The hatch slammed shut behind them, sealing with a hiss and a metallic shudder.
Gunfire echoed above—muffled but sharp enough to shake the tunnel walls. Lana held Nyx close, her daughter's weight pressed tight against her ribs. The girl's breath came fast and shallow, like a bird's wings trapped in a paper cage. Jason led the way, flashlight trembling in his grip, the beam fighting against the dark that clung like mold.
Behind her, Kieran faltered.
Not a fall. Worse. A slow buckling, like a structure designed never to break showing its first fracture.
He caught himself against the wall. His palm smeared blood across the bone-laced concrete. His breath wheezed—uneven, animal. His body too hot, too tense.
"Kieran," Lana barked. "Keep moving."
He nodded once. Just once. His jaw set like stone. His lips were white. His eyes burned gold and flickered black around the edges.
Jason threw a glance over his shoulder, tension lining his throat. "He's crashing. Fast."
"Then we drag him."
"No," Kieran rasped. "If I shift in here—if I lose it—"
"Then I break your spine and we keep walking."
He almost smiled. And then he groaned.
They moved.
The corridor narrowed around them. The walls were close enough to feel their breath bounce back, warm and wrong. The material under their hands wasn't just concrete. Lana saw it now: bonecrete. Long strips of femurs, ribs fused into reinforcement arcs, teeth set like tiles. The builders hadn't buried the dead. They'd built with them.
Every surface pulsed with a sick warmth.
Nyx stirred. Her eyes fluttered open—black, then red. She didn't cry. She stared at Kieran like she recognized something broken.
Kieran muttered something under his breath.
Jason flinched. "He's not speaking English."
"What is it?"
"Old dialect. Blood rite language. Hybrid cores recite it in late-stage metamorphosis. I think—he's not conscious."
The emergency lights snapped on overhead. Dim red. Cold hum. Every few feet, a siren bulb blinked like a heartbeat running out of time.
Lana didn't slow.
The tunnel forked.
Left and right.
No signage. No map. No tech.
Jason looked lost. "This wasn't on any blueprint I've seen."
"Which means Evelyn made it herself."
Nyx shifted in Lana's arms. Then reached out.
She pressed her palm against the wall.
The bone beneath her hand lit up.
Faint blue veins glowed under the surface, spreading in a branching pattern toward the left passage. Lana didn't ask. She followed.
Kieran's weight dragged heavier with each step. His sweat soaked through Lana's sleeve. His pupils had vanished. His jaw trembled like something beneath it wanted out.
"Breathe, damn you," she muttered.
But he was too far down now. He smelled like rot and ozone and burnt silver.
They stepped into a round vault.
The air changed immediately—thicker, colder, quieter. The ceiling curved overhead in a dome of fused mandibles and skulls. Eye sockets stared from every surface. Teeth lined the edges of vents. Bones formed the panels, the floor, the light fixtures.
Lana froze.
Across the room, a plaque embedded in the bone read:
QUEEN CANDIDATES — FAILED GENERATION
The words hit like a closed fist.
Jason stopped short. "Oh, God."
"They didn't bury them," Lana said.
"No," Jason whispered. "They curated them."
She set Nyx down gently. The girl stayed kneeling, watching Kieran.
He dropped to his knees, convulsing.
His skin rippled. Veins blackened. Blood seeped from his nose. His body jerked once, twice—then locked. Bones bulged along his spine. His hands curled into claws.
Lana dropped beside him, catching his head before it hit the floor.
"Stay with me," she said.
Kieran's eyes rolled white. His lips moved, but only blood came out.
She pressed her forehead to his, voice low. "Don't you fucking dare leave me here."
His hand twitched in hers. Fingers curling weakly. A flicker of something passed through his face—just a breath of memory, a ripple beneath the agony.
A younger version of him. Standing at her mother's funeral. Watching from the woods.
"Not again," he rasped.
Then he seized.
Lana stood. Looked around.
The walls offered nothing but bones.
But one skull near the center was different—larger, with a cavity drilled deep into its jaw. Not natural. Not decorative. Functional.
Her pulse spiked.
She walked to it. Stared at the cavity.
Desperation outweighed doubt.
She shoved her hand inside.
Something clamped down.
Pain lanced through her wrist—white, sharp, precise. The system tasted her. Heat bled up her arm. Her vision blurred.
The room lit red.
A projector flared to life above.
Footage.
Evelyn Carter. Blood on her gloves. Screaming into a camera.
"Second Eve isn't a stabilizer," she spat. "She's the break. She's not meant to survive the cycle. She's meant to end it."
In the background, a figure stood motionless in the shadows.
Specter.
Not aged. Not blinking. Not reacting.
Just watching.
Lana's stomach turned.
Jason whispered, "She was there. She was already there…"
A flicker of static.
The projection glitched.
Specter's image lingered longer than it should. Lana's head spun—vertigo, like her memory had tried to rewrite itself. Like she'd seen this before in a dream she hadn't dreamed yet.
The wall behind the skull groaned.
Shifted.
Opened.
A tunnel revealed itself, leading deeper—its entrance shaped like an open jaw.
Heat rushed out in a stale breath.
Kieran groaned again.
Lana turned. His body was slick with fever. His claws clicked against the bone floor. His eyes opened—gold-rimmed, hollow.
"Can you walk?" she asked.
"No," he whispered.
He reached for her. She caught his hand.
Nyx stood.
Walked to him.
Pressed her palm to his chest.
A low hum filled the room.
His breath slowed. His eyes focused. His pulse found rhythm again.
Jason knelt, staring. "She's syncing to his biology… She's not just regulating him. She's rewriting him."
Lana swallowed hard. "She's five."
Jason shook his head. "She's not."
Lana stood, dragging Kieran's arm over her shoulder.
She looked down the new tunnel.
"You feel that?" she asked softly.
Kieran nodded.
"If we go in," he said, voice cracked, "I might not come back the same."
A heartbeat passed between them.
Lana's eyes burned.
"I'm not in love with the same."
They stepped forward together.
The vault sealed behind them.
Somewhere ahead, something howled.
It was not a warning.
It was a welcome.
---