WASSAAAAAAP, I'M BACK FROM THE DEAD!
Yeah, many things happened this last month, like, a LOT of things, things that make my wallet go on a vacation.
Anyway, I'm back, baby!
I know you guys wanna see Bel, but fear not, this is the last chapter of Hunk!
And as always, if you guys see any mistake, as I use AI to correct my grammar (it has a really bad habit of changing some words that it wasn't suppose to change) please, comment so I can revise it again, since some things can go past my revision.
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The hum of the ancient communications center was the only sound between them.Dust swirled in the stale air, disturbed by the faint circulation fans that still managed to turn after decades. The red Soviet star, chipped and faded, loomed over the room like a ghost from another century.
For a while, neither of them spoke.Hunk stood near the door, mask tilted slightly as if listening for noises on the other side. Lera sat slouched in the metal chair, shotgun across her knees, head tilted back, her breathing shallow but steady.
She closed her eyes. Maybe to rest. Maybe because it was easier than facing the silence.
But Hunk didn't rest. He never rested. His eyes tracked her movements, her posture, the way her fingers twitched occasionally against the weapon's grip. Everything was a threat until proven otherwise. Even her.
Minutes bled into half an hour.
Then Lera stirred. A hand moved to her arm—the one the mutant spider had cut.
"Damn…" she muttered.
Hunk's gaze snapped to her. "What is it?"
Her glove peeled back slightly, exposing skin that had darkened around the wound. The flesh, once pale, was now veined with black tendrils spreading like cracks in stone. The center of the cut pulsed faintly, as if the infection had a heartbeat of its own.
Hunk moved closer, eyes narrowing. He'd seen this before. Too many times. Soldiers bitten by B.O.W.s. Civilians infected in containment zones. Agents who didn't make it past extraction.
"You're turning," he said flatly.
Lera gave a short, bitter laugh. "Not from this."
"You don't know that."
She met his masked stare with her own steady eyes. "I do. If it were a viral agent like your Umbrella nightmares, I'd already be delirious, bleeding from the eyes, tearing at your throat. This isn't that."
"Then what?" His voice was low, sharp.
She winced as she flexed her fingers. "It's poison. Slow. Cruel. But just poison. I'm not going to sprout claws and come after you. I'll just… die."
Hunk studied her, silent. The infection crawled higher with each minute. He'd put two rounds in men he'd fought beside for less than this. But something in her tone—the certainty, the acceptance—made him hesitate.
"You know too much," he said finally.
Her lips curled into a humorless smile. "I was trained to."
Hunk's grip tightened on his sidearm. "Start talking."
Lera leaned back in the chair, exhaling slowly. The shotgun slid onto the table beside her with a clatter. For the first time, her shoulders sagged as if the weight of years pressed down on her.
"Fine. You want the truth? You'll have it. Because I don't have much time left anyway."
Her eyes wandered the room, as if searching for strength in the rusted walls.
"My name isn't Lera. Not really. It's one of a dozen names I've worn like a mask. The Red Room never cared what we called ourselves. They only cared that we killed when told to."
Hunk didn't interrupt. His silence was the space she needed.
"They called us the Widows. Ghosts with knives. We were trained to infiltrate, to seduce, to kill. But more than anything—we were trained to obey. I hated it. Every breath, every mission, every order. But there was no escape. There never is, not when you're property."
Her voice cracked, just once. She clenched her jaw until it steadied again.
"This mission was supposed to be simple. In and out. Data retrieval from a Soviet-era bunker that Umbrella repurposed during the Cold War. The files were… important. Records of experiments that predate even Umbrella's founding. Some of them were Russian prototypes. Others were… something worse."
She paused, glancing at the black creeping further up her arm. She shook her head, forcing herself onward.
"They sent me because it was a suicide run. Because I was expendable. That's what we were made to be. Weapons used until they broke."
Her eyes hardened, and for a moment, she looked less like a dying soldier and more like a child burning with anger.
"But I didn't come just for the data. I came for them. For my sisters. Still trapped in that hell, still brainwashed, still slaves. I thought if I brought back what they wanted, maybe… maybe I could earn their freedom. Or at least buy them time."
The silence that followed was heavy.
Hunk said nothing. He just listened, though his chest tightened with something he hadn't felt in years. Recognition.
Lera smirked faintly, bitterly. "And here I am, poisoned in a frozen graveyard, talking to Umbrella's bogeyman. Guess fate's got a sense of humor."
Hunk's voice was steady. "What were they doing here?"
Her eyes flicked to him, sharp. "You really don't know?"
"I deal in missions, not fairy tales."
She leaned forward, resting her good arm on the table. Her whisper was almost reverent.
"They were building gods."
The words hung in the stale air.
"Not tyrants. Not hunters. Something worse. Something they got their hands on long before Umbrella refined their viruses. A fungus. A parasite. A blueprint for evolution written in decay."
Hunk felt the familiar weight of unease settle in his gut. He thought of the black sludge dripping from the hounds, the grotesque abomination in the office, the giant spider, the devil in a little girl's skin. Now that he could stop to breathe and think, Hunk had seen this before, not at Umbrella, but in the database of one of his clients - Hydra.
The information he'd managed to dig up at the time in secret revealed an old, hidden village full of monsters, which Hydra had tried to infiltrate several times, but always failed. Much was redacted, but one word—a name—repeated more than once in the files, standing out in his memory.
"Mutamicete," he said.
Lera's eyes widened slightly. "So you do know."
"Enough to burn it if I ever see it."
She laughed again, softer this time, but there was no humor. "Burn it all you want. They'll just dig it up again. Be it Umbrella, the Red Room, or even that old Hydra—they can't stop chasing the promise of control. And pawns like us? We're just the ones cleaning up the mess."
Her hand trembled as she reached for the water flask at her belt. Hunk caught it before she dropped it, setting it back on the table.
Her eyes lingered on him. Searching. Measuring.
"You don't talk much," she said finally.
"I don't need to."
"But you're listening."
"Yes."
Something in her expression softened, just slightly.
"You think I'm just another liability now," she said.
"You're dying," Hunk replied. "Liabilities don't get choices."
Her laugh this time was hollow, almost fragile. "Then maybe you'll do me a favor when the time comes."
Hunk didn't answer. He didn't promise mercy. He never did.
But he didn't deny it, either.
They sat like that for a long while, surrounded by relics of dead wars and older lies. The infection crept higher up her arm, staining her veins black, but she still breathed steady. Still clung to herself.
For once, Hunk didn't think about extraction points, or timers, or the next door waiting to be breached. He thought about her words. About sisters trapped in cages. About monsters in human flesh.
And about the flash drive burning a hole in his vest pocket.
Data worth more than either of their lives.
Data people would kill for.
Data that was already killing them.
When he finally spoke, his voice was lower than usual. Almost human.
"We'll finish the mission. Mine, and yours too."
Her eyes snapped up, sharp despite the weakness creeping into her body. "Together?"
"Together."
For a moment, silence again. Then she nodded once, as if sealing a pact.
And though the walls of the communications center groaned with the weight of time and monsters scratched faintly in the distance, for the first time since he'd dropped into this nightmare…
Hunk didn't feel alone.
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The silence after the communications room felt heavier than gunfire.Only the faint hum of failing machinery accompanied them as Hunk half-carried, half-guided Lera down the rusted corridor. Her weight pressed into his shoulder; her breaths were shallow, every exhale laced with the venom that crawled higher in her veins. She tried to hide it—soldier's pride—but he could feel her tremors with each step.
The corridor sloped downward, deeper into the mountain. Emergency lamps, Soviet-era relics, flickered weakly, giving the world the color of dried blood. Their boots crunched against shattered glass, empty casings, old bones. Hunk said nothing. Talking meant noise, and noise was death.
Lera broke the silence first, her voice low and ragged."Left… here. There's a junction."
He obeyed, pivoting them into a side passage. It was narrower, ceiling low, walls slick with condensation. Pipes rattled overhead, as though the mountain itself was restless.
Hunk's eyes never stopped moving. Corners. Shadows. Ceilings. He didn't need to say what both of them knew: the spiders were still out there.
And then the sound came.
A faint skitter. Distant, but unmistakable. Metal legs against stone.
Lera's hand tightened on his arm."They're tracking us."
"Let them try." His voice was ice.
She gave a faint, bitter smile. "You sound confident."
"I'm alive. That's all the confidence I need."
The corridor forked. Lera raised a weak hand, pointing right."That way. Maintenance shafts connect to the mine."
Hunk hesitated. "A mine?"
Her smile faded. "Yes. The bunker was built on top of an old extraction site. They reinforced parts of it, made it into storage, emergency escape routes. It should lead to the surface… eventually."
He muttered under his breath, the words almost lost in the dark."A Soviet bunker. An Umbrella lab. And now a mine. What the hell else is buried in this mountain?"
Lera didn't answer. Maybe she didn't know. Maybe she was too tired to care.
The skittering grew louder. Multiple sources now. Crawling closer.
They pushed forward, the corridor twisting tighter, until they found it: a rusted metal hatch recessed into the wall. Faded Cyrillic letters marked it Экстренный Выход—Emergency Exit.
Lera coughed, gripping the wall. "This is it. Beyond here—the mine shafts."
Hunk set her against the wall, pried the hatch open with his knife, and peered inside. Darkness. Stale, cold air carrying the scent of stone and dust. He helped her through first, then followed, sealing the hatch behind them.
For a heartbeat, there was silence.
Then claws raked against the other side. The spiders had found them.
Hunk didn't wait. He half-dragged, half-carried Lera deeper into the shaft. Their footsteps echoed across rough stone. Behind them, the hatch buckled under furious impacts.
A shriek echoed—inhuman, piercing.
The hatch tore free.
Dozens of legs skittered against stone. Shadows swarmed into the shaft.
"Move!" Hunk growled, forcing them faster.
The passage widened, and ahead, a faint wooden support beam signaled the mine's start. They stumbled into a cavernous opening lined with collapsed rails and rusted carts.
And then the spiders were upon them.
They poured from the shaft in a tide of black chitin and glistening fangs, their bodies the size of wolves, eyes gleaming like lanterns in the dark.
Lera raised her shotgun with trembling hands, firing once, twice. Two spiders burst apart, ichor spraying the walls. But there were too many.
Hunk fired in controlled bursts, aiming for the eyes, dropping them one by one. But even as they fell, more crawled over the corpses, shrieking, relentless.
He scanned the ceiling—then saw it. Jagged rocks held by fragile supports.
"Hold them!" he barked.
"What—?"
But he was already moving. He switched to his pistol, aimed high, and fired. Bullets tore through rotting beams. Cracks spiderwebbed across the stone.
The ceiling groaned—then collapsed.
A thunderous roar filled the shaft as tons of rock plummeted, sealing the entrance in a storm of dust and stone. Screeches cut off abruptly, crushed beneath the avalanche.
Silence.
Only their ragged breaths remained.
They were alive. For now.
The mine was a labyrinth. Narrow tunnels split into wider caverns, abandoned machinery rusting in the gloom. Soviet markings still scarred the stone walls—numbers, safety warnings, faded propaganda.
Lera leaned heavily on him, each step slower than the last. Her face was pale, lips tinged blue, veins along her neck faintly darkening. Yet her eyes remained sharp, guiding him with quiet certainty.
"Left fork leads deeper. Toward… the drilling site. It should connect to the upper levels."
Hunk glanced at her. "Should?"
Her smile was faint, wry. "Maps lie. Walls collapse. But it's the best path we have."
He said nothing, just adjusted his grip and kept moving.
They walked for what felt like hours, though Hunk's internal clock told him it was less than thirty minutes. Time stretched in the dark. The air grew heavier, filled with dust and the faint stench of rot.
And then the tunnel opened.
They stepped into a massive cavern, its ceiling lost in shadow. Stalactites hung like teeth, and in the center yawned a pit so wide it swallowed the earth itself. The edges were lined with scaffolding, cranes, and half-buried drills—remnants of some vast excavation.
But none of that caught Hunk's eye.
The webs did.
They stretched across the cavern like pale, glistening sheets, layer upon layer. Thick as cables, anchored to stone and machinery alike. Entire railcars were cocooned, suspended like grotesque ornaments. Bones jutted from some, stripped clean.
Hunk's finger tightened on his trigger. "What the hell is this?"
Lera's face was pale, eyes wide. "I… I don't know. This isn't right. On the schematics, this was supposed to be the drilling chamber. There should've been machinery here to bore through the mountain, connect to the surface. Not…"
Her gaze fell on the pit. "…that."
The hole pulsed faintly, as if the earth itself breathed.
And then it moved.
A tremor rippled through the cavern. Dust fell from above. The webs quivered violently.
Slowly, impossibly, something rose from the abyss.
First came the legs—enormous, jointed, glistening with black chitin, each one embedding into the stone like spears. Then the body emerged, massive, bulbous, gleaming with slime. The creature was vast, dwarfing the cavern cranes, its sheer size bending comprehension.
The head rose last, crowned with clusters of eyes the size of shields. Each glowed faintly, reflecting the emergency lights like pools of sickly moonlight. Its fangs, each longer than a man's arm, dripped venom that hissed when it struck the stone.
The colossal spider's screech shook the chamber, a sound that rattled bones and crushed thought.
Lera staggered, gripping Hunk's arm. Her whisper was hoarse, barely audible over the cacophony.
"My God…"
Hunk raised his weapon, though he knew it was useless. His voice was steady, cold.
"Looks like we found the mother."