Chapter 3: A Red Baptism

Chapter 3: A Red Baptism

The silence left by the Herald’s departure was more profound than the sterile quiet that had preceded it. It was a vacuum, waiting to be filled. Alex stood in the center of the white room, his limbs free but his mind still shackled by the impossible thing he had just witnessed. On the floor, the small, dark puddle that was once a living extension of his will slowly evaporated, leaving a faint, rust-colored stain on the pristine floor. A memory of horror.

They will come back, the Sanguine Chorus hissed in his mind, its triumphant symphony sharpening into a blade of urgent command. They will bring stronger chains. Stronger poisons. They will keep us from her.

The thought of Cass, alone and terrified in another one of these white boxes, was a lit match dropped into a barrel of gasoline. His fear, his confusion, his revulsion—all of it was incinerated in a singular, overwhelming blaze of purpose. Find Cass. That was the goal. The only goal. The rest was just noise.

He turned to face the seamless wall where Stillman had first entered. It was his only way out. There was no handle, no keypad, no visible seam to exploit. It was a solid wall of metal and polymer, designed to contain the unimaginable.

A cage of steel, the Chorus whispered, a seductive echo of its first promise. It is nothing.

Alex didn't think. He acted. He took two steps back, his body moving with a fluid power he’d never known. Every muscle, every sinew, every fiber of his being was suddenly aligned, humming with a terrifying new energy. He lowered his shoulder and charged.

The impact was cataclysmic. A sound like a car crash in a morgue—a deafening boom of metal followed by an awful, grinding shriek. The wall buckled inward, a deep crater forming around the point of impact. Pain, white-hot and blinding, lanced up his arm and through his shoulder, a scream of protesting bone and tissue. But beneath the pain was something else: a thrilling sense of his own unnatural resilience. It hurt, but nothing broke. The Chorus sang, reveling in the glorious agony.

He staggered back, shaking his head to clear the ringing in his ears. Through the warped metal, he could see the faint outline of the corridor beyond.

Again, the Chorus demanded.

He didn't need the encouragement. He charged again, aiming for the same weakened point. This time, the wall didn't just bend; it tore. With a screech of tortured metal, the door ripped from its magnetic moorings and flew inward, crashing against the far wall of the observation room.

For the first time since waking, Alex breathed air that wasn't recycled and scrubbed sterile. It smelled of ozone, antiseptic, and a faint, underlying metallic tang.

Then, the alarms began to scream.

Red lights flashed to life, pulsing down the long, metallic corridor, bathing everything in a hellish, rhythmic strobe. Doors hissed shut, and a synthesized voice, devoid of panic, began to drone from unseen speakers. “Containment breach in Sector Gamma. Subject Zero is hostile. Initiate lockdown protocol Omega.”

The noise was a physical assault, but the red haze pulsing in his vision wasn't just from the lights. His consciousness was fraying at the edges. The singular, burning need to find Cass was eclipsing everything else. Alex Vance, the graphic designer, was fading. Subject Zero was taking over.

He sprinted. His bare feet slapped against the cold floor, the torn paper gown flapping uselessly behind him. The corridor was a maze of identical intersections, but he didn't hesitate. A strange, primal instinct pulled him in one direction, a magnetic north he knew, impossibly, would lead to her. He could almost smell her presence, a faint, phantom scent of lavender and charcoal sketches buried beneath the sterile stench of the facility.

He rounded a corner at full speed and skidded to a halt. Two figures in lab coats, not the armored orderlies he expected, stood in his path. They looked young, terrified, one clutching a tablet like a shield, the other fumbling with a canister that looked like a fire extinguisher. Scientists. Obstacles.

Flesh, the Chorus sang, a single, hungry note.

The world dissolved into a smear of red light and shadow. Alex’s perception fractured, as if he were watching the scene from a great distance, a passenger in the back seat of his own skull. He saw his body lunge forward, not with the clumsiness of a man, but with the lethal grace of a predator.

The scientist with the canister managed to raise it, releasing a thick, white cloud of containment foam. It was meant to incapacitate, to harden on contact and trap him. But he was too fast. He moved through the cloud before it could solidify, his hand lashing out.

He felt a jarring, wet impact, a crunch of bone that resonated up his arm. The scientist with the tablet screamed, a high, thin sound that was abruptly cut off. There was a spray of warmth across his face. He distantly registered the coppery, metallic taste of blood on his tongue. It was… exquisite. The Chorus roared its approval, a gluttonous, ecstatic cry that vibrated through his entire being. He was dimly aware of the second scientist trying to run, of his own body pivoting, impossibly fast, and a sensation of tearing, of pulling something apart that was never meant to be separated.

Then, nothing. A black, silent void.

The next thing Alex knew, he was on his knees, his back pressed against the cold metal wall of the corridor. The alarms were still blaring, the red lights still flashing their insane, rhythmic pulse. His breath came in ragged, shuddering gasps. His entire body thrummed with a post-adrenaline fatigue that was deeper than any exhaustion he had ever known.

He blinked, trying to clear the fog from his mind. And then he saw them.

The two scientists. Or what was left of them. They were sprawled on the floor in a sickening tableau of gore and shredded lab coats. The corridor was splattered with blood, great arterial sprays painting the white walls crimson. The air was thick with the rich, cloying smell of it.

Nausea, acrid and powerful, rose in his throat. He scrambled away from the scene, crab-walking backward until he hit the opposite wall. This wasn't a fight. It was a slaughter. He had done this. No, it had done this, using his hands, his teeth, his body. He looked down at his hands. They were slick and dripping with blood. Chunks of something he couldn't identify were caught under his fingernails.

A wave of pure, undiluted horror washed over him, so potent it almost made him pass out. He was a monster. A real, flesh-rending monster.

As if in response to the thought, a searing pain erupted on the back of his right hand. It was a thousand times worse than the dull burning from before, like a hot iron was being pressed directly into his skin from the inside out. He cried out, clutching his hand, his knuckles white.

He could feel the flesh shifting, the capillaries bursting, the tissue reforming itself into a new, agonizing shape. The pain was so intense it burned away his nausea, his fear, everything but the searing reality of his transformation.

Slowly, shakily, he forced his fingers to uncurl. He stared at the back of his hand.

The number 3 was gone. In its place, etched in lines of fresh, steaming blood that seemed to boil beneath the surface of his skin, was a new number.

Four.