Chapter 3 — One of Us Is Lying
The bunker door was older than it looked.
Rust coated the edges, but Rayn could see the shimmer of reinforced plating beneath. Not standard military. Probably scavenged from something bigger. Maybe even repurposed tech from Before.
He tapped once, knelt, and traced the faint footprints near the entrance. Recent. Three sets. Size and spacing told him enough — two men, one woman. Not mimics, unless they were deliberately faking human movement. Possible, but rare.
He reached for the keypad.
It beeped once.
"Step back."
The voice was deep. Sharp. Male.
Rayn didn't flinch. "Not here to fight."
"You're either brave, stupid, or infected," came the reply.
Rayn raised his hands slowly. "I can be all three. But mostly I'm the guy who knows you've got a mimic problem inside."
A beat of silence.
Then: click.
The door unlatched.
---
The bunker interior was dim, lit only by scavenged lanterns and an old solar panel system jury-rigged to emergency lights. It smelled of oil, sweat, and burnt plastic.
Rayn stepped inside slowly. His eyes adjusted fast.
Three figures waited inside.
The first was the man with the voice — early thirties, muscular, military-cut hair, wearing a patched combat vest and holding a bolt-action rifle. His eyes tracked Rayn like a scope. Cold. Efficient.
Second was a teenage boy. Nervous, twitchy. Hoodie three sizes too big. He held a kitchen knife like it was Excalibur. His eyes were too wide.
The third…
Rayn frowned.
The girl was calm. Too calm. Leaning against the far wall with arms folded, her expression unreadable. Short-cropped hair, dark eyes, a barely visible scar across one cheek. She didn't blink when he entered. Didn't shift weight. Didn't even react to the gun.
Not normal.
Rayn's fingers twitched near his notebook.
> Trust your gut. One of them already knows your name.
His blood went cold.
He hadn't said it out loud.
He cleared his throat. "Name's Rayn. I survived Sector Seven. Saw the broadcast."
The military guy narrowed his eyes. "Sector Seven's a crater."
"I noticed," Rayn said. "Noticed someone's mimicking survivors. So let's skip the introductions and get to the fun part."
The teenager swallowed. "Fun part?"
"Figuring out who dies," Rayn said flatly.
---
He walked to the center of the room, set his crowbar down, and held up his hands again.
"I'll go first. Ask me anything."
The soldier kept his rifle steady. "Favorite pre-crash food?"
"Spicy ramen. Cheap kind. Lethal flavor."
"Capital of Norway?"
"Oslo. Try me harder."
The boy blinked. "What's the plot of Terminator 2?"
Rayn smirked. "Guy time-travels to protect a kid from a liquid metal assassin. Everyone cries at the end."
The girl didn't ask anything.
She just watched.
Rayn turned to her. "Your turn."
Her gaze didn't waver. "What's your blood type?"
"B positive. You?"
She didn't answer.
---
The soldier noticed. "Lia?"
She smiled. "I'm O. Universal donor."
Rayn's brain clicked. Too fast. Too rehearsed.
He stepped forward. "What's rule one in a mimic encounter?"
She tilted her head. "Silence."
"Wrong," Rayn snapped. "It's 'check the shadow first.'"
The soldier lowered his rifle slightly. Confused.
Rayn stepped into the light. "You got lanterns here. Let's use them."
He kicked one across the floor, flooding the room with hard side-light.
Three shadows stretched across the wall.
His.
The soldier's.
The boy's.
And hers — too short. Slightly wrong. Off-angle. As if bending around something that wasn't visible.
Rayn pointed.
"There."
The girl sighed.
Not in frustration — in disappointment.
Her face rippled.
Not dramatically. Subtly. Like water stirred under skin.
The boy screamed.
The mimic lunged.
---
Rayn was ready.
He threw the crowbar — not at her, but at the overhead pipe.
It struck true.
Steam exploded from the vent.
Blinding.
The mimic screeched as hot vapor tore through the room. Rayn charged through it, grabbed the soldier's dropped sidearm, and opened fire.
Three shots.
One struck the mimic in the head — but it didn't fall.
It shuddered.
Like something inside wanted out.
Then it burst into a mist of black filament, dissolving mid-air, like code unraveling.
The silence that followed was deafening.
The soldier stared at him.
The kid dropped the knife.
Rayn just walked to his crowbar, picked it up, and wiped the handle clean.
"Now," he said, voice level, "Let's try this again. I've got questions
The silence after the mimic's death wasn't relief.
It was dread.
Rayn stood over the spot where the creature had dissolved, eyes fixed on the scorch mark it left behind — a perfect spiral burned into the floor.
Not acid.
Not fire.
Heat without flame.
The soldier — Cole, as he finally introduced himself — crouched beside it, tapping the mark with the butt of his rifle. "I've seen this symbol before."
Rayn turned sharply. "Where?"
Cole didn't answer at first.
Then: "Sector Seven."
They gathered around the old steel table in the center of the bunker's common room. A single bulb flickered overhead, powered by the dying hum of salvaged batteries.
Cole, Rayn, and the kid — whose name turned out to be Milo — all sat, sharing a can of something that used to be beans.
None of them touched it.
Cole finally spoke. "Sector Seven was a military zone. Top priority. Nobody knew what was inside, just that anyone who went in didn't come out. My team was sent to scout the perimeter six weeks ago."
Rayn leaned forward. "Six weeks? Time doesn't match. I was there yesterday."
Milo blinked. "What?"
"I walked through Sector Seven. Or... whatever was left. Nothing but glass and shadow."
"You're lying," Cole said flatly.
"I'm alive," Rayn countered. "That's more than your team managed."
Cole's jaw clenched.
Milo fidgeted with the lantern knob. "What if time's broken there?"
Rayn raised an eyebrow.
Milo continued. "Like… space loops. Compression zones. Time and matter folding wrong. I read about that stuff — pre-Collapse theories. Forbidden physics. Places where reality gets edited."
Rayn didn't laugh.
Because the notebook in his hand buzzed.
He opened it.
New words were scrawled in black ink across the page — as if written in real-time.
> You're asking the right questions, Rayn. Sector Seven isn't a place. It's an event. A wound in reality.
They opened it.
They didn't mean to.
Rayn's heart skipped.
He looked at the others. "Sector Seven wasn't bombed. It wasn't attacked. It... happened."
Cole gave him a sideways glance. "What do you mean?"
Rayn tapped the spiral burn mark. "It's a symbol. Not damage. This is a seal. Or a gate."
Milo whispered, "A gate to what?"
Before Rayn could answer, the notebook flared again.
Another line appeared — one that made his blood run cold.
> They're watching through the mimics. One just updated. They know you're here. RUN.
A high-pitched wail cut through the walls.
Not from outside.
From within the bunker.
Cole stood instantly. "We're compromised."
Rayn was already moving. "Where's your generator room?"
"Back wall, left hall," Milo said, panicked.
Rayn sprinted, heart pounding. If the mimics were using tech — if they could track through systems — then the bunker's power source could be pulsing like a beacon.
He rounded the corner
—and froze.
The mimic wasn't fully formed
It was stuck in the generator's output coil, flesh half-merged with steel, arms twitching, bones grinding as it grew itself around the machine.
It wasn't even hiding anymore.
It had come to evolve.
Rayn didn't hesitate. He grabbed the nearest loose cable, yanked it from the wall, and jammed the live wire into the mimic's chest.
Screaming metal. Burning flesh. The stench of plastic melting.
The creature convulsed, flailed, and then exploded into a burst of ash and red static — like corrupted code crashing in real time.
Rayn fell to one knee, coughing.
The notebook flipped on its own again.
> Good. That one was… different. You delayed them.
But they've marked you now.
You're part of the pattern.
Back in the main room, Milo and Cole were already packing.
Rayn wiped soot from his face. "We need to move. This place is a target now."
"Where to?" Cole asked, eyes sharp.
Rayn paused. Looked down at the notebook. No answer came this time.
"Wherever the pattern leads," he said.
Because for the first time, Rayn realized something.
The notebook didn't just warn him.
It led him.
And if the mimics were watching through it…
What if it wasn't his weapon at all?
What if it was theirs?