The air under Point Veert was not the air of tunnels or basements — it had that pulse, a rhythm that made every breath feel like it was syncing with someone else's heartbeat.
Ethan held his flashlight ahead. The beam fractured against the glassy walls, scattering like light through water. "You're sure Jeena's signal came from down here?"
Seth nodded, though his face looked strained — paler than usual, jaw tightening every few seconds. "Her voice wasn't a radio signal. It was resonant. It carried through the field."
Ethan frowned. "That's not possible."
"Neither was hearing thoughts, until it happened to me," Seth muttered.
They descended a little further. The steps were translucent — each footfall made a faint ping, like walking on a giant tuning fork. Their reflections bent in odd directions, faces distorted, eyes larger, colors inverted.
Halfway down, Seth stopped. "Do you feel that?"
Ethan felt it — a shift in pressure, like the moment before a thunderclap. The hum turned into a soft chorus, whispering words too low to catch.
"Something's alive down here," Ethan murmured.
At the bottom of the staircase was a circular chamber lit by bioluminescent vines clinging to the walls. In the center stood a shallow pool — its surface perfectly still, glowing faintly red.
Seth crouched beside it, dipping his fingers in. "Warm," he said. "Like blood."
"Don't touch that!" Ethan hissed.
Seth pulled back his hand — but too late. The light in the pool rippled outward, the vines on the wall shifting color — crimson to gold, then black.
The hum grew into a voice. Not spoken — felt.
"Consumption. Rebirth. Resonance."
The glassy walls pulsed with each word.
Ethan stumbled back, his flashlight flickering. "Seth, this place isn't natural. It's—"
"Engineered," Seth finished, his tone eerily calm. "Like the hybrid."
The Blood Lily. The one they'd come here to study — except what grew here wasn't any plant Ethan had seen. The vines stretched from the walls toward the pool's center, where something was sprouting: a spiral of petals shimmering with liquid light, threaded with crystalline veins.
"It's reacting to us," Ethan whispered.
The petals turned toward Seth.
"Or maybe to me," Seth said quietly. "It knows my blood."
The glow intensified. Then a figure stepped out from the shadows — small, deliberate, wearing a student's lab coat with the Point Veert crest.
It was Fortea.
Her smile didn't reach her eyes. "You shouldn't be here yet."
Ethan froze. "Fortea? What—what is this place?"
She tilted her head. "Our foundation. The Bloom Below. Every student at Veert gives something to it — a drop of blood, a breath, a pulse. That's how we stay connected."
Seth's tone hardened. "Connected? Or controlled?"
Fortea stepped closer. "Does it matter? The result is the same — harmony."
The vines crept closer, brushing Seth's shoes. Ethan grabbed his arm and pulled him back.
"Fortea, this isn't harmony," Ethan said. "It's parasitic."
Her eyes flashed with something between amusement and pity. "You still think in binaries, Ethan. Life and death, self and other… Point Veert isn't a college. It's a corridor. We don't study the hybrid — we become it."
Seth's voice broke the silence, low and shaking. "Where's Jeena?"
For a moment, Fortea's composure cracked. "She shouldn't have entered the field. She's seeing what she's not meant to."
Ethan took a step forward. "Take us to her."
Fortea looked at him as if weighing the request. Then, softly: "If you follow me, you'll never leave the same."
"We already haven't," Seth muttered.
She turned toward a tunnel behind the pool. "Then come."
The path wound deeper until the light turned blue — cold, electric, humming against their skin. Seth kept glancing sideways, eyes twitching as if following invisible movements.
"You're hearing it again, aren't you?" Ethan asked.
Seth nodded. "Not voices this time. Instructions."
"For what?"
Seth's lips parted, voice barely audible. "To bloom."
They emerged into a vast cavern where hundreds of glass cylinders lined the walls. Inside each floated something half-human — limbs interwoven with roots, skin translucent, eyes closed. The same vines pulsed through them like veins.
Ethan's stomach turned. "Oh, God…"
Fortea's voice echoed softly. "Our predecessors. The first Veert scholars. They transcended biology. The body is a temporary pattern. The crystal — the hybrid — lets us stabilize the transition."
Ethan's voice trembled. "You mean this… this thing consumes people?"
"It recreates them," she corrected. "And you, Seth Donovan… are the final catalyst."
Seth's eyes snapped open wide. "What did you just say?"
Fortea smiled. "The curse you carry — the feral resonance in your blood — completes what we began decades ago. That's why you were invited. That's why the exchange program was approved."
Ethan grabbed Seth's arm. "We're leaving."
Fortea didn't stop them — just watched with that knowing smile. "You'll try. But Veert doesn't let go of its seeds once they've touched the soil."
They ran — back through the tunnels, up the glass stairs. The hum followed, now faster, pulsing like a heartbeat in the earth itself.
At the surface, the night sky above Point Veert shimmered with faint red veins of light.
Seth leaned against the wall, gasping. "She knew about my blood. Ethan… she knew."
Ethan's phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number.
JEENA:If you can read this, you're inside the resonance. Don't trust anyone from Veert. The bloom isn't what it seems.
Seth looked up. "She's alive."
Ethan nodded, locking eyes with him. "Then we find her — before they make you part of that thing."
And below them, deep under the college, the Bloom pulsed once — a slow, satisfied heartbeat.
The seed had been touched.