đź’” The Contract Groom
The massive steel gate groaned open slowly.
Metal scraped against metal.
Echoing through the abandoned industrial district like the sound of something ancient awakening.
Rain continued pouring outside.
But beyond the gate—
darkness swallowed everything.
Even the Circle vehicles stopped at a distance.
Watching.
Waiting.
Not entering.
Sasmita noticed immediately.
"They're not following."
Mira looked through the rear mirror.
"No."
For the first time since meeting her—
there was tension in her voice.
"Because they know what's down there."
The SUV rolled forward slowly.
Crossing the threshold.
The moment they entered—
the gate began closing automatically behind them.
BOOM.
The sound echoed through the underground tunnel.
Complete silence followed.
Aryan stared through the windshield.
His headache intensified instantly.
Memories.
Hundreds of them.
This place...
He knew this place.
Not from stories.
From experience.
A long underground tunnel stretched ahead.
Rust-covered lights flickered weakly overhead.
Broken security cameras hung from walls.
Ancient warning signs remained visible.
PROJECT ARYAN – LEVEL 7
AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY
Sasmita felt cold reading them.
Because suddenly—
everything became real.
The project.
The experiments.
The children.
All of it began here.
After several minutes—
the tunnel opened into something enormous.
A hidden underground city.
Rows of abandoned laboratories.
Dormitory buildings.
Medical facilities.
Research wings.
Everything frozen in time.
Like people disappeared overnight.
Sasmita stepped out of the SUV slowly.
"This entire place..."
Mira nodded.
"Thirty years of illegal research."
Aryan walked forward weakly.
His neck still burning.
But every step triggered another memory.
A cafeteria.
Children eating silently.
Scientists watching.
A training room.
Tests.
Evaluations.
Then—
a little girl laughing.
Mira.
He stopped suddenly.
"Building C."
Mira looked surprised.
"You remember?"
Aryan pointed toward a distant structure.
"That's where they kept us."
His voice had become distant.
Like he was seeing two worlds at once.
The present.
And the past.
Suddenly—
lights flickered somewhere inside the facility.
Everyone froze.
Sasmita immediately raised her gun.
"What was that?"
The facility was supposed to be abandoned.
Nobody should be here.
Then—
another light switched on.
And another.
And another.
One by one—
sections of the underground city awakened.
Machines began humming softly.
Old monitors activated automatically.
Emergency systems restarted.
Mira's expression changed instantly.
"No..."
Aryan turned toward her.
"What happened?"
For the first time—
Mira looked genuinely alarmed.
"Someone activated the central core."
A deep mechanical sound echoed through the underground complex.
Then—
an old speaker system crackled to life.
Static filled the air.
Everyone stopped breathing.
Because a voice emerged.
Calm.
Artificial.
"Project Aryan System Online."
Silence.
Then—
"Subject One detected."
Aryan froze instantly.
"Subject Two detected."
Mira's face became pale.
The voice continued.
"Identity confirmation successful."
Then—
every monitor across the facility suddenly activated.
Hundreds of screens.
All displaying the same symbol.
A silver circle.
The Circle.
"No..." Mira whispered.
Because she recognized it immediately.
This wasn't an emergency system.
Someone had taken control remotely.
Then a new face appeared across every screen.
Professor Veer Malhotra.
Smiling.
The old man adjusted his glasses calmly.
"Welcome home, children."
Aryan's eyes darkened instantly.
"You planned this."
Veer smiled.
"Of course."
Another painful pulse shot through Aryan's neck.
He nearly collapsed.
Veer's smile widened.
"Protocol Zero is progressing beautifully."
Sasmita pointed her weapon at the screen uselessly.
"You sick monster."
Veer ignored her.
His eyes remained fixed on Aryan.
"The stabilizer is here."
Silence.
Aryan looked up immediately.
"The Sanjibani formula."
Veer nodded.
"Hidden beneath Level Zero."
Hope appeared for a brief second.
Then Veer smiled again.
And that hope disappeared instantly.
"But there's a problem."
Mira already knew.
Her expression hardened.
"What did you do?"
Veer's smile became colder.
"Level Zero never truly shut down."
The monitors flickered.
Security footage appeared.
Old corridors.
Dark laboratories.
Locked chambers.
Then—
movement.
Something walking inside the darkness.
Not one figure.
Several.
Human-shaped.
But wrong.
Too slow.
Too unnatural.
Sasmita felt a chill run down her spine.
"What are those?"
For the first time—
Professor Veer's smile vanished completely.
"They were Subjects Three through Twenty-One."
Silence exploded.
Aryan stopped breathing.
The failed children.
Impossible.
"They're dead."
Veer looked directly into the camera.
"No."
A long pause followed.
Then the most horrifying sentence of the night.
"They survived."
Every light inside the underground city suddenly shut off.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Then—
deep below the facility—
a metal door opened.
And somewhere in the darkness—
children who should have died years ago began moving again.