Tomás flipped to the back of the binder. His eyes scanned the gruesome, clinical photographs of small bodies, their abdomens surgically opened. The descriptions were terrifyingly identical to what Dr. Velázquez had found on Lili’s scans: “Organism successfully integrated with host circulatory system… Host rejection minimized via immunosuppressive therapy… Acceleration phase initiated.”
“They weren’t trying to cure anything,” Tomás said, a cold, sickening horror wash over him. “They were cultivation vats. They were using these children to grow something.”
“And Lili is the only one who survived the integration,” Mariana whispered. “Her father didn’t hide her because he was just scared of child services. The people who ran this place… they told him to keep her here. They threatened him. He lied to us out of pure survival instinct.”
Suddenly, one of the forensic techs cried out from the far corner of the bunker.
“Sir! Sĩ quan Reyes! You need to see this! We found the primary power terminal… it’s still drawing current from an underground line. And this monitor just booted up.”
Tomás and Mariana ran over to a heavy, obsolete computer terminal built into the concrete wall. The green monochrome screen was flickering wildly, displaying a series of diagnostic telemetry data.
Tomás’s heart stopped.
The screen was displaying a live, real-time biometric feed. Heart rate: 112 bpm. Core temperature: 104.2 F. Vascular pressure: Critical.
It was Lili’s medical data, mirroring the monitors at San Miguel General Hospital perfectly. This terminal was still actively tracking the entity inside her.
But that wasn’t what made Tomás draw his gun.
At the bottom of the green screen, a flashing prompt appeared. A digital countdown timer that hadn’t been there a second ago, triggered by the sudden spike in Lili’s core temperature during her recent seizure.
[GESTATION CYCLE: 99.8% COMPLETE] [TIME UNTIL RUPTURE: 00:14:22]
Fourteen minutes.
“Oh god,” Mariana gasped, clutching her chest. “The doctor is about to cut her open. If they slice into that mass while it’s at full maturity…”
Before she could finish her sentence, the heavy iron hatch at the top of the concrete stairs slammed shut with a resounding, deafening CLANG.
The lights in the bunker instantly died, plunging them into absolute darkness, save for the eerie, green glow of the terminal screen.
From the top of the stairs, the heavy electronic click of an external deadbolt echoing through the concrete walls. Then, the sound of a ventilation fan grinding to a halt.
And from the shadows behind the incubation vats, a low, wet, scraping sound began to echo—something heavy, slithering out from a drainage pipe that led deeper into the city’s forgotten bowels.
Tomás raised his flashlight, the beam cutting through the dark, only to illuminate a pair of pale, elongated fingers gripping the edge of the shattered glass vat.
What did the system leave behind in the dark? Can Tomás break out of the bunker before the fourteen-minute timer hits zero, or will Dr. Velázquez unknowingly unleash a nightmare on the operating table? Find out in Part 3!
