2025-11-15 20:19:46
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 8 — THE DEAD ZONE
The darkness swallowed them whole. Vivian slid down the rusted ladder first, landing on a grated platform deep below the station.Ethan followed, boots hitting metal with a hollow clang. Somewhere above them, the rogue drones whirred like mechanical insects. “Keep moving,” Vivian whispered. “If they scan the shaft, we’re done.”Ethan’s voice was low, strained. “Where the hell are we going?”Vivian clicked on a small penlight. Its beam cut through dust like smoke. “An old research wing. Abandoned… mostly.”“Mostly?” Ethan repeated.“Meaning people stopped working here. The systems didn’t.”Ethan felt it again that subtle pressure behind his eyes, a prickling at the base of his skull. Like the darkness had weight. Like something inside it recognized him. He exhaled slowly. “Vivian… this place”“I know,” she said before he finished. “Just breathe. Your neural amplification is spiking because the infrastructure down here still runs.”He grabbed her arm. “What kind of infrastructure?”“The
CHAPTER 7 — THE STANDOFF
The abandoned station swallowed the echo of Elijah’s words. Ethan couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.Elena’s older brother clean-cut, cold-eyed, a man Ethan had shared holidays and dinners with stood there like a stranger carved from ice. “Elijah,” Ethan whispered. “What are you doing with them?”Elijah smiled faintly. “I’m preventing a catastrophe.”Vivian stepped in front of Ethan. “He’s activating early if you try to take him now”“Vivian,” Elijah cut in sharply, “your orders were to monitor him. Not bond with him.”Vivian stiffened. “I didn’t bond with anyone. My orders changed when you tried to kill him.”Elijah raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you think happened?”The soldiers around him tightened their grips on their rifles. Ethan took a slow step forward. “You sent a strike team after us. They tried to execute Vivian and take me alive.”“No,” Elijah said calmly. “They tried to subdue you. Only one of them was authorized for lethal force.”“And that’s supposed to make sense?” Eth
CHAPTER 6 — THE LABYRINTH
The undergrid was colder than the tunnels older, too. Air heavy with rust, damp concrete sweating beneath the faint glow of dying bulbs.Metal pipes groaned overhead like something alive. Vivian moved quickly, but Ethan kept slowing, listening.Every sound felt sharper now. Every vibration more distinct. Every echo mapped itself in his mind without effort. “Vivian,” he whispered, “there are three men above us. Two to the left. And”She stopped short. “You can hear that?”“I don’t hear it,” Ethan said, frustrated. “I sense it. Like…their weight presses through the ceiling.”Vivian exhaled shakily. “It’s happening faster than I expected.”“What’s happening?” Ethan demanded. “You keep dropping half-truths. Start talking.”Vivian turned down a rusted stairwell, her voice low. “If I explain in the open, we die. Keep moving.”“No.” Ethan grabbed her wrist. “Vivian, I’m done running blind.”She hesitated. “Ethan”“Tell me.”Vivian looked into his eyes a long, loaded beat and finally spoke. “
CHAPTER 5 — UNLEASHED
The distance between Ethan and the gunman vanished in a blink too fast, too inhuman.Vivian barely had time to scream before Ethan slammed into the masked figure, knocking him backward in a spray of tunnel grit and shattered debris.The gunman rolled, fast and trained, and came up on one knee, rifle snapping toward Ethan again. But Ethan wasn’t the same man who entered this tunnel.Something inside him something calculated, predatory was awake. “Don’t shoot!" Vivian cried.The gunman ignored her. “Subject is activated. Containment protocol!”Ethan heard the trigger click, saw the micro-muscles in the attacker’s hand tense saw everything slower, clearer. A burst of instinct surged through him.He twisted aside. The silenced round hissed past, missing his skull by an inch. Vivian gasped. “Ethan your eyes ”He didn’t hear her. Not fully. Something else was speaking louder. End him. He’s a threat. Remove the threat. “No,” Ethan muttered under his breath. “Not you again…”But his body lung
CHAPTER 4B — THE MEMORY TRIGGER
The tunnel spun, bending like heat-warped metal. Ethan clutched the wall, gasping as something inside him clawed upward cold, calculating, awake. Maya backed away fast.“Ethan, you need to fight it!His voice came out layered his tone wrapped around a deeper, older echo. “Fight… what?”Me, the inner voice purred. The version of you they couldn’t control. Ethan’s breath hitched. “Get out of my head.”I was here before you, the voice said. You’re the shadow. I’m the original pattern the one they backed up when things started failing.Maya’s eyes widened. “He’s merging. Ethan, listen if it stabilizes, you won’t be able to tell which thoughts are yours.”“I already can’t,” he whispered, gripping his skull.Images slammed into him, Vivian crying behind a glass wall, Gregory Sterling signing off on a death order, a lab tech shouting, We’re losing him! memories that felt like drowning inside someone else’s life.“Stop!” Ethan yelled. The inner voice laughed softly. No. We’re just getting star
CHAPTER 4 — THE MEMORY TRIGGER
Rain tore through the night like static, swallowing Ethan as he hit the water. Cold. Black. Silence. Then, air. He broke the surface, coughing, his hands clinging to a rusted ladder on the bridge’s underside.Footsteps echoed above. Voices. Flashlights slashed through the mist. “Target overboard! Search downstream!”Ethan pressed his forehead to the metal, breathing hard. “Not tonight,” he muttered. He climbed down into the shadowed underbelly of the city, following a drainage pipe until the world narrowed into concrete silence.The syringe throbbed in his pocket, its silver cap gleaming faintly even in the dark. He pulled it out. The label was blank. No logo. No formula. Just the note: “When you’re ready to remember.”“Remember what, Vivian?” he whispered. “What the hell did you put in me?”A voice echoed back, faint, almost a whisper of his own: “Not what, Ethan. Who.”He spun, heart hammering. “Who’s there?”Silence. Just the steady drip of water. He exhaled. “I’m losing it.”Then
You may also like
The Hidden Successor In Disguise
SHIROE76.7K viewsUnderestimated Son In Law
Raishico305.3K viewsI Married a Beautiful Boss After the Breakup
Seafarer's Strike186.4K viewsRevenge Of The Rejected Heir
Beautypete95.7K viewsLust in the line of duty
Aisles288 viewsTHE MAN THEY TRIED TO ERASE
Wednesday Adaire553 viewsHazeed : Guardian Of The World
MDW1.7K viewsDOCTOR’S LEGACY
Bamy writes110 views