Chapter One: The Missing
The hospital lights flickered, casting elongated shadows that crawled across the walls like restless specters. Nurse Sophie Carter stood in the middle of Ward C, her clipboard pressed tightly against her chest. Her shift was supposed to have ended hours ago, but something wasn't right. It hadn't been right for days.
She counted the beds again, her fingers trembling as she scanned the row of empty cots. One, two, three... five. Five patients were missing. No discharge papers, no records of transfer, just gone.
The air grew thick with the faint, metallic scent of antiseptic, masking something deeper, something Sophie couldn't quite figure. She glanced over her shoulder, her instincts prickling as if someone—or something—was watching.
"Where the hell are they?" she muttered under her breath.
"Sophie?"
She jumped, spinning around to face Dr. Elena Torres, who stood at the doorway with a coffee cup in one hand and a stack of files in the other. Elena's sharp brown eyes narrowed, her usually composed face creased with concern.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Elena said, stepping inside.
Sophie forced a nervous laugh. "It's not ghosts I'm worried about. It's patients. They're... disappearing."
Elena froze, her grip tightening around the files. The cup she held slipped off her hands and splattered over the floor. "Disappearing? What do you mean?"
"They're just... gone. Five of them. No records, no alerts, nothing. I checked everything. It's like they were never here."
Elena's expression darkened. "Did you report this?"
"Who would I report it to?" Sophie fired back, her anger bubbling to the surface. "Security said there's no sign of them leaving. Administration told me not to 'overthink it.' Overthink it? People don't just vanish!"
Elena placed a hand on Sophie's shoulder. "Calm down. Let's retrace the steps. Maybe there's an explanation."
"I doubt it," Sophie whispered audible enough, but she followed Elena to the central computer anyway.
As Elena typed in her access code, the system hesitated before pulling up patient records. The screen flickered, displaying garbled text before stabilizing. Elena frowned. "That's odd."
"What?" Sophie asked, leaning closer.
"Their files." Elena tapped the screen. "They've been wiped."
A chill ran down Sophie's spine. "Wiped? Why would someone—"
The sound of heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor, cutting Sophie off. Both ladies turned toward the sound, their eyes meeting for a brief, tense moment.
Elena whispered, "Stay behind me."
She stepped into the hallway, her heart pounding. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a cold, sterile glow. A shadow moved at the far end of the corridor—tall, deliberate, inhumanly silent.
"Who's there?" Elena called out, her voice steadier than she felt.
The figure didn't respond. Instead, it turned to the the corner and disappeared into the stairwell.
Elena's instincts screamed to turn back, but she couldn't ignore her growing curiosity—or dread. She glanced back at Sophie. "Call security. Now."
"What about you?" Sophie asked, panic rising in her voice.
"I'm going to see where that thing went."
Sophie hesitated but nodded, pulling out her phone as Elena moved toward the stairwell. Each step felt heavier than the previous, her breath shallow in the eerie silence.
The stairwell door creaked open as she pushed it, revealing a narrow, spiraling staircase bathed in dim emergency lighting. The faint sound of footsteps echoed from below, growing fainter with every second.
She descended slowly, gripping the railing as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. A faint smell hit her—a nauseating mix of decay and something sharp, chemical and unnatural.
At the bottom of the staircase, the door to the basement hung ajar. Beyond it, the darkness seemed alive, shifting and pulsing like it had a heartbeat of its own.
Elena swallowed hard. Her hand reached for the small flashlight clipped to her coat. As the beam cut through the darkness, she saw them—rows of gurneys, each covered in white sheets.
She approached the nearest one, her fingers trembling as she lifted the edge of the sheet.
Beneath it lay a body—if it could still be called that. Its skin was mottled with greenish-gray patches, its veins bulging like black rivers. The eyes were wide open, but lifeless, staring into some unseen abyss.
Elena staggered back, her flashlight shaking. Then she saw the tag around its wrist.
The name was familiar. Too familiar.
It was one of her missing patients.
Her stomach churned, but before she could think, a guttural sound echoed through the room—a low, wet growl that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
She spun around, her flashlight darting wildly. Shadows danced across the walls, twisting into impossible shapes.
And then, she saw it.
Emerging from the darkness, its body contorted, was a figure that once might have been human. Its eyes glowed faintly, and its mouth opened in a jagged, unnatural grin.
Elena's scream was swallowed by the darkness as the creature lunged.
Chapter Two: Unseen Forces
The scream died in Elena's throat as the creature hurtled toward her. She stumbled backwards, throwing the flashlight at it. The beam spun wildly, casting erratic flashes of light that illuminated its grotesque features—elongated limbs, translucent skin stretching over a skeletal frame, and eyes that glimmered like molten sulfur.
Her back hit a gurney, and she scrambled to her feet just as the creature lunged again. This time, it missed by inches, its claw-like hand slashing through the empty air where her neck had been.
Elena's eyes darted around the room, searching for anything she could use as a weapon. A heavy metal rod caught her eye, and she grabbed it, swinging with all her strength.
The creature staggered but didn't fall. Instead, it tilted its head, as if amused by her futile resistance.
"Stay back!" she shouted, though her voice betrayed her terror.
It didn't listen.
Suddenly, a deafening alarm blared through the basement, the red emergency lights casting everything in a hellish glow. The creature hesitated, its head snapping toward the sound.
And then it bolted, disappearing into the shadows as quickly as it had appeared.
Elena sank to her knees, gasping for air. The alarm was deafening, but it was the least of her concerns. Her mind raced, replaying the encounter in vivid, horrific detail. What was that thing? And how could it have been one of her patients?
Footsteps thundered down the staircase behind her. She turned to see two security guards burst through the door, their flashlights cutting through the dimness.
"Dr. Torres!" one of them shouted. "Are you okay?"
She nodded shakily, though her body was trembling uncontrollably. "There's... there's something down here. It attacked me."
The guard's face hardened. "We need to get you upstairs. Now."
Elena didn't argue. She followed them out of the basement, her legs barely carrying her up the stairs. When they emerged back into the main corridor, Sophie was waiting, her face pale and her eyes wide with fear.
"What happened?" Sophie asked, rushing to Elena's side.
Elena shook her head, still trying to process what she'd seen. "I don't know. But something's very wrong."
Sophie glanced at the guards. "Did you find anything?"
The guards exchanged a look. "Nothing down there now," one of them said. "But we'll sweep the area."
"Don't bother," Elena muttered, her voice low but firm. "Whatever it is, it's not going to stick around long enough for you to catch it."
The guards didn't respond, but their uneasy expressions said enough.
Sophie touched Elena's arm. "You need to tell someone. The director, the board—anyone."
Elena met Sophie's gaze, her mind already racing ahead. Telling the board wasn't an option. If GenovaTech was involved—and she had no doubt they were—then going to the higher-ups would only make things worse.
"I need to think," she said. "Just... keep an eye on the ward. And let me know if anything else happens."
Sophie hesitated but nodded. "Be careful."
Elena walked away, her thoughts a whirlwind. She needed answers, and there was only one place she could start.
Her old lab.
***
The lab had been her sanctuary once, a place where science and discovery had felt pure. Now, as she stood outside the locked door, it felt more like a tomb—a reminder of everything she'd lost.
She entered her access code, and the door hissed open. The air inside was cold, and the hum of dormant machines filled the space. Everything was just as she'd left it... or so it seemed.
Elena moved to her workstation, her fingers brushing over the desk. A stack of files caught her attention. She picked them up, her breath catching as she read the labels.
"Project Genesis: Experimental Protocols – Confidential"
Her pulse quickened. These files shouldn't have been here. She had requested to see them months ago, only to be denied.
She opened the first file, her eyes scanning the dense scientific jargon. The further she read, the more her stomach turned.
"Genetic modification through viral vectors. Risk of mutation: negligible at early stages, increases exponentially after initial adaptation period. Expected anomalies include physiological instability, cognitive shifts, and cellular degeneration."
Beneath the text were photos—high-resolution images of patients in various stages of transformation. Some were unrecognizable, their bodies twisted into monstrous shapes.
Elena slammed the file shut, bile rising in her throat. This wasn't science. This was madness.
A soft chime broke the silence, and Elena's heart jumped. She glanced at her computer screen, which had come to life with a single message.
"You're getting too close, Dr. Torres. Stop while you still can."
She stared at the words, a chill creeping down her spine. The message blinked off as quickly as it had appeared, leaving only her reflection staring back at her—a mix of fear, determination, and dread.
She knew one thing for certain now: someone was watching her.
And they weren't going to let her walk away.
Chapter Three: The Watchers
The message on the screen lingered in Elena's mind like a sinister whisper. She leaned back in her chair, her hands trembling. The sterile hum of the lab felt oppressive now, pressing down on her like a weight she couldn't shake.
She had known GenovaTech wasn't entirely aboveboard—the way the board avoided questions, the buried documents, the hush-hush experiments. But this? This was something else entirely.
The files she had just read weren't experiments—they were weapons.
A faint rustling noise pulled her from her thoughts. It was soft, almost imperceptible, but in the silence of the lab, it might as well have been a gunshot.
Elena turned her head slowly, her eyes scanning the room. The rows of equipment and cabinets stood eerily still, bathed in the cold glow of fluorescent lights.
"Hello?" she called, her voice barely above a whisper.
No answer.
Her rational mind told her it was nothing—just her nerves playing tricks on her. But her gut told her otherwise.
She stood, her steps cautious as she moved toward the sound. It had come from the far corner of the lab, near the storage cabinets. Each step seemed louder than the last, the soles of her shoes squeaking faintly against the polished floor.
The rustling came again, sharper this time. Elena's breath caught in her throat as she reached for the cabinet door. She hesitated, her fingers hovering over the handle.
Just open it, she told herself. It's nothing.
She yanked the door open.
Empty.
But her relief was short-lived. Before she could step back, something brushed against her ankle. She gasped, stumbling backward and nearly knocking over a cart of instruments.
A small object darted out from under the cabinet—a rat.
Elena let out a shaky laugh, her hand pressed to her chest. "For God's sake..."
The rat stopped in the middle of the floor, its tiny body trembling. It looked up at her, and for a moment, she could have sworn its eyes glinted with an unnatural light—metallic, like the creature in the basement.
Before she could process it, the rat convulsed, its body jerking violently. Elena watched in horror as its limbs twisted and stretched, its fur falling away in clumps.
"No... no, no, no," she whispered, backing away.
The transformation was over in seconds. Where the rat had been, there now stood a grotesque creature, barely a foot tall but undeniably threatening. Its skin was raw and pulsing, its tiny mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth.
It screeched, the sound piercing and unnatural, and leapt at her.
Elena grabbed the nearest object—a glass beaker—and swung it with all her might. The beaker shattered against the creature, sending it skidding across the floor. It twitched once, then lay still, a sickening black ooze pooling around its body.
Elena stared at the mess, her chest heaving. Her mind raced, trying to piece together what she had just witnessed.
Before she could gather herself, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out with shaking hands, the screen glowing with an unknown number.
She hesitated, then answered. "Hello?"
A distorted voice crackled through the line. "You shouldn't have gone back to the lab, Dr. Torres."
Her blood ran cold. "Who is this?"
"Someone who's been watching. You've seen too much. Leave now, or you won't get another chance."
The line went dead.
Elena's grip tightened on the phone as a surge of anger overtook her fear. Whoever was behind this—whoever was pulling the strings—they were trying to scare her into silence.
But they didn't know her well enough.
Elena Torres didn't back down.
***
GenovaTech Headquarters
Dr. Victor Kane sat in his office, the city's skyline glittering through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him. His fingers steepled, his expression calm, though his eyes betrayed a glint of irritation.
On the desk in front of him, a screen displayed live footage from Elena's lab. He had watched the entire encounter—the rat, the transformation, her reaction.
"Remarkable," he muttered, leaning back in his chair.
"She's becoming a problem," said a voice from the corner of the room.
Kane didn't turn. "Dr. Torres is brilliant. I expected her to uncover fragments of the truth. But she's persistent. I'll give her that."
The figure stepped forward, their face obscured by the shadows. "Do we take care of her now?"
Kane shook his head. "Not yet. She's more valuable alive... for now. But if she gets too close—"
He didn't need to finish the sentence.
The figure nodded and slipped out of the room, leaving Kane alone with his thoughts. He swiveled his chair to face the window, the glow of the city lights reflecting in his sharp, calculating eyes.
"Soon," he murmured. "Very soon."