The steel door tore free of its hinges, slamming against the concrete floor with a blast of cold air and dust. Darkness billowed inward like a living tide... scraplings pouring through the gap in a frenzy of crooked limbs and jerking hunger. Their shrill clicking crawled along the walls and into the ribs of the room.
Ray moved before the first claw touched the floor.
He shifted Lyra against his chest, one arm locking beneath her knees, the other bracing her back. Her breath hitched as her injured leg shifted, but she clung to him silently... trying not to add even one distraction to the impossible calculus he was carrying.
Lysandra fired toward the breach, each shot slicing the dark with a sharp white flash. Brass shells scattered around her boots, rolling across the concrete as she backed up beside Ray.
"We move now!" she shouted.
Ray didn't answer. He stepped over the scraplings crawling through the gap, crushing two under his boot as if their bones were papier-mâché. He pushed into the hallway, forcing space for Lysandra to slip behind him.
Scraplings flooded after them... crawling on ceilings, walls, the floor.
A wave of tiny, starving bodies.
Lyra pressed her face into Ray's shoulder, her breath shaking. "Ray… there's so many…"
"Don't look."
His voice was steady, quiet, the grounding she needed as the corridor shrank with the swarm.
Lysandra fired over his shoulder.
"Left junction, thirty meters... go! It links to the lower vault!"
Ray ran.
Even while carrying Lyra, his footwork stayed impossibly precise... every step landing on stable ground, every pivot avoiding loose debris, every angle shifting to keep his body between the threat and the two women behind him. Scraplings clawed at his clothes, at his arms, at his heels.
One leaped for his face...
Ray snapped its spine midair and flung it aside without slowing.
Another dove for Lyra's exposed side...
Ray rotated with a tightening motion, shielding her with the bulk of his own body, taking the impact in his ribs. The creature's claws scraped him, breaking skin, but Ray crushed its skull against the wall before it could reach her again.
The wounds closed quickly... too quickly for Lysandra to ignore.
She shot him a sideways glance.
"You really are something else…"
Ray didn't respond.
The corridor narrowed to a dead-end of crushed concrete.
Lysandra swore softly.
"No... wait. The vent above... your height. You can reach it."
Ray tilted his head up. A maintenance grate hung overhead, barely attached, the dark shaft stretching beyond it.
He set Lyra down carefully against the wall.
Her breath caught as her wounded leg touched the floor.
"Stay behind me," he said.
Lyra nodded, though her fingers trembled.
Ray jumped... quiet, controlled... and tore the grate free. Dust rained down on them, coating their hair and shoulders. The shaft above stretched into a deep vertical climb.
Before Ray could lift Lyra again, three scraplings dropped from the ceiling behind Lysandra.
"Lysandra... down!"
She turned too late...
Ray lunged.
He caught her around the waist, pulling her backward and spinning with her, using his own body as a shield. The scraplings slammed into his back, claws raking across skin and muscle. Warm blood streaked down his side, but Ray didn't flinch. He rammed his elbow backward with brutal force, crushing one creature instantly and knocking the others off balance.
Lysandra landed on him again... almost exactly like before... her palms spread across his chest, her breath trembling at the closeness.
"You..." Her voice faltered. "You idiot… that could have killed you."
"It didn't."
"That's not the point!"
Ray stood smoothly, setting her on her feet as if she weighed nothing.
Lyra watched them... something twisting beneath her ribs again, sharp and unfamiliar.
Ray lifted Lyra into the vent first, his hands supporting her waist, guiding her carefully so she wouldn't hit her injured leg. She inhaled sharply at the contact, warmth traveling across her cheeks.
"Ray…" she whispered.
"Be careful."
"Always."
Lysandra climbed after Lyra, then reached down toward Ray. "Give me your hand."
Ray didn't take it.
He leaped upward silently, grabbing the edge of the shaft and pulling himself up beside them. Lysandra blinked... her extended hand hanging in empty air.
"You could at least pretend to need help."
"No need to pretend."
Lysandra clenched her teeth, cheeks warming with irritation.
"Unbelievable."
Ray slid past them, moving ahead in the narrow shaft. The space forced him to crouch, shoulders nearly brushing both sides of the metal walls. The scraplings began crawling into the shaft below... hundreds of clicking limbs echoing upward.
Lyra's breath tightened.
"Ray… they're coming…"
"I know."
Lysandra checked her pistol.
"Rounds: eight. Not enough to hold them back."
Ray positioned himself between the two women and the approaching swarm.
Not a shield...
a wall.
Scraplings surged upward.
Ray struck downward with surgical brutality... jamming his boot into the skull of the first creature, sending it tumbling into the mass below. He used the tight space to his advantage, turning the vertical shaft into a kill funnel. Every time a claw reached the top, Ray snapped it, crushed it, broke it.
Blood sprayed the metal walls, dripping downward in narrow, black-red streaks.
Lyra held onto the rail, shaking... though not from fear alone. She had never seen someone fight to protect her with this kind of ferocity. With this kind of self-restraint.
"Ray…" Her voice was soft, trembling, almost reverent. "You're bleeding…"
"It'll stop."
"It shouldn't be you taking all of this…"
Ray didn't look back.
"If not me, then who?"
The swarm grew louder, angrier. Dozens of bodies piled at the base of the shaft, forming a bridge for others to climb faster. Ray's hits grew harder... but still measured, never exceeding the threshold that would collapse the shaft and kill the girls instantly.
Lysandra stared at him as he fought... every movement efficient, deadly, controlled.
"You're holding back," she whispered.
Ray didn't deny it.
"You could rip through all of them if you wanted," she continued.
"But if you did…" Her eyes flicked toward Lyra.
"..we'd die too, wouldn't we?"
Ray crushed another skull.
Silence was confirmation.
Lyra pressed a hand to her chest, emotion flooding her in a wave she didn't dare name.
The shaft split into two tunnels ahead.
Lysandra pointed. "Right path drops into the Central Hatchery. There's a control node that leads to the secure tunnel your father built."
Lyra's breath halted. "My father… really was here."
"That's what the files said," Lysandra replied. "If he's alive, that's where his trail leads."
Ray grabbed Lyra gently, lifting her as they approached the fork.
Behind them... the scraplings finally pushed past the point Ray could hold indefinitely.
Lysandra's eyes widened.
"Ray... GO!"
Ray ran.
The tunnel sloped downward into flickering emergency lights. The metal beneath them shook with the weight of the swarm behind them. Lyra clung to Ray, her heartbeat racing against his shoulder.
"Ray…"
Her whisper barely carried.
"Don't leave me."
"I won't."
The tunnel opened into a massive chamber...
And all three froze.
Hundreds of broken capsules lined the walls like empty coffins. Blood and fluid pooled beneath them. Jars of organs floated on shattered pedestals. The ceiling lights flickered above rows upon rows of restraints and dissecting tables.
The Central Hatchery.
A place built not to create life...
but to discard it.
Ray lowered Lyra slowly, his eyes scanning every corner. Lysandra raised her weapon, breath tight.
Then a new sound emerged...
heavy, rhythmic, deliberate.
Not scraplings.
Not the slow-killer.
Something else.
Lyra swallowed hard.
"Ray… what is that?"
Ray stepped forward, muscles tightening.
〈Not one of them. Something older. Something that remembers you.〉
The chamber darkened as a silhouette stepped out from behind the far capsule rows.
Broad shoulders.
Distorted spine.
Eyes glowing faintly in the dark.
The scraplings suddenly stopped climbing into the hatchery.
They froze... silent, trembling.
Even they feared the thing now entering the room.
Ray exhaled once, steady and deadly.
"Stay behind me."
Lyra reached for him, fingers brushing his coat.
Lysandra drew closer too, eyes narrowing.
The creature stepped fully into the flickering light...
and the nightmare below the earth opened its third chapter.