Chapter 194

A mangled metallic door leaned against the wall, its hinges crumpled and detached from what was left of the frame. Beyond it, the tunnel opened into something entirely different—something neither Gwen nor Colette had expected. Gwen stopped short, scanning every inch of the space before stepping inside.

The room—or whatever this place was—stretched far beyond the reach of their flashlights. Tubes lined the walls and extended in ordered rows further into the darkness, each a cylinder of reinforced glass encased in metal. Inside them were figures that might have once resembled humans but no longer did.

"What the hell is this?" Colette asked.

Gwen moved closer to one of the tubes, staring at the distorted figure inside. Pale skin hung too tight on skeletal frames; limbs looked wrong, bent in ways that didn't make sense. Their faces were human but lifeless—their slack expressions frozen as though mid-breath.

"They're not alive," Gwen said after a moment.