inhaled sharply.
"Kraustein's failures maybe, i don't know." she answered.
A sound rolled through the walls like a living earthquake—flesh slamming metal, bone dragging concrete. The lights flickered, dimmed, and finally stabilized in a sickly yellow haze.
Then the bulkhead bolt snapped.
Metal screamed.
Everyone stepped back, weapons trembling in their hands.
The bulkhead slowly cracked open, steam billowing from inside.
Something huge breathed in the dark.
Genrihk's voice dropped to a whisper.
"…Netoshka."
"I see it," she murmured.
The darkness inside the chamber was silent for one long, unnatural moment—
—until something clicked.
A wet, alien clicking sound.
Like bone segments snapping into place.
Then two enormous, luminescent eyes opened inside the room—wide, lidless, and burning cold blue.
Taran raised his shotgun.
"CONTACT!"
The creature lunged.
A blur of pale limbs and exposed ribs burst through the doorway, slamming the corridor floor so hard the ground buckled.
It towered over them—long limbs, stretched spine, skull wrapped in sinew. Its mouth was a vertical slit of teeth spiraling inward like a grinder. Frost steamed off its flesh.
Twila screamed,
"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?"
Netoshka answered with her rifle, ripping a burst into the monster's ribs.
"I don't know what the Hell that is but Run!"
The 3rd Sector Floor shook as the beast roared, hurling itself after them with inhuman, spider-like speed.
The team sprinted deeper into the sector—
—and the monster crawled along the ceiling, chasing them upside-down.
The 3rd Sector Floor had awakened.
And the nightmare inside it had too.