There is no "first light" in a sub-basement.
Time became a currency measured in the charge percentage of their last phone. They'd slept in shifts, a restless, dreamless sleep on the cold concrete floor, the low hum of Ben's salvaged fan a constant, mechanical drone in the darkness. The world outside their steel box had become an auditory ghost—nothing but that rhythmic, heavy scrape of their golem guardian patrolling the hall.
Leo woke to the smell of dust and the faint, coppery tang of old blood. His head no longer felt like it was splitting apart; now it was just a dull, persistent ache behind his eyes, a physical receipt for the transaction he'd made with reality's source code. He sat up, the worn fabric of his jacket crinkling under him.
Across the room, Chloe was dividing the last protein bar into four precise, equal sections with the edge of a server panel. Her movements were economical, her face set in a mask of grim efficiency. Ben was already awake, hunched over his [Corrupted Security Core], which he had wired to a small, cracked tablet screen he'd cannibalized. It pulsed with a soft blue light, casting an ethereal glow on his focused features as he muttered to himself about power regulation and data bottlenecks. Maya was a statue of coiled readiness, stretching in the corner, her movements fluid and silent. She wasn't preparing for a day. She was preparing for a hunt.
"Time to go," Chloe said, her voice quiet but firm. She handed each of them their portion. It was a pathetic meal. Dry, chalky, and gone in two bites. It tasted like desperation. Leo washed it down with a small sip of water, the last of their supply. The lukewarm liquid did little to quench the dryness in his throat.
"Ben," Maya said, her voice a low rasp. "Anything useful from your new toy?"
"It's… a battery," Ben replied, his eyes not leaving the screen. "A ridiculously powerful one. And a processor. It's running a constant diagnostic on itself. And on the golem. They're… networked. Somehow." He shook his head. "But I can't make it do anything. The code is a black box. For now."
"Then it's dead weight until you can," Maya stated flatly. She pushed herself to her feet. "Time's up. We move."
A fresh wave of tension settled over the room. Their sanctuary, their cage, was about to be left behind. Leo's stomach clenched. He looked at the mangled door, and for a terrifying second, he wanted nothing more than to stay. To wait. To hope.
He pushed the thought away. Hope was a useless variable. They had a plan.
They gathered their meager supplies. Chloe's duffel bag with the first-aid kit. Ben's messenger bag, clinking with magnets and his precious core. Maya, with her two knives. And Leo, with nothing but the buzzing in his head and a skill he was terrified to use again.
Reaching the door was the first trial. Maya moved the propped-up debris aside, the sound grating in the quiet. The gap yawned open into the pitch-black hallway. The rhythmic scraping had stopped.
"It knows we're here," Ben whispered.
Maya took the lead, slipping through the gap like a shadow. Leo was right behind her, his phone held out, its light cutting a nervous, trembling beam through the darkness. The hallway was empty. Cold. The air tasted different out here, stale and heavy with the smell of old concrete and something else… something foul that hinted at the carnage on the floors above.
Then, from the far end of the hall, the single blue eye ignited.
The Scrap Golem. It stood motionless, a hulking silhouette against the oppressive dark. Its passive optic fixed on them. For a long, heart-stopping moment, it just watched. Leo could feel his blood run cold. Had his edit held? Was their "authorized" status still valid?
With a low groan of protesting metal, the golem moved. It didn't attack. It simply dragged its massive form to the side of the hallway, clearing a path. The grinding of its joints was the loudest sound Leo had ever heard. It was an act of compliance. A machine following its new rules. The sight was more unnerving than any attack could have been.
No one spoke. They filed past the silent, waiting machine, a silent, hulking testament to Leo's power and the terrifying fragility of their survival.
The stairwell was a concrete throat, swallowing them whole. Every footstep was an echoing pronouncement of their presence. They moved slowly, Maya in the lead, taking the steps one at a time, her knives held ready. Leo's light bobbed and weaved, painting the grim ascent in stark relief. The walls were stained with streaks of something dark. A goblin corpse lay sprawled on the landing between the basement and the ground floor, its body already starting to bloat. The reek was gag-inducing.
They passed the lobby, a tomb of shattered crystal and marble, and continued upward. The first floor was a ghost town of empty offices. The second, a warzone. Barricades made of desks and chairs had been torn apart. More bodies. Goblins and humans, locked together in frozen tableaus of violence. The quiet here was different. Heavier. Weighted down by what had happened.
"They didn't stand a chance," Chloe murmured, her voice thick with horror.
Maya didn't respond. She was scanning everything, her gaze analytical. "They stayed in the open," she said, her voice flat. "They bunched up. Bad tactics." From her, it was a eulogy.
As they reached the landing for the third floor, the air changed again. The smell of decay was still there, but it was buried under a new, more pungent stench. The cloying, sweet-sour smell of rotting food.
"The cafeteria," Leo said, his stomach churning.
The doors to the third-floor hallway were wedged open. This area was different. There were no bodies. But the walls were coated in a strange, glistening slime, a translucent, grayish sheen that caught the light of their phones.
Leo reached out, stopping himself just before he touched it. He focused, activating [Inspect Element].
[Organic Secretion] [Property: Corrosive (Minor)] [Property: Digestive Enzyme (Trace)]
"Don't touch the walls," he warned, his voice low. "It's corrosive."
They moved down the hall, their footsteps unnervingly quiet on the slime-coated floor. The cafeteria doors were at the end of the corridor, heavy double doors with wire-reinforced glass. They were barricaded from the inside with tables and chairs. But the barricade was broken. A hole had been smashed through it, big enough for a person to crawl through.
They squeezed through the gap, one by one, into the cafeteria.
The stench hit them like a physical blow. A wall of putrescence. The vast room was a scene of a desperate, failed last stand. Tables were overturned. Vending machines were smashed open. Food was strewn everywhere, rotting in the still air. And the bodies… there were at least a dozen of them, huddled behind the largest of the barricades.
But something was wrong. Horribly wrong. They weren't torn apart. They weren't bloody. They looked… dry. Like husks. Their skin was pulled taut against their bones, gray and desiccated. Their mouths were open in silent screams.
"What the hell did this?" Chloe whispered, her hand clamped over her mouth.
Maya moved through the room, her knives held low, her expression grim. "No entry wounds. No signs of a struggle. Whatever did this… they didn't even fight back."
Ben, meanwhile, had been drawn to a flickering emergency light in the corner. He reached up, his face pale in its intermittent glow. "Leo… look at this." The metal casing around the light was pitted and corroded, far worse than simple rust. It looked like it had been dipped in acid.
Leo scanned the room, his diagnostic gaze trying to make sense of the impossible scene. He focused on one of the victims, a man in a security guard's uniform. He activated his skill. The code was stark. Simple. Terrifying.
[HP: 0/125] [MP: 0/60] [Bio-Energy: 0/100]
He had never seen that last stat before. Bio-Energy. It was completely drained. Empty.
Then they heard it.
It wasn't a roar. It wasn't a screech. It was a soft, wet, slithering sound. Like a heavy sack of damp meat being dragged across linoleum. And it was coming from the industrial kitchen at the back of the cafeteria.
The sound stopped.
No response.
Leo's chest tightened. He met Maya's watchful gaze across the room. She had heard it too.
He took a half-step back, his voice barely a whisper, a single, horrifying conclusion taking shape in the ruin of his mind.
"Something drained them."