Darkness presses against your eyelids before you even open them. Not the kind of darkness that comes from night or shadows—this one feels thicker, heavier, like it’s alive and waiting. When your eyes finally adjust, you’re lying on a cold metal floor, the surface slick with condensation that smells faintly of chemicals and rust.

A low, rhythmic thumping echoes through the room. Not machinery. Not footsteps. Something slower. Something breathing.

The lights overhead flicker in a broken pattern, buzzing like dying insects. Each flash reveals more of the room: overturned gurneys, shattered glass, restraints bolted to the walls, and a thick black residue smeared across the tiles as if something was dragged—no, pulled—across the floor.

A distorted speaker crackles somewhere above you, spitting out fragments of a voice that doesn’t sound fully human. The words twist and warp, as if the signal is passing through something it shouldn’t.

“…test… breach… containment… failed…”

The temperature drops sharply. Your breath spills out in pale clouds. The shadows in the corners stretch unnaturally long, bending in directions the light doesn’t justify. One of them twitches. Then another. Then all of them.

Something is in the room with you.

You hear it before you see it—a faint scraping, like bone against metal. Slow. Deliberate. Searching. The lights flicker again, and for a split second, a tall, thin silhouette stands at the far end of the room. Its limbs are too long. Its head tilts at an angle no neck should allow. When the lights blink back on, it’s gone.

A sudden slam echoes from the hallway outside, followed by a wet dragging sound. The metal door trembles in its frame. Whatever is out there is strong. And hungry.

Then you notice the writing on the wall beside you—scratched into the metal with something sharp enough to carve through steel:

DON’T LET IT SEE YOU.

The lights flicker again. This time, they don’t come back on right away. In the darkness, you hear a whisper—soft, trembling, human.

"You need to move. Now."

Someone is hiding behind the overturned gurney. You can barely make out their silhouette, but their voice is urgent, terrified, and barely holding together.

"If you stay on the floor, it’ll smell you. If you stand too fast, it’ll hear you. Just… follow my voice. Slowly."

The scraping sound returns. Closer. Much closer.

The darkness shifts. Something shifts with it.