The silence was heavier than any scream.
The chamber was round, perfectly symmetrical, unlike the chaotic, shifting veins of the city outside. The floor was smooth, too smooth, and the walls lacked the pulsing glow of the organic corridors they'd passed through. It was sterile, cold—wrong compared to everything else Adam had seen.
But none of that mattered.
All Adam could see was the door.
It stood alone at the chamber's heart, massive and metallic, embedded into the stone as if it had been grafted there. Its surface shimmered faintly in the dim light, etched with lines that resembled circuitry. And at its center, bold and unmistakable, were words that had no business being here:
PROJECT EVE.
Adam's throat went dry. His mind spun, trying to deny what his eyes were showing him.
"This…" He stepped closer, the shard in his hand throbbing in sync with his heartbeat. "This is… English."
The masked figure remained silent, blade lowered but body tense.
Adam turned, chest heaving. "Don't just stand there! You see this, right? This isn't—this isn't some alien script, this is ours! Human! What the hell is it doing here?"
The figure finally spoke, voice calm but edged. "It's not the first time remnants of your kind have bled into this place."
"Remnants?" Adam spat, anger rising to cover his fear. "This is a goddamn door with words I can read! That means someone—people—were here before. They built this."
The figure tilted their head, unreadable beneath the mask. "Or they wanted you to believe they did."
Adam's pulse hammered. He wanted to scream, to demand answers, but before he could the shard in his hand reacted violently.
It flared—bright, blinding—its glow spilling across the chamber like liquid fire. The veins in the walls lit up in answer, pulsing in rhythm with the shard.
The door responded.
Symbols across its surface ignited one by one, glowing with the same heartbeat rhythm. Mechanical groans echoed as unseen gears stirred to life. The chamber shook, dust cascading from the ceiling.
"No, no, no—" the masked figure lunged forward, hand snapping out to seize Adam's wrist. They tried to wrench the shard away, but it pulsed harder, resisting their grip.
Adam's knees buckled as a shockwave of energy shot up his arm. Images seared across his vision—flashes of sterile white rooms, figures in hazmat suits, a woman screaming as needles sank into her veins. His stomach lurched.
Then it was gone, leaving him gasping on the chamber floor.
The figure released him, stepping back warily. "You shouldn't have touched it."
"I didn't touch anything!" Adam's voice cracked. He stared at the shard in horror. It had quieted, but faint tendrils of light still pulsed outward, connecting it to the door like veins feeding a heart.
The groaning deepened. The door began to open.
Not swinging outward—splitting down the middle, parting like jaws. A hiss of stale, metallic air escaped, thick with the stench of decay and chemicals.
Adam scrambled back, eyes wide. "No, wait—don't—"
Too late.
The gap widened, revealing darkness beyond. A darkness that wasn't empty.
Shapes stirred inside.
For a moment Adam thought they were people—human silhouettes slumped against the walls. Relief nearly broke through his terror. But then one moved, head lolling at an unnatural angle, jaw slack as something black and viscous dripped from its mouth.
Its eyes snapped open.
Not human. Not anymore.
Dozens of them shifted in the gloom, their bodies warped, twisted. Some were fused with machines, metal protrusions jutting from flesh, wires like veins threading through skin. Others crawled on all fours, their spines bent grotesquely. Their movements were jerky, wrong, but their faces… their faces still bore traces of humanity.
Adam's stomach turned to ice.
"Oh my God…"
The nearest one let out a wet, rattling hiss and lurched forward. Then another. Then all of them.
The masked figure's blade came up instantly. "Run."
Adam didn't argue.
The creatures poured from the opening, shrieking, claws and metal appendages scraping against stone. The sound was unbearable—like nails on glass mixed with animal howls.
Adam bolted for the far end of the chamber, boots skidding across the smooth floor. The shard flared in his hand, its glow acting like a beacon—drawing the things toward him.
The figure slashed clean through the first wave, moving with surgical precision, but even they couldn't stem the tide. For every creature cut down, two more emerged from the doorway.
"Faster!" they barked.
"I'm trying!" Adam gasped. His legs screamed with effort, his lungs burned. He glanced back—mistake.
One of the creatures leapt onto the wall, skittering sideways like an insect, before launching itself straight at him.
Adam threw himself down, hitting the floor hard. The creature flew over him, crashing into the wall with a sickening crack.
The figure hauled him up by the collar before he could recover. "Stay on your feet!"
They sprinted together across the chamber, but the door was still yawning wider, the flood of monstrosities unending. The chamber itself began to pulse faster, as though the city was reacting to their presence.
"Where do we go?" Adam cried.
The figure scanned the walls. "There!"
A section of stone was shifting, veins pulling apart to form another passage. It wasn't stable, but it was open.
They dove for it, slipping inside just as the swarm reached the spot where they'd stood. Claws scraped against the closing stone, screeches echoing behind them, but the corridor sealed shut before the creatures could follow.
Darkness swallowed them.
Adam collapsed against the wall, chest heaving. Sweat soaked his shirt, mixing with blood and grime. His whole body trembled.
"What the hell were those things?" His voice was barely more than a rasp.
The figure's silence stretched long enough to make him look up. The mask stared back at him, unreadable.
Finally, the voice came, quiet and cold. "That… was what happens when your kind meddles with this place."
Adam froze. The words hit harder than any blow.
"My kind? You're saying those were—humans?"
"Once."
The shard pulsed in his palm, as if agreeing.
Adam's stomach twisted violently. He wanted to deny it, to laugh it off as insanity. But he couldn't. He'd seen their faces. The remnants of humanity buried under the corruption, their features distorted but still recognizable.
He pressed the shard against his forehead, trying to steady himself. The memory of the sterile labs, the screaming woman, burned in his mind. He thought of the word carved into the door: PROJECT EVE.
"What is this place?" His voice cracked. "What did we do?"
The masked figure turned away, starting down the corridor. Their voice drifted back, softer this time, almost reluctant.
"You wanted to build gods."
Adam's breath caught.
"And instead…" The figure's head tilted toward the pulsing walls, the living city around them. "…you made this."