Kai felt cold sweat running down his neck as he leaned, breathless, against the wall covered in blue moss. His whole body ached, muscles tense and heavy, as if every cell was being sucked into that place. The air smelled of rusty metal, dust, and ancient dampness, and the whispers still spun through the corners, never truly ceasing, even when he tried not to listen. His core vibrated, almost painfully, an irregular beat that seemed to be tuned to invisible forces, a frequency not of this world.
Kai looked again toward the center of the chamber, where the black object pulsed on top of the pedestal. The thing's light seemed to suck in everything around it, making every corner even darker, every shadow denser. The moss on the walls shifted, growing and shrinking to the rhythm of winds that didn't exist. For a moment, Kai had the impression he wasn't alone there, that someone else was watching, lurking between the shadows and the wires hanging from the cracked ceiling.
He took a deep breath, trying to steady his trembling hands. There was no use running from fear, not in that place. With every step, it felt like the floor was changing, that the corridor he had just crossed no longer existed behind him. The world inside was malleable, made of memories, scares, and scars. Kai gripped the knife tightly, the cold metal grounding him, keeping him from losing his grip on reality altogether.
He tried to distract himself by examining the details of the room. Glass tanks lined the walls, most of them cracked, wires submerged in a dark, viscous liquid. There were twisted metal pipes, surgical instruments covered in rust, and a row of metal boxes, all locked, as if they hid horrors that should never be seen. The symbols on the walls shimmered, shifting shape every time his gaze passed by. It was impossible to tell if it was just imagination or if the rules of that place really followed no logic at all.
In one of the tanks, he found an old badge, half-consumed by moss. "Dr. R. Menezes," it read, the ink almost gone. Kai found himself wondering who the people were that worked there, what kind of research had been conducted in such a hostile place. What had they tried to control or discover? Silence offered no answer, only the walls, humming softly, as if trying to remember something long lost.
At the center, the black object seemed to call to him. Kai didn't want to approach, but something beyond fear drove him,a curiosity that mixed hope and terror. Maybe there was a hidden way out, some secret to escaping that nightmare alive. Or maybe it was just the end itself, disguised as an answer. Even so, every step was inevitable.
He approached the pedestal slowly, feeling his core in his chest beat differently, almost in sync with the dark light emanating from the object. A sharp chill ran down his spine. Kai reached out his hand, hesitating, and felt a strange vibration, as if an invisible field tried to push his fingers away. His skin tingled, and the whispers, until then distant, turned into a muffled roar, ancient voices mixed with names he didn't recognize. He only realized he was holding his breath when the air ran out.
Suddenly, the room grew colder. The moss seemed to shrink away, fleeing from the object's light. The knife slipped from Kai's hands, falling to the stone floor with a dull sound. Fear turned into paralysis. He felt Lina's gaze, the memory of her face pulling him out of his stupor, forcing him not to give in to dizziness. "Just one more step," he thought, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to burst from nowhere.
That's when he heard a loud crack,the glass of one of the tanks suddenly splintered, spreading a thin mist that slithered across the floor and wrapped around Kai's feet. The smell changed; now there was a sweet, metallic scent, almost suffocating. On the pedestal, the black object vibrated more intensely, pulsing with a frequency that seemed to echo inside his own chest.
Kai tried to back away, but his body wouldn't respond. For a moment, space distorted: the lab receded, the walls stretched, the ceiling disappeared. He saw a dark street, a city swallowed by fog, Lina crying alone at home. He saw shadow monsters lurking under dead lamplights. He saw the machine-meteorite falling from the sky, the impact destroying everything, blue roots growing between bones and concrete. His core pounded hard, and suddenly it was as if another consciousness entered, pushing his own to the background.
"Not now," he thought, fighting not to faint. He closed his eyes, searching for his own voice in the midst of the chaos. He remembered the smell of burnt rice in his childhood, his mother's laughter before she vanished, the touch of Lina's hand when she woke up scared at night. These fragments of memory served as anchors, and the world slowly began to piece itself together around him.
The sense of invasion faded. Kai started breathing again, trembling, and forced himself to open his eyes. The black object was still there, untouched, but now it seemed less threatening,or maybe he had simply run out of the capacity to feel fear in that moment. He picked up the knife from the floor and walked to one of the tanks, searching for anything useful. At the bottom, there was a laminated paper, folded and half-dissolved. He fished it out with the knife's handle and unfolded it, his eyes running over lines in a language he barely recognized, but that his brain, strangely, started to decipher on its own.
Words like "memory," "containment," "origin," and "host" jumped out from the text, without making full sense. There was a drawing of a human core, lines connecting the center to tentacled shapes around it. In the corner, the word "Zero" was scribbled several times, as if someone had tried to warn or highlight something important.
Kai's core pulsed so hard it actually hurt. He looked at the object on the pedestal, feeling like he needed to choose: leave and try to forget, or risk it and touch the object, no matter what happened. He thought of Lina, thought of everything he'd been through up to that point,the hunger, the disdain, days stolen by illness, the constant fear. The doubt weighed heavier than the knife in his hand.
Kai took a deep breath, approached the pedestal, and before his body could freeze, stretched out his fingers, gently touching the black object. Instantly, a wave of pain shot up his arm, traveled through his shoulder, and exploded in his core. He screamed, but no sound came out. He felt his consciousness splinter into thousands of pieces, images of war, distant planets, beings of shadow and light flashing through his mind at an insane speed.
He saw a living machine, felt the hunger of the void, the presence of an entity that had existed long before any human. The pain was so intense it felt like his body was burning from the inside out, dismantling every cell and putting them back together in a different order. Unknown voices shouted names, sentences, commands,everything blurred together until it became a deafening roar.
Suddenly, everything went white. A flash filled his mind, erasing the lab, the walls, his own body. Kai no longer knew who he was, or where he was. Only the sensation of being watched, analyzed, dismantled, and rebuilt.
He didn't know how long he stayed like that. When the pain finally faded, he opened his eyes, panting, lying on his side on the cold floor. The black object was gone from the pedestal, and a new weight occupied the center of his chest, in his core. It was as if the thing was now inside him, pulsing, sharing space, whispering in a language impossible to describe.
Kai tried to get up, but his whole body trembled. The world around him seemed different,colors more intense, the air heavier, shadows more alive. The whispers, now, were almost clear words, promises of power and threat. "Now we are one. The real test begins."
He looked around, noticing that the whole lab seemed to have witnessed him,every wire, every cracked tank, every symbol on the walls pointed to him, as if the fate of that place had been to wait for this exact moment.
With effort, Kai dragged himself to the wall, breathing slowly, trying to understand what had just happened. His core beat out of rhythm, mixing fear, pain, and something new,a kind of energy he had never felt before. He knew, somehow, that he was no longer alone.
Lina, he thought suddenly, her face appearing clearly, as if calling to him from the other side of the world. "I need to get out of here. I need to go back." But he knew that going back would never be the same. Something inside him had changed forever.
Kai closed his eyes, listening to the echo of all the voices,human, inhuman, ancient, forgotten,now vibrating alongside his own heart. He knew the nightmare was just beginning, and that the path back to the light was further away than he could ever imagine.
And then...