Sarah Whitlock.
Her name stared back at him, mocking his every hope that she might have escaped this nightmare. The woman who had taught him some welding tricks during his first weeks on the rig. The friend who always had a quick smile, even on the worst days. The only one who sent a card when he found out he was going to be a dad.
Now, she was just a name on a list. A name filed under “Extraplanar Subject 42—Status: Integrated.”
Joel’s stomach twisted. The clinical coldness of the words felt like a slap in the face. Integrated. Was that what they called the monster he’d just fought?
He leaned against the nearest wall, bile rising in his throat. His mind churned with the image of Sarah as she had been: vibrant, warm, alive. But now... Was that her voice he'd heard during the logs? The guttural scream, distorted and broken? He imagined her face, contorted in agony, her eyes wide with terror as the machine worked its infernal magic.
He sank to the floor, the cold metal floor pressing into his back. His breaths came short and shallow, his chest heaving as he fought against the crushing wave of guilt.
You killed her.
The thought struck like a hammer, the weight of it pressing down on him until he felt like he might suffocate. No, he told himself. That thing wasn’t Sarah, or his surrogate, anymore. It couldn’t have been. But what if it was?
The video logs replayed in his mind. Dr. Carr’s haunting experiments. The slithering darkness. The inhuman shapes were birthed from twisted experiments. He hadn’t just stumbled upon a lab; he’d uncovered a graveyard of souls.
His fists clenched around the paper until it crumpled, his knuckles white. How many of these names belonged to people he’d known? How many others had been torn from their worlds, twisted into monstrosities for someone else’s war?
Joel’s vision blurred as memories of Sarah flooded his mind. Her laugh over a shared joke. The grease smudges on her face after a long shift. The way she called him “rookie,” even after he’d been promoted. And then, the creature—its gnarled, distorted features, its shriek of rage and pain.
It had been a fair fight. He’d been desperate, and it had been relentless. Thinking back now, every blow he’d landed on the monsters now felt like it had struck him too. But at the time, there hadn’t been room for hesitation.
Now, there was only silence. The air was thick with the smell of ozone and something else, something ancient and terrifying, like the breath of a forgotten god. He forced himself to stand, his legs shaky beneath him. The crumpled list fell from his hand and fluttered to the floor, but he couldn’t bring himself to pick it up again. He couldn’t bear to see her name.
As he started to walk down the corridor, the air felt heavier and colder. The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly, casting long, flickering shadows. His reflection in a cracked glass panel stopped him in his tracks.
The man staring back at him looked like a stranger. His face was gaunt, his eyes hollow, haunted. There was a smear of dried blood on his jawline—he didn’t know if it was his or the creature’s.
He pressed his palms to the wall, bowing his head as his thoughts spiralled.
You couldn’t save her. You couldn’t save any of them.
A choked sob escaped his throat before he could stop it. He clenched his teeth, punching the wall beside him hard enough to send pain shooting up his arm.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice breaking. It echoed faintly in the empty corridor, a fragile sound swallowed by the oppressive silence. The sound of his voice was unbearable. His hands trembled uncontrollably. “I can’t stop. I have to keep going. I can’t.”
Joel straightened, forcing the emotions back down where they couldn’t slow him. He didn’t have the luxury of falling apart—not here, not now. There were still people counting on him. Oliver. His daughter. The others.
But as he walked, the faces on the list followed him, their names whispering in the back of his mind like ghosts.
Sarah Whitlock. Integrated.
His footsteps echoed down the hall, each step heavier than the last. And though he kept moving forward, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something unseen followed close behind, carried by the weight of his guilt and the secrets of the void.
The guilt was a physical weight, crushing his chest, and making it hard to breathe. He knew this was just the beginning. The void had been unleashed, and he was one of the few who knew the truth. The weight of the world, the weight of the lost, pressed down on him, threatening to crush him beneath its burden. For the first time, but won’t be the last, Joel wondered if he was already too late—not just for Sarah, but for all of them.
Joel's footsteps echoed against the cold, metallic walls as he moved down the dimly lit corridor. His breath came in shallow, measured draws, each one visible in the frigid air. The deeper he ventured, the heavier the atmosphere became, as though the void itself were pressing down on him. His heart card pulsed faintly in his chest, a subtle warmth amidst the encroaching chill.
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The corridor twisted and turned, branching in irregular patterns that made no logical sense. It felt more like a labyrinth than a designed structure. Faded signs on the walls marked old paths—"Research Wing," "Containment," and "Sub-Level Access"—but most were smeared with black streaks that looked unsettlingly organic.
A faint flicker of light caught Joel's attention. As he rounded a corner, a flickering console illuminated the darkness, its screen glitching intermittently. He hesitated, scanning his surroundings for any signs of movement, but the corridor remained eerily still.
Cautiously, he approached the console. Its glass was cracked, and strange tendrils of black sludge crawled over its edges, but the display remained functional. With a deep breath, Joel wiped away some of the grime and activated the screen.
The system responded sluggishly, as though something was actively fighting against its processes. After a moment of hesitation, the screen displayed a map—a full schematic of the facility. Joel’s eyes darted over the layout, his pulse quickening as he took in the details.
The lab stretched far deeper than he had realized. What he thought had been the facility’s main level was only the surface. Beneath it, five more sub-levels sprawled downward, each marked with ominous labels:
- Sub-Level 1: Holding Wing – Quarantined
- Sub-Level 2: Experimentation Sector – High Void Activity
- Sub-Level 3: Resource Vault – Minimal Power Remaining
- Sub-Level 4: Containment Wing – Complete Breach
- Sub-Level 5: Core Interface – Corrupted Dungeon System
Joel’s stomach twisted at the annotations. Each level represented another layer of horrors, and the deeper he looked, the worse it became. Sub-Level 4’s "Complete Breach" made his skin crawl, but it was Sub-Level 5 that drew his attention—and his dread. The map displayed a faint, pulsing icon at the level's center labelled "Core Interface."
“This is where it all went wrong,” Joel muttered under his breath. The Core Interface wasn’t just corrupted; it was infected, overtaken by the void entities. If answers existed, they were buried there.
As he studied the map, a small, blinking icon caught his eye. It marked his current location and displayed a message:
System Notification:
[Current Objective: Survive]
Details:
The facility's dungeon system is no longer under control. Void entities dominate the structure.
- Recommended Actions: Navigate to safe zones, secure resources, and avoid high anomaly areas.
- Warning: Threat levels increase with depth. Survival probability decreases without preparation.
Joel snorted bitterly. “Helpful.”
He swiped through the wall display, searching for anything that could give him an edge—emergency exits, weapon caches, or safe zones. Instead, he found more ominous notes scrawled over the schematics. Warnings like "Avoid Sector B," "Unstable Terrain," and "High Anomaly Activity" painted a grim picture. He did see where the stairways were.
His eyes lingered on Sub-Level 3, labelled as the "Resource Vault." It seemed to hold some promise—minimal void activity and power reserves that might still be usable. If he was going to make it to Sub-Level 5, he’d need every advantage he could get.
Joel paused, leaning against the cold metal wall as the dim corridor stretched ahead, its silence broken only by the distant hum of malfunctioning lights. He stared down at the map, his fingers tracing the marked exits that could lead them up—back to Ren, to the others.
The thought of them waiting somewhere above filled him with a bittersweet ache. Gideon would have kept the group together, rallying them with his steady determination. The others, no doubt battered and terrified. Well, maybe not Ren, but Jace might not be holding up to well. I bet they would be looking for a way out, counting on Joel to find them. Yet, here he was, stuck in the belly of the beast, each step dragging him further from the surface, further from safety.
He gritted his teeth. He deserved answers. They all did. Answers about the system, the void, the horrors that had twisted this place into a nightmare. But what could Joel even say to them? That he’d stumbled across a map scrawled with the truth of the void’s dominion? That the creatures they feared weren’t just anomalies—they were people once, lost to experiments and ambition gone horribly wrong?
His hands tightened into fists, the computer screen crumpling slightly under the pressure. If the exits led up, it meant escape, safety, and the faint hope of returning to some semblance of normal. But it also meant he’d have to look them in the eye and explain why he couldn’t save everyone—why he hadn’t been fast enough, strong enough.
“I know they aren’t from my Earth, but what would I tell Oliver,” Joel whispered to himself.
The weight of their faces settled on his shoulders: Sarah’s quiet resolve, Oliver’s laughter, the baby girl they’d brought into this broken world. Could he even meet his daughter’s eyes after this?
Joel exhaled sharply, forcing his focus back to the map. The exits were clear. He could leave now, climb out of this nightmare, and take what little he’d learned to those waiting above. But what good would that do if the danger below continued to fester, unchecked? If the answers they needed were buried deeper, in the parts of the facility no one dared to enter?
His eyes drifted to the faint red scrawl marking the lower levels, ominous and foreboding. The void’s influence was stronger there—that much was obvious. But maybe, just maybe, the truth was there too.
Joel swallowed hard, straightened his back, and forced himself to take another step forward. The exits would still be there. For now, survival wasn’t just about escaping. It was about facing the darkness and making sure, when he finally saw the others again, he’d have more than just a map in his hands. He’d have something to fight for.
Before he could plot his next move, a faint noise echoed from deeper down the corridor. It was soft, almost imperceptible, but it sent a shiver down his spine.
A slow, dragging sound.
“Not again,” he spat.
Joel’s fingers tightened on the hammer on his belt, his heart pounding in his chest. He turned away from the console, its screen still glowing faintly, and peered into the darkness ahead. The sound came again, louder this time—a scraping, wet noise that set his teeth on edge.
His heart card pulsed again, faint tendrils of warmth spreading through his chest. Whatever was ahead, it was waiting for him. With the map burned into his memory and resolve hardening in his chest, Joel stepped forward, his eyes fixed on the shadows.