The air in the maintenance tunnel was a thick, stagnant soup of mildew and old iron. Our boots swallowed the silence, splashing rhythmically through an inch of oily water. The sound echoed off the curved walls like a ticking clock — a countdown to a deadline we couldn't see. "This is it," Katseye whispered. Her voice cracked, a jagged sound in the dark. She pointed a trembling finger toward a rusted iron ladder bolted into the weeping concrete. "The last stop. This leads to the service alley behind the main sector. From there... it’s a straight shot to the gate." "Straight shots usually have a catch," I muttered, wiping grease from my forehead. One of Yuyan’s men, a grizzled soldier named Kaelen with a deep, puckered gash across his cheek, squinted up the dark shaft. "And if we’re followed? How do we alert the gate guards without bringing the whole hive down on us? We're a parade of targets down here." Yuyan checked the magazine of her rifle. The metallic click was final, punctua

The sterile, white light of the Military Medical Wing felt heavy after the grey gloom of the dead zone. We moved with a frantic energy, wheeling Casimir through the corridors. The doctors fell upon him immediately, their faces tight with a confusion they couldn't quite mask. He was stable, his vitals were a steady hum on the monitors, yet he remained locked in a deep, impenetrable slumber. "Do you know what happened to him?" asked one of the doctors. What are we going to say? He was used as an experiment? His entire body shutting down yet we have no clue of what they did to him. "We met him unconscious on a bed." Katseye quivered, the reality that she might lose her father again clawed her stomach. "Please, doctor. Save my father. He is all I got left." Since I got here, Katseye had been losing everyone and everything she holds dear. She lost Riko, lost her home, almost lost Jace and now, Casimir is on the line too. The confident girl I knew before slowly becomes the opposi

The tip of the wall looked like black ink that was spreading faster as it flowed down towards us. The first mutant crash landed, hitting the pavement five feet from me with the force of a falling star. The concrete spiderwebbing under its pale, elongated limbs with Its unhinged jaw that looked like a mixture of a prey mantis with a swell underneath it's mandibles that are rough and long like a lizard. Honestly, it shouldn't have been able to open that wide and let out a roar that vibrated in my marrow. It took me a few seconds to regain myself and I didn't give in to another thought as I lunged straight at it. My blade finding the soft seal of its throat, twisting until the shriek died into a gurgle, but as I kicked the carcass away, my stomach dropped. This doesn't look like a scout. It was the vanguard, which means this horde had only fully grown mutants in its midst. "They're coming!" a voice wailed. Panic erupted like a burst dam. The organized evacuation turned into a fra

Chapter 7: The Colony's Heart I charged. The thirty mutants came at me like a living avalanche. Claws. Mandibles. Eyes that reflected nothing but hunger. The air filled with their shrieking—a sound that scraped against my skull and made my teeth ache. The first one reached me. I ducked under its swing and drove both Chimera blades up through its throat. Energy crackled. The smell of burning flesh hit me—acrid, nauseating, mixing with the chemical tang of the toxic atmosphere. The mutant gurgled and fell. Two more came from opposite sides. I spun left, parried one's claw with my blade, felt the impact shudder up my arm. My broken ribs screamed. I bit down on the pain, tasted blood in my mouth—my own blood, copper and warm. Used the momentum to pivot right, slashing across the second mutant's face. Its eye exploded in a spray of ichor. They kept coming. I moved through them like I was drowning. Every strike sent jolts of agony through my damaged body. Every breath felt like swallow

We kept following this ant for three hours. Or maybe three days until we arrived at a large body if water. By the time we realized it, the ant was no where to be found. "Come on," Urged Casimir. "Let's check it out." I dropped down, my feet feeling like it's being dragged through toxic fog that clung to the ground like oil. Each step sent jolts through my broken ribs, my dislocated shoulder, my chemically-burned skin. The toxicity inside my suit had spread everywhere now. I could feel it in my bloodstream. In my organs. Eating me from the inside. Casimir walked beside me, silent. His broken arm had swollen to twice its normal size. The skin was mottled purple and black. Every few minutes, his breathing would hitch—pain breaking through whatever mental barriers he'd erected. Neither of us spoke. Didn't have the energy. The landscape changed gradually. Rocky terrain gave way to something smoother. Harder. I looked down and realized we were walking on coral. Dead coral, bleached whi