Joel stepped cautiously into the room, the faint hum of machinery filling the air. The flickering overhead lights barely illuminated the massive chamber, casting long, dancing shadows that seemed to writhe and coil like living things. What little he could see stopped him cold.

  Tubes. He tried to count them at first, easily dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Each one stretched from the floor to the ceiling, a smooth, seamless glass surface filled with a viscous, red liquid that seemed to pulse faintly with its own light. The glow gave the entire room a nightmarish hue, casting Joel’s shadow in warped shapes along the walls, making it seem as if he was being watched by unseen eyes.

  He approached the nearest tube, the hammer held aloft like a shield against the unseen horrors that lurked within. Up close, the scale of it was overwhelming—easily eight feet in diameter and tall enough to disappear into the shadows near the ceiling. It was like a monstrous aquarium, filled with a sea of blood. Suspended within the crimson liquid was a figure.

  Then, there was the trail. It was of slick, black substance that snaked across the floor, cutting an unnatural path through the glowing crimson of the vats. The dark liquid, which Joel first thought was the blood the monsters had, shimmered faintly under the dim, pulsing light of the vats. Its texture is thick and oil-like, leaving a greasy sheen on the metal floor. The trail slithered between the towering tubes, as though deliberately avoiding direct lines, the erratic pattern adding an unsettling deliberation to its path.

  Joel followed it cautiously, his boots slipping slightly with each step. “I miss the catwalks,” he thought. The acrid scent of the substance grew stronger the deeper he went, sharp and metallic, mingling with the sterile tang of the lab. It was a smell of death, of decay, of something ancient and forbidden. His mind raced as he tried to place it—was it blood? No, it was too dark, too viscous, and it lacked the familiar coppery smell. Oil, maybe? But it moved too strangely for that, almost as if it had a will of its own.

  “Is this something from one of the vats?” Joel wondered, his gaze flicking up at the massive tubes as he passed them. Maybe one of these things got out—or something put them here to begin with.

  The thought made his stomach churn. He hadn’t seen any signs of someone—or something—dragging these tubes into the room, but the trail suggested motion. Purpose. Joel’s grip on his hammer tightened, his knuckles white as his eyes darted between the flickering shadows. The air in the chamber seemed to thicken, the hum of the machinery now a sinister heartbeat.

  The metal sound echoed faintly through the room, a rhythmic clink followed by a scrape like something heavy being dragged across the steel floor. It resonated with an uneven cadence, stopping for long stretches only to start again, each cycle sending a fresh chill down Joel’s spine. It wasn’t loud, but it carried weight, reverberating through the stillness of the lab. The sound seemed to come from deeper within, somewhere beyond the vats, where the darkness pressed heavier. Joel’s mind conjured grim possibilities—was it machinery, something left running in the bowels of the lab, or was it something alive, shifting its bulk as it prowled the shadows? The scraping grew louder for a moment, almost deliberate, as if whatever was causing it knew he was there.

  He wanted to turn back, to go back down the hallway, but something in the back of his mind pushed him forward.

  As Joel followed the trail deeper into the room, his eyes couldn’t help but linger on the grotesque forms suspended in the glowing crimson liquid. Each vat contained a nightmare, a twisted mockery of life frozen in eerie stillness.

  In one, a hulking humanoid figure floated limply, its skin pale and almost translucent. Patches of coarse, black hair sprouted in irregular tufts across its chest and limbs. Its hands were grotesquely oversized, fingers tipped with jagged claws that tapped faintly against the glass with each subtle ripple of the liquid. Its face was devoid of detail, with only two deep indentations where eyes should have been, as though someone had begun carving it and then abandoned the effort.

  Another vat contained what looked like a wolf—but its proportions were wrong. Its body was too lean, stretched unnaturally long, with ribs that jutted out at sharp angles. Its jaw hung slightly open, revealing teeth that gleamed like polished bone, far too many of them for its maw. Tendrils of some dark substance writhed faintly around its legs, tethering it to the base of the vat.

  Further down, Joel spotted a vat housing what could only be described as an amalgamation of creatures—a sickening fusion of parts that didn’t belong together. One half resembled a giant bird, its once-majestic wings twisted and broken, feathers missing in uneven patches to reveal raw, scaled flesh. The other half was unmistakably humanoid, with an arm that ended in a crude stump fused directly into the bird’s torso. The head was a ghastly mix of both, beak and jaw clashing grotesquely, its lifeless eyes staring into nothing.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Joel’s gaze fell on a vat near the wall, and he froze. Suspended in the blood fluid was a creature that defied explanation—a grotesque fusion of woman, lizard, and metal. Its elongated, serpentine body was covered in iridescent scales, shimmering faintly in the reddish glow. The humanoid torso was unmistakably feminine, with sinewy arms ending in clawed, webbed fingers. One hand pressed lightly against the glass as if it had been reaching out, its sharp talons leaving faint scratches on the surface. Two pendulous breasts, more reptilian than human, swayed gently in the fluid, their nipples hard and conical.

  But it was the face that unsettled Joel the most. The features were a distorted hybrid of human and reptile, the jawline unnaturally wide and reinforced with gleaming steel plates that extended into jagged, mechanical teeth. The jaw hung slightly open, exposing a disturbing array of interlocking metallic fangs that seemed too large for the creature's face. Its eyes were a vivid, luminescent yellow, slitted like a reptile’s but disturbingly expressive, as though some fragmented intelligence lingered within.

  The creature’s neck was adorned with a collar of segmented steel, blending seamlessly into its scales. Veins of some dark substance pulsed faintly beneath its skin, tracing jagged lines down its body and disappearing into the tail—a thick, muscular appendage coiled like a predator lying in wait. Portions of the tail gleamed with metal reinforcements, as though it had been designed to crush as much as constrict.

  “What the fucking hell is this?” he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper.

  Joel stepped closer, his breath catching as he noticed faint movements—a twitch of the fingers, a subtle shift of the jaw. Was it alive, or was the liquid simply playing tricks on his eyes? He backed away quickly, the hammer in his hands suddenly feeling far too small. Whatever this thing was, it felt like it belonged more to a nightmare than the world he knew.

  The next tube stopped Joel in his tracks. Suspended in the red liquid was something disturbingly familiar—a figure that looked human, but its features were stretched and distorted like melted wax. It wore a ragged jumpsuit similar to the kind issued to workers on the rig. The nametag was blurred by the liquid, unreadable, but the sight hit Joel like a punch to the gut. Were these... people?

  His stomach turned as he moved to another vat, unable to stop himself from looking. Inside was a massive insect-like creature, its exoskeleton glinting faintly in the crimson glow. Its legs were jointed at impossible angles, and its eyes—hundreds of tiny, glittering orbs—seemed to track him even though it remained motionless.

  Joel stepped back, his breath quickening. Each vat seemed worse than the last, a gallery of horrors that hinted at experiments beyond comprehension. What the hell were they doing here?

  He moved to the next tube, then the next. Each contained something different

  This lab and whoever Dr. Carr was, was a testament to the depravity of the scientists who worked here. The horrors within twisted his stomach, but a grim determination fueled him onward. People fused with machinery, their limbs replaced by skeletal, mechanical parts. Creatures with too many eyes or not enough limbs floated in an eerie stillness. He had to know what had created this abomination, and what other monstrosities lurked within. And so, he pressed on, the trail his only guide through this chamber of horrors.

  The trail thickened as it led to a cluster of larger tubes near the center of the room, their red glow more intense, casting eerie shadows that seemed to writhe along the walls. The liquid here seemed fresher, more active, small tendrils of it reaching out like it was alive, pulsing with an inner light, clinging to the base of one of the vats as though seeking to climb.

  “What if this stuff didn’t come from the vats?” Joel’s jaw tightened as another, darker thought took hold. “What if something outside the lab got in—and it’s still here, watching, waiting?”

  It felt like the room itself was breathing, the air heavy with a foreboding presence that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He swallowed hard, resisting the urge to turn and leave. Whatever had left that trail had come this way—and it might still be here.

  Joel’s stomach churned.

  A low hiss made Joel whirl around, hammer raised. His breath caught as he realized one of the tubes near the center of the room was leaking. Crimson liquid dripped steadily onto the floor, forming a growing puddle that crept toward his boots.

  The thing inside stirred.

  “Shit,” Joel breathed, backing away. His foot slipped slightly on the slick floor, and he barely caught himself.

  The hiss grew louder, turning into a gurgling sound as the glass of the leaking tube began to crack.

  Joel turned his head toward the door he’d entered from, calculating whether he could make it out before whatever was in the tube got free. But before he could move, the sound of a voice froze him in place.

  “...Joel?”

  It was faint, distorted, and seemed to come from the room itself—or perhaps from inside his own head.

  He clenched his teeth, gripping his hammer tighter. “Who’s there?”

  Silence, except for the hiss of the leaking tube. Then, faintly, the voice came again.

  “You... shouldn’t... be here.”