Chronicles of Chaos & Destiny
The Truth of the Eternal Experiments
Chapter 2
The silence in the underground chamber was so thick that everyone could hear their own breathing. The air smelled of dust, ink, and something unsettling like old iron mixed with forgotten prayers.
Elise tightened her grip on the lantern.
"External Experiments,"
She whispered, the words rolling off her tongue like a curse.
"Why does it feel like these walls are alive?"
Louis smirked, though his hands trembled slightly.
"Relax, Elise. Maybe it's just your overactive imagination. Or… maybe a ghost really likes you."
Elise shot him a glare.
"One more joke and I'll feed you to the ghost myself."
Pierre bent down, brushing away decades of dust from a carved stone tablet. His scholarly tone replaced the tension with curiosity.
"This… this isn't just about immortality. Look symbols of blood, soul, and memory. The experiments were never meant to make people live forever."
Claire frowned. "Then what?"
Pierre looked up, eyes wide, as if the truth itself hurt.
"They were trying to merge beings. Angel with human. Devil with saint. Wolf with vampire. To create… hybrids. Weapons."
The room fell silent.
Even Louis, who was usually the first to laugh, couldn't find a joke this time.
But then, true to form, he broke the tension.
"So… basically, ancient scientists were just binge-watching too many horror stories and thought, 'Hey, let's play God!' Brilliant."
Claire smacked his arm. "This isn't a joke, Louis! People died. Families were torn apart."
Louis rubbed his arm, pouting.
"Okay, okay! I'm just saying… if they succeeded, imagine the dating apps 'Looking for love, must be okay with fangs and wings.'"
Elise couldn't help but let out a snort.
"You're impossible."
Still, her smile faded when she spotted a set of chained journals on the far table. Unlike the other relics, these were bound with crimson locks that pulsed faintly, almost alive.
"Pierre," she called softly, "what is this?"
Pierre carefully approached, tracing the glowing locks.
"Blood seals. Only those connected to the experiment's victims could open it."
A shiver ran through everyone. Victims. Not volunteers. Victims.
Claire's eyes welled with tears.
"That means… this wasn't about discovery or progress. This was torture disguised as science."
Before anyone could respond, the air shifted. A low growl echoed from the shadows, followed by the flutter of unseen wings. The lantern flickered.
Louis, gripping his sword too tightly, whispered.
"Okay… I take it back. Definitely not a good time for jokes."
The group stood shoulder to shoulder, fear creeping into their bones but bound together by something stronger: the need to uncover the truth.
And in that chamber, with the shadows closing in, they realized something chilling
The Eternal Experiments had never ended.
Shadows
The lab's silence was too loud. Dust floated in the air like forgotten secrets, and the sealed journals on the table seemed to pulse faintly, as though alive.
Eloise brushed her fingers across the cracked leather cover.
"These aren't just books… they're warnings."
Etienne raised an eyebrow.
"Or really boring grocery lists. Who knows, maybe the Eternal Experiments ran out of baguettes."
The others shot him a look. Even in the middle of spine chilling danger, Etienne's sarcasm never slept.
Lucien finally pried open the first journal. Strange symbols ran across the parchment, some smudged with what looked like dried blood. His expression hardened.
"They were experimenting on souls. Fusing humans with… things they shouldn't."
The temperature dropped. Shadows along the walls quivered, stretching longer than the flickering lantern could allow.
Camille muttered, "Uh… did that shadow just wave at me?"
Nobody laughed.
The whispering started. Low at first, like a choir of insects crawling through their ears.
Eloise clutched her head.
"They're not just echoes… they're memories."
The shadows peeled off the walls, distorted figures with hollow faces swirling around them.
Etienne backed up. "Okay, correction not baguettes. Definitely not baguettes!"
The first shadow lunged. Lucien's blade caught it mid-strike. Another clawed at Camille, who ducked and yelled.
"Do ghosts even have fingernails?! Because ow!"
Eloise slammed her palm onto the journal, releasing a burst of light that pushed them back. But the shadows only screeched louder.
"They're feeding off the experiments' remains," Lucien shouted.
"Wonderful," Etienne grunted, wrestling with one.
"First team project and it's ghost wrestling. I didn't even bring my good shoes!"
The fight turned chaotic. Lucien's strikes burned shadows apart, Eloise chanted spells, and Camille swung a broken chair leg while yelling insults.
"Take this, you secondhand smoke monster!"
Then the shadows fused into one massive beast. Its hollow eyes locked on the group.
The journals burst into flame. Before they turned to ash, Eloise glimpsed one final line:
"The final subject is not dead. The experiment… lives."
The shadow beast lunged. Darkness swallowed everything.
Fractures
Darkness pressed in. For a terrifying heartbeat, the team thought they were gone swallowed whole by the shadow beast.
Then a flare of light cracked through the black. Eloise gasped, her hand still glowing faintly from the journal's remnants.
"We're… alive."
They stood in the ruins of the lab. Walls cracked, the table splintered, ash floating like snow. The shadow beast loomed above them, massive and shifting, its body a storm of writhing darkness.
Lucien tightened his grip on his blade.
"It wants us broken. That's the test."
Etienne dusted himself off, coughing.
"Broken? Ha. Joke's on it I was already broken before this mission."
Camille, clutching her chair leg like a sword, muttered, "You're not helping."
The beast roared, shadows lashing out like whips. The team scattered. Lucien slashed through tendrils, Eloise's light pushed back the dark, and Camille darted around like a reckless spark.
Etienne, of course, ran straight at it.
"Come on, you oversized smoke machine! Bet you couldn't scare a Paris pigeon!"
A tendril wrapped around his leg and yanked him into the air.
"Okay!" Etienne yelled, flailing. "Correction: definitely scarier than a pigeon!"
Eloise sent a burst of light that cut him free. He landed in a heap, groaning.
"Ten out of ten. Stuck the landing."
Lucien's eyes narrowed.
"It's not just attacking it's learning. Watching how we fight."
The beast's hollow gaze shifted, its form twisting more human, more deliberate. For a moment, it almost mirrored Lucien himself.
Eloise's voice shook.
"It's using the memories of the experiments… copying us."
The shadows surged again, harder, faster. The team fought back, but each strike only seemed to make the beast stronger. The air trembled, the ground splitting beneath them.
Then, as if mocking them, the beast spoke with a hundred broken voices at once:
"We… are the final subject."
The chamber shook violently.
Camille gripped her chair leg tighter, whispering, "Please tell me it doesn't mean what I think it means."
Étienne groaned. "Oh, it means exactly that. And I hate it."
The shadow beast lowered itself, ready to strike again. This time, no escape seemed possible.
Veil
The shadow beast lunged, its massive form blotting out the flickering light.
Lucien met the attack head on, his blade clashing against a wall of darkness. Sparks hissed. The force rattled his arms, but he refused to let go.
"We can't win like this it's feeding on everything we throw at it!"
Eloise's light spell faltered, flickering weakly. Sweat poured down her brow.
"Then what do we do? Because my magic battery is at… five percent!"
Camille ducked another strike, barely holding her chair leg together.
"If this thing keeps copying us, I'm doomed. I only know two moves: swing and scream."
Etienne stumbled beside her, panting.
"Correction: swing, scream, and complain. That's three moves."
The beast roared again, the sound vibrating through their bones. Pieces of the ruined lab collapsed around them, stone and dust raining down.
Lucien slashed a path open. "We retreat. Now!"
"No arguments here," Etienne shouted, bolting toward the cracked corridor. "Every hero knows when to run dramatically!"
They scrambled through the crumbling passage, the beast's tendrils tearing after them. The ground shook, walls splitting apart.
At the last second, Eloise threw her remaining light into the air. It burst into a flare, blinding the beast long enough for them to tumble through a collapsing doorway.
The world went silent.
Dust settled. They found themselves in a narrow underground tunnel, dimly lit by glowing moss. For the moment, they were safe.
Lucien pressed a hand against the wall, catching his breath. His knuckles were white around his blade.
"That thing wasn't just a monster. It spoke. It knew us."
Eloise whispered, trembling.
"The journals called it the 'final subject.' Which means… someone survived the experiments."
Camille sat against the wall, clutching her chair leg like a teddy bear.
"Survived? Try mutated nightmare from the underworld."
Etienne flopped onto the ground.
"I told you. First rule of life: never trust science labs with ominous Latin names."
Despite the joke, no one laughed. The weight of what they'd seen pressed on them like the air itself.
Lucien finally looked up, his voice low but steady.
"If that shadow is the final subject… then the experiments aren't over. They're just beginning."
The tunnel ahead stretched into darkness, and faintly so faintly they heard whispers calling their names.