[06:30 - Sobradinho Lake]
"No one looks for what lies beneath 34 billion liters of water."
The sound of rushing water faded into a distant echo, muffled by the weight of concrete and steel. The truck braked sharply, as if hitting an invisible barrier. Tires screeched against the wet ground, and then—it began to descend.
It advanced a few more meters, passing through what seemed to be a gate—but no ordinary gate. This was the groan of tons of metal dragging along subterranean rails, like the gates of hell in The Divine Comedy.
And then, silence. The kind of silence that presses against your eardrums.
The hoods were ripped off all at once. A harsh white light assaulted Thiago's eyes. He blinked, and when his vision adjusted, he saw the landing platform—a vast, circular space with reinforced concrete walls lined with metal plating. The floor was a steel grate, and beneath it, nothing but darkness. A void so deep not even the echo of a scream would return. It felt like a reception area, but from a science fiction nightmare.
Men in black awaited them.
There were four, all identical in appearance: shaved heads, not a single hair—no eyebrows, no lashes. Their eyes were utterly still, their mouths thin lines without lips.
The prisoners were dragged from the truck and lined up. One of the black-clad men raised an arm and pointed:
— "Females, left. Males, right. No exceptions."
Ancélia (P-024) locked eyes with Thiago. Hers were steel-gray, cold and unyielding. The message was clear: "Survive." Then she vanished through a door of darkened steel.
Thiago, Alexandre, and Oliver were shoved into the opposite corridor. The tunnel was long, narrow, its white-painted concrete walls stretching endlessly.
Alexandre (P-021), the ex-security guard, noticed Thiago's gaze.
— "We'd better behave," he muttered.
He was an imposing man—1.90m tall, shoulders broad as a MMA fighter's, his ebony skin marked by old scars. His arms were like tree trunks. But most striking were his irises—black as pitch, yet burning with contained fury.
Oliver (P-023), the youngest of the trio, was on the verge of panic.
Gaunt, pale as paper, his curly brown hair still matted with dried blood, he looked like he'd stepped straight out of a teenager's nightmare. His round glasses—one lens cracked—were askew on his bony face. He trembled like a reed in the wind.
— "Where the hell are we?" Oliver whispered, teeth chattering.
[Institution MOTHRA – Male Prison Zone]
The corridor opened into an architectural abyss.
It was a concrete hive, a hollow cylinder at least 30 meters in diameter, divided into three floors of suspended cells. Metal walkways crossed the void, connecting the platforms.
And below... darkness.
Thiago felt his stomach twist. His cell was on Level 2.
As he stepped inside, his eyes scanned the space:
- Two steel bunk beds, bolted to the wall, with thin mattresses.
- A steel toilet, lidless, its pipe disappearing into the floor.
- A small sink, no mirror—just a faucet dripping a bluish liquid.
And on the ceiling, cameras. Small, nearly invisible, their lenses adjusting to follow movement.
Alexandre threw his bulk onto the lower bunk, making the metal groan. He shared the cell with Thiago. Oliver was in the next cell over, with an unknown prisoner.
"If we want to get out of here alive," Alexandre said, slamming his fist into his palm, "we have to understand the system."
"They break you first. Then they reshape you."
Oliver, sitting on the floor, curled in on himself.
"You really think we're getting out of here...?"
Before anyone could answer, the alarm sounded.
The cell doors slid open simultaneously with a hydraulic click.
A guard appeared at the entrance, his baton tapping against the doorframe.
"Meal time," he announced. "Form a line. No deviations. Regardless of your nature."
Thiago didn't want to think about what that meant.
But when he looked down the corridor, he saw other prisoners moving in the distant cells.
Some of them were not human.
[Walkway]
The guard rapping his baton against the bars was named Moura—a hulking man as tall as Alexandre, with no qualms about hurting anyone. His heavy footsteps made the suspended walkway tremble beneath them. His military uniform strained over muscles that looked swollen and reddened, and his face—burned on the right side as if dipped in acid—showed nothing but violent boredom.
"Move, maggots.", he said in a flat tone, shoving Oliver with the barrel of a modified shotgun, a weapon clearly not standard in any prison on Earth.
The walkway was a rusted steel frame suspended over a 30-meter drop, with what looked like acid bubbling below, its fumes reeking of scorched flesh. The path led to the cafeteria, located past the prison wing. Thiago kept his eyes fixed ahead but couldn't help noticing the deep scratches covering the chains anchoring the walkway to the ceiling—as if something massive had once tried to climb them.
[Cafeteria]
The cafeteria was a repurposed industrial shed with raw concrete walls and a ceiling so high it disappeared into the gloom. The tables were steel workbenches bolted to the floor with thick screws, their surfaces scarred by claw marks and crude knife carvings.
Bare lightbulbs dangled from exposed wires, each encased in a metal cage—protection against... something. The dominant smells were thin soup, salad, and what appeared to be meat pie, which looked surprisingly decent compared to everything else they'd seen.
Moura stopped at the center, his boots soaked with a black liquid that dripped onto the floor.
"Here you eat, work, sleep, and don't ask questions," he announced, slowly turning to stare at each of them, the burned and deformed right side of his face stark under the overhead lights. "The system is simple. Each block has a supervisor. Each prisoner gets evaluated weekly."
He pulled an electric baton from his belt—a military-grade prototype Thiago recognized as strong enough to stop a bull.
"Cooperate, and life gets easier. Cause trouble..." Moura activated the baton. The high-pitched whine made Oliver's teeth grind. "...and you'll learn discipline."
The food was served in ceramic bowls. Salad, pizza, meat pie, soup, porridge—the selection was varied but minimally decent.
As they ate, Thiago studied the other prisoners:
P-198: Arms covered in a black substance that pulsed as if alive. Not fabric—part of him, growing like a symbiotic fungus. When he moved, purple filaments stretched between his fingers.
P-076: Eyes that rotated independently like a chameleon's. But under the light, you could see another set of pupils behind the first—smaller, with no irises.
P-144: A respirator mask fused to his face, metal tubes feeding directly into his sternum. His movements were mechanical, as if parts of him were controlled by something internal.
Oliver leaned toward Thiago, his trembling whisper nearly lost under the scrape of plastic spoons on metal: "Tests... they run tests. Turn guys into... I don't even know what. This isn't just a prison—it's a lab. Like Area 51, but worse."
Alexandre, sitting across from them, squeezed his bowl.
"Shut your mouth, dude. They hear everything."
The cafeteria buzzed with low conversations among prisoners. The smell of oxidized metal mixed with faint ozone made the air feel even heavier. Thiago, Alexandre, and Oliver considered slipping out unnoticed, but it was already too late.
The metallic clang of boots echoed across the tiled floor. The guards didn't react. In fact, some even looked away—as if afraid.
"Hey..." Alexandre muttered, frowning. "That a prisoner?"
Thiago followed his gaze.
A tall man—1.88m, broad and almost square-shaped—walked with heavy but relaxed steps. He wore an orange jumpsuit unlike the others, but beneath it, glimpses of advanced military gear peeked through: a shoulder plated with polished titanium, a partially concealed tactical vest, and a backpack emitting sporadic bursts of blue energy that hummed like a drone motor.
He sat uninvited at their table, crossing his thick arms.
"You're the new meat, huh?" he said in a drawn-out Recife accent, half-smiling. "Heard you whispering like hens laying eggs."
Thiago swallowed hard. "Who... who are you?"
"Codename? Jv." He leaned back against the steel chair and snapped his fingers, producing a digital spark in midair as if activating some invisible code. "But folks here call me 'J'. Easier, right?"
Oliver froze. "You're... not a regular prisoner, are you?"
"Kid," J chuckled low, like he'd heard an inside joke, "I was locked up before most of these clowns learned to tie their shoes. You think you're trapped here? Let me tell you something... this prison only exists because I allow it. I'm here by choice. Tourism. Recovery. Call it a spa day." He pointed at the soup. "Food's trash, but the riot views make up for it."
Alexandre eyed him skeptically. "If you can leave, why stay?"
J reached into an apparently empty pocket and pulled out... a block of dynamite with a digital timer flashing zero. Everyone at the table froze.
"Because sometimes," he said, spinning the explosive like a keychain, "it's fun watching the system squirm trying to figure me out."
He tossed the dynamite up—and it evaporated midair into pixelated green smoke.
"But relax. Today's a peace day. Just came to meet the rookies." He nodded at Thiago. "You—the one who still looks hopeful—listen close: What kills you in MOTHRA isn't the experiments. It's the routine. The boredom. The obedience. They want to break you quietly. Make you beg for purpose."
Oliver whispered, "And you're... important?"
J grinned—a psychopath's smile. "I'm the bug in their code. The variable they can't delete. The universe's /dev/null. And maybe, just maybe, I'm the only one who can walk out... and take you with me."
The alarm blared.
J stood slowly, cracked his neck, and winked at them. "Next time you see me... bring chocolate. This place never has enough."
Then he vanished between tables like he'd always known exactly where to be.
The guards? Didn't even twitch.
Thiago stared at the empty space where Jota had been, trying to process what just happened.
"That guy reminds me of someone..." Oliver muttered.
[São Paulo – 72 hours after the protest – 03:47 AM]
The fine rain fell in diagonal sheets, turning the asphalt of Rua da Consolação into a distorted mirror. Larissa stepped into a puddle that reeked of stale gasoline and dried blood, her sneakers already soaked. The abandoned parking garage behind MASP stood like an architectural corpse—three floors of cracked concrete, spray-painted with anarchist symbols and burn marks resembling human silhouettes.
Larissa adjusted her hood, feeling the weight of the spy camera hidden in her jacket zipper. The device, no larger than a button, had been recording since she left home. If I disappear, she thought, at least the footage will survive.
Under the torn awning of the basement level, three figures waited. The flickering light of a broken streetlamp pulsed over them, creating a nightmarish strobe effect.
João Gordo emerged from the shadows first. At 2.12 meters tall, he was an obese but formidable street brawler—the kind of punk who had a natural talent for violence. He wore a vomit-stained white t-shirt and black rocker jeans, with barbed wire wrapped around his combat boots. A gas mask hung around his neck like a trophy. When he rolled up his sleeve, Larissa saw the tattoo: a bat-winged skull entwined with barbed wire.
"You're digging your own grave with your nails, journalist," he said in a voice roughened by drinking cheap liquor for breakfast. "Nelsinho was our eyes on the street. Now he's just another name on the wall."
Fumaça, the only woman in the trio who seemed to lead the Black Blocs—shifted. Thin, dark-skinned, with curly purple hair and catlike reflective eyes, she typed on a rusted device assembled from old radio parts. Her fingers, covered in circuit-board tattoos, froze when Larissa pulled out her phone.
Zumbi, the youngest, had neck skin melted into floral patterns from tear gas burns, raw flesh still exposed. His military backpack vibrated as if something alive stirred inside.
Larissa tossed her phone onto a rotting wooden crate. The screen showed a close-up of the scarred security guard—the same witness from the 2013 disappearances.
"This guy was at Paulista," she said. "And before that, he was at the protest where three students vanished."
Fumaça snatched the phone with birdlike movements. She plugged in a USB device that looked soldered together with dental wire. The guard's image pixelated, revealing hidden layers: beneath his skin, metallic implants formed a glowing mesh. His eyes, magnified by the algorithm, showed unnaturally luminous pupils like a robot's.
Zumbi opened his backpack. Inside, a hacked tablet blinked with classified file icons:
"Ghosts are MOTHRA's armed wing," he explained, fingers trembling as he tapped the screen. "They don't exist in any database. Leave no fingerprints. Only appear on cameras when they want to."
The screen displayed clandestinely extracted documents:
- "Operation CLEANUP (2013): 3 targets neutralized. Method: Delta-22 extraction (see 'accident' report for Metro Line 3)."
- "Operation GHOST: Agents with L-9 retinal modifications and porous titanium bone reinforcement (Annex 9-B: Civilian population testing, urban protests)."
Gordo leaned in, nostrils flaring like a wolf scenting blood:
"There's a secret bunker under the old Hipódromo prison. Where they filter people before shipping them to the Bahia complex."
A chill ran down Larissa's spine.
"How do you know this?"
Fumaça smiled, revealing a canine tooth broken and rebuilt with metal:
"Because we shoved 3kg of C-4 into its foundations last year... and it's still standing."
Zumbi handed over an SD card wrapped in electrical tape and stained with black oil. "Everything we've leaked about MOTHRA in two years," he said. "Including schedules for the ghost trains—armored wagons that leave Barra Funda with human cargo. We haven't gone public because we're already on thin ice with the courts. If we do this, they'll make us disappear too."
Gordo grabbed Larissa's arm hard enough to leave finger-shaped bruises. His breath reeked of alcohol and gasoline.
"If you go after them, you'll die. But if you decide to go..." He shoved a military flare into her jeans pocket. The object weighed like a grenade. "Press this, and we'll come. One last time."
Before Larissa could respond, the three vanished into the rain—not running, but dissolving into shadows like ink in water.
On the SD card, one video caught her attention: nighttime footage of black trucks entering an industrial warehouse. Then, in the bottom corner, a figure being dragged by two soldiers. The buzz-cut kid, his face still bloodied from the protest.
The timestamp: 24/05/2017. 03:17 AM.
[MOTHRA Institution - Courtyard]
The group was pushed out of the cafeteria—gently but without choice—by one of the guards, who didn't even glance at them. It was as if they were being given leeway after being seen talking to J. The cold, silent corridors opened into a large rectangular space enclosed by thick glass walls, reflecting artificial light in bluish tones, making it seem like the place was underwater.
The courtyard was spacious, roughly fifty meters in diameter, but despite the open area, there was an air of claustrophobia. Concrete blocks served as benches, cold and rough, while in the center, an old set of parallel bars stood twisted like bread dough—evidence that someone, or something, had lost control there.
Artificial grass covered a small section where some prisoners tried to simulate normal life: push-ups, sit-ups, improvised weight training. There was a pool, bisected by a metal grate, as if even the water needed surveillance. The rest was divided into "common areas," which in practice meant prisoners sitting blankly, talking among themselves, or just... empty.
Thiago, Alexandre, and Oliver huddled in a corner near a ventilation duct blowing lukewarm air.
—"That... wasn't normal," Thiago said first, glancing around as if Jota might still emerge from the shadows.
—"Nothing here is," Alexandre countered, grim. "But that guy... He was different. The guards seemed afraid of him."
—"Or respectful," Oliver added, arms crossed, eyes fixed on one of the observation towers, its glass reflecting only darkness. "Which scares me even more."
Alexandre leaned forward, elbows on his knees. —"Can we even trust him?"
Silence.
A distant scream echoed from the upper corridors. No one in the courtyard reacted. Thiago felt a chill crawl up his neck.
—"I don't know," he finally said. "But he... talks like he's already seen the end of the world. And survived."
—"Or caused it," Oliver shot back, barely above a whisper.
A pair of prisoners passed by, speaking in an unrecognizable language—maybe Japanese—their bodies covered in tattoos. One of them stared at them a second too long. The group waited until they were gone before resuming.
—"He talked about routine, boredom, obedience," Alexandre muttered.
—"He's right. This place... it's already messing with my head. And we've barely been here a day."
—"Did you see what he did with that dynamite?" Oliver said, visibly agitated. "And it just... evaporated into code particles? That guy's a walking bomb!"
Thiago rubbed his hands over his face, exhaustion weighing on him as reality kept crumbling. —"The question is: if he can really leave... would he take us with him? Or just use us as a distraction?"
The trio fell silent, each lost in grim thoughts. A metallic clang made them flinch, but it was just a group playing dominoes with titanium chips, laughing as if they were in a bar.
—"No one here knows how long they've been locked up," Alexandre murmured, fists tightening against his knees.
—"Some don't even remember how they got here."
Oliver curled in on himself further, hugging his knees like a child seeking shelter. —"And we'll end up the same."
Thiago looked up at the artificial ceiling, painted in dull blue-gray, where a static light mimicked the sun. —"Unless that lunatic... really is the bug in the system. And we're stuck inside it."
Just then, a muffled explosion sounded in the distance, maybe from the deeper wings. No alarm blared. No guards reacted. As if it were just another normal day.
Cells
The second alarm sounded like a sharp, metallic howl. The white ceiling light flickered for an instant before stabilizing into a sickly yellowish hue. Robotic voices began echoing through the corridors:
— "Sector 03. Wing containment. Protocol N-24. Delta Unit in progress."
The prisoners, already conditioned, rose almost automatically, forming lines in front of their cells. The synchronized sound of footsteps against the floor created a silent march.
Thiago joined Alexandre and Oliver in position, trying to ignore the sweat slowly trickling down his back. The air was thick, as if someone had sucked out all the oxygen and left only anxiety behind.
The guards passed by one by one, clad in black suits with opaque visors. Each carried a tablet that beeped at regular intervals as it scanned their faces. One guard stopped in front of Thiago, holding the device up to his face. The screen flashed for a second, displaying his name, cell number, and a biometric chart.
— "Confirmed."
The guard moved on.
The lights flickered once more—then went out completely.
Everything plunged into darkness for a few seconds until emergency red lights flickered on in the ceiling corners, casting twisted shadows across the walls. Only the constant hum of the ventilation system remained, like a mechanical, repetitive, suffocating sigh.
Thiago leaned against the cold metal wall, watching as the cells locked one by one with dry clicks. And then came the silence.
A silence that ached in the ears, broken only by the sound of machinery operating or prisoners coughing in other cells.
And in the middle of it all, one question hammered in his mind:
— "What to do... who to trust?"