Story 1257: They Grew Inside

The scream wasn’t human.

It echoed through the ventilation shaft with a wet rasp—half windpipe, half something rupturing. The parasite Bloom had found a host.

Juno, Shade, and H-13 stood frozen in the husk of Vault K-0 as the last of the spores were sucked upward. Above them, the silence returned. But it wasn’t peace.

It was migration.

“They grew inside someone,” H-13 said, stepping back from the vent. “Someone who didn’t know they were infected.”

Shade scanned the exits. “How long before it... blooms again?”

H-13 turned grim. “Less than an hour. But this time, the parasite won’t need pollen. It’s merged with a mind.”

They hurried out of the collapsing vault, through the maintenance tunnels beneath Blackout’s surface. Juno moved faster than before—driven not by fear, but clarity. She now remembered the old VIREX blueprints from her mother’s files, every hallway and false exit.

But something wasn’t right.