Chapter 8
~ Desperate Measures ~
The oval, egg-like object in his pocket felt cold to the touch, its compact shape providing an odd sense of reassurance. But they couldn’t afford to slow down. Each second brought more strain on Victoria. Alek could see it in her pale face, betraying how she teetered on the brink of collapse. Although until now, she had been good at hiding it.
She didn’t know everything he did, which was a small mercy; another blow would push her over the edge. Still, guilt pulsed through him. When Alek glanced over his shoulder, it grew more evident that she struggled to keep pace. Quickly, he looked away, hoping to conceal the doubt clouding his own eyes. Even as he sensed she had already picked up on it.
For both their sakes, now was not the time for uncertainty. There’s always a way out.
Yet, something was wrong. His mind circled the possibility, a terrifying thought he’d tried to dismiss: things had shifted in the tunnels. He had suspicions about what was happening, but it couldn’t be. This can only be a coincidence. Study the facts and leave nothing to chance. One creature had been tailing them since the infirmary, slipping in and out of sight like a fever dream. Another—or maybe the same—had nudged them towards the right tunnel, a pressure that guided them deeper. He clenched his jaw, letting the realisation wash over him.
Alek still had a broad idea of where they wandered, and he waited to stumble upon an indication that he was right. But the paths around them twisted and re-formed, and when they halted at an intersection, tunnels branched in every direction. The paths he’d worked so hard to familiarise himself with suddenly seemed to defy all logic.
Leading her into the unknown had proved to be a far greater mistake than he’d anticipated, one that twisted like a knife in his gut. A strange feeling would surface when he thought about Victoria. A sense of responsibility. Of caring. It was like recalling an old, painful memory.
The heavy silence broke with the crack of his voice. “We’re not where we’re supposed to be,” he finally admitted with words dragging shame and guilt to the surface. He couldn’t even look at her, couldn’t bear to face her after leading them straight into the seventh circle of hell and managing to get lost.
Victoria placed a hand on his shoulder, her cold fingers still reassuring. She slowly caught her breath. “We should go right,” she blindly suggested, mustering an unwavering resolve. The news had less of an impact than he had anticipated.
She knew.
Yet here she was, choosing to stand with him in the dark with a strength that surprised even him. Victoria pressed her hand harder against his shoulder, and her voice came as a quiet but fierce rallying cry. “Let’s get out of this fucking place.”
As they’d made their way through the maze, the tunnel had opened once more into a larger chamber, shrouded in choking fog and cluttered with debris. Alek stopped. His eyes scanned the space. It resembled the previous chamber, the ceiling had partially collapsed here as well. However, the damage was less extensive here, and there was a disorienting sense of discrepancy.
Then he saw them.
Dozens of hunched shapes clung to the ceiling, barely discernible. Their twisted bodies shifted with an unnatural stillness, and they gnawed at the stone with grinding precision. Nibbling like… rats. But these weren’t mindless vermin. They worked with methodical purpose, their clawed limbs anchoring them as they grazed, leaving patches of smoothed rock in their wake.
His theories had been all wrong.
A deep, resonant sound broke the thought, reverberating down the tunnel behind them. A guttural growl that carried a dreadful intelligence. The ceiling quivered as the ceiling creatures reacted, snapping their heads towards the noise. They dropped to the ground in a sickening chorus of squelches.
Their eyes, shimmering black opals that reflected the light in unnatural hues, gleamed in the flames. Their elongated jaws clicked softly as if testing the air, and Alek’s heart thundered with instinctive dread. They were pressed between the jaws of a monstrous machination. Now, he had little choice but to confront the truth.
They hadn’t stumbled here by accident. Not by the product of his or her fault. They had been herded here.
He glanced at Victoria, who stood paralysed with dread, eyes locked on the creatures. Alek would have to fix his mistake. Not the mistake of choice, but the grievous error of underestimating an enemy. He tightened the grip on his axe and stepped in front of her, shielding her from their gaze. One thought burned through the haze: he wouldn’t let her die in here.
Whatever it took, however much it cost, Alek would not let it cost Victoria her life.
His survival instinct, honed over the years, screamed louder than the chaos that surrounded him, drowning out the chorus of shrieks and groans. Rocks clattered beneath a tide of scrabbling limbs. But he had moved before them, showing Victoria the way as he rushed forward.
The air felt alive with the creatures’ hatred, and he hated them in return. Hated their loathsome forms, their malicious eyes, and the vile games they played. Let them all burn.
Flames arched in the darkness as he swept the torch, making the creatures recoil before him. He gritted his teeth, forcing the fear down, where it twisted into a fiercer will. His axe came down, again and again, shattering brittle bones and tearing through flesh with grunts that echoed in the darkness—his or theirs, it was hard to tell.
The scent of scorched fur and blood filled his nostrils, awakening something in him.
With a look behind his shoulder, he made sure Victoria followed. There, her knife flashed as she drove back the monsters that got too close. Her eyes were hollow; her trembling hands barely held her weapon. She walked through a nightmare, bent over her wounded side. But somehow, she was still upright, still fighting. She wouldn’t give up, it would seem. Not yet.
Alek could only admire her resilience.
The creatures swarmed with relentless speed, their bodies propelled by a raw, hateful hunger. Claws raked across his arms and legs, and teeth found purchase through torn fabric to sink into his flesh. Pain flared hot and sharp; only he kept moving, tearing at the enemy with unrelenting rage. He pressed forward, the axe an extension of his fury, carving a path through the writhing mass.
Alek’s chest heaved with exertion, yet his rage propelled him. Not the calculating anger he had long relied on, but something raw and untamed burning on a fuel hotter than the will to live. It was the spark of a humanness he thought he’d lost long ago. In this instant, he fought for her. Not for Victoria, she was still a stranger, though a welcomed ally, but for everything she represented.
She reminded him of the man he used to be, of life beyond survival, of dreams and comfort. It called to the better parts of himself. The flames in his heart whirled, searing through the exhaustion and pain.
He would protect her. Not because she needed him. But because he needed to.
They rushed through a tunnel ahead, and Alek’s gaze snagged on the vague indication he’d been waiting for. A faint flicker of hope surged, but the moment shattered. The sound he dreaded returned, reverberating as if the earth itself groaned in despair. Alek knew what it meant: his nemesis was approaching. The one that haunted his steps with unyielding purpose. And it wouldn’t stop until it had him.
Alek risked a look behind. It moved in agony, fleshy limbs pulling a towering form through the fog. Victoria, meanwhile, was busy fending off one of the smaller creatures.
She hasn’t seen it.
It stood over the other monsters, grotesquely tall. Slender limbs jutted unnaturally from its bloated, pallid torso. Arms so long they scraped the floor with spiked fingers. A bone-rattling growl emanated from its gaping maw like a grotesque pit lined with jagged teeth. It dripped with blackened saliva that hissed faintly when hitting the ground.
Alek clenched his jaw, pushing back the terror. She can’t see it.
“This way!” he roared, shoving Victoria ahead before she could turn and see what he already wished he hadn’t. She stumbled but ran ahead while Alek pivoted and sprinted after her. The torch wavered in his hand, illuminating the slick walls and the narrow passage that funnelled them deeper into the labyrinth.
“Don’t look back!” his voice cracked with despair. “Keep going!”
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The creatures had caught up with him, clawing at his clothes. But he couldn’t stop to fight; his axe hung uselessly in his grip. There was no time to swing it, no room for hesitation. All that mattered now was to run.
A deep snarl engulfed the tunnel, reverberating in his bones. Keep going, Victoria. We’re almost there. He could see the strain in her strides, the line of blood trailing from her arm as it glistened in the torchlight. But she didn’t falter. Her body moved on sheer willpower, even as the passage narrowed further. They approached a crossing.
“On your left!”
Victoria veered. He hit the wall ahead with a shoulder before changing course aggressively, and that’s when he finally saw it. White letters stark and alien in their clarity:
ADMINISTRATOR’S WARD
The entrance was twisted, veins and fleshy tendrils pulsing across its surface, slithering against the dark stone. They clung to the archway, snaking outward like vines stretching far. It was like the insides of a foul beast, a breath thick with a fetid stench that almost made Alek gag. Victoria slowed when the full horror of the sight struck her. He saw her hesitate, her steps faltering, but the momentum brought her forward. The snarls and screeches behind them were still loud, promising what would happen if they failed to outrun them.
Strips of sinewy tissue hung down from the ceiling like curtains, dripping with a dark liquid that pooled around the edges of the floor. Alek slowed when reaching another room, the torchlight flickering weakly in his hand. They stood in the belly of a patient predator waiting to devour them whole.
Victoria’s steps splashed ahead, fading into the distance. She didn’t look back. Good. She needed every second he could give her.
He turned to face their pursuers.
The emotions he had been trying to bury since meeting her clawed their way back. Spectres of his former self: purpose, hope, and a dread other than the mere dread of dying. It was as though her presence had pried open some locked part of his soul. All these years, he had fought out of habit. A reflex as mechanical as breathing. Survival without meaning, existence without feeling. A creature of the dark, almost like them. He had forgotten what it was to care, to hurt, to be truly afraid.
His chest thundered with fear’s cruel rhythm. A strangely pleasant feeling.
Alek let the torch fall from his grasp, watching it tumble into a shallow pool of dark liquid. The flames sputtered as they met the wet. His hand slipped into a pocket, brushing the cold metal nestled within it. His fingers curled around like the resolve that hardened in his mind. He drew the object out, the pin scraping faintly against his glove as he removed it with precision. Fly high, little one.
He hurled the grenade.
It arced through the smoky air, disappearing into the tide of limbs and gnarled teeth. The creatures charged blindly like a malformed cavalry before their commander. Claws raked against the fleshy ground; eyes gleamed with animalistic fury. None of them noticed the object bringing forth their doom.
Alek’s lips twisted into a savage grin. “How’s that for a trap, motherfucker!”
The explosion ripped through the tunnel in a flash of white-hot light. The sound hit him next. A brutal, concussive force drowned out the agonising screams of the creatures. The entire lair seemed to gasp and exhale in violent fury.
The heat from the blast roared past him, scalding the air and filling his nostrils with the acrid stench of burning flesh and singed blood. The force hit him like a physical wall, breath torn from his lungs as the shockwave slammed into his chest. He was thrown back, banging into a wall with a crack. His head snapped forward while his vision swam.
Bloodied remnants shrapnelled down like grotesque confetti. An eerie silence settled, broken only by drips of fluid hitting the floor and by the ringing in his ears. He struggled to draw breath, his chest heaving through the oppressive heat and smoke.
The axe had clattered somewhere, its weight replaced by a fatigue that sent tremors through his legs. Alek staggered forward, barely upright, before falling back into the pools of blood. His hand rested on the weapon’s handle when he caught a movement.
Wiping a streak of blood from his face, his vision was too blurry to tell. Did I get you? Before he could rise again, an arm hooked around his chest, pulling him upright with surprising strength.
“Come on, tough guy,” Victoria’s voice rasped near his ear as relief washed over him. “Now’s not the time for a bath.”
He exhaled sharply, a bitter laugh catching in his throat as she half-dragged him towards their escape.
The flashlight blinked as Victoria clicked it on, its beam flickering weakly on Alek’s last battery. May it hold until we meet the sun, he thought. Their pace slowed, unwillingly drawn into the grim spectacle unfolding before them.
The ward stretched out in fossilised remains of humanity’s final throes, a freakish museum curated by time and death. Rows of porcelain desks and shattered terminals stood in uneven ranks, the tendrils snaking across the ground to claim their territory. Human skeletons clad in tattered lab coats sprawled awkwardly among the remains.
The sepulchre of ambition.
Alek’s eyes darted across the room; the sight brought an uncomfortable familiarity from a time he wanted to forget. It stirred buried memories of fluorescent labs, sterile microscopes and the false comfort of theory.
The flashlight in Victoria’s hand caught a row of observation windows lining the walls. At the far end of the room, a reinforced door waited, its surface scored with jagged claw marks that dug into the steel. Control panels flanked the door like broken sentinels. Their faces cracked; their innards exposed.
Alek gestured towards them. “I hope we can still open it somehow.”
Victoria nodded but hesitated near a desk. The beam illuminated a clutter: files in brittle stacks, diagrams of misshapen anatomy and jars clouded with discoloured liquids. She plucked a page with two fingers, her voice hoarse.
“What… what were they trying to do here?”
Good question. His jaw clenched in a nervous tic as he scanned the tanks lining the walls. Each panel offered a glimpse into horrors suspended in liquid stasis. Deformed figures floated limp, born from experiments, some twisting the line between creature and man. Numbers were etched onto faded plates clinging stubbornly to the tanks. The higher they went, the more alien the inhabitants. They’ve charted a deliberate path away from humanity.
The final observation window stood alone at the end of the room, its inscription barely legible beneath a coat of grime:
Experiment #1421. Do not engage.
The chamber behind it dwarfed the others; its glass shattered into fragments strewn across the floor. The containment unit itself had been warped outward, the metal buckled and torn as though something massive had burst free. Alek’s eyes lingered on a file dangling from the window’s edge. He grabbed it, scanning the scattered text. Pieces of long-buried lectures clawed back into his mind.
“Artificial selection, accelerated mutation…” he muttered. “They’ve used CRISPR-Cas9 to reverse-engineer a way to outlive the infection. It would seem…”
Victoria stood at his shoulder, her brows furrowed in disbelief. “Reverse-engineer? From what?”
He turned to face her with a stern look, the file slipping from his hand. “If you want to stay here and find out, I won’t stop you. But we should really get going.”
A sound came from behind them.
Their eyes locked as they realised how right he had been. From the farthest corner, its hulking form materialised, riddled with fresh blisters. A faint smoke rose from its scorched flesh, the aftermath of the grenade’s wrath barely slowing its advance. Its right arm had been split into two uneven pieces that dangled with each move. Bits of other creatures clung to its frame, dragged along as it approached. So, you’ve come back for another round.
Its eyes, born from the void, hosted something that resembled malice, locking onto Alek with a predator’s intensity. Victoria stepped back, her flashlight trembling as she struggled to keep the beam steady. “What the fuck is that?”
He grabbed his axe and barked, “Find a way to open the door! I’ll buy us some time.”
Her hands shook as Victoria stared intently at the fractured control. Each sound from behind her stabbed into her concentration; the lingering vision of the monstrosity burned in her retina. She glanced back despite herself. The fog and dim light made everything a blur of motion. Alek was transformed into a leaf caught in a storm, his figure rising and falling in frantic motion.
Focus.
The reinforced door loomed before her. Cracked open just enough to taunt her with a sliver of hope. The tiniest sliver. Her fingers fumbled over the worn buttons, smearing grime into the cracks as she tried to coax life from the rusted mechanisms. She pressed and twisted at random, willing something to work. But the inscriptions were faded, their meanings lost to time, and the panels offered neither light nor promises.
“Alek!’ she screamed, her voice breaking under the weight of anxiety. “Hold on, I’m trying!”
“You can do it!” he bellowed back through the chaos. The edge of desperation in his voice twisted inside her. She could hear the weight of his breaths, carrying the cost of every blow he exchanged with their jailer.
Victoria cursed and stepped back, scanning the debris. A broken steel pipe lay wedged between rubble, and she lunged for it, pulling with everything she had left. It gave way, and she staggered back towards the door. With a grunt, she jammed it into the gap, bracing the pipe with her weight. Her muscles screamed, her wound pulsed, and the door groaned but held firm. It, too, had turned against her.
“Come on!” she hissed through gritted teeth, digging her boots into the ground. I haven’t walked all the way through the dark to be stuck behind a door.
The pipe moved. The door shifted. Just a fraction, but enough to squeeze through. It would have to do.
“I think it’s ready!”
“Go!” Alek replied sharply. “I’ll be right behind you!”
Her chest tightened as she stared at the gap, then back at him. A wild grin split Alek’s face, his eyes burning with savage determination. He seemed more feral than human then. Please, hold on. She ducked through the narrow opening, the edges scraping her jacket.
On the other side, the air felt cooler, free of the choking atmosphere. She turned back immediately, crouching near the gap. The sounds of the fight were muffled now, distant, but she saw them. Their figures locked in brutal combat. The monster struck out with a massive arm, slashing toward Alek’s face. She gasped as he roared in reply, the sound so primal. And then they disappeared from view. And the chaos left its place to silence.
Her heart pounded in the stillness. But no matter how long she waited, the doorframe remained empty. Please come back…
Panic rose, tightening her throat until each inhalation felt like a betrayal. Her mind reeled, conjuring images she didn’t want to see: Alek sprawled on the ground, the monster towering over him, triumphant—
A hand shot through the gap, filthy and trembling.
She gasped, scrambling to grab hold. Alek dragged himself through, then leaned heavily against the doorframe to catch his breath. Blood gushed from his right eye, dripping from his face in vivid trails to soak the collar of his shirt.
“Close,” he mumbled, a weak grin tugging at his lips.
“Alek— your eye!”
He gave a breathless chuckle, pressing a shaking hand to the open gash. “Yeah… I was jealous of your wound, so…” His knees buckled, and she caught him as he fell forward. There was no time for more words.
Together, they stumbled up the massive staircase. Each step felt insurmountable, but the faintest hint of light bled from above, driving them with a thin thread of hope. Their shadows stretched long behind them, dark fingers slipping into a void that had threatened to swallow them whole.
Alek shifted, and for a moment, she thought he might have fallen unconscious. But his voice broke the eternal silence:
“Let’s go see the real world, Vic.”
***
What to expect in Part 2:
- Find out what happens to Milo as he follows the scavengers to their camp and expands his horizon.
- Meet new intriguing characters that shape this broken world, a world scarred by the remnants of a forgotten civilization and the struggle for survival.
If this sounds intriguing, join us each week on Friday at 18:00 (GMT +2) for a new chapter of Whimpers of the Light.
What are you most looking out for?
