vitality

Morning broke slowly, as if the sun itself hesitated to rise in a world like this. A thick fog clung to the forest floor, curling between roots and broken branches like smoke from the remnants of a battlefield. The air was damp and cold, heavy with anticipation.

The group packed what little they had in silence. No one needed to say it—after the hologram, the creature, the dream-like horror of the night before—words felt brittle, almost meaningless. Elie's wrist was still wrapped tightly in gauze, but beneath it, the faint green glow pulsed every few seconds like a second heartbeat. She kept glancing at her hand when she thought no one was looking.

They began their journey east.

Each step toward the old biotech facility felt heavier than the last. Every cracked leaf underfoot felt too loud. Kent kept checking behind them, his eyes sharp, analytical, paranoid. Shin led the group, his pace steady but never too fast—just enough to keep them moving, not enough to burn them out.

Evelyn and Alix walked in the middle, flanking Elie, whose eyes occasionally flickered with brief tremors of metal movement—tiny pieces of her environment humming toward her hand when she got too emotional, too focused. She kept apologizing. Evelyn kept telling her to stop.

Hours passed.

The terrain changed.

What began as dense woods slowly opened into a flattened wasteland of cracked asphalt and sun-bleached signs. It was once a highway, probably. Before the Collapse. Now it was just a scar on the earth.

Eventually, they saw it—a squat, concrete structure embedded into a hillside. Cracked glass, torn metal shutters, an old government emblem half-erased by time and graffiti.

"Is this it?" Alix asked, breathless.

Shin nodded. "Welcome to Sector Four."

Kent brushed dust from an old keypad near the door. "Power's dead, of course."

"I might be able to—" Elie began, but before she could finish, the door jerked open, groaning violently as a cloud of dust erupted outward.

Everyone jumped back.

Inside… darkness.

A long hallway stretched inward, faintly lit by sunlight cutting through holes in the ceiling. Wires hung from broken panels. Dried blood stained some of the walls—though faded, some trails still looked disturbingly recent.

"This place feels like a tomb," Evelyn whispered.

"Then let's not die in it," Shin said, stepping in first.

They moved carefully. Every hallway opened to new questions—storage rooms filled with shattered vials, observation windows cracked and smeared. Files lay scattered everywhere, tagged in red ink: SERUM A-5 FAILURE, REJECTION RATE ABOVE 90%, EXPOSURE NOT ADVISED.

"This is it," Kent muttered. "This is where it started. Where they first played with the genome… maybe even the Z-Evo line."

"I don't like this," Alix said. "We shouldn't be here."

"We have to be here," Kent answered, eyes scanning a dusty terminal. "If we want answers, this is the only place we'll find them."

Elie wandered slightly ahead, her steps cautious. A strange pull guided her, almost like her body knew something her mind didn't.

She stopped in front of a sealed room with heavy reinforced glass. Inside, in the center of a circular platform, was a humanoid figure—frozen in a stasis chamber. Metallic tendrils grew from its back like veins branching into armor. Its body shimmered with the same green hue that glowed beneath her skin.

Her hand pressed to the glass.

Its eyes opened.

Bright green.

Elie stumbled back, heart hammering.

The thing didn't move, didn't breathe—but it saw her.

Shin pulled her back instinctively, placing himself between her and the chamber.

"That's not human," he said, low and firm.

"No…" Kent stepped beside him. "But it was. Before they enhanced it. That's what Fatal's building. That's what he wants her to become."

Elie stared, breath shaky. "It looked like me."

"It was made from someone like you," Kent said. "And if Fatal's telling the truth… maybe even from you, in another life."

A heavy silence fell again.

Outside, thunder began to rumble across the sky.

Evelyn whispered the words none of them wanted to say aloud:

"He's turning us into weapons."

Shin nodded. "Then we'd better become the ones that aim."m

The room grew colder—not from the temperature, but from the weight of what they'd seen.

They were standing in the exact place where human beings had been torn down and rebuilt like machines. A breeding ground for living weapons. A war zone masquerading as a lab. The green-eyed humanoid inside the chamber never blinked, never moved. But its presence was thunderous.

Elie stared, her hand now trembling. The pulsing green light beneath her gauze began to glow brighter, reacting instinctively to the thing in the chamber.

"Back up," Kent said gently, noticing the glow. "It's resonating with you."

Elie shook her head. "It's more than that. I can feel it in my chest. Like a cord was yanked tight between us. Like it's… pulling at something in me."

"We're leaving this room," Shin said, already guiding Elie away.

As they moved out, Kent lingered for a moment longer, eyes locked on the humanoid figure behind the glass. Something about the calmness in its eyes didn't feel artificial—it felt… patient. Waiting. Not for freedom. But for a signal.

Kent eventually turned and followed the others.

They regrouped near an old command station, slightly elevated above the floor, with black monitors and a cracked central console. Alix swept some dust and loose wires off the panel while Evelyn dug through a drawer, producing a flashlight, some medical wraps, and a dusty folder labeled: "Z-EVO: BRANCH 2 / MUTATIVE CONDUITS"

Kent opened the folder. Inside were scanned documents—some redacted, others too damaged to read—but one caught everyone's attention.

SUBJECT: E.V.O.06

- Female

- Compatible

- Magnetic-blood response

- Mental deterioration predicted

- Recovery rate: unknown

At the bottom was a photo. The face was blurry. But the outline? The hair, the shape, the body type—

Elie stepped back in horror.

"That's me," she whispered.

"No," Kent corrected. "It's a clone. You were modeled after this… or maybe this was modeled after you."

Evelyn snapped the folder shut. "Either way, we're not safe here."

Shin stood from where he was leaning near the map table. "We'll move by dawn. I want to keep heading east, into the higher mountains. Less visibility. More defensible ground."

"What about that… thing in the chamber?" Alix asked.

"We don't wake it," Shin said. "We never come back here."

The others agreed.

As they made their way out of the facility, Elie walked slower than the rest. Her mind swam with thoughts that didn't feel entirely her own—like her blood had started whispering. The magnetic pulse in her veins was changing. She could feel it humming under her skin, the way metal shifted near her when she was overwhelmed. And now she knew why.

She wasn't chosen.

She was built.

Outside, the sky had dimmed into an ugly rust-red hue, dark clouds dragging across the sky like bruises. The group made camp in the shadow of the mountain, nestled under the cover of fallen trees and rock formations.

They didn't speak much.

Dinner was quiet.

Night came fast.

But Elie couldn't sleep.

She sat up, staring at her wrist under the starlight. Her green glow looked brighter now. Subtler veins had begun to glow too, fainter but noticeable when she flexed her hand. A magnetic field pulsed outward like a second heartbeat.

Evelyn sat beside her.

"You okay?" she asked.

Elie swallowed. "Not really."

"Yeah," Evelyn whispered. "Didn't think so."

She leaned against Elie's shoulder.

"We'll figure this out," Evelyn said. "And you're not alone."

Elie didn't respond. She couldn't. Her mind was still back in that chamber, staring at the thing in the tank. Staring into a future that might already be chasing her.

At the same time, Kent watched from a distance, arms crossed, half-shrouded in shadow. His mind was already a thousand steps ahead. Calculating.

He looked at Shin, who was sharpening a piece of steel beside the fire, his face blank but unreadably deep.

"We're going to need a plan," Kent finally muttered.

Shin glanced up, firelight dancing across the sharp angles of his face. "We're already in one. We just don't know it yet."

The fire cracked between them, and overhead, thunder rolled again.

Somewhere far, far away…

Dr. Fatal watched from another screen, smiling behind his oxygen mask.

"Phase two," he whispered, "begins now."

The thunder never really stopped—it only grew more distant, more rhythmic, like a drum echoing from some unseen place in the sky.

Morning came, but the sun did not.

A grim mist rolled over the camp, coating every surface with dew and clinging to their lungs like dust. The group awoke in stages—Evelyn and Alix first, then Shin and Kent. Elie was already up, her glowing veins now dulled to a faint shimmer beneath bandages and a hoodie sleeve.

No one said it, but everyone felt it: something had changed overnight.

As they packed up what little gear they had, Shin laid out a new route. "We'll head down this ravine," he said, pointing at a wrinkled old map Kent had salvaged from the lab. "There's an emergency rail line that runs beneath this ridge—it connects both campuses. If it hasn't collapsed, we could use it to bypass Fatal's dead zone and make our way toward the northern quadrant."

"That's assuming the tunnel isn't crawling with more… whatever the hell that thing was," Kent added.

Shin nodded. "It's a risk. But it's better than walking out in the open."

They moved in silence.

Elie limped slightly. Though she could control the metal embedded in her now, the wound still ached beneath it. Kent occasionally glanced back to check on her, his expression unreadable, but his eyes softer than usual.

About two hours into the hike, the wind began to howl louder, unnatural and shrill. Evelyn gritted her teeth. "This wind is wrong."

"How do you mean?" Alix asked, adjusting her scarf.

Evelyn paused. "There's no source. It's coming from everywhere. And nowhere."

They reached the edge of a ravine. The ground sloped steeply downward, overgrown with tangled roots and skeletal trees. And there, hidden beneath rock and ivy, was a rusted metal gate.

The emergency rail line.

Kent and Shin pried it open together, muscles straining against rust and time. It groaned like an animal before finally giving way.

The tunnel inside was pitch black. Cold. Still.

Kent turned on the flashlight they'd brought from the lab. The beam of light shot forward, illuminating old rails, crumbled debris, and… something else.

Dozens of wires strung across the ceiling.

"Elie," Shin called, stepping aside. "You think you can feel anything in there?"

She hesitated, placing her hand on the tunnel's metal support. After a moment, she nodded. "They're sensors. Tripwires. Old tech, probably Fatal's. I can disrupt the magnetic charge. But only for a few seconds at a time."

"Then we move fast," Shin said. "Everyone stay close. Kent, you and I will flank. Evelyn, take Elie's side."

The group entered.

Inside, the darkness swallowed them whole.

Elie pulsed her hand against the tunnel wall as they passed the first tripwire. It sparked briefly, flickering like a dying light bulb, and then—darkness.

They slipped by.

Again.

And again.

But on the fourth wire, Elie winced. Her wound pulsed sharply, and the light flared instead of fading.

A shriek tore through the tunnel.

Something was awake.

"Run!" Shin shouted.

They bolted.

The flashlight beam jittered with Kent's stride, casting jagged shadows as mechanical growls echoed behind them. Something metallic scraped against the rail—skittering and fast. Elie stumbled, but Evelyn caught her before she fell.

"I see a maintenance hatch!" Kent shouted. "Left wall!"

Shin slammed his shoulder into the panel, breaking it loose, and they all dove inside just as a grotesque creature skidded around the corner—half-human, half-machine, all hunger.

It slammed into the closed hatch door, denting the steel with inhuman force.

Inside, the team gasped for air.

They had made it. Barely.

Elie clutched her shoulder again, breathing hard. Her skin shimmered faintly under the bandage, and something deeper in her bones felt like it had been triggered.

"This isn't just some experiment anymore," Kent muttered, his voice low. "This is a war. And we're just the first players on the board."

Shin nodded grimly. "Which means the next move… is already in motion."

Behind them, the hatch dented again.

And again.

And the lights above began to flicker.

The flickering overhead lights bathed the maintenance corridor in strobes of pale white, casting sharp, shifting shadows across their faces. Each flicker was like the ticking of a clock—one beat closer to whatever was still pounding against the door behind them.

Shin pressed a hand against the wall, trying to steady his breath. "We can't stay here. It's tracking us."

"No," Kent muttered, eyes still locked on the hatch, "it's learning us."

Evelyn helped Elie lean against a support beam. Alix, still pale from the run, pulled out a small bottle of antiseptic and dabbed Elie's forehead. "You're burning up."

"I'm fine," Elie whispered, clearly lying. Her pupils were faintly glowing now—just enough for Kent to notice in the gloom.

Shin checked his pocket for the small digital map device they had salvaged from the lab. "This tunnel branches into three exits," he said, pointing to a simplified schematic on the cracked screen. "One leads to the industrial power grid, one to the comms tower, and one straight toward Fatal's fortress."

Alix narrowed her eyes. "And you want to go where exactly?"

"The power grid," Kent said, already stepping forward. "If we want to stop this guy, we have to start by turning the lights off on whatever's powering his tech. We cut his power, we cut his reach."

"But," Evelyn countered, "what if the comms tower gives us the chance to warn the outside world? There has to be someone out there. Someone listening."

"No one's listening," Shin replied quietly, almost too quietly. "If they were… they'd have come by now."

There was a moment of stillness. Everyone's eyes shifted toward Elie, who had closed her eyes and seemed to be breathing in sync with something none of them could hear. The metal shard in her shoulder pulsed gently beneath her skin like it was alive.

"I say we go to the grid," she said suddenly. "There's something down there. Something calling me."

Alix looked uneasy. "Calling you?"

Elie nodded, more confident now. "I can't explain it. But if we go that way, I'll be able to control it. I know it."

No one said anything at first.

Then Kent moved. "Alright," he said, offering her his hand again. "Let's go. Stay close."

With one last look at the now-silent hatch—dented like a crushed can—they moved as one.

The corridor descended steeply, taking them through the underground systems deeper than they'd gone before. Mold clawed the walls. Strange humming could be heard in the distance—vibrations through the pipes that made it feel like something was breathing beneath them.

After almost an hour of walking, they reached it: a vast chamber, rusted but still glowing with veins of power. Conduits ran along the walls like arteries, pulsing with energy. At the center stood a strange obelisk-like structure—an energy node, pulsing erratically.

Then, a faint voice echoed in the room.

"You made it further than I thought you would."

Dr. Fatal.

His voice came through the very walls, metallic and cold. A red eye flickered to life on the node.

"I watched every step. Every stumble. Every moment of weakness. And Elie…" The voice grew quieter, more intimate. "You were always the best of them. The purest blood. The cleanest slate. You are… the key."

"No," she whispered, taking a step forward.

"Yes," Fatal said. "And once that key turns… the door opens. And the world is reborn."

The node let out a high-pitched hum, and the walls started to shift.

Pipes retracted. The ground beneath them vibrated. And in that moment, everyone realized:

This wasn't just a power station.

It was a birth chamber.

Something was coming.

Shin drew his blade. Kent took a defensive stance. Evelyn and Alix backed up, pulling Elie with them.

And Elie… simply stepped forward.

Her metal-infused wrist sparked with sudden energy, resonating with the obelisk.

Kent shouted, "Elie, don't—!"

But she was already glowing. Her veins, her skin, her eyes—pulsing with a furious, silvery light. Metal floated around her like fragments of a shattered blade, waiting to be formed.

And then…

The room exploded in silence.

Everything froze.

To be continued.