The quarantine ward reeked of synthetic lavender and decaying flesh, a nauseating cocktail that clung to the back of Chen Mu's throat. He followed Chief Voss through airlock seals, his stolen flames simmering beneath his skin like caged beasts. The security chief's shock pistol cast jagged shadows across containment pods fogged with blood and static, their glass surfaces streaked with claw marks that glistened under the flickering strobe lights. Nurse Alvarez's mutated form thrashed against her restraints, her spine arching until bone pierced through her scrubs in a spray of blackened marrow.
"Third collapse in forty minutes," Voss hissed, the jagged scar above her collar pulsing faintly. Her gloved hand trembled near the biometric lock on her weapon. "They start convulsing during shift changes, then…"
Alvarez's jaw unhinged with a wet *snap*. A sound like grinding glass erupted from her throat—a scream spliced with radio static. The hexagonal patterns on her skin pulsed faster, synchronizing with the overhead lights' erratic rhythm.
**
**Hostile Mutation Detected: Stage-4 Neural Disassembly**
**Recommended Countermeasures: Cerebral Incineration / Soulforge Extraction (Locked)**
Chen's fingers tightened around the nano-shifter syringe. The mercury-like fluid inside shifted into fractal geometries, casting prismatic shadows that danced across Alvarez's convulsing body. The air tasted metallic, heavy with the ozone tang of overloaded machinery. Somewhere beneath the hospital's sterile floors, a low-frequency hum vibrated through the walls—a sound Chen hadn't noticed before, like the growl of a chained predator.
"We tried everything," whispered Intern Park from behind an overturned gurney. His left eye twitched rhythmically, mirroring the ward's strobing lights. Sweat dripped from his brow onto the patient chart he clutched, smearing the words *Blackmoor Trial #7* into an illegible stain. "Their inhibitors just… *accelerated* it."
The name *Blackmoor* ignited another shard of stolen memory—the burn victim's final vision of liquid shadow spilling from a silver briefcase stamped with the same corporate logo. Chen glanced at Voss. Her scar glowed faintly beneath her collar, tracing circuitry patterns he hadn't noticed before, like subcutaneous wiring straining to breach the surface.
"Stand clear," she ordered, leveling her shock pistol at Alvarez's skull. The weapon's charge indicator blinked amber, its biometric scanner glowing crimson under Voss's thumbprint.
Chen grabbed her wrist. The contact triggered a flicker of shared memory—*Voss strapped to a steel table, Blackmoor technicians murmuring about "neural symbiosis" as a serpentine tattoo coiled around her collarbone.* The vision vanished as quickly as it came, leaving only the acrid taste of antiseptic in his mouth.
"Wait," he said, plunging the syringe into Alvarez's carotid before Voss could protest.
---
The nano-shifter fluid surged through Alvarez's veins like liquid circuitry. Her screams escalated into ultrasonic frequencies that shattered the observation window. Shards of glass hung suspended for a heartbeat before crashing down, each fragment reflecting a distorted version of Chen's face—eyes blazing cobalt, veins pulsing with stolen energy. His vision flooded with holographic warnings:
**
**Host Cognitive Assimilation: 43%**
**Lobectomy Risk: 72% (Critical)**
Alvarez's limbs stiffened, joints locking at mechanical angles. Her remaining eye rolled back, revealing a pupil contracted into a Blackmoor Foundation barcode. Static-filled words spilled from her lips, each syllable crackling with interference:
*"Sector… 7… containment… failure. Phoenix… protocol… requires… harvest."*
Voss's pistol wavered. The scar on her neck pulsed in time with the overhead lights. "What the hell did you inject her with?"
"A *gift*," Chen muttered, watching the GPS coordinates on the cadaver's tattoos glow brighter. The winged serpent etched into the dead man's chest seemed to writhe beneath Alvarez's skin, its scales rippling like waves on oil.
Intern Park's twitching eye froze. "The shipping lanes… They've been rerouting cargo through restricted zones. Last week, a whole crew went missing—"
Alvarez's head snapped toward him. Her barcoded pupil dilated.
*"Non-compliant… subject… purge initiated."*
Her ribcage exploded outward.
---
Serrated bone shards embedded themselves in the walls. Park's scream died as a femur fragment pierced his throat. Voss tackled Chen behind a containment pod as Alvarez's remains reconstituted—a grotesque marionette of flesh and splintered bone. The creature's new limbs clicked like insect carapaces as it scuttled across the ceiling, its shadow warping into the shape of the winged serpent.
**
**Mutation Escalation: Stage-5 Skeletal Reassembly**
**Evacuation Protocol: Mandatory (Ignored)**
Chen's flames erupted instinctively, blue fire engulfing the abomination. The heat warped steel but left human tissue unscathed—a flaw in his stolen power he hadn't anticipated. The stench of burning plastic filled the air as the creature's bone claws screeched against the pod's reinforced glass.
"Your parlor tricks aren't working, Reaper!" Voss slammed fresh cartridges into her pistol. The scar above her collar now pulsed with an eerie bioluminescence, its circuitry patterns spreading toward her jawline like creeping ivy.
Alvarez's reassembled form lunged. Chen's phoenix coin burned in his pocket, its edges cutting into his palm. He hurled it at the creature with a snarl.
The coin struck Alvarez's forehead with a *crack*. Ancient symbols flared across its surface—*"From ashes, dominion."*—as the winged serpent tattoo detonated in a burst of cobalt flame. Alvarez's body disintegrated into ash, leaving only her left eyeball intact. The Blackmoor barcode on its surface flickered once before dissolving into black ichor.
---
Silence fell, broken only by the drip of Park's blood pooling around the gurney. Voss stared at the ashes, her pistol's charge humming like an angry hornet.
"You've done this before," she said flatly.
Chen retrieved the phoenix coin. Its edges now bore hairline fractures that leaked starlight. "First time."
"Bullshit." She grabbed his wrist, exposing the faint blue veins snaking toward his elbow. "These markings match the *last* Code Black. The one that got me this." She tapped her glowing scar, the movement deliberate, almost accusatory.
**
**Corruption Index: 2.1%**
**Memory Degradation: 1.3%**
Chen's stolen flames flickered. Fragmented memories surfaced—*a younger Voss strapped to an operating table, Blackmoor technicians murmuring about "somatic integration" as a serpentine tattoo coiled around her collarbone.* The vision sharpened: *Voss screaming as the ink burrowed into her flesh, her eyes flashing the same cobalt as the observer in the Polaroid.*
He wrenched free. "You knew."
Voss's gaze hardened. "I survived."
The morgue intercom crackled to life. A distorted voice echoed through the ward, its tone mocking yet familiar:
*"Well done, Reaper. Now find Sector 7 before the Serpent's Eyes do."*
The Polaroid in Chen's pocket grew warm. He pulled it out—the cobalt-eyed observer from the noodle shop window now stood in the quarantine ward's doorway, his reflection superimposed over the carnage. The figure's lips moved in sync with the intercom's words.
---
Voss raised her pistol, but the observer vanished in a ripple of heat haze. Where he'd stood, a blood-smeared map materialized on the floor—Melbourne's docklands marked with seven pulsating dots. The pattern mirrored the cadaver's tattoo, the serpent's wings stretching across the city's eastern seaboard.
**
**Locate Sector 7 Containment Zone**
**Reward: Memory Stabilizer (Tier-1)**
Chen crouched to study the map. The dots throbbed like infected wounds. "Blackmoor's playing with forces they can't control."
"They're not the only ones." Voss holstered her weapon. Her scar pulsed as she pressed a keycard into his hand—a Blackmoor security clearance badge dated *2019*, the same year the hospital's "renovations" began. "But you… you're something *new*."
The coin trembled in Chen's grip, its fractures bleeding starlight. Somewhere beneath the city, the Spore Primordial stirred in its slumber, whispering promises of power and oblivion.
He pocketed the keycard. The game had just begun.