June 19th, 1983
August walked calmly through the hallway, moving away from the cafeteria with a faint smile on his face.
His appearance had changed.
Gone were the clothes of a smug office worker. In their place, he now wore a long black religious robe that brushed against the floor as he walked. A white blindfold covered his eyes, stark against his pale skin, making him look less like a man and more like some self-appointed prophet wandering the corridors of a dying world.
As he whistled to himself, soft and strangely cheerful, his free hand scratched at his arm in time with the tune.
Hard.
Again and again.
As though he barely noticed he was tearing at his own skin.
Wren nearly ran straight into him.
She had been sprinting toward the sound of gunfire echoing through the facility, but the moment she saw August in the hallway, she stopped short.
Her expression darkened instantly.
"You," she said, raising the taser Nicholas had given her.
August tilted his head toward her, smiling beneath the blindfold.
"Hello there," he said with a quiet chuckle. "I take it you have not yet come around to my way of thinking?"
"Go to hell," Wren snapped, glaring at him.
August's smile only widened.
"My dear, we are already in hell," he said. "Only through our lord's guidance may we yet be saved."
Then, to Wren's surprise, he reached into his robe and pulled out a ring of keys.
He held them out to her.
"Here," he said. "You may need these."
Wren hesitated for only a second before snatching them from his hand.
August let out a small laugh.
"Do be warned," he added lightly, "the cafeteria may be a bit bloody by now."
Wren's stomach tightened.
She wanted to stop him.
Question him.
Force him to explain exactly what he had done, what he was planning, and how much of this nightmare he was already involved in.
But she shoved past him instead, and ran for the cafeteria.
As Wren neared the cafeteria, she heard it—
a loud, frantic banging against the metal doors from the other side.
Her grip tightened around the keys.
She rushed forward, fumbled only briefly, then shoved the right key into the lock and twisted it open.
The moment the doors unlocked, Dorothea was there.
Still gripping her wrench, she practically stumbled through the doorway before throwing her arms around Wren.
"I never thought I'd be this happy to see you," Dorothea said, holding her tighter than Wren expected.
Wren gave her a quick, stunned look, then stepped past her and into the cafeteria.
Her eyes immediately found the body.
Jericho's corpse lay sprawled across the floor in a black-stained mess, his human form restored only in death. A short distance away, Jasper sat on the floor with Cosmo curled tightly in his lap, clinging to the dog like it was the only solid thing left in the world.
"Did Jericho…" Wren began, her voice quieter now. "Did he turn?"
Dorothea's expression darkened.
"Yeah," she said.
Jasper stared down at Cosmo as he spoke, his usual swagger nowhere to be found.
"The monsters…" he said slowly, as if he was still trying to process it himself. "They can stay sort of human at first. At least in how they act." He swallowed. "Looking back, it was obvious something was wrong with him. But I just figured he was high."
Wren's gaze flicked between the two of them.
"Do either of you have a gun?"
They both shook their heads.
Wren's stomach tightened.
Then that gunfire came from somewhere else.
"How did you even get in here?" Dorothea asked, glancing back at the doors. "The doors were completely locked."
Wren looked down at the keys in her hand.
"August gave them to me."
For a second, neither of them spoke.
Then Wren ran a hand back through her hair, exhausted and angry all over again.
"Honestly," she muttered, "he might've been the one who locked you in here in the first place. He probably hoped Jericho would finish the job for him."
"Yeah," Nicholas said as he stepped into the cafeteria a moment later. "You're probably right."
Eliza followed beside him, her expression tense and unreadable.
Everyone's attention turned to them.
"We ran into one of the monsters," Eliza said without preamble. "When it was dying, it called out for August." She paused, her gaze hardening. "And I recognized the victim it turned back into. He was one of the people at August's cult gathering."
A heavy silence followed.
Jasper looked between them, his face pale.
"Why would he do this?" he asked.
"He's lost his mind," Dorothea said flatly. "Honestly, the guy's always had a few screws loose, but this is way beyond that."
Wren's eyes shifted to Eliza.
"Eliza," she said, "what else do you know about the cult?"
Eliza crossed her arms.
"When he's not holding those little masses where the cocoon used to be, he's been using the records room as a base of operations."
Dorothea let out an immediate groan.
"Of course he picked the creepiest place in the whole facility," she muttered. "That dusty library's a damn maze."
Wren was quiet for a moment, her thoughts already moving ahead.
Then she looked at all of them.
"Tomorrow," she said, her voice firm, "I'm going in there."
Her gaze swept across the room.
"And I want all of your help."
"If he's behind these transformations," Nicholas said, his voice turning cold again, "or if he's somehow working with Azathoth, then he needs to be put down."
Eliza immediately jabbed him in the stomach with her elbow.
"Could you try not to sound like a serial killer for five minutes?"
Nicholas winced and rubbed his side.
"But he's right," Eliza added, looking back at the others. "We do need to stop him."
Dorothea stepped forward next, full of her usual confidence.
"I'm coming too," she said. Then she threw an arm around Jasper's shoulders and grinned. "And so is Jasper."
Jasper nearly choked.
"Hey, no, I am not volunteering for some suicide mission."
"Come on," Dorothea said, smiling sweetly at him. "You're a big, strong man. You're not really going to let us girls wander off alone with a creepy guy like Nicholas, are you?"
Jasper opened his mouth to protest.
Then Dorothea leaned in and whispered something into his ear.
His face immediately went a little red.
He coughed, straightened up, and tried to recover what little dignity he had left.
"...Fine," he muttered. "I'll go."
Nicholas frowned.
"Am I really that creepy?" he asked under his breath.
"Yes," Wren and Eliza said in perfect unison.
Nicholas looked genuinely offended.
"The worst," Eliza added.
"Thank you," Wren said, looking at each of them in turn. "All of you."
Her voice was tired, but steady.
"If August has learned anything about Azathoth—anything at all—then we need to know it too. Whether it's a weakness, a pattern, or whatever he's planning, we cannot afford to stay in the dark any longer."
The others fell silent, listening.
Until now, they had only been reacting.
Running.
Surviving.
But that could not continue forever.
"For now," Wren said, drawing in a slow breath, "we make this our home base."
Her eyes moved around the cafeteria.
"It's open, familiar, and easier to defend than most places in the facility. We stay together from this point on. No one wanders off alone."
There were no arguments.
After everything that had happened, no one wanted to be alone anymore.
Jasper let out a long, exhausted sigh and pushed himself to his feet.
"I'll get to cooking," he said. "After a day like this, we all need something warm in our stomachs."
Dorothea gave a small grin and twirled her wrench once in her hand.
"I'll sweep the room," she said. "Make sure there's no way anything ugly can sneak in."
Nicholas leaned against the wall, quieter now, while Eliza stayed close beside him without really meaning to.
Wren nodded.
"After dinner, we rest," she said. "We sleep in shifts. No exceptions."
Everyone gave some form of agreement.
For the first time since the nightmare had begun, it felt less like a group of frightened individuals—
and more like people preparing for war.
June 19th, 1983
A group of mismatched survivors came together within the Erebus Research Facility.
From this point forward, they would stand in opposition to both Azathoth and the rising influence of the Church of Ascension.