A single bead of sweat rolled from Kael's temple, hesitated on the ridge of his eyebrow, then fell. He watched it drop in what felt like an eternity, a tiny glistening orb plunging into the darkness below. It fell through the mesh grating and vanished onto the glossy back of the spider-creature.
The creature froze.
Its matted head slowly tilted upward. There was no haste. No aggression. Just a cold, mechanical curiosity. The hair parted. The single milky-white eye, large as a bird's egg, pupil-less, locked onto Kael.
The air was sucked from Kael's lungs. The arm holding Wraith tensed like stone, every muscle straining against the instinct to pull back. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears, a low hum that drowned out even the roar of the machines.
The creature didn't growl. It didn't hiss. It just watched. And in that gaze, Kael saw no hunger or anger. He saw a void, a cold, inhuman intelligence. It was analyzing him, categorizing him. Prey? Threat? Or just something that didn't belong?
Don't move. The voice in Kael's head was a hoarse whisper. It's a stealth predator. It reacts to movement.
He glanced down quickly. Beside the creature was an old steam pipe, its joints corroded, covered in a layer of reddish-brown rust. A faint, insane glimmer of hope. He could throw a knife. If he hit the joint, the hot steam might startle it. But if he missed...
The spider-creature tilted its head slightly. A small, high-pitched hiss, like air escaping a tiny puncture, emanated from its slit-like mouth. It was preparing. It was about to raise the alarm.
Kael's hand began to move toward his knife, a motion so slow it was almost imperceptible. He knew he had only a millisecond. He would have to bet everything on a single throw.
He could see its mouth opening wider.
He was about to lose this bet.
BOOOOOOM!
The ground didn't just shake. It roared.
A second explosion, from a different direction, much more violent, ripped through the night. The grating beneath Kael's feet vibrated so hard it felt like it would collapse. The light from the explosion at the southern substation flashed, a ghastly blue-white, illuminating the entire room for a split second, turning everything into a photo negative.
The remaining lights on the ceiling shattered, raining glass and sparks down below.
The spider-creature was startled. It hissed in anger, not at Kael, but at the sudden chaos. It no longer cared about the small prey above. Survival instinct took over, and it scurried into the deeper shadows under another table, seeking safety.
The opening.
"Now!" Kael yelled, yanking Wraith back onto the grating. Her weight nearly threw him off balance.
"What...?" Wraith gasped, her heart hammering.
"Gryphon just gave us a distraction! Let's go!"
They weren't walking anymore. They were running, the sound of their boots clanging on the grating, a sound now swallowed by the wail of sirens and the shouting from below.
"What was that? Report!" Hunnigan's voice rang out, laced with panic.
"Total power failure in the southern sector! The auxiliary generators' cooling systems are overloading! My God, it's going to blow!"
Hunnigan looked toward the three massive diesel generators with a horrified expression. She finally understood. These weren't random attacks. This was a coordinated plan.
"The generator room! They're targeting the generator room! Lock down all entrances! Find them!" she screamed.
But it was too late. Kael and Wraith were nearly at the hatch, only a few meters away.
The timer on Wraith's device showed: 00:10.
They scrambled down the ladder like two hawks, Kael slamming the metal hatch shut the moment Wraith's feet hit the last rung.
They were plunged into the darkness of the sewer.
A soft CLICK from the timer.
Above them, the roar of the three massive engines suddenly died, as if a monster's throat had just been slit.
For a moment, an almost absolute silence fell.
And then, darkness consumed everything.
"Go! Fast!" Kael said, switching on his flashlight. Its beam was now the only source of light in a world of darkness and echoes.
They sprinted through the sewer, splashing through the foul water. The silence after the generators shut down was more terrifying than the noise before. It allowed other sounds to creep in.
Sounds that shouldn't exist.
From ahead, a guttural growl echoed. Then another. Then dozens more. The power outage had disabled the electromagnetic locks on the temporary containment cells. The monsters were free.
"They're coming!" Wraith yelled, her flashlight beam sweeping forward, catching dozens of pairs of glowing red eyes rushing toward them.
They were the failed experiments, grotesque mockeries of human and animal forms crudely stitched together. Some scrambled on all fours, others dragged themselves forward on malformed extra limbs. They had no tactics, no intelligence, only a primal hunger and an overwhelming madness.
"Branch pipe! To the left!" Kael ordered, remembering the path they had taken.
They dove into a smaller side pipe, the air even more suffocating here. They had to crouch to move, their backs scraping against the damp concrete ceiling.
The roars followed right behind them. Kael could hear the scrape of claws on concrete, the sounds of bodies shoving each other to get into the narrow pipe.
"They're going to catch us!" Wraith cried, panic in her voice.
Kael didn't look back. He ran while fumbling for an incendiary grenade from his belt. He didn't need to aim. He just had to throw it behind him.
The grenade rolled on the floor, then detonated with a deep PHUMP. A wall of orange fire erupted, filling the narrow pipe. Agonized, inhuman screams echoed horrifically, then fell silent.
The smell of burnt meat once again filled the air. The explosion had given them some distance, but it was also a beacon for anyone searching for them from above.
They kept running, adrenaline the only thing keeping their legs from collapsing.
The iron trash grate at the end of the pipe was the most beautiful sight Kael had ever seen. With all his might, he smashed the lock with the butt of his rifle. Faint moonlight streamed in.
Together they pushed the grate aside and rolled out, landing on a muddy riverbank. They gasped for fresh air in great gulps, as if it were the first time they had ever breathed.
Behind them, the complex was now in true chaos. Small fires had broken out. Gunshots rang out from different directions, as MLF soldiers were apparently firing on their own escaped monsters.
"Gryphon," Wraith panted, keying her comms. "Wraith to Gryphon. Come in."
Static. Then a familiar voice, punctuated by rifle fire. "...Wraith... I read... Good work! We're... pinned down... Their numbers are too great!"
"We're out! East side exit! What are the new orders?" Wraith asked.
Kael could hear Gryphon curse. "...Can't make it back to the old rendezvous! We're falling back north! New rendezvous! Listen up! The open-pit mine! Coordinates Delta-Seven-Niner! It's open enough for an air evac if needed!"
"The open-pit mine? That's a kill box, Commander! We'll be sitting ducks!" Wraith protested vehemently.
"It's our only option!" Gryphon's voice roared back. "...It's now or never! Thirty minutes! Move! Gryphon out!"
The line went dead.
Kael looked at Wraith, both their faces smeared with grime and exhaustion. Nothing needed to be said. They knew what they had to do.
They got to their aching feet and started running north. Running towards another potential trap.
They moved in silence, hugging the tree line. The moonlight was their only friend. They could see MLF patrols searching in the distance, the beams of their flashlights sweeping through the trees like curious fingers.
A sense of unease gnawed at Kael. A piece was still missing.
He switched to the team's internal comms channel, a shorter, more secure frequency.
"Rook, this is Spectre. Come in."
Only the steady hiss of static.
His heart skipped a beat. It could be the distance. Or the terrain, he told himself. But he didn't believe it.
He tried again, his voice tighter. "Rook, status report. What's Viper's condition? Answer me, damn it!"
Silence answered him. An absolute silence.
Kael stopped, looking south, back toward the waterfall where they had left their two comrades. In his mind, the worst-case scenarios began to play out. Rook, fighting alone against something that had snuck into their hideout. Viper, helpless, falling victim to an attack.
Or worse. What did this silence mean? Captured? Or dead?
"Kael, what is it?" Wraith asked, noticing the sudden change in his demeanor.
"No signal," Kael said, his voice low, heavy with a dread he couldn't name. "I can't reach Rook."
They had won a battle. They had thrown the enemy into chaos. But now, a new, much colder fear began to creep into his mind. The fear of what had happened in the dark, when they weren't there to protect their own.
.