Chapter 2: The Scientist's Sins

Chapter 2: The Scientist's Sins

The four of them lay sprawled on the cold, unforgiving grate of the catwalk, a panting, trembling heap of a single person. The monster's shriek echoed in their minds long after it faded into the oppressive silence of the abyss. June was curled into a tight ball, her sobs the only sound besides their own ragged breaths. Hope was stroking her back, murmuring reassurances that sounded hollow even to herself.

Ann was the first to move. She pushed herself to her hands and knees, spitting a glob of bloody saliva onto the grating. "Get up."

"Give us a minute," Hensley gasped, the rough metal pressing a diamond pattern into her cheek. Her muscles felt like frayed rope, and the memory of the fall, of Trevor's phantom hand, still made her stomach churn.

"We don't have a minute," Ann snarled, kicking Hensley’s boot. It wasn't a hard kick, just sharp and impatient. "That thing is angry. It knows where we are. It will find another way, or it will call its friends. We move, or we die here."

Ann’s brutal logic was, as always, impossible to argue with. With groans and a collective effort that spoke of shared agony, they got to their feet. Before them was a heavy, industrial door set directly into the cliff face, the reason they had risked everything to climb here. A thick layer of grime covered its surface, and a small, dark screen was set beside a keypad. It was dead.

"No power," Hope observed, her voice weary but practical. "Of course."

"Then we make our own power," Ann said. She unslung the makeshift prybar from her back—a sharpened length of rebar they'd found weeks ago. Finding the seam of the door, she wedged the tip in and threw her entire weight against it. The metal groaned in protest but didn't budge. "Hensley! Help me."

Together, they strained against the door. Hensley’s arms screamed, her raw palms burned, but the image of those glowing green lures was seared into her vision. Fear was a potent fuel. With a final, earsplitting shriek of tortured metal, the lock mechanism shattered and the door scraped inward a few feet.

A gust of stale, recycled air, cold and sterile, washed over them. It was the first air they had breathed in months that didn't taste of damp stone and decay. It smelled of ozone and dust, the ghost of a place long abandoned.

They slipped inside, Ann immediately forcing the heavy door shut behind them. It didn't lock, but the heavy slab of metal felt like a shield. They were in a small, circular observation room. A panoramic window, now dark and inert, made up one entire wall. In the center of the room sat a single chair before a wide, dark computer terminal.

"A sanctuary," Hope breathed, a flicker of her namesake light returning to her eyes. "There must be answers here. A way out."

While Hope and Hensley moved towards the terminal, and June huddled in the relative safety of the corner furthest from the door, Ann did a perimeter check. She ran her hands along the walls, testing for weaknesses, her gaze sharp and assessing. She trusted nothing.

"It needs power," Hensley said, tracing the thick cables that snaked from the terminal into a recess in the wall. She followed them to a panel marked with a faded lightning bolt symbol. Inside was a series of massive, dead batteries and a manual crank lever. "A backup generator."

"My turn," Ann said, cracking her knuckles.

For the next ten minutes, the only sound was Ann’s rhythmic grunting as she forced the heavy lever back and forth. Sweat beaded on her forehead, her muscles straining, but she didn’t slow. Slowly, a low hum began to fill the room. Lights flickered overhead, casting a sterile, white glow that made them all squint. Then, with a soft chime, the terminal screen flickered to life.

A single icon pulsed in the center of the screen: a stylized bird, a kingfisher, its beak pointed like a spear. Below it, the words: S. KINGFISHER - PROJECT LOGS.

Hope’s fingers flew across the keyboard. June crept closer, her fear of the unknown momentarily eclipsed by a desperate need for answers. Hensley stood behind Hope, her hand resting on her shoulder, feeling the tremor of anticipation that ran through all of them.

The first log entry appeared. The text was clinical, detached.

Log Entry 001: Project Abyssal Fracture - Cycle 0, Day 1 Principal Investigator: Dr. Shae Kingfisher The primary sample, Subject H, has been successfully introduced into the Fracture. Initial readings are stable. The subject’s consciousness, under the extreme psycho-physical stress of trans-dimensional insertion, has fragmented as predicted. Four distinct psychic imprints have manifested, each tethered to the Core. The perfect test bed. The abyss is already reacting to her presence. The whispers have begun.

Hensley felt the blood drain from her face. Subject H. The Core. She was a lab rat. They all were.

Hope scrolled down, her movements jerky. The entries blurred together, a catalogue of dispassionate observations about their struggles, their discoveries, their near-deaths. He had been watching. All of it.

"He was studying us," Hope whispered, her voice trembling with horrified realization. "This whole time… we weren't just trapped. We were an experiment."

"Keep reading," Ann commanded, her voice dangerously quiet. She stood behind them all now, her arms crossed, her expression unreadable stone.

Hope found the final entry, dated months ago. It was titled simply: CONCLUSION.

Log Entry 734: Project Abyssal Fracture - Cycle 1, Day 212 The data gathered from Subject H has exceeded all projections. Her resilience, her very ability to survive, has acted as a lure, drawing out phenomena I previously thought were only theoretical. The entities are drawn to her psychic energy, the beacon of her fractured mind. But the Fracture itself is becoming unstable. The whispers are louder now, even on this side. They promise… things. It is no longer safe to maintain the link.

As per protocol, I have initiated the final seal. The entry portal is now permanently collapsed. There is no way back through the point of insertion. The upper compound, this very observation deck, has been triple-sealed and its life support systems set to terminal countdown. It was never meant to be an escape route; it was only ever the cage door. I have what I need. The rest is irrelevant.

Let the abyss have its prize. It is a fitting mausoleum for a fascinating specimen. End log.

The screen went dark, the soft hum of the terminal the only sound in the room.

Mausoleum.

The word hung in the air, cold and final. A tomb. He hadn't just left them; he had locked the door from the outside and thrown away the key. The climb, the creature, the desperate fight for the catwalk—it had all been for nothing. They hadn't been climbing to an exit. They had merely climbed to a higher shelf in their coffin.

June let out a long, shuddering wail and slid to the floor, her body wracked with the dry sobs of absolute despair.

Hensley felt a familiar, crushing weight settle over her. It was the same feeling she'd had in the doctor's office, the moment the world fell out from under her. The diagnosis. The end. She had run from one death sentence only to be handed another, written by a man she'd never even met. It was all her fault. Her mind, her energy—she was the beacon drawing the monsters. She was the bait.

Hope stared at the blank screen, her face pale, her hands clenched into fists on the console. "No," she whispered. "No, he's wrong. There has to be another way. A maintenance shaft, a secondary exit… He could have overlooked something. We just have to look harder."

That's when Ann laughed.

It wasn't a sound of humor. It was a harsh, grating noise, full of jagged edges and cold fury.

"Look harder?" Ann mocked, turning on Hope. Her eyes were chips of ice. "Are you listening to yourself? 'There has to be another way?' That's what you always say, isn't it? That's your answer to everything. Blind, stupid, useless hope."

"It's not useless!" Hope shot back, spinning around to face her. "It's what's kept us alive! If it were up to you, you would have left June on that cliff face!"

"If it were up to me, we wouldn't be in this mess!" Ann took a step closer, jabbing a finger at Hope's chest. "We'd be stronger. We wouldn't be carrying dead weight. This 'scientist' proves my point. This world doesn't reward hope, it rewards strength. It eats the weak and the compassionate for breakfast. He used us, and your 'hope' just made us a better lure."

"We are not weak," Hope insisted, her voice rising. "We are one. We are stronger together."

"Are we?" Ann sneered, her gaze sweeping over June's sobbing form and Hensley's stunned silence. "Look at us. We're a mess. We're a failed experiment locked in a tomb. And it's because we keep listening to you, and her," she gestured contemptuously at Hensley, "and her endless guilt. It's time for a change in management."

The fragile truce that had held them together on the cliff face, the bond forged in shared terror and desperation, didn't just crack. It shattered. The monster outside was no longer the most immediate threat. The war was here, inside this room, and the enemy wore her own face.