The friends crouched together in the darkened storage room, tension thickening the air around them. After barely escaping the Slasher and hordes of zombies in the food court, the small room felt like a fragile sanctuary. Sophie powered on the battered laptop she’d scavenged from the security room, the dim light from the screen casting shadows across their exhausted faces.

Lex leaned over Sophie’s shoulder, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the military insignia on the login screen—a stylized eagle clutching arrows over a shield. It was an unsettling emblem to see in a place like this.

“Military?” Brandon whispered, glancing around as if expecting soldiers to burst in at any moment. “Why would the military have any involvement here?”

“Good question,” Sophie muttered, fingers moving quickly across the keyboard. “This isn’t just a regular mall security system. This is layered encryption. Serious stuff. Whoever set this up didn’t want anyone messing with it.”

Damien scoffed quietly, his voice edged with anger. “So they thought they could hide it. Let’s see what they’re so afraid of us finding out.”

Maya hugged her knees close to her chest, casting uneasy glances at the door as Sophie worked. The faint sounds of distant groaning and shuffling reminded them that even here, they weren’t truly safe. But they had to know the truth, even if it meant staying in this fragile sanctuary a little longer.

As Sophie’s fingers danced over the keyboard, the security layers fell one by one. Finally, a list of files opened up on the screen, each one stamped with military codes and cryptic labels: “Project Vanguard,” “Phase One,” “Phase Two: Stress Analysis,” “Subject Monitoring.” Sophie’s mouth went dry as she clicked on the first file, a surveillance video labeled “Pre-Event Preparation.”

The footage showed the mall’s halls, empty but filled with activity. Soldiers in hazmat suits moved through the corridors, wheeling carts stacked with canisters marked with biohazard symbols. They appeared to be installing equipment—surveillance cameras in inconspicuous corners, sensors mounted on walls, and small machines positioned near the air ducts. It looked like they were preparing for something.

“This isn’t right,” Sophie whispered, her eyes glued to the screen. “Why would they install this stuff just before the outbreak?”

Lex clenched her fists, her jaw tightening as the footage continued. “They knew,” she said, barely more than a murmur. “They knew what was going to happen.”

The next part of the video showed a soldier in a gas mask carefully unscrewing the cap of one of the canisters. A faint mist seeped out, disappearing into the mall’s ventilation system. The timestamp showed the release happening just hours before the chaos had erupted.

Damien’s fists were clenched, his voice simmering with rage. “They released the virus. They didn’t just know about it—they made it happen.”

Sophie clicked on a file labeled “Surveillance – Subjects.” She scrolled down, and their hearts dropped as they saw a list of names: Lex Carter, Damien Carter, Maya Torres, Brandon Lee, Sophie Bennett. Each name came with a detailed profile, outlining their physical capabilities, psychological tendencies, and even personal fears.

“They… they were watching us,” Brandon whispered, his face pale. “They knew everything about us—our personalities, our weaknesses… they brought us here on purpose.”

A heavy silence settled over them as they grappled with the enormity of the truth. They weren’t here by accident. They weren’t unlucky shoppers caught in a random outbreak. They were handpicked test subjects in a twisted experiment.

Sophie swallowed, clicking on another document titled “Behavioral Stress Analysis.” The file contained graphs and tables, outlining “survivor response times,” “psychological thresholds,” and notes about the “effects of sustained trauma.” It became chillingly clear—this was a study. The infected were meant to pressure them, to push them to their breaking point. Every Psycho they’d encountered was an intentional variable, carefully introduced to measure different aspects of fear, resilience, and mental breakdown.

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“They’re studying us like animals in a cage,” Maya whispered, her voice shaking. “They’re… they’re watching how we respond to all of this.”

Lex’s voice was low, dangerous. “So the Butcher, the Taxidermist, the Slasher—they were all planted here to see how we’d react. To test us.”

“Look at this,” Sophie said, pointing to a list labeled “Phase Two Initiations.” Each Psycho had a profile: The Butcher was listed under “Physical Trauma Inducement,” the Taxidermist as “Psychological Disruption,” the Slasher as “Combat Survival Stressor.” It was a list of nightmares, each one crafted to exploit a different form of terror.

Damien slammed a fist against the wall. “And we’re the ones they decided to run their sick tests on. Just so they could see how far they could push us.”

Lex’s gaze darkened. “They think they’re in control,” she said, voice steady with barely contained fury. “They think they can just use us and throw us away. Well, they’re wrong. We’re not going to be their lab rats. We’re going to tear this experiment apart, piece by piece.”

Sophie nodded, her eyes filled with fierce determination. “We’ll give them something they didn’t plan for. We’ll survive this.”

Just as she reached for another file, the laptop screen flashed red. A warning message appeared: “Unauthorized access detected. You have been marked for containment.”

An alert blared somewhere down the hall. The sound of mechanical shutters descending echoed from nearby corridors, growing louder as containment protocols locked down their section of the mall. Lex’s eyes widened as she realized they were being boxed in.

“They’re trying to trap us,” she hissed. “They know we’re here.”

“Shut it down,” Damien urged Sophie, glancing nervously toward the door. “We need to move.”

Sophie quickly shut down the laptop, stashing it in her bag. Without a word, Lex motioned for them to follow as they slipped out of the storage room, moving as fast as they dared down the dimly lit corridor. Their footsteps echoed ominously, blending with the whirring sounds of containment shutters closing behind them.

They didn’t get far before they heard it—the steady, synchronized thud of heavy boots marching down the hall. Lex froze, raising a hand to stop the group. Soldiers, armed and organized, were closing in, moving through the corridors with military precision. Whoever was behind this experiment had decided it was time to secure their “test subjects.”

Lex gritted her teeth, adrenaline kicking in. “We can’t let them catch us. Move.”

They sprinted down the corridor, taking sharp turns to put distance between themselves and the soldiers. The air felt stifling, thick with the oppressive hum of machinery and the eerie quiet between each pounding bootstep. Sophie’s heart hammered in her chest as they veered down a narrow hallway, only to be met with a solid, reinforced gate blocking their path.

“No, no, no!” Sophie gasped, her fingers brushing against the cold metal. “They’re locking us in.”

Brandon moved quickly to a control panel on the wall beside the gate. “I might be able to override this. Just… buy me a few seconds.”

Damien and Lex turned, standing guard as the containment troops’ footsteps grew louder, reverberating down the hall. Maya clutched her makeshift weapon—a broken pipe from their last encounter—her knuckles white as she watched Brandon work. The metallic clicks and whirs from his attempt to override the gate felt painfully slow, every sound stretching into what seemed like an eternity.

Lex gripped a metal rod she’d picked up earlier, her muscles tense. “If they reach us, don’t let them corner you. We can’t let them drag us back.”

The gate creaked as it began to rise, inching upward just as the first soldier rounded the corner. His flashlight beam cut through the darkness, landing on them, and he barked an order into his radio.

“Go, go, go!” Lex hissed, shoving Brandon through the gate as soon as there was enough room to slip under. One by one, they scrambled through, barely clearing the gate as it slammed shut behind them, blocking the soldiers from pursuing.

Their breaths came fast and ragged as they stumbled forward, navigating the cramped maintenance corridor. They had escaped—for now. But the truth they’d uncovered was far more horrifying than they’d imagined.

They weren’t just fighting for survival. They were fighting to regain control of their own lives, to escape a nightmare meticulously crafted to break them. And whoever was behind this experiment had severely underestimated them.

Lex slowed as they reached a quiet stretch of the hallway, her mind reeling with the implications of everything they’d learned. “They think they’re in control,” she said softly, her eyes hardening. “But we’re not going to play by their rules anymore. We’ll find every piece of this sick game, and we’ll destroy it.”

The friends exchanged a look, a new sense of determination simmering between them. They had been through hell, faced horrors beyond comprehension—but they weren’t about to give up now. If they were going to survive, they would do it on their terms, and they would bring down whoever was responsible.

They moved forward, deeper into the mall, ready to take the fight to those who had turned their lives into a twisted experiment.