The nuclear power plant stood like a corpse refusing burial.
Steel skeletons bent inward. Cooling towers split open like shattered ribs.
Ash still lingered in corners of broken concrete despite the days. Drifting whenever wind moved through hollow corridors. It shouldn't still be here.
Yet it was.
Roland stood silently near the ruined entrance. Above him, the sky looked wrong.
An ugly, stretched crimson bleeding across the horizon like bruised flesh. He checked the watch.
4:10 AM.
"…That is unsettling. Haha. But I am not scared. "
He looked back upward.
"No sunrise should look like somebody murdered the sky."
"Kal'zhet really does enjoy symbolism."
His boots pressed through old dust as he stepped deeper into the facility.
Every surface carried the feeling of abandonment too deliberate to be accidental.
Burn marks climbed concrete pillars. Entire sections looked melted rather than destroyed.
He crouched briefly near a collapsed service route.
"Hmm. Hello? Anyone there?"
Roland pushed aside the broken metal carefully until a narrow service tunnel revealed itself beneath.
He tilted his head.
"A maintenance route? Interesting."
He crouched lower, inspecting faded markings near the entrance. Then stopped.
One arrow pointed toward what used to be the municipal police building.
Just numbers scratched violently into steel.
Someone had tried painting over symbols along the walls.
Radiation warnings sat beneath thick black paint. Corporate insignias smeared out almost desperately.
As though somebody wanted history erased without fully removing it. Roland smiled faintly.
"Oh, that's always a terrible sign."
He stepped inside.
The tunnel walls sweated moisture constantly. Rust climbed pipes overhead.
"…Illegal facility under a nuclear plant connected to law enforcement. Either corruption or something so immoral everyone cooperated."
His torch flicked on. The darkness swallowed most of the light. Broken bulbs hung overhead like dead insects.
Another tunnel opened. A laboratory but destroyed in every angle.
Children's drawings covered sections of the wall. There was smiling sun and beside that was a family portrait.
"Suspicious. Why would be children in a nuclear plant? Wait, there are handwritings too."
He leaned lightly beside the wall and began inspecting.
DON'T OPEN CHAMBER B
GIVE ME WATER
I (DON'T) HATE MY PARENTS
Some words scratched so hard through paper they tore. Roland walked slower now.
"…Well. Things escalated quickly."
His expression lost humor.
A metal cabinet lay overturned nearby. A file folder partially exposed beneath ash.
He crouched and opened it. He read the headline of the file,
PROJECT CAIUS/ABOMINATION PROTOCOL C-123-02
Roland paused.
"Caius? Is that something to eat?"
He turned another page. There were half-burned reports with information about medical anomalies and containment failures.
He frowned slightly. "What the— I wonder who exactly you are."
Roland straightened slowly leaving the desk.
Then called out casually into the black.
"Hello?"
He stepped forward anyway.
"Anyone still catastrophically alive down here?"
The deeper Roland walked, the more the facility began to feel less like a place.
Sound behaved incorrectly here.
His boots struck concrete. Yet the echo did not return properly.
There was space here that refused to be filled, corners where darkness did not simply exist but actively waited.
Roland slowed.
"Alright. This have to be either a gentle anomaly or something pretending very hard to be one."
A faint sound came from ahead.
More like the absence of one. Roland tilted his head swiftly in reflex. Then he heard it again.
A sound of steps in distance.
"So there is something down here. A survivor or a very enthusiastic hallucination? Let's figure out!"
He took another step. Then stopped. The sound ahead stopped too.
Silence settled immediately after, like it had been waiting for him to confirm it was real.
Roland exhaled calming himself.
"You are aware of me, aren't you?"
He stepped forward again. The response was instant.
A shadow flickered between broken support beams deeper in the corridor.
Too thin in some places, too dense in others, like a human silhouette trying to remember how to exist properly.
Roland frowned slightly.
"Child?"
The shadow darted and every time Roland made a move further, it moved.
When he stopped, it stopped.
He narrowed his eyes.
"…Okay. That's deliberate."
He began walking faster.
"Either you are leading me somewhere or you're just enjoying the idea of me following you into whatever poor decision this place represents."
The footsteps were always just out of reach.
Roland's expression tightened slightly.
He sped up. So did it.
The corridor twisted downward into older infrastructure. Concrete replaced by older steel, pipes exposed, walls marked with faded hazard symbols and overwritten corporate seals.
The chase continued without breath, without speech, only the rhythm of pursuit and response.
Then Roland stopped instantly when he heard no footsteps anymore.
"It stopped. Ah, now don't dare to chase me."
Then behind him, a single step came. Roland turned immediately and caught him.
The impact wasn't violent.
His hand locked around a thin wrist then he saw the body properly.
A boy. Merely a teenager. Seeing the gesture and facial expressions, he could guess the boy was fifteen at most.
But wrong. Terribly wrong.
His frame carried the proportions of a grown man—dense muscle packed into an adolescent skeleton.
His eyes were sharp but exhausted, not feral, not fully lost. Just strained survival shaped into instinct.
Roland didn't release him.
"So it is a child. Good." he exhaled in relief.
The boy didn't do anything. Just stared.
Roland's gaze flicked downward.
"Little wonder, may I ask your name?" He asked smiling gently.
"It is... C-Caius."
The name landed heavier than expected.
From the file.
Abomination Protocol C-123-02.
Roland exhaled slowly.
"…I don't know what they did to you but you are not staying here."
Caius didn't answer. Just looked past him. Further down the corridor. Roland followed his gaze.
They turned together in a passage and saw it.
A half-eaten officer's head embedded in collapsed rubble, spine torn away, face frozen in a half-expression of panic and unfinished command.
A cracked radio earpiece still clung to what remained of the skull, emitting broken static.
Roland hurriedly covered Caius's eyes, preventing him the harsh scenario.
Words came out from the officer's tongue.
"…Send… backup… please… we are compromised…"
Roland was shocked but he managed to pull himself back.
"Holy Shi— He is dead but seems like the shock was so hard, his body is feared."
A pause.
"So that is what happened."
He didn't look at Caius immediately. Instead, he studied the radio.
Then the corridor. Then the silence that had replaced hope.
"…No help is coming." he said quietly, not as realization but confirmation.
Finally, he looked at Caius again and his voice softened slightly.
"Alright. You stay close, little wonder. Just grab my pinky finger whenever you feel bad. I am not leaving you here. Bet my life."
The darkness around them didn't respond but it felt like it was listening.
They walked deeper into the ruined corridor.
Caius kept his eyes down.
"…I don't understand. Why am I like this...?"
Roland adjusted his torch slightly, watching the flicker on cracked walls.
"You are asking the wrong question."
"What is the right one?"
Roland thought for a moment.
"Probably 'who designed this nightmare and did they get paid for it?'"
Caius blinked. "…That is not helpful."
"True but it makes me feel slightly better."
"I am bad... I hurt people."
Roland didn't answer immediately. They passed under a broken sign that had lost all meaning.
"Yeah. I noticed. You also look like someone tried to build a tank and forgot it was supposed to be a child at some point."
Caius looked at him, confused.
"…Is that a joke?"
"I am working on it. I am not professional though. Haha. Be careful. If you laugh too hard in here, the building might take it personally and proceed to crash on our balls."
Caius let out a small sound. Half almost-laugh.
"…That doesn't make sense."
"Neither does anything here. You are just late to the party."
They kept walking. Caius thought for a moment.
"…Are you not afraid of me?"
Roland glanced sideways.
"I have met worse things that also tried to talk. Like what? Just imagine a hopping sentient sandal crashing into your chest."
"Seems like you have friends. What happened to your friends?"
Roland shrugged.
"Well, most of them got doomed by paperwork."
A real laugh like it escaped before Caius could stop it. He immediately looked embarrassed.
"…Sorry."
Roland waved a hand.
"Don't apologize. That one was actually decent."
Then Roland added,
"You are not what they turned you into. You are just… something that hasn't been given a normal sentence yet. If none claps for you, then learn to clap for yourself."
Caius didn't answer but now he stayed close to Roland's left side now, almost unconsciously matching his pace.
Roland glanced around once.
"Something feels off."
Caius frowned. "Quiet is bad here?"
"Quiet is never quiet here. It's usually just something holding its breath."
A faint vibration ran through the floor. Twice.
Caius stiffened.
"If think... something is coming."
Roland gently shifted him behind.
"Yes. Now hide behind me. Don't argue."
Out of warning, the wall ahead exploded outward.
Concrete and steel broke apart like nothing.
It was approaching toward them.
The Abomination.
Too large for the corridor, forcing its shape through anyway. Its body was stitched weirdly—muscle layered over old armor plating, bones visible in places they shouldn't be, skin stretched with burned Runic scars that pulsed like infected circuitry.
One arm was longer than the other, ending in a fist that looked rebuilt from multiple human hands fused together. Its head tilted once, jaw unhinging slightly too far before it roared.
An ugly sound that shook dust from the ceiling.
Roland exhaled slowly.
"Right. That's one of the failed containment subjects."
The creature attacked instantly. Its fist struck Roland mid-sentence. The corridor detonated.
Roland's body was thrown through the wall, crashing through concrete and metal in a straight line, teeth snapping loose mid-air as blood scattered across broken surfaces.
Caius stood stunned behind the dust.
The Abomination turned slightly toward him.
Its jaw shifted unnaturally, opening wider with a sound like wet bones scraping against rusted metal.
One eye twitched independently from the other, the skin around its face stretched so tightly over warped muscle that every expression looked painful.
Then it inhaled releasing heat smoke.
"SKKKRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
It crawled through the tunnels, shaking pipes overhead.
The sound rattled Caius's chest hard enough to stop his breathing for a second.
He staggered backward.
"No… No, no…"
The creature stepped forward.
It knew he would run. Like it enjoyed waiting for the moment prey broke.
Caius turned and bolted.
The tunnel became chaos immediately. Boots slammed against wet floor. Distant metal rattled somewhere deeper underground.
Behind him came heavy footsteps.
Caius turned sharply into another corridor.
He whispered desperately to himself while running.
"Think… think… don't go straight… don't go straight…"
He ducked behind shattered machinery and pressed himself against cold steel, barely breathing.
Caius swallowed hard.
"…Did I lose—"
A voice came quietly behind him.
"You remembered the old escape routes."
Caius stunned. The Abomination stood there. Its head tilted slightly. It was disappointed.
"You hide where cameras used to fail. You learned."
Caius's face went pale.
"You… talk?"
The creature's mouth twitched strangely.
"They taught me."
It made its next attack. The arm was released at him with an immense force.
The punch came down.
CRACK!
Roland appeared out of nowhere and slammed his fist directly into the Abomination's attack.
The impact stopped everything for one second.
Then Roland's wrist bent horribly.
A sharp snapping sound resounded.
Roland's face twisted instantly.
"Dammit... that hurts... that definitely broke."
He slowly muttered to himself, trying to hold himself together despite the pain.
His arm dropped uselessly. He couldn't lift it anymore. He ignored it completely.
Instead, he grabbed Caius by the waist and threw him over one shoulder. Then immediately regretted it.
"WHAT ARE THEY FEEDING YOU?!"
Caius blinked in confusion.
"Food?"
"No, no, impossible. There's no way this is food weight. You feel like somebody compressed gym equipment into sadness."
"I'm sorry—"
"Stop apologizing! My back is entering philosophical debate with gravity right now!"
Roland looked back once. There was nothing.
Then his expression changed.
"…No. That thing is smart."
Caius frowned.
"What?"
Roland lowered his voice. He looked toward the branching tunnels. He suddenly kicked loose metal down a corridor.
CRASH!
Then grabbed Caius again and moved the opposite way.
"If something thinks, then just stop outrunning it."
He glanced behind.
"Make it believe it already won. Just wait you freak, I am not done cracking my skull."