The right-hand door slid open with a soft sigh.
Adrian didn't look back.
He stepped through—and was gone.
The door sealed.
The faint vibration faded from the air.
Silence.
The corridor outside stood still—rows of towering glass capsules gleaming under the cold white light.
Condensed mist crawled down their walls, pooling at the seams like breath.
The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and rust.
For a while, nothing moved.
Then—click.
A single latch released somewhere deep in the hall.
One capsule hissed open.
White vapor spilled out, thick as fog.
The liquid inside began to drain, its level sinking inch by inch.
The figure within stirred and opened its eyes.
Half its skin was translucent, the other half dull gray like polished stone.
Light pulsed faintly beneath its veins, as if blood had learned to glow.
It placed one hand against the edge of the hatch and stepped out—quietly, deliberately.
The ground shuddered when its foot landed.
A spiderweb of cracks split across the floor plates.
Another capsule released.
A long, slender body unfolded from the mist—upper half human, lower half scaled and boned like a serpent.
It slithered forward, smooth and soundless.
Where it passed, the metal floor smoked, etched black by corrosion.
More locks disengaged.
Click. Click. Hiss.
One after another, the pods opened in perfect rhythm.
A smaller shape dropped down next—a child-sized figure with four arms.
It crouched, spiderlike, moving with eerie precision.
Each touch of its fingers left trails of dark fluid that sprouted into tiny, twitching vines before withering away.
Farther down, a body of living glass rose slowly from its cradle.
Inside its translucent shell, bones and organs glimmered faintly like trapped fireflies.
It had no eyes—only a rotating sphere of light inside its skull.
When the light turned, the corridor lights flickered in unison, as if the building itself had been seen.
Door after door slid open.
None shattered. None resisted.
The awakening followed a pattern—silent, ordered, inevitable.
White vapor rolled across the floor.
Footsteps—wet, dragging, rhythmic—echoed between the walls.
A rustle of bone and metal followed, and somewhere a pair of skeletal wings unfolded, beating once to scatter the mist into spirals.
When the final seal released, the entire corridor glowed faint blue.
All the creatures turned in unison, heads tilting toward the far end of the passage—toward the closed door Adrian had entered.
They did not roar.
They did not move.
They only watched, waiting, as if answering an ancient command.
The lights flickered again and steadied.
The air thickened.
A slow bubble rose from the cracks in the floor—then burst, like the exhale of something buried too long.
And beyond that sealed door, Adrian walked deeper into darkness,
hearing nothing, knowing nothing—
—while behind him,
the corridor began to wake.