Chapter 1 — The Red Laboratory
The sound of the explosion came before the pain.
It was no ordinary bang.
It was as if the world had been ripped in two.
First came the light—white, violent, impossible to look at. Then the heat. A heat so brutal it seemed to pierce through skin, bone, and memory. Then came the impact, throwing everything away: metal, glass, bodies, screams.
And then…
Silence.
A heavy silence.
Dead.
Maya slowly opened her eyes.
For a few seconds, I didn't know if I was still alive.
Her left ear buzzed incessantly, as if an entire beehive had been locked inside her head. The sound came and went in waves, drowning out the world around her. She tried to breathe, but the air entered scratching her throat.
Smoke.
Ashes.
Burnt metal.
Blood.
The smell was so strong that his stomach clenched.
Above her, the concrete ceiling was cracked from end to end. Electrical cables hung like veins ripped from a giant creature. Sparks exploded in the darkness, illuminating the underground corridor in flashes of red and blue.
For a moment, she thought it was beautiful.
Then he noticed the bodies.
The thought came slowly.
Wrong.
Bodies.
There were bodies everywhere.
Men and women in military uniforms were scattered across the floor, some too still, others writhing in silent agony. A helmet rolled near his hand. A broken rifle smoked beside a dark puddle. The wall to the right was marked by something that looked like a human shadow burned into the concrete.
Maya tried to sit down.
A sharp pain shot through his spine.
She choked.
His entire body seemed to have been taken apart and put back together the wrong way. His arms trembled. His legs wouldn't obey. There were cuts on his skin, but none of them bled as they should.
She looked at her own hands.
They were covered in blood.
A lot of blood.
But I didn't know if it was hers.
Panic rose in his throat.
- What happened?
His voice came out hoarse.
Strange.
Distant.
As if it belonged to someone else.
Maya blinked several times, trying to understand where she was. The corridor seemed to be part of an underground facility. Security signs were bent on the walls. Metal doors had been ripped from their hinges. A bulletproof glass, now shattered, separated the room where she had woken up from a destroyed laboratory.
Inside, there were stretchers.
Currents.
Broken cylindrical tanks.
Monitors flashing red.
And at the center of it all, an open capsule.
A capsule large enough for one person.
Maya's heart skipped a beat.
She knew.
Even without remembering, I knew.
I had left there.
The capsule had fingernail marks on the inside.
Deep marks.
Desperate.
Maya instinctively recoiled, but her elbow hit something soft.
She turned her face away.
A dead soldier stared at her with wide eyes.
Maya screamed.
The sound came out faint, almost swallowed by the alarm.
She crawled backward, her body sliding on the blood splattered on the floor. Panic made her breathing quicken. Each breath was too short, as if the air had become too heavy for her lungs.
She tried to remember something.
Anything.
Your name.
Your age.
Your home.
Someone's face.
Nothing.
His mind was a dark room without doors.
There was only one loose word, repeating within her like a light bulb flickering before going out.
Maya.
Maya.
Maya.
Was that his name?
Or was it something else?
A siren roared above her.
Red lights began to spin on the destroyed ceiling.
An electronic voice echoed through the speakers:
Biological alarm. Containment compromised. Omega protocol initiated.
Maya froze.
Omega Protocol.
The phrase shouldn't mean anything.
But it meant something.
A violent chill ran through his chest.
Broken images flashed through his mind.
Hands with white gloves.
A needle going into his neck.
A male voice saying:
If she touches anyone during her awakening, we will all die.
The memory vanished as quickly as it had come.
Maya put her hand to her head.
No… no, no, no…
She didn't know who had said that.
I didn't know why that seemed important.
But I knew I needed to get out of there.
Now.
He tried to stand up.
Her legs gave way.
He fell to his knees.
The pain exploded in his bones, but along with it came something different.
Heat.
Not the heat of the explosion.
An inner warmth.
Alive.
As if something beneath her skin was waking up along with her.
Maya clenched her teeth and stood up again.
This time, he succeeded.
She staggered to the wall, leaning against it. Her fingers left red marks on the concrete. The laboratory flickered around her, alternating between shadow and red light.
Then she listened.
Steps.
Heavy.
Quick.
Several.
Voices came from the hallway ahead.
Team Alpha, advance!
— Confirm visually!
Sector three has collapsed!
The capsule is open!
Maya held her breath.
Soldiers appeared at the end of the destroyed corridor.
Six men.
All armed.
Black helmets. Opaque visors. Rifles pointed. They moved like a single creature trained to kill without hesitation.
When the first one saw Maya, he stopped so abruptly that the soldier behind him almost bumped into his back.
"Eye contact," he said, his voice distorted by the communicator. "She's alive."
The entire hallway seemed to get smaller.
Maya slowly raised her hands.
I don't know what's going on.
None of them lowered their weapon.
The second soldier took a step back.
— Don't come any closer.
"She seems disoriented," said another.
— It doesn't matter. Direct order from the general. If she breathes, neutralize her.
Maya felt her blood run cold.
Neutralize them.
She knew that word.
It was a clean word for something dirty.
To kill.
"I didn't do anything," she whispered.
The soldier in front shouted:
— On your knees! Now!
Maya obeyed instinctively.
She fell to her knees slowly, feeling shards of glass tear at her skin. Fear made her muscles tense. She wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come.
Why?
Why did everyone look at her as if she were a monster?
One of the soldiers approached with restraint handcuffs.
The others kept their sights on his head.
— Arms forward — he ordered.
Maya raised her arms.
His hands were trembling.
Please... tell me who I am.
The soldier hesitated.
It was only a second.
But Maya saw.
Behind the dark visor, he was afraid.
I'm afraid of her.
— You are the reason they are all dead.
The phrase hit her worse than the explosion.
Maya looked around.
The bodies.
The blood.
The laboratory was destroyed.
No.
It couldn't be.
She remembered nothing.
I didn't remember killing anyone.
- No…
The soldier held her wrist.
His glove touched her exposed skin.
And the world changed.
There was no warning.
There was no choice.
The sensation came like a lightning bolt piercing through his flesh.
Something pierced Maya.
Strength.
Pain.
Memories.
A lifetime compressed into seconds.
She saw a small child running through a yard. She saw a uniform being put on for the first time. She saw military training, gunfire, sweat, fear. She saw a woman smiling in a folded photograph inside a pocket. She saw the same soldier, younger, promising to return home.
Then he saw the laboratory.
The capsule.
She herself, trapped inside.
He saw scientists shouting.
He saw the general.
He saw his own hand go through the glass.
And then everything disappeared.
The soldier let out a horrible scream.
Maya tried to pull her arm away, but it was too late.
His veins darkened beneath his skin.
The body began to wither.
The face lost its color.
His eyes sank.
He aged before her eyes, decades stolen away in seconds.
"Get him out of there!" someone shouted.
Maya screamed too.
Not because I wanted to hurt him.
But because she felt everything.
His strength entering her.
His pain seeping into her.
The fear of him entering her.
She let him go.
The soldier fell to the ground like an empty sack.
Still alive.
But weak.
Aged.
Broken.
Maya recoiled in terror.
I didn't want to... I didn't want to!
But something inside her responded.
Yes, I wanted to.
The voice wasn't hers.
Maya stood motionless.
His heart almost stopped.
Who said that?
The soldiers opened fire.
The first shot hit the wall next to his head.
The second one reached through the sleeve of his garment.
The third one should have hit his chest.
But it didn't hit.
Because the world has slowed down.
Not like in the movies.
It wasn't pretty.
It was terrifying.
The sound of gunfire stretched, deep and distorted. Sparks fell slowly. Bullets cut through the air like metallic insects, spinning toward her. Maya could see each one.
I could calculate it.
He was able to dodge.
His body moved before his mind.
She rolled to the side.
A bullet passed so close to his face that it burned his cheek.
Another crossed the space where her heart had been a second before.
Maya hit the wall.
The wall cracked.
No.
She didn't knock.
She broke.
The concrete sank beneath his back.
Maya looked back, horrified.
His body had left a mark on the wall.
As if she weighed tons.
As if she weren't human.
The soldiers paused for half a second.
Half a second was enough.
Maya tried to stand up and, unintentionally, placed her hand on the ground with too much force.
The floor exploded.
Pieces of concrete flew.
One of the soldiers was thrown against a metal door.
Another one fell on its back.
The hallway shook.
Maya stood up, breathing rapidly, surrounded by dust and red light.
She didn't understand.
But her body understood.
His body knew how to fight.
His body knew how to survive.
And that scared her more than the soldiers.
"She absorbed the soldier!" someone shouted over the communicator. "She's already copying motor functions!"
Kill them! Kill them now!
Maya turned to run away.
Another group appeared behind her.
More rifles.
More helmets.
More fear.
She was surrounded.
A voice echoed through the speakers, different from the electronic voice.
Male.
Cold.
Authoritarian.
Maya.
She froze.
The voice knew his name.
The soldiers also stopped.
"Maya, listen carefully," the man said. "You're confused. Your brain is still rebooting. Surrender and we can contain this."
Contain it.
Not to "help you".
Not to "save you".
Contain it.
Maya looked at a broken camera in the corner of the ceiling.
- Who are you?
There was a pause.
— General Adrian Voss.
The name made his head throb.
Another memory surfaced.
The same man, closer.
Gray hair.
Cold eyes.
He was holding a tablet while watching Maya through a glass partition.
She's not a girl. She's a vessel.
Maya put her hand to her mouth.
Container.
Was that her?
What have you done to me?
The general did not respond immediately.
When she answered, her voice was lower.
We tried to save the world.
Maya laughed involuntarily.
A broken laugh.
Desperate.
Saving the world with corpses on the ground?
— You don't understand what you carry inside yourself.
Within oneself.
The heat beneath his skin intensified.
The red lights seemed to pulse in the same rhythm as his blood.
Maya felt something stir in her mind.
Not a memory.
A presence.
Old.
Hunger.
Curiosity.
Pleasure.
She staggered.
— Take this away from me…
The general said:
There's still time, Maya. Stay still.
The soldiers raised larger weapons.
Not ordinary rifles.
Weapons with silver tubes, charged by blue energy.
Maya saw the lights turn on.
His body reacted purely on instinct.
Run.
The word exploded inside her.
This time, it seemed like hers.
Maya darted to the side before they could shoot.
The blue bullets hit the corridor, freezing parts of the concrete into dark crystals. One of them grazed his shoulder. The pain was excruciating, icy, as if his flesh had been bitten by molten metal.
She screamed.
But he kept running.
Ahead, there was a wall partially cracked by the explosion.
Without thinking, Maya stepped forward.
A soldier tried to grab her by the waist.
Error.
His skin touched hers.
Another flush.
More memories.
More strength.
This time something different happened.
Reflection.
Precision.
Technique.
Maya not only felt his body weaken.
She learned.
In a second, I knew how to disarm a man.
How to break a joint.
How to knock someone down using your own weight.
She spun around.
His elbow struck the soldier's helmet.
The visor cracked.
He fell.
Maya looked at her own hands, horrified by the naturalness of the movement.
I've never done that before…
But his body was already turning to the next one.
The soldier attacked with an electric knife.
Maya turned away.
He took his wrist.
Twist.
Impact.
Knee to chest.
He collapsed, breathless.
She didn't want to know how to do that.
I didn't want to be that.
But the more fear he felt, the more efficient he became.
As if panic were fuel.
As if his body had been built to survive at any cost.
Behind her, the general shouted through the loudspeaker:
— Do not allow skin-to-skin contact! I repeat, do not allow contact!
Maya ran to the cracked wall.
There might be a way out on the other side.
Or death.
At that moment, both options seemed better than staying there.
She raised her fist.
For a moment, he hesitated.
He remembered the soldier growing old.
He remembered the voice.
He remembered the phrase:
You are the reason they are all dead.
And then he punched.
The world exploded.
The concrete wall split open as if it were made of wet paper. The impact sent fragments flying down the hallway. Dust swallowed the red light. The floor trembled beneath their feet.
Maya went through the hole.
It fell to the other side, rolling over gravel and cables.
The new hallway was darker.
Older.
Huge pipes ran along the ceiling. There were armored doors on both sides, each with codes and symbols she didn't recognize.
But a sign, illuminated by a flickering light, caught his attention.
Containment Wing — Primary Subjects
Maya stopped.
Subjects.
Plural.
She wasn't the only one.
The sound of boots returned behind her.
More soldiers are approaching.
Maya staggered down the hallway, searching for a way out. Her shoulder burned. The wound from the blue bullet pulsed like ice within her flesh.
Then he heard a sound.
Low.
Weak.
A hit.
Toc.
Toc.
Toc.
It came from one of the armored doors.
Maya approached slowly.
In the small reinforced glass window, there was a hand.
Small.
Human.
On the other side, a child was looking at her.
A girl of perhaps eight years old.
Shaved head.
Huge eyes.
Skin that is too pale.
The child touched the glass with their hand.
Maya felt a tightness in her chest.
"Help me," the girl whispered.
Maya didn't hear with her ears.
He heard it inside his head.
She stepped back.
The child continued to stare.
Then he wrote something on the fogged-up glass with his finger.
Three letters.
NEX
Maya stopped breathing.
The word ignited his mind.
NEX.
No.
It wasn't just one word.
It was the beginning of a name.
Something inside her stirred violently, as if it had recognized the call.
Pain shot through his head.
Maya fell to her knees.
And then the memory came.
Not entirely.
Just a fragment.
She was inside the capsule.
There were doctors nearby.
General Voss was watching.
A woman was crying behind the glass.
The woman had the same eyes as Maya.
Your mother?
The woman was shouting something.
Don't do that to her.
Then a voice answered.
It wasn't human.
It was profound.
Old.
Hungry.
She is compatible.
Maya returned to the present with a scream stuck in her throat.
The soldiers were already entering through the hole behind her.
Target located!
The girl on the other side of the glass widened her eyes.
"Run," she whispered inside Maya's mind. "Before he really wakes up."
Maya stood up, trembling.
- Who?
The girl rested her forehead against the glass.
His eyes turned completely black.
And a different voice came out of his mouth.
The same voice that Maya had heard inside her own head.
- I.
The hallway lights went out.
One by one.
And in the total darkness, Maya heard all the dead bodies behind her breathing at the same time.
Before escaping, Maya sees a clue written in blood on the cell window: “NEXUS IS NOT INSIDE YOU. YOU ARE INSIDE IT.”
