Varon picked up the black, pulsating core and took it toward the complex device Maria had upgraded last night.
"Control the fluctuations."
Maria stood behind the control panel. Her hand was on the flow adjustment levers.
Varon placed the core in the glass chamber and connected the magic electrodes.
Bzzzzzz!
Suddenly, a jarring sound arose.
The core separated from the body was still "alive." The creature's remaining mana still flowed in it, and now that there was no body to contain it, it had gone wild.
Black and purple light shot out from the chamber.
Shadows in the corner of the room suddenly rose. Like octopus tentacles, they tore off the walls and lashed in the air.
The ceiling lights started flickering and dimming. Darkness began swallowing the room.
Crack!
The chamber suddenly cracked.
A line of fracture ran across the glass.
Varon went pale.
"If the chamber breaks, all the energy will be released!"
One of the shadow tentacles slammed into the side shelf.
Glass shattered, and preserved specimens scattered on the floor.
The lights went out.
The room plunged into absolute darkness.
Only the eerie light of the core remained; like an evil heart beating in the air.
Tentacles were now coming out of every corner.
One of them passed by Maria's face and scratched her cheek.
Maria realized one thing:
If she didn't control it right now,
This room, and maybe the entire basement, would be swallowed in darkness.
Varon shouted:
"It's becoming unstable! Open the outlet!"
Several tentacles went toward the lifeless body of the creature on the dissection table, as if wanting to reclaim their owner.
At the same time, another shadow tentacle wrapped around Varon's wrist and tried to pull him into the darkness. The scalpel fell from his hand.
"Damn it!"
Maria was scared, but her mind remained cold and calculating as always.
Mana pressure is high. If I don't discharge it, it will crush Varon.
She looked at the trembling needles on the panel.
I can't cut it, it'll explode. I have to divert it.
Maria released the "Stabilizer" lever and opened the "Heat Sink" valve all the way.
"Master! Pull back!"
Maria changed the flow path.
The shadow tentacles wrapped around Varon were suddenly pulled and sucked with vortex-like speed toward the energy discharge crystals.
The shadows were sucked into the device with a sound like a fierce wind and disappeared.
The lights turned back on.
Varon stumbled back, panting, and leaned against the table. On his wrist, a deep bruise in the shape of a tentacle remained.
The corpse on the table was now completely gray and powdered; as if its entire existence had been devoured by the core.
No one moved.
Maria looked at Varon and then at the core inside the chamber, which was now pulsating calmly.
She had now seen with her own eyes:
Even the carcasses of these creatures are dangerous. And the science Varon was pursuing was provoking something that didn't forgive mistakes.
Varon rubbed his bruised wrist and said with a raspy voice:
"See?... Nature always fights back. Even after death."
He looked at Maria.
"Good work. If you had opened the valve a second later, we'd both be part of the darkness right now."
***
The iron door closed behind her with a heavy thud, but Maria's troubled mind didn't hear it.
Maria took a few steps away from the door, but stopped.
She didn't look back. If she returned, if she pretended she hadn't seen anything, her life would be easier.
She would remain just a student, not an accomplice to a quiet, scientific crime.
Varon's voice echoed in her mind:
"My clothes get bloody so others' clothes stay clean."
Maria looked at her trembling hands. Her clothes were getting bloody too. Worse—she was starting to adapt.
She tightened her jaw.
"No... not yet."
Maria took a deep breath. She gulped down the cold night air to clear the taste of iron and formaldehyde from her mouth, but that smell of death seemed stuck to her skin.
She looked at her hands. Even though she had washed them, she still felt the blood of that dissected creature under her nails. Small spots of dark blood were splattered on the white sleeve of her uniform.
It was just a specimen... a spare part.
She tried to convince herself. Varon's logic was cold and flawless. "For hundreds to be saved, one must be sacrificed."
But the image of the escaped creature's ruby eyes didn't leave her for a moment.
If Varon finds the other one... if he goes under the blade too...
Maria shivered. Not from the cold.
She could no longer see that creature simply as a "monster" or a "threat."
She saw herself.
A lonely, wounded, hunted being whose language no one understood and whose power everyone wanted to use.
It's not the next victim... I am. We are both in the same cage.
Maria didn't turn toward the dormitory.
She tightened her backpack strap and turned toward the absolute darkness of the forest bordering the Academy.
I have to find him. Before Varon or his damn hunters do. Tonight... either I find him, or I'll receive its corpse in the morning.
Night changed the forest.
The wind twisted through the branches, and every sound resembled footsteps coming from behind her.
Maria moved slowly, scanning the ground.
No tracks.
Damn... it moves in shadows.
Minutes passed. Then more.
She found nothing.
From afar, a faint blue light moved among the trees.
Maria quickly took cover behind a tree.
Two guards with magic lanterns were passing through the forest.
"They said it was seen around here."
"If we find it, we'll get a good reward."
Her pulse climbed into her throat.
If the creature was nearby, the guards would find it too.
She waited until the sound faded.
When she moved again, the smell of blood hit her nose.
On the ground were a few drops of pale, but fresh blood.
A few meters ahead,
The half-eaten corpse of a rat lay by a tree root.
And there...
The shadows weren't natural.
The shadows there looked unnaturally dense. As if darkness had weight in that spot and was piled up.
Maria said quietly:
"I know you're there..."
Suddenly, the shadows between the roots moved.
Two shining red points opened.
And the wounded creature revealed itself.
The ruby eyes.
The black creature was there, crumpled in the hollow between the roots. The creature's body was trembling. Its fur had become dull, and the wound Maria had dressed before had reopened and become infected.
It burned with fever. Heat rolled off its body in suffocating waves.
The creature raised its head. It bared its teeth, but didn't even have the strength to growl.
When it saw Maria, it hid its teeth.
It recognized Maria. Remembered her scent. The scent of the only one who, instead of a cage, had given it food and tended to its wound.
It lowered its head back onto the dirt, as if it had already given up. No attack, no escape. Just waiting for the end.
Maria knelt.
"Hey... buddy. You're in bad shape."
Maria put her hand on the creature's hot forehead. Its skin was like a furnace.
Infected. Its immune system is resisting. But if I leave it here, it'll freeze and die by morning.
She looked around.
The forest wasn't safe. Varon's guards patrolled every night. Magic traps were everywhere.
Where do I take it? The old warehouse? No, Varon has eyes on it. Outside the Academy? The walls are high; I can't cross with this load.
Only one place remained. A place no one would think of. A place that was warm, behind a locked door, and Maria's last option.
The dormitory.
It was insane. Bringing a hunted magical monster into the girls' dormitory? If anyone found out, expulsion was the least of her punishments. Prison or exile awaited her.
But the creature's tired look squeezed her heart.
Maria took off her coat.
The risk is high, but leaving it here means death.
It was past 2 AM. Maria counted on Sarah being asleep. I'll tend to its wounds tonight and tomorrow before Sarah wakes up, I'll take you somewhere I find for you.
"Come here. I promise I won't let anything happen to you."
She wrapped the creature in her coat. The creature whimpered and pressed itself against Maria's body heat.
Maria held it close, like carrying a child. She pulled her coat over the creature's head so it wouldn't be seen.
Then, with all the speed and skill she had in stealth, she ran toward the dormitory wall.
The main dormitory door was closed as usual after curfew. Maria climbed the emergency stairs behind the building. She opened the corridor window with a trick she had learned and entered.
The corridor was silent and dark.
Her heart beat wildly.
Her uniform was a disaster: dried blood stains from the lab, fresh blood from the wounded creature, mud from the forest, and scratches from tree branches. Her hair was messy, and her face tired and dirty.
She reached the door of room 304.
Sarah is asleep. She's always asleep at this hour.
She turned the key quietly in the lock.
Click.
She opened the door slowly and entered quickly so the creature wouldn't be seen.
She turned and closed the door. She exhaled slowly.
"That was close."
Suddenly, she froze.
The room wasn't dark. The study lamp on the desk was on.
And Sarah was awake.
She was sitting on her bed, hugging her knees, staring straight at the door. As if she had been waiting for this moment for hours.
Maria turned.
The yellow light of the lamp fully revealed her condition.
Blood on her clothes. Mud on her face. And a large bundle under her coat that was moving and letting out a weak whimper.
"Maria..."