The door rattled again—one violent strike that sent dust spilling from the fra. Damon jumped back, shielding the others as the walls shuddered with the creature’s frustrated shriek.
Then silence.
A suffocating silence.
Shadow whimpered low. Ember pressed close to the girl, her amber eyes fixed on the trembling door.
Lira whispered, “It’s still out there.”
“No,” Damon said softly. “It’s moving.”
A faint scraping echoed above them—the sound of sothing dragging itself across ducts or vents, circling like a predator deciding where to strike next.
The new room was smaller, colder, and rcifully still. Old consoles lined the walls, so cracked, others flickering weakly with dying power. A large reinforced window took up half the far wall.
Lira stepped toward it cautiously.
“Damon... you should see this.”
He approached beside her, wiping gri off the glass with his sleeve.
Then he froze.
Below them stretched a massive sunken chamber—cylindrical, industrial, carved deep into the building’s underbelly. Dim spotlights flickered over surgical machinery, gurneys, cages, tanks filled with murky fluid... and sothing else.
Shadows moved beneath the liquid’s surface, slow and serpentine, brushing against the glass like restless nightmares.
The girl whimpered. “Damon... what is that place?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But it explains the breathing walls.”
Lira hugged herself. “This isn’t a station. This was... a testing site.”
Shadow growled toward the vents again.
“Then that thing upstairs...” she whispered.
“...is one of their results,” Damon finished grimly.
A loud snap echoed behind them. Ember jerked her head toward the corner.
A tal grate.
The vent cover trembled... then popped loose with a clang.
“MOVE!” Damon shouted.
Everyone dove aside as the grate smashed onto the floor. Dust burst into the air.
For a mont, nothing happened.
Then—
A soft, wet clicking erged from the darkness of the vent. Slow. Intentional. The clicking of joints not ant to bend. The shifting of a large body compacting itself to squeeze through narrow tal pathways.
The creature was close.
Damon grabbed a tal bar from a nearby toolbox. “We can’t stay here. Where’s the next exit?”
Lira pointed across the room at a heavy hatch-like door marked MAINTENANCE ACCESS – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Shadow sprinted toward it, barking urgently.
Damon and Lira followed, escorting the girl between them. Ember stayed behind them, eyes fixed on the vent as the clicking grew louder. Closer.
Damon yanked the hatch handle.
It didn’t budge.
“Of course,” he muttered.
He handed the girl the radio pack and slamd the tal bar into the seam. Lira helped him pry while Shadow pawed desperately at the base of the door.
Inside the vent, sothing exhaled.
Long.
Warm.
Hungry.
“It’s right there—hurry!” Lira cried.
Damon roared through clenched teeth as he shoved the bar deeper.
The hatch finally gave way, screeching open.
“GO!” Damon shouted again.
They spilled into the narrow maintenance stairwell.
As Damon slamd the door behind them, a limb—long, slick, and thrashing—whipped through the gap, narrowly missing his face before the hatch sealed with a brutal clang.
Heavy breathing vibrated through the tal.
A pause.
Then—
THUD. THUD. THUD.
The creature hamred the door, furious, relentless.
The stairwell vibrated.
“We have to keep moving,” Damon panted. “Down. We need to get lower.”
The girl stared at him, trembling. “Damon... what if lower is worse?”
He didn’t answer.
He only looked into the darkness spiraling down the stairwell—
and feared she might be right.
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