Primordial Awakening: I Breathe Skill Points!-Chapter 87: The Cathedral of Death (2)

The recorder’s speaker crackled with static, a harsh sound that made them all flinch in the oppressive silence of the chamber, like nails on a chalkboard amplified and distorted through damaged electronics. And then a voice emerged from the static—male, young, terrified beyond the capacity for hiding it, the voice of someone who knew with absolute certainty that death was coming and there was nothing they could do to stop it:

"—day six in the facility. We’ve lost seven already."The voice paused, and they could hear ragged breathing, the sound of someone trying to maintain composure while falling apart inside. "Something is hunting us. Systematically. Methodically. It’s not—"

[HEAVY STATIC that made the speaker distort and pop, made them all lean closer despite not wanting to hear what came next]

"—not natural. Nothing natural moves like this. It phases through walls. Through solid stone like it’s not even there. We can’t hit it. Bullets pass through. Blades pass through. Magic passes through. It’s like trying to fight smoke. Marcus was right about this place, he was right all along, this place is—"

[MORE STATIC, worse this time, a grinding electronic scream that lasted three full seconds]

"—not a ruin, it’s a PRISON. We found the cells on sub-level seven. Rows and rows of cells, hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Empty. Every single one empty and broken from the INSIDE. The doors are three feet thick, reinforced steel and stone, covered in containment runes we don’t even recognize. And they’re all broken from the inside. Whatever they kept here, whatever they imprisoned here, it’s—"

[SCREAMING. Not one voice but multiple voices screaming in chorus, a symphony of terror and agony that made Seris cover her ears and Kael press himself harder against the wall. Wet sounds followed—the unmistakable sound of flesh tearing, of bones breaking with sharp cracks that echoed through the recorder’s speaker. The sound of something that wasn’t human making noises that might have been laughter or might have been hunger or might have been communication in a language that human ears weren’t designed to process. The sounds were wrong on a fundamental level, violated principles of acoustics and biology, created harmonics that shouldn’t exist in nature.]

"—oh god it’s here IT’S HERE IT CAN’T BE STOPPED WE CAN’T—"

[A sound like thunder mixed with tearing metal. A sound like someone screaming and being cut off mid-scream, the audio cutting from full volume to nothing in an instant that suggested violent interruption. Then silence. Then breathing—heavy, wet breathing that definitely wasn’t human, that had too many points of origin, that suggested multiple mouths or respiratory systems working in coordination. Then laughter, high and cruel and utterly alien. Then clicking sounds, like claws on stone. Then nothing.]

[RECORDING ENDS with a final burst of static that made the device shut down completely, the screen going dark]

Silence in the chamber. Complete, absolute silence broken only by the quiet drip of bioluminescent blood from the ceiling, each drop hitting the floor with a sound like a ticking clock counting down to their own deaths. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. They stood frozen in a tableau of horror, each processing what they’d just heard in their own way, each trying to reconcile the impossible information with their understanding of reality.

"What the fuck was that?" Kael whispered finally, his voice breaking on the last word, climbing an octave into a range that would have been funny under any other circumstances. His face had gone from green to white, drained of all color, his eyes wide and glassy with shock. "What the actual fuck was that? That can’t be real. That recording can’t be real. Please tell me that recording isn’t real."

But nobody could tell him that, because they’d all heard it, had all heard the same impossible things, had all felt their understanding of the world shift and crack under the weight of implications they didn’t want to accept.

Tank’s jaw was clenched so tight Zeph could hear his teeth grinding together. His hands were white-knuckled on his shield and sword, gripping them like they were the only solid things in a universe that had suddenly become uncertain. "Whatever killed these people is still down here. Still active. Still hunting. And based on that recording, it’s been here for weeks without leaving, without dying, without running out of... of food." He couldn’t quite bring himself to say what they were all thinking—that the "food" was human beings, was people like them.

"And we’re walking right toward it," Whisper added, stating the obvious because sometimes the obvious needed to be stated, needed to be acknowledged before it crushed you under the weight of its implications. Their voice was still flat, still controlled, but Zeph noticed their hands had moved to their new daggers and were resting on the hilts in a grip that suggested they were ready to draw and fight at any second.

Seris had gone very still. "The recording said it phases through walls. That it can’t be hit. That’s... that’s not possible. Matter can’t just ignore other matter. There are fundamental laws of physics that prevent—" She cut herself off, looking around at the chamber full of corpses, at the glowing blood, at the facility that shouldn’t exist. "But then again, none of this should be possible. So maybe physics doesn’t apply here the way it should."

"Oh good," Kael said, his voice climbing toward hysteria again. "So we’re not just fighting something that killed thirty B-rank scouts. We’re fighting something that can ignore the laws of physics. That’s so much better. I feel so much more confident now. Really, my survival odds have skyrocketed with this information."

Zeph felt the weight of eyes on him and looked up to find the group staring, waiting, their faces showing a mixture of fear and desperate hope. As if his analytical mind could provide some solution, some clever plan, some path forward that didn’t involve walking deeper into the territory of something that had killed thirty trained soldiers and had apparently been imprisoned here in cells designed to contain things that shouldn’t exist. The weight of their expectations pressed on him like a physical force, made him want to retreat into himself, to disconnect from the responsibility of other people’s lives depending on his judgment.

"We don’t have a choice," he said finally, his voice flat and factual, stripped of emotion because emotion wouldn’t help them survive. "Only path is forward. Back leads to the corpse army—hundreds of them, maybe thousands, all animated by something we don’t understand. Here leads to whatever is down here. At least whatever is down here is a known variable now. We have information. We understand what we’re facing, at least partially. We can prepare. We can make plans. Information is survival."

"Prepare," Kael repeated, laughing with an edge of hysteria that made the sound come out wrong, made it sound more like sobbing than humor. "Prepare for something that phases through walls and killed thirty B-rank scouts. Sure. I’ll just... prepare. Maybe do some stretches. Work on my cardio. Stay hydrated. Think positive thoughts. Visualize success. Maybe make a vision board of not being torn apart by interdimensional monsters. That’s a thing, right? Vision boards work?"

"Kael," Seris said gently, putting a hand on his arm. "You’re spiraling."

"I’m not spiraling, I’m cycling," Kael replied, but he took a deep breath, held it, let it out slowly. "I’m cycling through the stages of accepting my impending doom. This is healthy. This is processing. My therapist would be proud. If I live long enough to tell her about this, which I won’t, because we’re all going to die."

But even as he spoke, even as he voiced the fear they all felt, they were all checking their weapons, redistributing supplies, falling into the habits of people who’d survived this long by being practical even when everything suggested practicality was futile.

And then Zeph felt it—a spike of sensation from his storage ring, a pulse of warmth that was becoming familiar but was now significantly stronger than before. The egg. .

He pulled it from his storage ring with hands that trembled slightly despite his emotional control, and the entire group went silent, their attention shifting from their preparations to this new unknown variable.

The egg was warmer than before, noticeably so, hot enough that holding it was uncomfortable, hot enough that he had to shift it between his hands to prevent burns. And it was glowing—not the faint, barely perceptible glow he’d noticed before, but definite, unmistakable luminescence. And now it was beating faster. 78 BPM Urgent. Excited. Responding to proximity to something that made it... happy? Eager? Hungry? He didn’t have the framework to interpret what the egg was feeling, if eggs could feel things at all.

"What is that?" Seris asked, her voice carrying scientific curiosity despite their circumstances. She stepped closer, her eyes fixed on the pulsing egg with fascination. "I’ve never seen anything like it. The glow... it’s not bioluminescence. It’s not chemical. It’s something else."

"Something I found," Zeph replied, "It’s connected to this place somehow."

"Connected how?" Tank demanded, his tactical mind clearly cataloging this as important information that had been withheld, information that might be relevant to their survival. His voice carried an edge of accusation. "You’ve been carrying something connected to this facility and you didn’t think to mention it? What if it’s a beacon? What if it’s been telling the things down here exactly where we are this whole time?"

"I don’t know," Zeph admitted, which was both honest and unsatisfying, which he could see from Tank’s expression was not the answer the man wanted to hear. "But it’s reacting to being here. Like it’s anticipating something. Like it’s excited to be here. Or excited about what’s ahead."

"We need to move," Tank decided, cutting off further speculation because speculation wouldn’t keep them alive, making the call because someone had to and leadership was sometimes just about being willing to make terrible decisions that other people would blame you for if they went wrong. "Stay alert. Stay together. Weapons ready at all times. Assume hostile contact is imminent. Whatever is down here, we’re already in its territory. We’ve been in its territory since we entered this chamber. Stopping won’t make us safer. Standing still just makes us easier targets."

They moved out of the massacre chamber, leaving the dead behind but carrying the knowledge of how they’d died, carrying the weight of those lives that had ended in terror and agony. The blood trails continued deeper into the facility, glowing in the darkness like a path marked by something that wanted to be followed, like breadcrumbs leading into a trap that they had no choice but to spring.

And somewhere in the darkness ahead, somewhere beyond the reach of their lights, somewhere in the depths of the facility where things had been imprisoned and had broken free, something screamed—a sound that was definitely not human, definitely not natural, definitely not anything that should exist in a sane universe. The scream carried emotion—rage, perhaps, or hunger, or joy at detecting prey. It echoed through the tunnels, bounced off walls, came at them from multiple directions at once until they couldn’t tell where it originated.

It was definitely aware they were coming.

And it was definitely ready for them.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​