The Tales of the Legendary Mimic : Momo

Everyone wishes to be home

“Alright,” Jane said quietly, looking around at the faces that had chosen to stay. “Since you all agreed to complete the mission, I’ll have my cadet inform Command to withdraw the rest of the soldiers. They deserve to be with their families. This mission shouldn’t take that from them.”

Her voice was steady, but there was a tired weight behind it. She turned away, tuning her walkie‑talkie and stepping aside.

“Cadet, listen up,” Jane said, forcing herself to sound composed. “Relay to Quarters: remaining platoons are to withdraw to the outer perimeter and prepare for evac. My team will continue the operation with the remaining mercenary squads. Confirm.”

“Haven’t the mercenaries already fled? Why cover for them, Captain?” a shaky voice asked.

“Just do as I told you,” Jane sighed in one breath, closing her eyes.

Static crackled, then a faint affirmative came through. “Yes… sir…!”

She continued, “And also…”

There was a pause—too long, too fragile. Jane swallowed, then added, more softly, “If I don’t make it back… take care of my father. Make sure he hears it from you—not from a report. Understand?”

Her cadet went quiet, then answered with a strained, choked, “Yes, ma’am. I mean—SIR, YES SIR!”

“Good soldier. If I do make it back, I hope to see you as a well‑bloodied veteran.”

Smiling faintly as emotion threatened to crack her composure, she clenched her jaw and shut off the channel. She exhaled, squared her shoulders, and returned to the others.

By then, the mercenaries had already jogged ahead, restless and eager—or too foolish to wait.

Max crossed his arms. “We stay together,” he said. “No more splitting up. Not with people going missing like this.”

Sarah nodded quickly. “Yeah. I’m not exactly eager to run a solo side quest out here.”

Lorne gave a single, slow nod as well. “Agreed. Whatever is prowling around here feeds on isolation. No more gaps in our line.”

Jane considered them, then nodded. “Sticking together isn’t a bad idea. Fine. We move as one. But if we’re going to find Henrik, Rios, and the rest… we need a plan.”

She turned to Sarah. “Walk me through it. At what point did they go missing?”

Sarah rubbed her forehead, replaying everything. “After we got to the secure console, they said they’d hit the break room. A slot machine just ahead—it was all Henrik’s idea. Rios got pulled along with him. It was supposed to be a quick in‑and‑out drill… didn’t expect it to turn into a missing‑persons quest.” She winced. “By the time I finished cracking the base code and went looking, they were gone.”

Jane tried cycling through other team frequencies again as they walked, thumb tapping the dial, jaw tight. “…Alpha team, respond. Bravo, check in. Anyone?”

Only silence answered. The occasional static hiss, nothing more.

“Nothing,” Jane muttered, lowering the device. “Either they’re jammed, unconscious, or—” She cut herself off. No point finishing that sentence out loud.

Sarah’s shoulders hunched. “This is my fault. I should’ve kept them there. I should’ve—”

Jane shook her head sharply. “Blame is later. Right now, we find them or find out what took them. Eyes up. Weapons ready. Act like a soldier.”

Sarah snapped a salute. “Yes, sir.”

Jane patted her back once, a brief, grounding gesture. “Move out.”

They began their slow advance through the dim corridors, boots echoing in the half‑lit silence, until the faded signs led them back to the snack hub,a small break room, half‑lit by failing strips, dust motes drifting in the stale air. The vending machines stood silent, the same ones Henrik had coaxed into coughing up stale snacks.

“Nothing obvious,” Max muttered, letting Goo ooze from his pouch and spread in a thin film over the floor, sweeping slowly to catch a scent.

For a moment, no one knew exactly where to start.

Then Lorne moved forward, dropping into a low crouch. His posture shifted, all lazy indifference gone, replaced by the sharp focus of a veteran tracker. He ran two fingers lightly along the dusty floor where the scuffs and prints overlapped.

He rubbed the dust between thumb and forefinger, lifted it to his nose, and inhaled.

“You know the cinnamon‑leather compound used in modern army boots?” Lorne murmured. “That synthetic binding agent? The stench is unmistakable. It always leaves a mark.”

“How come Goo didn’t notice that…?” Max frowned. The mimic was good at sensing auras, maybe he wasn’t using it right yet. So far, Goo only reacted to energies it could eat. Maybe that was a good thing; at least Max didn’t have to worry about his pouch devouring people. Or their boots.

Ignoring Max’s self‑reflection, Lorne rolled the dust again, eyes narrowing. “Henrik and Rios came through here. Someone else probably military—did too. But the way the prints break… one of them hesitated. Cautious. He realized something was wrong.”

Lorne stood and pointed down a dim service corridor leading away from the break room. “Tracks pull this way. Come with me. Stay sharp. From how these scrape marks sketch out the last steps, that soldier was probably cautious too… yet he vanished anyway.”

GARFIELD exclaimed grimly. “Then we’re not dealing with a canine or anything that hunts loud and messy. If it were, there’d be claw rakes everywhere, blood scent—a death aura hanging over this place already.”

Lorne’s gaze hardened. “Exactly.Sir Garfield Whatever was very quiet."

"Careful even. definitelyhas a strong instinct or intelligence i fear.”Garfield added rubbing his chin

They advanced down the corridor, following Lorne’s tracking expertise and sense of direction. The emergency lights flickered, throwing their shadows long and thin over the scarred walls.

Jane glanced back once at the empty snack hub, at the lifeless machines and dust‑coated floor. Two of her soldiers had walked in here for something as trivial as snacks—and never walked out.

She faced forward again.

“Henrik, Rios,” she murmured under her breath as the team’s footsteps faded into the dark. “Hold on. We’re coming.”

Somewhere deep within the facility, Dr. Siri opened her eyes.

Darkness pressed in on all sides.

Not darkness—flesh.

She hung motionless for a heartbeat, suspended in something that felt like a membranous sack, its inner surface slick and warm against her skin. Thick, sticky fluid clung to her, making every small movement slow and sluggish.

Her breathing quickened.

Where… am I?

A faint glow pulsed somewhere far off in the murky fluid—a soft, shifting light at the edge of her vision, just bright enough to cut a small hole in the living dark, drawing her attention.

Siri swallowed hard, tasting metal and something sour. Her mind, still foggy, seized on the only hope it could find.

Maybe it’s the sun, she thought wildly. Maybe that’s a way out.

She forced one arm to move, then the other, each motion dragging through the viscous medium as if she were swimming through half‑set glue. Every push sent ripples along the membrane; the surrounding flesh answered with a slow, unsettling pulse, as though the chamber itself were breathing.

Still, she kept going.

Teeth clenched.

One stroke. Two. Three.

The light grew stronger.

She moved closer.

And closer.

Until, finally, she saw it clearly.

Not sunlight.

A crystal.

It hung there in the center of the chamber, embedded in the fleshy architecture like a heart in a ribcage—a prism of rainbow light wedged between thick muscular cords that looked disturbingly like giant, living innards. The colors shifted and shimmered, casting oily reflections across the pulsing walls.

Siri stopped, floating before it.

For several seconds, she could only stare, listening to the deep, slow thud of the nest around her.

Realisation crystallizes.

“This is it,” she tried to whisper, but stopped as she would end up swallowing. Her voice barely carried in the dense fluid. “The nest core… this has to be it. matches the description, only bigger than the average football description.”

If she could grab it, maybe she could end this. End the mission in one stroke. Let them all go home.

Her fingers trembled as she reached toward the gem, every instinct screaming at her that she was touching something no human mind was meant to touch.

Her hand crossed the last few centimeters.

The air around the crystal seemed to vibrate.

And just before her fingers closed on it, something invisible pushed back.

A pressure built between her skin and the light, like a wall of unseen force.

Almost… there… she thought, forcing her arm to extend just a little farther.

The gem pulsed once, a sharp, strobe‑like flash.

Then something inside her head began to scream.