Long-press a paragraph to send danmaku
"You’re shaking, Kane. It’s pathetic," Grimm spat, his voice a wet rattle.
He had me pinned against the rusted grating of the ventilation shaft, his clawed hand digging into my shoulder. The pressure was immense, a dull ache that screamed through my mutated nerves. I could smell him—rotting meat and old copper.
"Get off me," I snapped, trying to shove his forearm away. My muscles felt like frayed wires, twitching with a hunger that wasn't just in my stomach. It was in my marrow.
"Hungry? I bet you are," Grimm sneered, leaning closer. His eyes were milky, devoid of pupils, but he saw right through me. "You think we’re friends? You think this little alliance means something in this hellhole?"
"I didn't say we were friends," I hissed. "I said we survive."
"Survive?" Grimm laughed, a sound like grinding stones. "There is no survival here. Only the feast. And right now, you look like a snack."
He tightened his grip, and I felt a sharp prick as his talons breached my skin. I didn't scream. I couldn't. My throat felt tight, clogged with a desperate, animal instinct. I looked at him—really looked at him—and saw the way his chest heaved. He was starving too. We were both just dogs fighting over a bone that didn't exist.
"What do you want, Grimm?" I asked, my voice dropping to a low growl.
"I want the shard, you idiot," he barked. "The one the Doctor hid in the last batch. The one that actually lets us keep our minds when we shift. You saw it, didn't you? You saw the glow."
I stopped fighting for a second. The shard. I remembered a flicker of iridescent light in the last vat—a jagged piece of genetic code that didn't belong to any beast in this lab. If he knew about it, then the Doctor was playing us both.
"I don't have it," I lied.
Grimm's face twisted. He slammed me back against the metal wall, the impact knocking the wind out of me. "Liar. You’ve got that look in your eyes. That 'I know something you don't' look. Give it to me, or I'll rip it out of your throat."
"Rip it then," I challenged, my teeth baring. "See if you can find it before the Cleaner finds us."
At the mention of the Cleaner, Grimm stiffened. His grip loosened just a fraction. We both knew what that meant. The Cleaner wasn't a test subject. It was the lab's biological reset button. A mindless, towering mass of teeth and acid designed to wipe the slate clean when the experiments got too messy.
"Shut up," Grimm whispered, his voice suddenly urgent. "If it's nearby, we're both dead."
"Then maybe you should stop trying to kill me and start listening," I said, sliding out from under his arm. I stepped back, breathing hard, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. "We move together. We find the shard. Then you can try to eat me. Deal?"
Grimm stared at me for a long beat. He looked like he wanted to tear my head off, but the fear of the Cleaner was stronger. "Deal. But if you trip, I'm eating your legs first."
"Fair enough," I muttered.
We started moving through the corridor, the walls slick with a translucent slime that smelled like ozone and bleach. Every sound was amplified—the drip of a pipe, the distant screech of something being torn apart. It was a symphony of slaughter, and we were the lead instruments.
"Do you think she's watching?" Grimm asked, his voice barely audible.
"Who?"
"Vivian. The bitch in the glass. I can feel her. Like a cold finger running down my spine."
I looked up at the observation deck. The glass was tinted, reflecting only our distorted, monstrous shapes. I couldn't see her, but I knew she was there. I could feel her curiosity—that clinical, detached hunger for data. To her, we weren't people. We weren't even pets. We were just variables in an equation she was solving with blood.
"She's not watching for us to survive," I said. "She's watching to see who wins. That's the game."
"I'm going to kill her," Grimm whispered. "I'm going to tear that pretty face off and feed it to the crawlers."
"Get in line," I replied.
Suddenly, the lights flickered. A deep, vibrating hum filled the hallway, shaking the floor beneath our claws. It wasn't a machine. It was a growl—so low it felt like it was coming from inside my own chest.
"Did you hear that?" Grimm asked, his posture shifting into a crouch.
"Yeah," I said, my skin prickling. "Run."
We didn't need to be told twice. We bolted, our mutated limbs slapping against the cold concrete. Behind us, a wall exploded. Not a door—the actual wall. A massive, pale limb, thick as a tree trunk and covered in weeping sores, smashed through the masonry.
It was the Cleaner.
It didn't have eyes. It didn't need them. It tracked us by the scent of our fear and the vibration of our panic. It let out a shriek that tore through the air, a sound so violent it made my ears bleed.
"Go! Go! Go!" Grimm roared, shoving me forward.
We dove into a side chamber, a narrow room filled with discarded surgical tools and shattered vials. I scrambled over a pile of rusted trays, my claws scraping against the metal. I could hear the Cleaner behind us, the rhythmic *thump-shink, thump-shink* of its massive weight crushing everything in its path.
"In here!" I yelled, pointing to a heavy steel door.
We slammed into the room and Grimm threw his weight against the door, sliding the bolt home just as a massive impact rocked the frame. The steel groaned. A dent appeared in the center of the door, as if something had punched through it with the force of a freight train.
We collapsed against the wall, both of us panting, steam rising from our bodies in the frigid air.
"We're trapped," Grimm gasped, his chest heaving. "We're dead. We're fucking dead."
"Shut up," I snapped, looking around the room. "There's a vent. Look."
I pointed to a small grate near the ceiling. It was too small for the Cleaner, but maybe—just maybe—it was enough for us.
"I can't fit in that," Grimm groaned. "I'm too big. You... you might make it."
I looked at him. The rivalry, the hunger, the hatred—it was all there, but so was a flicker of something else. Desperation. He knew he was the primary target. He was the bigger meal.
"I'm not leaving you," I said, and I hated myself for saying it.
"Don't be a hero, Kane," Grimm spat. "You're a monster now. Start acting like one. Save yourself."
Before I could respond, the door screamed. The steel didn't just bend; it tore. A massive, pale hand—fingers ending in jagged, blackened nails—ripped through the metal like it was wet paper.
Grimm didn't have time to scream.
The Cleaner's arm shot forward with blinding speed, its grip locking around Grimm's waist. The sound was sickening—a wet, crunching noise as ribs snapped and organs collapsed under the pressure.
"Kane!" Grimm shrieked, his voice breaking.
I lunged forward, trying to grab his arm, but the Cleaner was too fast. With one violent jerk, it yanked Grimm toward its gaping, tooth-lined maw. I watched in horror as the beast's jaws clamped down on Grimm's shoulder, tearing through muscle and bone with a wet rip.
Grimm's eyes widened, a look of pure shock crossing his face. He didn't even fight it at the end. He just looked at me, his mouth opening to say something—maybe a warning, maybe a goodbye.
Then, the Cleaner ripped him open.
It wasn't a clean kill. It was a slaughter. Grimm's torso was torn wide, and in that moment, something happened. A burst of light—the iridescent glow I'd seen before—exploded from within Grimm's chest.
It was the shard. He'd had it all along.
As the Cleaner tore the shard free from Grimm's remains, the jagged crystal shattered. A spray of glowing, molten genetic material erupted into the air, hot and visceral.
I didn't think. I didn't breathe. I just opened my mouth.
A glob of the searing, crimson liquid splashed directly onto my tongue. It tasted like copper, electricity, and old blood. It burned like acid, sliding down my throat and igniting a fire in my gut that threatened to consume me from the inside out.
Suddenly, a searing, holographic red screen flickered to life in my vision, pulsing with a violent intensity:
[GENETIC SHARD CONSUMED: APEX CORE DETECTED] [EVOLUTION TRIGGERED: 0% ... 12% ... 45%] [STATUS: DEVOURING COMPLETE]
I froze, the taste of Grimm still on my lips, as a slow, rhythmic sound drifted through the shattered door.
Clapping.
I turned my head slowly. Behind the reinforced glass of the observation window, Dr. Vivian was standing there. She wasn't horrified. She wasn't disgusted. She was smiling.
She leaned closer to the glass, her lips moving, her voice barely a whisper but cutting through the silence like a scalpel.
"Beautiful," she murmured. "Now, let's see what you've become."