The scientists exchanged glances across the monitoring room.
On the screens in front of them, Dr. Zayne Li was methodically destroying their surveillance network. Camera after camera went dark—each one eliminated by a precisely formed ice arrow that shouldn't have been possible for someone with only months of evol manifestation.
"He's not stopping," one of the younger scientists observed, his voice tight with something that might have been concern. "He's taking out every camera in a grid pattern. He's searching systematically."
"Of course he is," the lead scientist replied, adjusting his glasses. "He's a surgeon. Precision and systematic approach are fundamental to his training. He's applying the same methodology to finding her."
On the screen, Zayne destroyed another camera. Frost continued spreading from his body—coating the ground, climbing the trees, turning the forest around him into something from a winter nightmare.
"The ice manifestation is increasing," someone else noted, tapping at their tablet. "His emotional state is destabilizing the evol output. If he continues at this rate—"
"He won't have to continue," the lead scientist interrupted. He turned to look at Captain Jenna, who stood near the back of the room with her arms crossed and an expression that had been growing increasingly conflicted over the past hour. "Captain. Authorization to proceed with Subject Acquisition Protocol Delta?"
Jenna didn't answer immediately. Her eyes were fixed on the screen—on Zayne moving through the frost-covered forest with desperate purpose, his hands forming ice weapons with an instinctive precision that spoke of something deeper than conscious training.
"Captain?" the scientist pressed.
"He's just looking for her," Jenna said quietly. "He doesn't know what's down here. He's not a threat to the facility."
"He destroyed six military surveillance units and demonstrated evol capabilities beyond any non-enhanced baseline we've recorded. His genetic markers suggest exceptional potential for the specimen enhancement protocol." The scientist's voice carried no emotion—just clinical assessment. "And you read the brief from Dr. Wang. They want him specifically. This is an opportunity we may not have again."
Jenna's jaw tightened.
On the screen, Zayne stopped walking. He stood in the middle of the frost-covered clearing and looked around—searching, desperate, his breath coming out in visible clouds.
"Nana!" His voice carried through the forest, picked up by the few remaining cameras. "NANA! Please! If you can hear me—"
His voice cracked. The frost beneath his feet pulsed outward in a violent wave, coating everything within ten meters in crystalline ice.
Jenna closed her eyes.
"Authorization granted," she said. The words came out flat. Empty. "Proceed with Delta Protocol."
The scientist nodded and moved to the control panel. His fingers danced across the interface, entering commands that had been programmed months ago—contingencies for exactly this scenario.
In the forest above, the ground beneath Zayne's feet began to shift.
---
Zayne felt it a split second before it happened.
The earth moving. Not an earthquake—too localized, too deliberate. The frost coating the ground cracked in a perfect circle around him, the pattern too geometric to be natural.
He tried to move.
The ground dropped.
Not collapsed—dropped. Mechanically. Deliberately. A section of forest floor approximately three meters in diameter descending on hidden hydraulics, carrying Zayne down with it into darkness below.
He slipped on the ice coating his own boots and went down hard, his head striking something metal during the fall. Stars exploded across his vision. The world tilted sideways.
Then everything went black.
---
When Zayne woke, he was in a white room.
Not hospital white—the clean, sterile white of medical facilities designed for healing. This was different. Colder. The walls were smooth concrete painted white, the lighting harsh and fluorescent, the air recycled and stale.
His head throbbed. He tried to lift his hand to check for injury and found his wrists restrained—thick metal cuffs secured to the examination table beneath him. His ankles were similarly bound.
Panic hit him like a physical blow.
"Easy, Dr. Li." A voice. Male. Calm. Coming from somewhere to his left. "You took a significant fall. You may be experiencing a concussion. Try not to move too quickly."
Zayne turned his head—slowly, fighting the wave of nausea that came with the movement. A man in a white coat stood beside the table. Wire-rimmed glasses. Grey hair. The kind of clinical detachment that Zayne recognized from his own profession but had never seen applied quite so coldly.
"Where am I?" Zayne's voice came out rougher than he intended.
"Somewhere safe. You were suffering from severe evol destabilization in the forest. The ice manifestation was approaching dangerous levels—you could have hurt yourself or others. We brought you here for observation."
Lies. Zayne knew lies when he heard them—had spent years learning to identify when patients weren't being honest about their symptoms or their compliance with treatment plans.
"Where is Nana?" he asked instead.
The scientist's expression didn't change. "Miss Wang is also receiving medical attention. She sustained injuries during her patrol mission. You'll be able to see her once we've completed your evaluation."
More lies.
Zayne pulled against the restraints. The metal held. He pulled harder, and felt something cold spread from his wrists—frost forming along the metal cuffs, ice crystallizing where his skin made contact.
"Fascinating," the scientist murmured, making notes on his tablet. "The evol manifestation continues even under physical and psychological stress. The ice generation appears to be partially involuntary at this stage."
"Let me go." Zayne's voice was low. Dangerous. "Now."
"I'm afraid that's not possible, Dr. Li. We have some questions about your medical history. And some tests we'd like to run. Standard protocol for individuals demonstrating advanced evol capabilities."
The door to the white room opened.
More people in white coats entered. A woman Zayne didn't recognize. A younger man carrying medical equipment. And behind them—
Zayne's blood ran cold.
Two people he knew. Had seen before, though only in passing. At hunter association events. At formal gatherings where Nana had introduced them with pride in her voice.
Her parents.
Dr. Wang stood in the doorway with her tablet, her expression professionally neutral. Behind her, the man Zayne now understood was responsible for the engineering side of whatever this place was—Nana's father.
They looked at him the way researchers looked at a promising specimen.
"Dr. Li," Dr. Wang said, her voice carrying the same clinical warmth she might use with any research subject. "Thank you for your cooperation. We understand this must be disorienting. Let me explain what's going to happen."
---
Deep in the observation section of the facility, Nana was destroying her containment room.
The bed was already in pieces. The chair had been reduced to component parts and thrown at the door. She'd torn the sink from the wall—the pipes had broken, flooding the floor with water that she barely noticed.
She kicked the door again. And again. Each impact sent visible cracks spreading through the reinforced material, the dampening field struggling to contain the force she was generating.
"STOP IT!" she screamed at the cameras mounted in the corners. "LET ME OUT! YOU CAN'T KEEP ME HERE!"
No response. Just the steady red light of the cameras watching. Recording. Documenting her breakdown for their data files.
Nana grabbed what remained of the bed frame—a long metal pole that had supported the mattress—and slammed it against the door with everything she had. The dampening field flared. The metal bent but the door held.
She raised the pole again—
And stopped.
Through the small window in the door—the reinforced glass that allowed guards to check on prisoners—she saw movement in the corridor outside.
Soldiers. Four of them. Walking past her door in a tight formation, surrounding something.
Someone.
Nana's breath caught.
Zayne.
He was unconscious, his body supported between two of the soldiers as they carried him down the corridor. His head lolled forward, dark hair falling across his face. Frost still clung to his fingertips—pale blue ice that hadn't fully faded despite whatever had rendered him unconscious.
They were taking him somewhere. Somewhere deeper in the facility.
Somewhere Nana couldn't follow while she was locked in this room.
"NO!" The scream tore from her throat raw and desperate. She threw herself at the door, slamming her shoulder into it with enough force to crack her collarbone. The pain was enormous but she didn't care. "ZAYNE! ZAYNE!"
He didn't stir. Didn't respond. Just hung limp between the soldiers as they carried him past her door and around the corner, out of sight.
Nana staggered back from the door, breathing hard, her shoulder screaming in agony. The broken collarbone was already beginning to heal—her enhanced regeneration knitting the bone back together at a speed that would have been medically impossible for anyone else.
But it wasn't fast enough.
Zayne was here. In the facility. And they were taking him to—
To the specimen rooms. Where they would strap him down. Where they would inject him with the same enhancement protocols they'd used on her. Where they would turn him into a weapon whether he wanted it or not.
Nana looked around her destroyed containment room with new eyes. Not searching for a way out anymore—searching for a weapon.
The bed frame. Still intact. Heavy enough to do damage.
She picked it up.
Then she threw it at the door with every ounce of strength her aether core could generate.
The bed frame hit like a battering ram. The door didn't just crack—it buckled inward, the dampening field finally failing under the sustained assault. The metal warped. The frame bent.
Nana didn't wait. She grabbed what remained of the chair and threw that too. Then the broken sink. Then pieces of the wall she'd managed to tear loose.
Each impact weakened the door further. Each hit sent the soldiers outside scrambling, shouting commands, calling for backup.
On the other side of the facility, Captain Jenna watched on her monitors as Specimen 21 systematically destroyed her containment with nothing but improvised weapons and desperate fury.
"She's going to break through," one of the technicians said, stating the obvious.
"I know," Jenna replied quietly.
"Should we increase the dampening field? Deploy additional restraints?"
Jenna didn't answer. She was watching a different screen now—the one showing Dr. Li being strapped to an examination table in the specimen preparation room. Watching the scientists prepare the injection sequence. Watching Nana's parents oversee the procedure with professional detachment.
Watching them about to do to Zayne exactly what they'd done to their own daughter twenty-one years ago.
"Captain?" the technician pressed.
Jenna made a decision.
"Let her break through," she said.
"What?"
"You heard me. Pull the soldiers back. Let her break the door. Let her run."
"Captain, that's—if she gets to the specimen room—"
"Then she gets to the specimen room." Jenna's voice carried an edge of something the technician had never heard before. Not quite defiance. Not quite guilt. Something in between. "Pull back the soldiers. That's an order."
The technician stared at her for a long moment. Then, slowly, he reached for the communications panel.
"All units, this is Control. Fall back from Containment Block C. Repeat, fall back from Block C. Do not engage Specimen 21."
On the monitors, Nana delivered one final, devastating kick to her door.
It burst open.
Not just opened—exploded outward, torn completely off its hinges by the force of the impact. Metal shrieked. The dampening field generators mounted in the doorframe sparked and died.
Nana stood in the doorway, breathing hard, her shoulder healed, her aether core blazing blue in her chest. In front of her, the corridor stretched empty. The soldiers had pulled back as ordered, leaving her path clear.
She didn't question it. Didn't have time.
She ran.
Past the observation rooms where other specimens—people she didn't know, survivors from Avalon she'd never met—watched through their doors with wide eyes. Past the monitoring stations where scientists scrambled to clear her path, following orders they didn't understand. Past the corridors lined with screens showing Avalon still playing, still consuming lives, still generating data.
She followed her instincts. Followed the path the soldiers had taken with Zayne's unconscious body. Followed the thread of connection that pulled her toward him like gravity.
The specimen preparation room was at the end of a long corridor. The door was reinforced steel—not glass, not something she could see through. But she could hear.
Voices. The scientists. Her parents.
And beneath it all—a sound that made her blood freeze.
Zayne. Screaming.
Nana didn't think. Didn't plan. Didn't strategize.
She kicked the door.
It shattered inward, the reinforced steel buckling under the force of her aether core-enhanced strike. The room beyond was large—clinical white walls, industrial lighting, equipment everywhere.
And in the center, strapped to an examination table, was Zayne.
He was conscious now. Thrashing against the restraints with desperate strength, frost spreading from his body in violent waves. His eyes were wide with panic and pain—hazel irises surrounded by red where blood vessels had burst from the strain.
And beside him, holding an empty syringe, was Nana's mother.
The injection site was visible on Zayne's arm—a small puncture wound that was already beginning to bruise. Whatever they'd injected was spreading through his system, carried by his bloodstream, delivered to every cell in his body by his own frantically beating heart.
The enhancement serum. The same thing they'd given Nana when she was three years old. The thing that had turned her into a specimen.
They'd just given it to Zayne.
"What did you DO?!" Nana's voice came out as a roar.
Her mother set down the syringe with clinical precision. "The same thing we did for you. We're making him better. Stronger. Capable of—"
Nana moved.
She crossed the room in three steps and grabbed her mother by the throat. Not squeezing—not yet. Just holding. Just showing that she could.
"Reverse it," Nana said, her voice deadly quiet. "Now. Reverse whatever you just put in him."
"That's not possible," her mother replied, completely calm despite the hand around her throat. "The serum is already integrating with his cellular structure. The process is irreversible once initiated. Within the next thirty minutes, his entire physiology will undergo fundamental restructuring. His skeletal system will begin reinforcement. His metabolism will accelerate. His aether core will—"
Nana threw her across the room.
Her mother hit the far wall with a sound that suggested broken bones. She slid to the floor and stayed there, gasping, her professional composure finally cracking.
The other scientists scrambled backward. The soldiers who had been standing guard moved to intervene—
Frost exploded from Zayne's body.
Not the controlled, precise ice he'd been manifesting in the forest. This was wild. Violent. Driven by pain and panic and the fundamental restructuring happening inside his cells. Ice coated the examination table, the floor, the walls—spreading outward in a wave that forced everyone in the room to retreat.
Zayne's screaming intensified. His back arched against the restraints, every muscle in his body going rigid as the serum did its work. The metal cuffs holding him down began to frost over, ice forming so thick and fast that the mechanisms started to fail.
Nana ran to him. The cold didn't affect her—her enhanced physiology had been designed to withstand temperature extremes. She grabbed his face with both hands, forcing him to look at her through the pain.
"Zayne! ZAYNE! Look at me!"
His eyes found hers. Hazel irises drowning in red, but conscious. Aware.
"It hurts," he gasped out. "Nana—it hurts—everything is—"
"I know. I know it hurts. Stay with me. Don't let it take you—"
His body convulsed. The frost wave pulsed outward again, stronger this time. One of the metal cuffs shattered—the ice had expanded inside the mechanism, destroying it from within.
Zayne's right hand came free.
He grabbed Nana's wrist—not gently. His grip was desperate, painful, the strength in it beyond anything he'd possessed before. She felt bones grind together under the pressure but didn't pull away.
"Make it stop," he begged. "Please. Make it—"
Another convulsion. His left arm strained against its remaining restraint. The metal groaned. Frost continued spreading—coating the ceiling now, turning the entire room into something from a winter hell.
Behind them, Nana's father had moved to a control panel. His hands were steady despite the chaos, entering commands with the same calm efficiency he brought to all his work.
"The transformation is proceeding faster than projected," he observed, speaking into a recording device. "Subject's ice evol is interfacing with the enhancement serum in unexpected ways. The manifestation is—"
Nana grabbed a piece of broken equipment and threw it at him. It missed, but the message was clear.
Her father looked at her. Really looked at her—the daughter he'd spent twenty-one years building, now standing between him and his next creation with fury burning in her eyes.
"You can't stop this," he said simply. "The process is already happening. Fighting it will only make it worse for him."
"I'm going to KILL you," Nana promised, and meant it.
"No you won't." Her father's voice carried absolute certainty. "Because if you kill me, you lose any chance of understanding how to help him through what's coming. The transformation is painful because his body is fighting the changes. But I can make it easier. Can guide the process so he survives it intact instead of—"
Zayne screamed again. Louder this time. The sound was raw and broken and full of an agony that Nana recognized—had felt herself when she was three years old and too young to understand what was being done to her.
"Tell me how to help him," she said through gritted teeth. "Now. Or I start breaking things that matter."
Her father considered her for a long moment. Then he nodded.
"Get him to a containment cell with proper dampening fields. The ice manifestation will continue to escalate as the serum integrates with his evol. Without dampening, he'll freeze everything in a fifty-meter radius. Including you."
"I don't care about—"
"And if his evol output reaches critical mass without proper containment, the backlash could kill him." Her father's voice was flat. Clinical. "The transformation has a 40% mortality rate in subjects with active evol capabilities. The power conflicts with the enhancement process. Without dampening to regulate the output, he will die."
Nana stared at him. At the man who had just injected the person she loved with something that had a 40% chance of killing him. Who was now calmly explaining how to prevent that death as though it were a standard medical procedure.
"Where?" she managed.
"Containment Block D. Third level. The cells there are designed for high-output evol subjects. The dampening fields will stabilize his manifestation while the serum completes the integration process."
Zayne's body convulsed again. The second restraint shattered. Both his hands were free now, frost still spreading from his fingertips in uncontrolled waves.
Nana made her decision.
She grabbed Zayne and pulled him off the examination table—he was barely conscious, his body wracked with pain and transformation, but he tried to help. Tried to stand. His legs gave out immediately and Nana caught him, bearing his weight.
"I've got you," she whispered against his ear. "I've got you. Stay with me."
Behind them, the soldiers were regrouping. The scientists were recovering from the chaos. Her parents were already making notes on their tablets, documenting everything for their research.
Nana didn't look back.
She ran.
Through the corridors with Zayne's weight against her shoulder, his frost coating everything they passed, his screaming echoing off the concrete walls. She followed the signs—Containment Block D, Third Level—through a facility she was learning to navigate through pure desperate necessity.
The containment cells were exactly where her father had said. A long corridor lined with reinforced doors, each one marked with power ratings and dampening field specifications.
Nana kicked open the nearest door and dragged Zayne inside.
The dampening field activated automatically—she felt it press against her aether core like a physical weight. Zayne's frost manifestation slowed immediately, the wild ice generation suppressed by the field's influence.
He collapsed against her, his body still trembling, still fighting the changes happening inside him. But the screaming had stopped. The ice had stopped spreading.
Nana lowered them both to the floor, cradling Zayne in her arms, and felt tears streaming down her face.
"I'm sorry," she whispered into his hair. "I'm so sorry. This is my fault. If I'd just—if I'd been faster—if I'd found you before they—"
Zayne's hand found hers. His grip was weak but deliberate.
"Not....your fault," he managed between labored breaths. "They were... waiting. For both of us."
The door to the containment cell slammed shut behind them. The dampening field intensified. Through the small window, Nana could see soldiers taking up positions in the corridor outside.
They were trapped. Both of them now. Both specimens in the facility's collection.
And in thirty minutes—maybe less—the transformation would be complete.
Zayne would be like her. Enhanced. Modified. A weapon whether he wanted to be or not.
Nana held him closer and felt something crack inside her chest that had nothing to do with broken bones and everything to do with watching the man she loved suffer through something she'd experienced as a child and never fully understood until now.
Outside the cell, alarms began to blare.
Not the standard facility alarms. Something different. Something urgent.
Through the door's window, Nana could see the soldiers looking at each other in confusion. Could see scientists running past in the corridor, their calm professionalism finally breaking into something that looked like panic.
On the monitors mounted in the corridor—the ones showing status feeds from various parts of the facility—images began appearing that made Nana's blood freeze.
The creature containment level. The glass cylinders where they grew the hybrids and vampires and demons.
Multiple cylinders were broken. Not shattered from outside—broken from inside.
The creatures within had begun waking up. Had begun fighting their containment.
And in the chaos of Zayne's transformation and Nana's escape—in the scramble to contain two specimens instead of monitoring the rest of the facility—had forgotten to lock down the production floor.
Through the monitors, Nana watched as the first hybrid broke free and began attacking the scientists who had created it.
Then another.
Then a dozen.
The facility's nightmare had just begun.
.
.
.
.
.
To be continued.