Elias staggered back from the pod.
But before he could catch his breath, a sharp crack rang through the air—
Like glass under pressure.
Everyone froze.
The pod he had touched…
Moved.
The glass bulged slightly, and inside, the pale-skinned figure—a young man with no hair, tubes threaded into his neck—opened one eye.
It was black.
Not just the iris.
The whole eye.
---
> "Dev…" Maya's voice was barely a whisper. "It's waking up."
> "It's not supposed to," Dev replied, dead calm.
The eye rolled unnaturally in its socket, scanning them—
No, recognizing them.
The figure pressed a bony hand to the glass.
> kkksshhhhh...kksssshhh...
A low, animal-like clicking sound rattled from its throat.
Then—
> "He... fragmented us... Elias... He spilled us..."
Kiran screamed.
"NOPE. That's not human. That's not f**king human!"
Elias took a step back—his legs like jelly—
But the pod's lights flared.
Power surge.
The tubes burst with a hiss of steam.
A thick fluid started dripping from the top, sizzling on the metal floor.
> "DEV—!" Maya shouted.
---
Dev moved.
Fast.
He sprinted across the room, pulled a rusted lever from the wall and smashed it down.
A violent hiss—and from above, a set of emergency spikes descended over the pod.
> THWACK. THWACK. THWACK.
Metal stakes pierced the chamber.
Straight through the thing's chest.
The eye blinked once.
Twice.
Then it slowly closed.
And the pod went dark.
Dev turned back, breathing heavily.
No one spoke.
Not even Elias.
Only the machine hummed softly, now… as if satisfied.
---
Suddenly—
A new sound.
Whispers.
> "...turn back… reverse, revert… remove him… fragment... fragment…"
They came from everywhere.
Inside their heads.
Inside the walls.
Maya clutched her ears.
"Make it stop…!"
Elias gasped. "It's not just voices. It's code. It's some kind of voice-encoded pattern."
Dev slowly turned to face him.
"You're remembering too much, Elias."
---
The lights above flickered violently.
Strobe effect.
And then—they weren't alone.
Silhouettes.
Around the machine.
Seven of them.
Vague, humanoid. But wrong.
Like people stitched together from memory scraps.
Blurry where the eyes should be.
Legs too long. Mouths too still.
They didn't move.
But they watched.
Frozen. Like mannequins at the edge of reality.
---
Kiran muttered, "We need to leave. We need to f**king leave, man."
"No," Dev said.
And he pointed to a blinking light near the destroyed pod.
A terminal.
Dusty. Ancient. But on.
The screen read:
> Accessing Core Protocol 09-A
PROJECT: FRAGMENT INDEX
[REDACTED] – Decryption required.
Under it, a distorted log began auto-playing.
A voice.
Female. Tired. Flat. But terrified.
> "If you're hearing this… you're inside the soul index. You're already mapped."
"Do not run. It stores motion. It learns from fear signatures."
"Fragment 26-E is not stable. One of its hosts—escaped."
"If you encounter a Dev-type… do not trust. He has—"
> STATIC.
> End log.
---
Dead silence.
Then the terminal began to glitch.
A new prompt flashed:
> ENTRY CODE REQUIRED FOR NEXT SEGMENT
"Only the broken know the key."
---
Elias stepped forward.
Eyes wide.
Hand trembling over the keyboard.
And whispered, "I think… I've seen this code before…"
---