Chapter Text
The coffee machine gurgled its last breath just as Michelle reached for the button. She stared at the dark, silent machine, then at the half-filled mug in her hand, then at Micah—who was already laughing at her from across the room.
"Told you it was on its way out," he said, leaning back in his chair with the kind of smugness only a person who'd just warned you could muster.
Michelle flicked a sugar packet at Micah's head. It bounced off his forehead with a soft plink, and he caught it mid-air before it could hit the floor. "You're insufferable," she said, but the corner of her mouth twitched upward.
Micah tossed the sugar packet onto his desk, still grinning. "And yet you always end up stuck with me." He swivelled his chair toward the broken coffee machine, giving it a speculative tap with his knuckles. The machine responded with a sad, metallic wheeze. "I'll call Shiloh and ask how they're going with fixing the Arxsis."
Michelle rolled her eyes and took a sip from her half-full mug—lukewarm now, like disappointment with a caffeine kick. "Shiloh's been dealing with Judah," she said, watching Micah tap out a message on his comm with exaggerated patience. "At this point, I think they're just sending us pictures of Freddy and trying to act like that's what's stopping them from coming back."
Micah snorted, not looking up. "Hey, give them credit—last update included a very detailed doodle of a frowning Bonnie. Artistic growth counts."
The comm chirped, and his grin faded. "Huh. That's... not Shiloh." The overhead lights flickered once, then died completely, plunging the agency into a darkness so thick Michelle could hear her own heartbeat.
"Micah... what's going on?" Michelle whispered over the static.
Micah's hand found her wrist in the dark, his grip warm and grounding. "Not sure," he murmured, voice low enough that the words barely disturbed the charged air between them. "But comms are fried. That's not—"
A high-pitched whine sliced through the static, cutting him off. Michelle flinched as the emergency lights flared to life overhead, casting the room in pulsing crimson. The Arxsis —previously red —now hummed with an eerie, radial blue glow, its edges blurred by the light bleeding through hairline fractures in its casing.
"Okay," Michelle breathed, taking a deliberate step back. "Now I'm freaking out."
Micah moved in front of her, half-shielding her body with his own as he eyed the device. "Shiloh didn't install glow protocols, nor did Judah," he muttered. The cracks widened with an audible snick, and Michelle watched, horrified, as something thin and jointed unfolded from within—a segmented limb, glistening with something that wasn't quite oil... more like blood.
Michelle didn't wait for the limb to finish unfolding—she grabbed Micah's sleeve and yanked him backward. "Bathroom," she hissed, already pivoting toward the door beside his desk. Micah didn't argue, just twisted his wrist to catch her hand as they bolted, their footsteps echoing too loud in the crimson-lit dark. The thing behind them made a sound like a hundred fingernails dragging across glass.
The bathroom door was solid, a large chunk of metal that was usually quite heavy, but Michelle slammed it shut with enough force to rattle the hinges. Micah threw the lock—twice—before pressing his palm flat against the wood, as if he could feel the thing moving through it. "Okay," he breathed, "okay." His other hand was already digging into his pocket for his comm, fingers fumbling over the cracked screen. "Elijah," he muttered, thumb jabbing at the contact. The comm whined, a shrill feedback loop that made Michelle's head ache.
Static. Then silence. Micah cursed under his breath and shook the device like a malfunctioning vending machine. "Nothing. It's—" The comm sparked once, a tiny blue flare in the dim bathroom light, and died. Micah stared at it. "That's not possible."
Michelle leaned against the sink, her pulse hammering in her throat. The bathroom's emergency light was a sickly yellow, flickering every few seconds like a dying heartbeat. She could hear something moving beyond the door—not footsteps, exactly. More like something heavy being dragged. "Tell me again," she said, voice tight, "why Shiloh and Judah's Arxsis broke."
Micah exhaled sharply through his nose, his fingers twitching against the dead comm. "Judah wanted it to interface with the old mainframe," he muttered, tilting his head toward the sound of dragging metal beyond the door. "Shiloh said the protocols were stable. They—" A wet, clicking noise interrupted him, like something with too many joints testing its range of motion. Michelle's grip on the sink tightened.
"Judah's an idiot," she said, too loud, then winced at her own volume. The dragging stopped. Silence pooled in the space between their breaths.
Micah's eyes flicked to hers, wide and unreadable in the flickering light. "Yeah," he agreed softly. "But Shiloh should've known better." He shifted, pressing his shoulder against the door as if bracing for impact. The metal groaned under his weight—old hinges protesting.
Michelle swallowed. "So what's the plan? Because hiding in a bathroom feels... temporary."
Micah's gaze darted to the ceiling tiles, then back to Michelle. "Temporary's better than dead," he whispered, just as something heavy thumped against the door—once, twice, testing the lock. The metal shuddered, but held. For now.
Michelle exhaled sharply and turned to the mirror above the sink, catching her own wide-eyed reflection. The flickering light made her look half-ghost. Then she noticed it: the vent above the toilet, its cover slightly ajar. "Micah," she hissed, jabbing a finger toward it.
He followed her gaze, blinked, then mouthed a silent "oh". The vent was small, but not impossibly so. They'd have to crawl.
Another thud against the door, this one harder—accompanied by a sound like rusted hinges screaming. The lock wouldn't hold much longer.
The vent cover clattered to the floor with a sound that made Michelle's stomach drop. Micah was already halfway inside, his shoulders scraping against the metal edges as he wriggled forward. "Hurry," he hissed, his voice muffled by the duct's echo. Michelle didn't need the encouragement—the door behind them groaned under another impact, the lock's metal screeching as it bent.
She scrambled onto the toilet tank, her palms slick with sweat against the porcelain, and hauled herself into the vent after Micah. The space was tighter than she'd expected, the metal biting into her hips as she dragged herself forward. Something warm dripped onto her wrist—Micah's blood, she realized, from where the vent's edges had torn at his sleeve. The air smelled like stale dust and something sharper, like ozone after a storm.
Then the bathroom door exploded inward.
Michelle didn't look back—couldn't—but she heard it. The wet, skittering sound of something too many-limbed and too-fast surging into the room. Micah shouted something she didn't catch, his voice raw with panic. She lunged forward, her elbow slamming against the vent's side as she kicked wildly to propel herself deeper. A hand—Micah's—grabbed her forearm and yanked.
Michelle's breath hitched as something cold and jointed wrapped around her ankle—too fast, too strong. She kicked backward, her heel connecting with something that gave way with a wet crunch, but the grip only tightened. The vent's metal edges tore at her knees as she was dragged back, her fingernails scraping uselessly against the duct's smooth interior. "Micah!" she gasped, but his name dissolved into a yelp as the thing yanked her backwards.
The world flipped. Michelle's shoulder slammed into the vent wall, then the floor, then—briefly—the ceiling as she was hauled out in a tangle of limbs. She caught a flash of the thing in the pulsing emergency light: a writhing mass of segmented limbs, glistening with bright red blood, its center a large set of teeth. It smelled like rust and burnt sugar.
Michelle twisted, driving her elbow into what might've been its face. Blood squirted out of the creature, but didn't yield. One limb—too thin, too many joints—lashed out, catching her across the cheekbone. Pain bloomed hot and sudden, her vision swimming with black spots. She barely registered Micah's shout, the sound of him dropping from the vent behind her, before the thing moved—its body rippling like liquid metal as it pinned her to the floor.
Something sharp pricked at her throat. Michelle went utterly still, her pulse hammering against the needle-thin tip pressed to her skin. The creature's breath—if it breathed—was a rhythmic, mechanical hiss. Up close, she could see the fractures in its casing, the way its limbs seemed to phase in and out of solidity, as if it couldn't decide what shape to take.
Michelle couldn't scream—not with the needle-point at her throat, not with the creature's fractured, glitching form looming over her like a bad transmission. But Micah didn't need her to. He moved like he'd been waiting for this moment his whole life: a jagged piece of broken ceiling tile in his hand, his arm already mid-swing. The makeshift weapon connected with the creature's central mass with a sound like shattering ice.
The thing screeched—a noise that wasn't quite mechanical, wasn't quite organic—and recoiled, its limbs spasming. The needle-point withdrew from Michelle's throat just enough for her to twist away, scrambling backward on her elbows. Micah lunged again, this time driving the tile shard straight into one of the fractures along the creature's torso.
Something viscous and iridescent oozed from the wound. The creature's limbs flailed wildly, one catching Micah across the ribs with enough force to send him sprawling. Michelle didn't think—she grabbed the first thing her fingers found (a fire extinguisher, mounted uselessly on the wall) and swung.
The impact reverberated up her arms, numbing her fingers. The creature's form *distorted*, its edges blurring like a corrupted holo-image, and for a single, heart-stopping second, Michelle thought it might collapse into itself. But then it twisted—a motion that defied physics—and ran.
The fire extinguisher slipped from Michelle's fingers with a hollow clang, her arms suddenly too heavy to lift. The creature was gone—vanished into the labyrinth of agency hallways—but the adrenaline hadn't caught up yet. Her hands shook, the edges of her vision still speckled with black. She barely registered Micah staggering to his feet, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he pressed a hand to his ribs.
"Hey." His voice was rough, but his fingers were gentle when they closed around her wrist, turning her arm palm-up. A shallow gash ran from elbow to forearm, beading with blood that looked too dark under the emergency lights. "Hold still," he muttered, already rifling through the bathroom's first-aid kit with his free hand.
Michelle wanted to laugh. The kit was ancient, the bandages probably expired, and the creature was still out there—somewhere—but Micah's hands were steady as he tore open a sterile pad with his teeth. The antiseptic stung, sharp and chemical, and Michelle hissed through her teeth. Micah didn't apologize, just pressed the pad harder, his thumb brushing the inside of her wrist like he was checking her pulse.
"You're fine," he said, more to himself than her, as he wound the bandage tight enough to bruise. His knuckles were split, the skin raw where he'd gripped the tile shard too hard. Michelle watched his hands work—efficient, familiar—and let herself relaxed.
The bandage tightened around Michelle's forearm with a final, decisive tug. Micah exhaled through his nose—a sharp, controlled sound—before tearing off the excess with his teeth. Static still clung to the air, prickling against Michelle's skin like the aftershocks of a storm. She flexed her fingers experimentally, watching the bandage shift. It held.
Micah's gaze flickered to the bathroom doorway—what was left of it. Splintered wood and twisted metal hinges framed the empty hall beyond, the emergency lights casting long, shuddering shadows. "We can't stay here," he muttered, more to himself than her. His fingers twitched toward his ruined comm, then abandoned the motion halfway. Useless.
Michelle took one step forward—then her knees buckled. The floor rushed up to meet her, but Micah was faster. His arm hooked around her waist just as her vision tunneled, hauling her upright with a grunt. "Whoa—easy," he murmured, his breath warm against her temple. The bandage on her forearm was already blooming crimson, the fabric saturated and slick under his fingers.
She blinked up at him, her pupils wide and unfocused in the dim light. "I'm fine," she lied, her voice thin. Her legs disagreed, trembling like a newborn deer's.
Micah's grip tightened. "Bullshit." He shifted, sliding her arm over his shoulders, his other hand firm against her ribs. Her weight sagged into him, her breath hitching as pain lanced up her side. The creature's limb had left more than just a scratch—something beneath her skin felt wrong, like a splinter of ice working its way deeper with every heartbeat. This wasn't like when she'd been infected by the zombie virus, this was different, something new.
The hallway stretched before them, endless and shadowed. The emergency lights pulsed erratically, casting the walls in strobes of sickly yellow. Micah adjusted his hold, his jaw set. "Two options," he muttered, his voice barely louder than the static humming through the vents. "We find Elijah before that creature does."