The voice on the line stammered, strained under pressure."Sir… it—it was his cellmate. 289's own cellmate beat him to unconsciousness."
There was silence. And then fury.
"You what?!" the Warden Captain's voice exploded like a mine. "I told you idiots to stay close to their cell. Especially their cell! You think this is a fucking playground?"
He stood from his desk, fists clenched, face red with anger.
"And what is this stupid news of 'unconsciousness'? You want all our heads to roll? You think this place forgives weakness?!"
Then, he turned sharply to the guard who had burst in earlier, still soaked with the red liquid.
"And you. What do you mean by blood rain? Is this some kind of twisted joke? You think I'll laugh at this?!"
The guard opened his mouth to explain, but the Warden raised a hand, silencing him without a word.
He turned back to the comm device and spoke with deadly calm."Get 290 out of that damn unit. Now. Remove the heavy room door block on all active cells. But listen closely—only 290 leaves."
"And the ones who beat up 289?" the voice asked.
"Leave them." His voice dropped to a venomous whisper. "Let them rot. Let them drown in it. The usual."
Then he cut the call.
No goodbyes.
Just the silence that follows when death is coming.
The others in the command office—scientists, surveillance officers, bio-trackers, psych analysts—were already gathering around the main screens.
It was chaos outside.
Dozens of curved monitors displayed various corners of the Blood Cage—cells, corridors, rooftops, perimeter walls. Every single one showed the same thing: rain.
But not clear.
Not water.
It was thick. Dark. Red.
Blood.
Raining in slow, unnatural sheets. It splashed against the iron walls, smeared glass, soaked the guards on patrol, painted the concrete floors. No clouds, no thunder, no explanation. Just blood.
And screams.
Prisoners were howling in their units. Some were clawing at the bars. Others were praying, vomiting, or laughing maniacally. A few sat still, heads tilted back, letting the blood soak their faces like it was a blessing or a curse.
"Sir," one of the researchers said, trembling. "We're not detecting any weather abnormalities outside the Cage. This is localized. It's not from the sky."
"What do you mean 'not from the sky'?" another asked.
"It's… forming above the facility. From nothing. Literally just… appearing. Matter out of void."
The room buzzed with reports. Logs were filling. Biometrics spiking. Multiple units had already lost control. Guards were locking down access points.
Then the main terminal blinked. A transmission.
Headquarters.
The screen crackled to life, revealing a dark chamber and a pale woman in a military lab coat—General Nyara. Her face was stone. Voice, colder.
"Blood Cage—this is HQ Control."
The entire room went still.
"We have detected what we classify as a Class-9 Paranormal Manifestation. You are to enforce a total lockdown. No one in. No one out. Reinforce mental integrity walls immediately."
The Warden Captain stepped forward. "General, with respect—this isn't a Class-9. This is uncharted."
"I'm not interested in your classification," she snapped. "I'm telling you what it is now. Contain it. No public comms, no leaks, no drones. Anyone who attempts to leave the premises is to be detained—or neutralized."
There was silence. Everyone watched the droplets crawl down the windows like red fingers.
"What about the prisoners?" one of the guards asked.
General Nyara leaned forward."Watch them. This didn't start because of them.But it might just be for them."
The screen cut.
The Warden turned slowly, scanning the room. "This is no longer a maintenance issue. It's a containment one."
One of the scientists whispered, "Sir… it's spreading."
Everyone looked up.
"What do you mean?"
She pointed to the secondary screens. "It's dripping into the lower levels. Even the sealed chambers. And the energy signature is climbing."
They all turned to the biometric reader.
A single red dot was blinking wildly.
Cell 470.
The heartbeat monitor was accelerating.
Unnaturally.
The guard at the system gasped. "Sir—he's not alone in there anymore."
The room fell dead silent.
"Impossible," someone said.
But the screen didn't lie.
There were two energy signatures in Cell 470.
And one of them wasn't human.
The biometric reader continued its maddening pulse.
Two lifeforms. One cell. One… not human.
In Cell 470, Guard Rami stood stiff, fingers trembling just slightly as he prepared to unlock the reinforced titanium slide-door—nicknamed the Maw by the staff, for how it looked when it opened. Like a mouth.
He had heard the captain's orders. Extract 290. Leave the others. No time for questions. No hesitation.
Rami tapped the keypad. It blinked green.
The Maw groaned open slowly, revealing the dark, moist interior of 470. The walls glistened with condensation—or blood? He couldn't tell. The lighting flickered. That damn rain had begun dripping through even the sealed walls somehow.
The smell was wrong. Copper. Rot. And something metallic but electric, like burnt circuitry and wet bone.
Inside, 290 was huddled in a corner, his body convulsing lightly—not in pain, but in terror. His eyes were glassy. Wide. Fixed on something that wasn't visible.
Anthom—289—lay unmoving on the opposite end, still unconscious. But the room around him… was pulsing. Almost like the air near him had weight, density, distortion.
Rami stepped in.
And then it began.
Every single other inmate in the cell block, those jammed into the compound's connected units, exploded into a frenzy.
Screams, unified and wild, erupted like a shockwave. Prisoners hurled themselves against the iron-bonded bars, which were called Reverence Spikes, forged from a blend of magnetic steel and an unknown alloy meant to suppress psychokinetic outbursts.
But the spikes weren't holding.
They bent.
Twitched.
Rattled.
Screams turned to howls. Not of rage. Of worship. They were shouting a name no one had taught them. "Auum."
290 looked up through the veil of his own tears. Rami had his gun trained on the cell now, backing away slowly, unsure if the danger was 289… or the others.
And then from the tiny square ventilation window—nothing more than a shoebox-sized opening with rusted grates—a roar exploded in.
Not a beast.
Not a man.
Something in-between.
It was low, wet, like a throat tearing apart to scream. It echoed through every hallway, every pipeline, every lung.
Rami froze. He saw movement outside the window. Something massive was crawling along the outer walls of the Blood Cage.
Back in the command room, the monitors were glitching.
The five guards who had been exposed to the rain were now isolated. But it wasn't helping.
One of them, Lieutenant Goretti, had just slammed his own head into the wall repeatedly until the bone cracked. His teeth chattered a phrase over and over:
"The gate is not a gate. It's a cradle. It's a cradle. He's waking up."
Another had stripped off his armor and was writing symbols on his skin with his own blood, eyes rolled back in bliss.
And the worst—one of the internal security officers who had interacted with them directly—suddenly snapped. He grabbed the communicator, shoved it into his mouth, and started screaming down the frequency:
"He's in the blood. He's in the blood. It's not rain. It's him. He's testing the skin. He's testing the cage!"
Before anyone could react, he burst forward, headbutted a scientist, and ran straight for the elevator to the lower levels.
Blam!
Shot clean through the chest by the Warden's sidearm.
But even after the shot, he kept crawling, muttering, giggling.
"Cradle… cradle… he's learning…"
Back in Cell 470, something changed.
289's chest rose. Then fell. Then rose again—but slower. Deliberate.
Not like someone regaining consciousness.
More like something… trying on the body.
The very walls began to drip darker now, as if they were bleeding. Rami stumbled back, dragging 290 toward the hallway. But 290 began convulsing, screaming.
"Don't take me out! He's awake now! He sees me—don't take me out!!"
"Shut up!" Rami barked. "I've got orders—"
Suddenly, the entire cell block went dark. All lights. All screens.
A single emergency siren hummed.
And then the Reverence Spikes…
snapped.
All of them.
In every connected cell.
They didn't just bend.
They bent outward. Toward the hallway.
As if something from within was about to step out.
Rami raised his weapon, voice shaky. "HQ, we need backup—"
But the communicator fizzled.
Then came footsteps.
Not from a prisoner.
Not from 289.
From the ceiling.
He looked up.
Something was crawling, upside down.
And then it leaned in and whispered in a voice only he could hear:
"He gave me skin."