A ripple in blood, a boy in a puddle of it. Flickering red emergency lights carve eerie shadows in the underground compound, where the walls now bear scars of violence. The air is heavy with the acrid tang of burnt circuits and spilled blood, while distant alarms and sporadic gunfire echo in the darkness.
Amidst the chaos are corpses of men and beasts the walls mangled and warped patches of flesh merged into it's once strong surface, yet the thing most unnatural in this scene was a boy who rose from the ground in his oversized lab coat stained with warm blood, that wasn't his own, dripped from his head to his chin meeting the cold dark blue veins that rose to his jaw from his from his neck.
His gaze was cold, analyzing the chaos around him. His pitch-black eyes reflected only the eerie glow of the emergency lights, like dark mirrors of the disturbances. Despite the carnage splattering around the hallway, he remained eerily calm yet vigilant. His black hair flowed over his pale face caressing the veins under his eyes.
The boy clung to the dark surfaces around him, every step is deliberate, quiet, almost ghostlike. As he moves through the hallway, a silent force against the backdrop of shattered bodies and flickering alarms, he makes his way to the head researcher's office.
Inside, amidst the disarray of scattered papers and dented drawers, his fingers find a transparent tablet. With a swift gesture, the device comes to life, its screen spitting out a single, sterile command:
"Identification required."
From his pocket, he produces a keycard and a severed human thumb, a grotesque but effective pair. He lays the keycard on the tablet and presses the thumb against it. The screen flashes, then intones crisply.
"Access granted, welcome Liam Pura."
He types in the symbols "EC-43," and the tablet displays.
"EC-43 status: Breached, location: level 135."
A mapped visualization pinpoints his next destination. Pocketing his tools, he backs into the hallway corridor still littered by the site staff, abominations born from twisted experiments and the invading rift beasts.
Nearing the split in the hallway, he slowed his pace ahead, directional signs. Straining to decipher the words he aimed for the nearest elevator.
"calf-a-teer-ia"
Recalling that one of the dual elevators was in the cafeteria section. Peeking around the corner, he witnesses a grim skirmish, four guards engaged in desperate combat with a rift creature. The beast, its scarred red hide punctured by endurim steel spears, thrashes wildly as two guards tackle it to drag a fallen comrade to safety. Amid the chaos, a loaded sink gun lies abandoned a potential lifeline.
"Focus fire on the open wounds."
One of them shouted as the team pours their ammunition into the creature until it finally goes limp.
"Good job boys, we may just survive today, Kim pass me that sink gun let's get ready to move top side."
After checking if the area is truly all clear, the pale boy decided to step out of hiding, but the respite is short-lived. A ruptured wall forces the boy back into the shadows as another, larger rift creature emerges, its animalistic legs and whiplike tendrils promising even deadlier havoc.
"Shit, another one," a guard snarls. "Damn it, cover fire—Kim, fire the spear if you can!"
Nothing, absolutely no damage occurred as they fired their coil guns at the rift creature, the projectiles bounced off or just barely bit into the hide before falling out. The beast was fast, faster than the previous wounded beast. It lunged and pierced one of the guards with one of it whip-like arms ending them.
"Shit, another dormant."
"Firing spear!"
With a steady pull of the trigger, he launches a spear that embeds into the creature's shoulder, slowing its deadly swings, but not stopping its assault.
"Damn!"
'Jumping in now is suicide' the boy thought, he knew that though weakened it would be a death sentence for him to jump in, not only that but the mission was still on the line.
"Damn I need ammo." Kim shouted dread in his voice
"Search the body, we'll try distracting it."
The guards kept up their attack moving in different directions around the creature, trying to confuse it while giving Kim time to find another spear.
Realizing their struggle was a lost cause, the hiding boy decided to search for another elevator. Yet before he could leave, the compound rumbled and the other hallways collapsed, sealing off all other options but one. The cafeteria was still accessible, so he waited for an opportunity. Spotting a spear near the corner he was peeking from, he silently rolled it toward the guard direction in tandem with the rumbling.
'Nothing nothing nothing nothing, damn it! Come on please.'
Kim frantically searched the bodies, and as if his prayers were answered, an endurim steel spear rolled to his feet, hope. Deciding not to waste any more time, he started reloading.
"Firing!"
The guards moved again, except for one who was caught by the neck. To the horror of the others it used the man a sheild. Before it could take further action, the held guard shouted.
"FIRE IT! DO IT!"
Kim hesitated before firing at the beast's leg, forcing it to release its grip. The guard dashed away, but it was all for naught as he was whipped in the back, and with cruel snap he planted into the floor. It broke the spine of his exo-suit as well as the man's actual spine, killing him instantly.
With no more spears left, dowsed in fear Kim throw the Sink gun away. Frantically, he picked up the coil gun off a fallen guard and started firing rapidly.
Continuing their assault from a distance. They maneuvered around the creature towards the elevator, thinking they were safe due to the beast's wounded leg. Now was their chance.
"Use your card!"
A glimmer of hope? No, just delusion. As Kim turned around, the beast lunged forward, its maw open, and bit into his remaining teammate's arm. The crushing force bite through her arm, the exo-suit doing but add to the agony.
"AHHHHH, you fucking, AHHH!"
She screamed as she unloaded on the beast's head to hopeless effect, her weapon clicking empty. With a crunch and a cruel yank, the beast tore her arm from its socket, taking a piece of the suit with it.
"AHHHHHH!"
"It's open! It's open!"
Kim pulled his last squad member inside, but the beast stopped the door from closing. Kim searched around and noticed a body. It wasn't the corpse he focused on but the blade it held. He snatched it, pressed the button, and swung down on the beast's head. The blade vibrated and glowed a fiery red, partially severing the beast's head. With a pained yelp, it retreat, the doors to close, and the indicator showed they were already rising.
The beast roared utter rage, lashing the door, scaring it. As it turned around, it was met with a bloody spear to chest. The shooter, a pale boy, the recoil had forced him to the ground as he watched the beast fall with a hard thump. The boy whined, pain coursing through his hands to his arms and chest. He dropped the sink gun.
'To cumbersome' it slowed him to much for it worth
Stepping over the fallen beast, he made his way towards the second elevator, looking back he saw beyond and to the first dominant beast that died a gaping hole where he yanked a spear from.
He pressed in the symbols 135
"Apologies but due to emergency protocol all personal is t-… protocol overwritten moving to level 135… and have nice day Liam Pura."
Taking the severed thumb and card off the scanner, he thought back to how he got into this situation. As a retriever he was notified of any assignment near him and of their level of urgency. All second-stage backup generators had failed, and the third stage were beginning to fail. The main armories were most likely inaccessible, the compound's emergency evacuation protocol had been activated, and one of the council members was dead.
'Did I waste too much time? I was informed via message recording that this retrieval job was classified as Tomorrow's Singularity, the highest priority and yet I haven't seen any other retrievers.'
The boy hadn't been given much information and could only make assumptions about the mission. He had only been in the organization for about half a year, and even less time as a retriever. Though he had passed the organization's requirements, only one person seemed to back him. The thought of that greened haired man came to mind.
A sharp pain along his neck jolted him from his thoughts. Clasping it, he gently ran his finger over the long scar on the side of his neck.
Before him stretches a corridor bathed in a grotesque tapestry of pulsating meat and coagulated blood. Each step is a squelch, every wall a living nightmare of exposed sinew and dismembered limbs. The overwhelming stench is almost unbearable but he presses on.
At a fork in the corridor, one path glows ominously red, a warning of failing generators. The other remains lit, steady and true, just as his tablet instructed. He sprints toward the light.
Ahead, a barely conscious retriever struggles, his lower half fused to the floor. "H-help me please," the man croaks, a desperate whisper lost in the macabre silence. The boy slowed their eyes meet for an instant, a silent plea, the boys eyes looked him over the man wore standard issue retriever equipment, his eyes lingered on the belt he reached down to grab one of the pocket put the man grabbed his wrist. Then with silent swiftness he wrapped a cruel hand around the man throat.
"please" his voice was like a dead whisper but it was no use the boy wrapped his other hand around the man throat. The man could do nothing but weekly claw at the bow till he snaped his neck and went limp.
He unbuckled the man's belt and kept moving with unyielding purpose
At last, he reaches the door marked "EC-43." Scanning his card, it cracked open slightly the doors was jammed in place to reveal a chamber dominated by a mysterious black orb. The lights dim as the third-stage generators collapse and the fourth-stage systems flicker to life.
Without wasting another moment he took out a small disk like object from the belt and stuck it to the door, taking a few steps back the let out a suppressed explosion. Stepping into the room, he tucks the orb into his lab coat and races back into the corridor.
Halfway there, he froze, every hair on his body wanting to stand on end. Overcome by an emotion he rarely felt, fear, like never before, he felt something had him in its grip, accompanied by a deep humming sound.
He wanted to turn his face to the source but he couldn't, not because he was to scared but because something really did have him in a grip. He was lifted into the air and turned, hovering in the gloom is a dark, pulsating sphere, a malignant star whose aura warped the edges of his vision. The force tightens around him, squeezing the breath from his lungs as his body convulses in excruciating pain like a thousand razors slicing through him from the inside and out. Most would have lost consciousness by now, but not him, he endured for longer until his mind went blank, his vision blurry, every nerve in his body set ablaze.
A blinding light followed, as if seeking to burn his eyes away like the sun. Before losing his sight completely, he caught a final glimpse of the figure. This time, it was clearer, as if the light unveiled a monstrous figure covered in voided darkness the light distorted around him clashing with another figure radiating pure light and fire, like the sun itself given form.
But that was it. His vision, his feeling, his hearing all taken from him. The agony simmered away nearly as quickly as it came, it was as if he was floating in a void and all the boy could think was.
'Is this what being dead feels like? No sight? no smell? no touch? no pain. just emptiness.'
A joyless chuckle echoed from somewhere deep within, uncertain if it was his own. Then, he sensed something, not a feeling, but more like a cold breeze brushing against the remnants of his soul.
'It almost gives me comfort, almost brings me relief, if it weren't for the fact I still have a mission. The mission isn't complete, and so I must not die until I am sure the mission will be done.'
"System obtained! Congratulations! you've been blessed by ^(*^ ^%$)(%^&$#$%. Warning you've been cursed by ^(*^ ^%$)(%^&$#$%.
'What's this? A voice? I could hear it, but I'm sure my sense of sound had long left me, it's in my head like a boy, giving a news report enthusiastically or like one of those sports announcers that enjoyed talking loudly and eccentrically.'
"System given. Congratulations, you've been blessed. Warning you've been cursed.
'Another voice? This one sounded more like a girl. Contrary to the first voice, it was calmer and more professional, like a secretary informing their boss of something. What is this feeling? Everything feels so warm, like being wrapped in a blanket and carried. I could feel the pain returning and disappearing just as quickly." Little by little, my senses returned to me. The warm feeling left as I was placed on a surface. I don't know how much time had passed, but it felt like an eternity. I could hear again, and I heard the clattering of many footsteps. I felt a pair of gloves touching me and then a voice.
"This one's alive! possible severe head injury, applying first aid"
The boy tried to force his eyes open only half succeeding. What he saw was the members of one of the most well-known task forces within the organization that he knew of their task force name engraved on their helmets, "P.H.A.N.T.O.M.". Collecting his senses he tried recalling. Paranormal Hazard Assessment and Neutralization Tactical Operator Meta's. The Boy didn't understand some of those words at all but he knew they were the main scouting force as well as the first one's to go in whenever the organization had trouble within their own territory or they discovered another incalculable variable.
"Damn, for a scrawny looking kid he's got one hell of a death grip on this thing" another voice this one distorted but also sounded distinctly feminine
He felt a cold slime like substance spreading across his head and moving through his hair he looked at the visor of the one who was treating him and the helmeted person looked back at him, the blackened visor of helmet seemed to recede and become clearer, one of the feature of the helmet undoubtedly.
Her features were stranger then his own but that was because she was only part of a human, her height made her out to be a giant compared to him, she had amber eyes that shined with a sort of kindness, but strangest of all was that she had fur, brown fur lots of it. She spoke softly to him.
"Hey there kiddo, you mind releasing your grip on that thing?"
The words brought him confusion, then he tried looking at his hands to his chest and realized it, he had been holding on tightly to the black orb with both hands, he had exert himself just to let go before passing it on to one of the task force members. Then another member came with a briefcase in hand this one from a different unit as per the different equipment and engraved name on the side of their helmet. Putting it in, the briefcase shut closed, before running off with four others.
"ya did good kid" the furred one said
"PIKE TWO lets get going" a distorted voice beacons.
Another member from P.H.A.N.T.O.M came, and the visor of the women darkened again, and they took off going further into the compound. He felt his vision flickering, blurring and clearing again, something was sliding beneath him before he was lifted up by a what he recognized as a stretcher, one person pushing it as if he was hovering off the ground.
"Alright kid, this will help with the injury, try staying awake, what's your name?"
A handheld stick like object was pressed against his neck and he could feel what was meant to be a small almost unnoticeable prick was a to him the equivalent of a thin knife being jabbed into the side of his neck.
"AGH?!" he let out a grunt in pain before calming again.
His vision was flickering again he say glimpses of hallways, broken doors, broken walls, open sky, the elevator, the structure, rising and a crater he saw the moon.
"Clip…my names Clip"