She was floating.
No ground met her feet.
There was no anchor, no hold.
Only a low, muted hum reached her ears, muffled and submerged beneath whatever engulfed her. A substance, a liquid — that much, at least, she seemed to know.
Liquid?
Suddenly, she opened her eyes.
Her lips parted in an involuntary spasm, and bubbles left her mouth with a "blob, blob" as the viscous substance poured down her throat like a suffocating river.
She choked but couldn't cough.
She was drowning.
Her vision was a blur, darkening with every passing second.
She pushed forward in a desperate attempt, only to slam her head into a solid surface, blocking her way.
The pain shot through her, but it was quickly overshadowed by an overwhelming sense of urgency. She groped at the surface, kicked, thrashed — left, right, forward, back — every direction was sealed, no escape.
Panic began to cloud her thoughts, her judgment slipping away. Her eyes burned, her head ached, and she could barely make out a meter ahead of her.
Beyond the glass... yes, it was like glass.
Gray floor and endless darkness.
She slammed her head against the glass, driving her forehead into the barrier, struggling against the resistance of the contents that shared space with her in that wretched cage. She kicked her feet back, pushing against the opposite surface, and struck the glass again.
She felt a "crack".
As a small fracture began to form, she pressed on with her frantic efforts. The pain in her swollen forehead was drowned by a surge of adrenaline and numbness, her lungs felt as if they were about to implode.
Crack, crack, crack.
CRASH!!
Finally, the wall gave way, shattering.
The rupture was followed by the violent expulsion of everything trapped inside the glass pod. She was flung out, scraping her body against the jagged shards. Blood, tears, sweat — all mingling with the viscous liquid that erupted alongside her, pooling on the floor, littered with fragmented glass.
Bzz, bzz, a machine beneath the broken capsule flickered twice before falling silent, sparks jumping from exposed wires nearby.
Thrown on the ground, she propped herself up with both arms, gasping and coughing incessantly, as though trying to expel something too stubborn to be released.
She drew in forceful breaths, her chest rising and falling unevenly, her heart racing, and her body trembling while some tears were still settled in the corners of her eyes.
"Cough! Cough! Haah... Ha. Ugh..."
The faint, feminine voice escaped her lips, a blend of confusion and discomfort, agony, and muffled moans of pain — pain that now felt more intense than ever, especially from the deep cuts on her left arm and forehead.
A red line trickled down — no, it wasn't just one streak; it appeared to be a serious wound, as blood began to flow from her head, soaking her already wet hair, which hung down in front of her face.
'Where?'
'Where am I...?'
As the adrenaline wore off, the pain jolted her fully awake. Though her mind was still a ugly mess, she gradually regained a fragment of clarity. This was all very much real.
And she...
She was alive.
For a while, she remained in that position on the cold, gray floor, surrounded by a pool of thick, viscous liquid as she glanced around, trying to make sense of her surroundings.
Countless questions swirled in her mind, but no one was there to answer them.
The only thing she could rely on was her own vision, which was gradually adjusting to the dimly lit environment.
She brought the back of her hand to her mouth and wiped away the saliva still lingering there after her coughing fit.
The sting of her wounds was sharp, but even so, she decided to move.
Slowly, she got up, taking extra care to avoid the shards of glass scattered around her, and with a small leap, she left the minefield behind.
Her bare feet made contact with the ground. And, for the first time, she felt that she was truly free.
Freedom.
Had this desire always existed within her?
She turned and looked back.
From the broken capsule, that green and translucent liquid was still trickling down through the cracks in the glass and the gaps, feeding the puddle that stained the floor beneath the machine.
Now, under the dim glow of the emergency lights — many flickering sporadically — she had a clear view of the thing.
It was a 2-meter-tall glass pod shaped like a cylinder, with a round top and some kind of machinery at its base.
Although undoubtedly fancy, the technology appeared to have been abandoned for years with no maintenance.
Many of its features had been corroded; the drainage, lock, and the system responsible for managing the incubator were definitely among those affected. Thus explaining why she ended up stuck in there in the first place.
Of course, she was ignorant about the exact technical details.
What caught her attention was something else, displayed on a frozen screen, half-glitched, embedded in the mechanized base of the capsule. The majority of the text appeared corrupted, and the buttons beside the screen had long ceased to function, yet one word seemed to have withstood the ravages of time.
It was also in that moment that she made another startling discovery.
She knew how to read.
"Or... ca..."
Even though it was a bit far and the letters were relatively small, she was able to make out the unfamiliar symbols with surprising ease. Not only did she recognize them, but she also, almost instinctively, pronounced them correctly. The name came out of her mouth as naturally as breathing.
Her name.
Orca.
She liked the ring to it.
***
Modern equipment lay scattered across the room, with the walls draped in cables, screens, and devices, along with massive metal crates and tubes — the majority worn and battered by years of neglect.
The only door in sight stood half-open, jammed — a hulking slab of metal that, had it still functioned, might have glided smoothly to the side at the push of a button on the now-blown-out control panel mounted next to it.
The light spilling in from beyond was stark, unrelenting, far brighter than anything else in the room. In fact, it was the only real light source left, aside from the weak red bulbs flickering above.
Pain had settled in like a parasite, constant and dull. Her arm now burned with a feverish heat, the skin around the wound darkening into a bruised violet. Still, she pushed forward, one step at a time, lifting her hand to shield her narrowed eyes from the light — just long enough to make it to the other side.
Orca blinked twice, a strong scent of iron hitting her nostrils.
As soon as she left the room behind, the scene around her changed drastically.
What lay beyond the door was a single, massive corridor stretching endlessly to both the left and right.
Above, cold, clinical lights hummed along the ceiling, casting a harsh clarity across the walls, the floor, the ceiling — all of which had once been pure white.
The lights buzzed, but they never flickered. Power was still flowing here. This part of the facility was alive.
And then, there was blood.
It drowned the entire corridor. Caked on the walls in jagged smears, soaked into the floor in thick, clotted puddles. Some of it was dry and black, others still fresh, glistening.
The air stank of rot and rust.
The walls bore the marks of violence: deep gouges, fractures, ruptures. Farther down the corridor, a section of wall had collapsed, and from it, earth and debris spilled like entrails from a torn belly.
Nauseating.
But Orca didn't find piles of bodies, nor anything that could account for the sea of blood soaking the floor.
Moreover, the door she had come through wasn't the only one there. Countless others lined the bloodstained corridor on both sides — many of them shut, others ajar like hers, and a few completely destroyed.
"D-12... some kind of numbering system?" she muttered, eyes narrowing at the symbols scrawled across the sealed door before her.
D-12, D-10... D-14 on the other side. Beside her, D-11 and a broken-down door — maybe D-15, she could only guess.
Orca moved forward, following the descending numbers painted on the doors, each step dragging her deeper into what felt like an endless corridor.
With one hand pressed against the cold surface of the wall, she used it to guide herself as her breathing grew heavier with each step.
The fever simmered beneath her skin, tolerable — but her arm pulsed with pain.
Red lines had begun to spread around the wound. A clear sign of infection.
Blood ran in lazy lines down her forearm, dripping from her fingers in a steady rhythm, vanishing into the blood-soaked floor. Her feet were already stained with it — the warmth, the stickiness, the stench. It clung to her like something alive.
Orca had hoped the end of the sequence would lead to an exit — some kind of escape. But instead, when she finally laid eyes on door D-01, the pattern shifted.
The next doors bore new markings: S-33, S-31... and the numbers kept going.
Whatever D meant, S felt different.
And not in a good way.