The first thing she smells is rot. Not the dry, distant rot of trash left too long under the sun, nor the sharp sting of spoiled vegetables, but the unmistakable stench of blood and decaying flesh.
It's the kind of smell that settles deep into the lungs and refuses to leave, the kind that makes people instinctively afraid because it announces death long before it's seen. The air feels thick with it, heavy and crude, clinging to her skin as it crawls into her breath and lingers like a memory she would rather forget.
The last thing she remembers, she was still aboard the ship. A routine deployment, sailing in open water. Then the alarms begin screaming without warning.
Systems fail one after another. The deck tilts violently, throwing bodies and equipment across the corridor. She remembers the sound most clearly—the metal groaning, shrieking as if the ship itself were dying.
Then comes the impact, a catastrophic break, the vessel splitting apart like a toy under too much pressure, and the ocean rushing in with unstoppable force. She was certain she died there.
At thirty-five years old, single, and still serving in the U.S. Navy, she remembers thinking, briefly, absurdly, that if she ever got another chance at life, she would stop hesitating. She would stop circling things she wanted but never reached for. She would get a girlfriend, express her true feelings, and stop pretending that time would always be on her side.
But instead of death or drowning in the depth of the sea, Captain Elena Moreau wakes up.
She opens her eyes to darkness, dampness, and the same rotting smell that fills her lungs. Her body lies flat against a cold concrete surface, the chill seeping through her clothes and into her bones. Moisture clings to her skin, and when she inhales, the air feels heavy, saturated with decay and age.
The ceiling above her rises higher than she expects, cracked and uneven, streaked with dark stains where water has slowly bled through over time. A single emergency light flickers weakly overhead, casting an unstable glow across the space. Its hum is uneven and faint, like a failing heartbeat struggling to keep rhythm.
As her eyes adjust, the scale of the place becomes clearer. It's a bunker, and it stretches out before her, a massive structure carved directly into a solid rock face that looms overhead with an unsettling, jagged texture.
The stone walls look raw and ancient, as though they were torn open rather than shaped by human hands. Water drips intermittently from the rock, each drop echoing softly as it hits the floor, creating a slow, irregular rhythm that deepens the oppressive silence.
Above her, stalactites hang ominously, their sharp tips catching the dim light, as if the earth itself is poised to collapse and crush whatever dares linger beneath it.
Wide, open areas yawn into darkness beyond the reach of the failing lights. The polished concrete floor stretches outward, its cold seeping through the thin soles of her shoes. Metal railings line the upper levels, their straight edges casting harsh, angular shadows that fracture the dim glow and make the space feel even more fragmented and hostile.
Along the bunker walls, faded markings are barely visible—old warning signs, numbers, and symbols from a time long past. Some are obscured by stubborn patches of moss and creeping plant life, nature slowly reclaiming what humanity once tried to bury and forget.
Somewhere deep within the bunker, machinery hums softly. The sound is distant but persistent, vibrating faintly through the rock and concrete, wrapping around her like an unseen presence. It makes her skin prickle.
The noise is enough to tell her that this place is not entirely dead, but whatever still functions here does so without care for those who wander into it. Elena exhales slowly.
Her instincts tell her she isn't alone. Something lingers in the shadows of this forgotten space, watching, waiting, or simply existing beyond her sight. Secrets cling to the darkness here, heavy and patient.
She tries to sit up, muscles protesting as she pushes herself off the cold floor, her head turning slowly as she takes in her surroundings again.
Her voice comes out rough and dry as she mutters into the empty air, "Where the fuck am I?"
She didn't move right away, her body remembering all the training, and it took over before panic ate her away.
Her mind moves on instinct, she starts to do inventory before panic has any chance to surface; the familiar weight of the boot knife is still there, strapped securely where it should be, but her sidearm is gone, her rifle missing, her pack nowhere to be found, and the silence in her ear tells her that communications are dead, leaving her armed with little more than muscle memory and training in a place that feels deeply wrong.
Her jaw tightened; she then tried to stand up and began to walk. One of her hands grips her knife, ready for anything that will come at her.
The bunker is vast, far larger than she first assumed, its corridors stretching outward in clean, deliberate lines. Overhead lights respond to her movement, brightening smoothly as she passes, then dimming behind her as if conserving energy.
The walls are reinforced steel and polished composite, seamless and unscarred, free from the corrosion and patchwork repairs she would expect from a long-abandoned military installation. Every door she passes is sealed tight, its surface unmarked, its control panels glowing faintly with active status indicators. It's a fully functional bunker, that realization unsettles her more than the emptiness.
She passes rows of equipment bays filled with machinery that hums softly, screens displaying diagnostics she can read but doesn't fully recognize. The interfaces are too refined, too intuitive.
Even the fonts feel wrong, cleaner, sharper, and stripped of the clutter she remembers from her own time. This isn't the utilitarian design she trained with, where everything was built to survive war and neglect. This is something newer. Smarter.
She stops in front of a transparent panel overlooking what appears to be a control center, its interior bathed in a steady glow. Every console is powered on, every screen alive with shifting data, untouched by dust or decay, as though the room has been waiting rather than abandoned.
There are no signs of recent human presence, no discarded tools, no personal belongings, no warmth, but the absence feels deliberate, unsettling in its precision.
And yet, she's alone. "What is this?" she mutters under her breath, her voice echoing faintly in the vast space. "How the hell am I here?"