The tunnel stretched endlessly before them, its cold metal walls marked with faded identification tags. The air was thick with dust and silence, an eerie contrast to the chaos they had just escaped.
Greg wiped the sweat from his brow, his body aching from the earlier fight. Every breath felt heavy.
“So,” he muttered, voice bouncing off the walls. “Can we all agree that blindly jumping into a hidden tunnel might not have been our best plan?”
Tempo, still slightly winded, raised a finger. “Actually, I think it was a great plan. You know, compared to getting captured and probably tortured.”
Greg rolled his eyes. “Right. Fantastic plan. Love it.”
Arden, still leading the way, barely acknowledged their conversation. His posture was rigid, unreadable, his grip tight around the hilt of his sword.
Cora glanced between them, frowning. “We need to keep moving. If the Syndicate had a facility here, then we’re in their territory now.”
Tempo crossed his arms. “So, what? You think they left security systems? Traps?”
Arden spoke for the first time. “Worse.”
Greg exhaled sharply. “Why am I not surprised?”
----------------------------------------
The path led them to a massive reinforced door embedded into the tunnel wall. Its surface was scratched and dented, as if something had tried to break out rather than in.
Cora’s tablet flickered as she scanned the entrance. “No power source detected… but there’s still residual energy signatures.”
Arden placed a hand on the metal. “It hasn’t been opened in years.”
Greg frowned. “And yet, you knew it was here.”
Arden didn’t reply. Instead, he grabbed the door’s rusted handle and pulled with a slow, deliberate motion.
The ancient locking mechanisms groaned in protest, but after a few seconds, the door finally lurched open. A cold draft rushed past them, carrying the scent of something stale, metallic… dead.
Tempo’s nose wrinkled. “I hate that smell.”
Inside, rows of glass containment pods lined the walls, their surfaces fogged over with time. Some were shattered. Others were still sealed, their insides unreadable.
Greg shivered. “Okay. That’s sufficiently creepy.”
Cora stepped inside, running her fingers along a broken terminal. “These containment units… they were holding something.”
Arden walked past her, pausing in front of an intact pod. His expression remained impassive, but his fingers curled slightly.
He knew exactly what this place was.
He had been here before.
Greg, noticing his change in posture, narrowed his eyes. “You wanna tell us what’s in these pods, or are we playing another round of Let’s All Pretend We’re Not in Danger?”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Arden took a breath. “People.”
The word hit like a thunderclap.
Cora’s stomach twisted. She had suspected, but hearing it confirmed was different.
Tempo stepped back from a cracked pod, his face paling. “Hold up. You’re telling me the Syndicate was keeping people in these things? For what?”
Arden exhaled, his voice quieter than usual.
“Experiments.”
Greg ran a hand through his hair. “Fantastic. So this place is basically a crypt.”
Cora’s drone scanned the room, projecting a holographic reconstruction of the facility’s last recorded data.
The team watched as shadowy figures in Syndicate uniforms moved between the pods, adjusting dials, monitoring vitals, taking notes.
Then, the hologram glitched. The lights in the projection flickered.
And the figures… stopped moving.
A new voice, garbled and corrupted, crackled through the old audio files.
“Emergency lockdown… unauthorized subject detected… containment breach… subject escaping…”
A deep, inhuman growl followed.
Then, screams.
The hologram abruptly cut out.
A heavy silence followed.
“…Okay,” Tempo whispered. “I really, really don’t like that.”
Cora adjusted her screen. “This was the last log recorded. After that, everything went dark.”
Greg sighed. “Which means—”
A deep, guttural sound echoed from further inside the facility.
Something shifted in the shadows.
Tempo stiffened. “Oh, come on.”
----------------------------------------
Back at the Syndicate headquarters, Sylvia leaned back in her chair, sipping her tea with amusement.
The monitors before her flickered, displaying static-filled footage of the underground facility.
One of her subordinates adjusted his headset. “Commander, the retrieval team has lost their trail. They’ve entered a classified section of the tunnels.”
Sylvia smirked. “Of course they did.”
The subordinate hesitated. “Should we send reinforcements?”
Sylvia tapped her nails against the console, considering.
“No,” she said, smiling to herself. “Let them wander.”
She turned her gaze toward the live feed of Project Revenant.
Its containment unit pulsed with energy, its status listed as initializing.
Her fingers traced the edge of her teacup.
“They won’t be alone for long.”
----------------------------------------
Back in the facility, the sound came again.
Low. Rumbling.
Not human.
Greg took a cautious step back. “Tell me that was just the wind.”
Tempo swallowed. “Dude, we’re underground.”
Cora’s drone adjusted, shifting its light toward the farthest section of the lab—where the last few containment pods stood in eerie silence.
One of them was open.
And its restraints were torn apart.
Arden’s expression darkened. “We need to leave. Now.”
Cora was already moving. “Agreed.”
Tempo was not moving. “Wait, wait, wait—hold up. If there’s something still here, shouldn’t we, I don’t know, not turn our backs on it?”
Greg exhaled, grabbing Tempo’s arm and pulling him toward the exit. “You wanna fight something that can kill a whole Syndicate lab? Be my guest.”
The growling stopped.
Silence.
Then—
A rush of movement.
Something enormous slammed into the wall, sending dust and debris flying.
The team barely had time to react before two glowing red eyes blinked open from the depths of the room.
And then, for the first time—
They heard it speak.
"…Fresh test subjects detected."
Tempo paled. “Nope. I’m out. I am so out.”
The monster lunged.
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TO BE CONTINUED...