I used to think the factory smelled of steel and sterilized hope. But now, it reeked of something else—secrecy. Decay. Danger.
For weeks, the air around me had thickened. Not from the winter fog crawling across Berlin's skyline, but from something more insidious. My mother's pharmaceutical factory—her life's work—was bleeding out in silence.
Every missing crate of drugs. Every whispered meeting behind closed office doors. Every night guard who ended up in the hospital with bruises and broken bones. None of it added up.
But I couldn't prove it.
Not yet.
I stopped attending lectures, stopped sleeping. Every night, I drowned myself in clinical research papers, drug trafficking case studies, and forensic pharmacy journals. Cross-referencing vanished batch codes with known black market requests. Searching for something—anything—that would make it all make sense.
2000 units of a banned neural sedative—Qyrophen-9—had vanished without a trace. A drug pulled from circulation due to unpredictable neurotoxic side effects. Hallucinations. Paralysis. Death.
Why was it still being produced?
Why was it still leaving the factory?
Winter break gave me my moment. I told Krithi I was heading home. She believed me. I sent her back to India on an early flight. No loose ends. No one to ask questions.
I flew to Berlin alone. It looked different in the cold—less like a medical marvel, more like a concrete beast. The gates greeted me with a hiss, swallowing me into the belly of something I wasn't sure I could survive.
Inside, the machines still hummed. Still pressed and sealed tablets with perfect, mechanical rhythm. But the people… they avoided my eyes. Their voices dropped when I passed. The warmth I remembered had frozen over.
The factory manager, Mrs. Koenig, wore a blazer two sizes too small and a smile far too tight.
"Yes, we've had issues," she said, waving a pale hand. "Thefts. Night guards attacked. We've filed the necessary reports."
"Attacks that only leave the guards unconscious? No inventory recovered? No real police inquiry?" I asked.
Her eyes twitched.
"Security is being increased."
But I didn't need more guards. I needed answers. I found them at the Charité University Hospital—four of them, bandaged and broken. One with his jaw wired shut. Another with tremors in his left hand that wouldn't stop.
I asked them for details. Most shook their heads, scared or confused.
But one—Andrej, the youngest—whispered.
"They didn't come to steal," he said, barely audible. "They came to send a message."
"What did they look like?"
"There were three. Maybe four. But one… one stood out. Bald. Pale. Tall. Moved like a machine. And…"
"And?"
He hesitated. "Tattoo. On his chest. A serpent coiled around a dagger. Black ink. Right over his heart."
My stomach twisted. That symbol. I'd seen it once—buried in a leaked PDF of banned medical syndicates. A forgotten footnote from a WHO ethics tribunal:
Mercurium.( A ghost network of rogue scientists, black-market medics, and ex-military doctors. Known for illegal field-testing. Motto: "Cure through chaos.)
Most believed it was myth. A conspiracy. But if that symbol was real—then Mercurium was real.
And they were inside my mother's factory.I started watching everyone. Their habits. Their routes. The way they moved when no one was looking.
That's when I noticed Mr. Clark.
Logistics head. Fifteen years with the company. But too clean. Too quiet. He never logged in or out of the restricted inventory system—but batches still disappeared on his shift.
During a staff meeting on supply chain delays, his pen suddenly exploded—black ink splattered across his pristine shirt.
"Scheisse," he cursed, fumbling for tissues.
He stood. Unbuttoned.
And I saw it.
There—etched into his chest—the serpent. Wound around a dagger. The same as Andrej described.
My breath hitched.
His eyes met mine.
They knew.
He saw the recognition flash through me. And in that moment, something in his posture changed. He smiled—not in apology, but in acknowledgment. The way predators do when the prey finally realizes it's been cornered.
I stood. My voice was low. "Why?"
He didn't flinch.
He reached up, slowly, and lifted the chain around his neck. A silver pendant—a small cylindrical vial—swung in the stale air.
"Because this world runs on illusions," he whispered. "Control. Safety. Law. It's all a lie. We're not poisoning people. We're evolving them."
"What is this?" I demanded.
His smile widened.
"This," he said, holding the vial to his lips, "is an ocean."
And then—
CRUNCH.
He bit down. Glass shattered in his mouth. A wet gurgle. Foam exploded from his lips. His body convulsed.
Within seconds—he collapsed.
Dead. Chaos erupted—screams, someone called security, two others tried CPR. But I didn't move.
Because something else caught my eye.
The folder he'd been holding—drenched in ink, slipping from his fingers—spilled open.
Inside: a laminated passcard.
I picked it up.
Facility: HYBRIS PHASE III
Location: Prague, Czech Republic
Access Level: BLACK SIGIL
Clearance Holder: DR. MEERA VYAS
I blinked. My throat closed.
That name.
My mother's name.A junior chemist stood frozen near the doorway. Her face had gone pale, her clipboard slipping from her fingers. Her mouth opened, but no words came.
"You… weren't supposed to see that," she whispered, almost to herself.I stared at the card in my palm. It was plain, ordinary. The kind of thing you'd swipe to enter a hotel room. But it felt heavier than it should.
Behind me, factory staff shouted, someone called security—but it all sounded distant, underwater.
Then the hallway lights flickered.
And from somewhere deep within the facility—beyond the research wing, below the production floor—I heard a slow, metallic click.
Like something had just been triggered.
Or… unlocked.
And suddenly, I wasn't sure who was watching whom anymore.Before I could react, a hand grabbed my shoulder.
"Hey—hey!" a voice said sharply.
I turned—my friend Ross stood beside me, his face tight with panic.
"You need to get out of here—now."
I didn't resist. My brain was still reeling.
He half-dragged me out through the west stairwell as red lights pulsed and chaos grew behind us. The last thing I saw before the exit doors slammed shut was the folder still lying on the floor… its pages flapping in the draft like wings.