Hell wasn't fire. It was teeth. Jagged, obsidian teeth snapping inches from 4317's face, dripping viscous sap that sizzled where it struck the concrete. The mutant plant lunged, a grotesque whip of gangrenous vines. He threw himself sideways, the sodden weight of 3952's body nearly dragging him down. The air cracked with the sound of rending rock where he'd just knelt. His instinct cried. He wanted to run.
The command screamed through his veins, overriding terror, overriding grief. Survival was the only ritual left. He scrambled backwards, feet skidding on the slippery concrete. He then spun and ran. Not with strategy, not with hope, but with the raw, animal panic of prey sighting the predator's maw. The monstrous shriek echoed behind him, shaking the ground, promising certain death. He didn't dare look back. He focused only on the tunnel that he crawled out of. It was a potential cover, but a dead end.
He felt power run through his veins, instinctively he knew it wasn't enough.He hadn't made it fifty yards when it lunged, he could hear it whipping through the air. He sidestepped the coiling blur. The tendril smashed into dirt behind him, spraying shards of concrete on him. He pivoted and punched screaming. A clean jab with audible CRACK.
It was like hitting steel under bark. His knuckles split instantly. Blood sprayed. The vine recoiled too, ever so slightly.
4317 ignored the sting. The tarp across his back shifted with every breath, pressed tight to him by cords. He could hear the soft clack of a bone knocking his spine. Every movement firmed his resolve.
He roared and lunged.
The Gravet-Maw coiled into the air and spun. The mouth at the end opened wide—a ring of rotating black teeth grinding in a wet, hungry circle.
It struck.
4317 ducked low, felt the wind rip over his scalp, it grazed. Blood trickled down.He didn't stop. He leapt forward, closer to the tunnel.
Searchlights lanced down from the facility's upper levels, blinding white shafts cutting through the perpetual twilight. Startling both him and the vine.
I need to end it. FAST…
He took out the vial Hel gave him.
Don't drink all of it at once or just after the effect ends. He remebered Hel's warning.
He didn't hesitate. He popped the cork open. The smell burnt his nose, it was strong. He gulped half off it. And stashed the rest.
It hit like lightning.
The world snapped into focus—too sharp, too bright. His limbs tingled like they'd been plunged in boiling water, but beneath the pain was… power.
4317 straightened.
The vine hissed, preparing for another strike.
He sprinted toward it. He leapt up onto the tendril's trunk, running along it like a firelit ghost.The maw twisted to meet him. Teeth spun.
He jumped into it. His arms wrapped around the maw just beneath the rotating mouth. Obsidian thorns ripped through his chest, carving trenches across his ribs. He screamed, teeth clenched, as the vine bucked violently beneath him. His feet barely held grip.
The mouth snapped, trying to bend backward and devour him.
He drove his thumb into its base, right where the fleshy segments met the mechanical churning. With a wet pop, something gave in. Mucus sprayed. The vine screeched, a sound like wet metal screaming across bone.
It shook violently, making him lose grip. The tendril whipped up slamming his side. His ribs cracked. He flew.
The world twisted.
He crashed into the dome's metal scaffold, steel creaking with the impact. The tarp slammed with him. Pain danced behind his eyes, but the potion kept him focused. He gritted his teeth, rolled to his knees, spat blood.
The vine came again, faster.
He met it head-on.
He ducked a lashing strike, then grabbed the thorned neck, heedless of the spikes shredding his palms. Muscles screamed, but he hauled the thing sideways, then slammed it into the steel wall. Again. And again. Until the metal dented and the vine's screech became wet, and weak.
It was still moving.
4317 wrapped his arms around the base of the maw, so close, he could see the teeth, smell the rot, old blood, chewed bone, and acidic sap. He screamed and slammed his head forward, again and again. Bone met bark. Pain exploded behind his eyes. His vision turned white, then red.
The vine writhed—but he didn't let go.
His hands slipped to the broken seam where he'd dug earlier. He tore into it with bare fingers, ripping through the meat, spraying black sap. The teeth spun wildly, biting the air, before jamming mid-rotation.
He found something pulsing, fist-sized knot, twitching like a dying heart.
He dug his fingers in. And ripped.
The Gravet-Maw Vine shrieked once—high and metallic—then collapsed like cut rope.
It was dead.
4317 fell to his knees, the heart-like core clenched in his fists, covered in its blood and his. His chest heaved and wheezed. Every part of him burned. His arms were shredded. His face bloodied. The cords of the tarp dug into his raw shoulders.
But 3952 was still there.
We're almost out.
His vision swam.
In the distance—boots echoed. Voices. He heard hatches burst open on a nearby security outcropping.
4317 didn't hesitate. He pulled out the vial and drank the last of it. It burned worse. He felt every muscle taut and twist, the blinding lights, the deafening boots, and the hatch wheel.
He ran to it and spun the wheel. It opened up in a darker, denser line. But he trusted 3952. He ran in the darkness. Towards the mutated forest clinging stubbornly to the edge of the blighted biome, fed by the same poisoned runoff that sustained the facility's horrors.
He ran, his lungs burned, the weight on his back grew heavier with every step. Every shadow seemed to writhe. Every distant sound could be pursuit.
He felt a rush of cool, damp air kissing his face. For the first time in his life, he wasn't stepping onto sterilized steel or rot-choked soil.
This was something else.
His bare foot sank into wet earth—soft, spongy, and strangely alive. He winced as mud filled the cracks in his callused heels, each movement tugging at torn skin along his thigh and ribs. The wound across his side—still half-closed—flared with every breath, but he didn't stop. Couldn't.
The sky above stretched out like nothing he'd ever seen. A vast ocean of black, stitched with shimmering dots. It glittered like dust across the vast dark.
"What are those? So pretty." He mused.
And there, suspended in the dark like an eye, was a white slit.
He stared at it, slack-jawed. "What… is that?"
It wasn't a drone. Not a lamp. Not a weapon.
Just… light. Pale and soft, unlike the flickering neon bulb and alarms of barracks. His heart beat faster, not in fear—but something close to awe. It soothed him.
The tarp on his back rustled. 3952's body—light, broken, wrapped tightly. He adjusted the straps, careful.
"No wonder you always snuck out. Why did you keep coming back…"
He sighed, taking off into the unknown, half-limping, half-sprinting. Branches clawed at his arms. Ferns parted underfoot, their leaves slick with rain. He didn't know where he was going, but the stories he heard from 3952 were etched in his soul.
The potion still burned in his blood. Fire in his muscles, thunder in his chest. But it was fading. Fast. Every step dug deeper into pain. He gritted his teeth, swearing with each ragged gasp.
"You lied to me," he muttered under his breath, remembering 3952's voice. "You said the wild's scarier than the dome."
A gnarled root caught his foot. He stumbled but kept running.
"You were right."
Shapes moved between the trees. Too fast. Too quiet. He didn't stop to look.
Finally, he burst into a clearing—a patch of soil surrounded by vine-laced trees and shivering grass. It was quiet here. Still. A place where the wind whispered, not screamed.
"Was this the place you talked about?"
He collapsed to his knees, gasping. The pain was too loud now. It was crawling into his bones, his breath coming in ragged bursts.
Trees here were twisted parodies – trunks like fused, blackened bones, leaves more like shards of brittle glass, fluorescent fungi. The air hung thick and still, smelling vaguely sweet yet cloying.He pushed deeper.
"Left from here," he remembered 3952's words. The ground sloped upwards slightly. Near the crest of a low rise, shielded by a thicket of thorned, crystalline bushes and the massive, gnarled roots of a tree, he found it. A patch of relatively soft earth, dark and damp. Sheltered and hidden.
Gently, reverently, he lowered 3952's mesh-wrapped form to the ground. He sank to his knees. He patted the soil, "Do you like it as your final resting?"
He dug his bare fingers in the earth. It was cold, yielding reluctantly. He clawed at it, scooping handfuls of dark soil mixed with strange, fibrous roots. Each scoop was a silent apology, a memory.
"I will miss you."
The sterile clinic, the taste of the bread, the horror of the chute – it all cycled through his mind, anchored by the pale, still shape beside him. This small act of defiance, this burial in unpoisoned ground, felt like the only true thing he'd ever done. It wasn't redemption. It was remembrance. It was a refusal to let his friend, his brother to be utterly consumed.
He dug until his fingers bled again, scraping against hidden stones, until the shallow grave was deep enough. He carefully rolled the bundle in. For a moment, he hesitated, wanting to see the face one last time, to confirm the fragmented memory. But the mesh held, and the fear of what lay beneath, of the finality it represented, stopped him.
"Remember him alive," a desperate voice whispered inside. "Not like this."
He pushed the dark earth back over the bundle, covering it completely, patting the mound down with trembling hands. It was done. A silent marker in a silent, dead forest. He bowed his head, and kissed the grave.
He stood off shakily. His legs gave in as the potion wore off, and exhaustion took over.
"Goodbye, 3952."
And he limped away, he didn't want to rest here. "Don't worry, I'll get your bread and eat well. Sweet dreams, brother."