Prologue (Part 1)

The woman ran, the clunking of her shoe heels against the floor was drowned by the gunshots, explosions, and screams. She breathed with difficulty, her lungs burning. Yet she didn't dare stop moving.

The earth growled underneath her, and darkness soon began to haunt the halls she was escaping from when the lights burned on and off. She looked at her arms, and for a moment, the baby wrapped in a sloppy fabric gave her a tiny sense of tranquility among the chaos transpiring about them.

"Abort! Abort!"

The yells of the paramilitary soldiers behind reeled back the woman's attention. She whipped her head over her shoulder and gasped, her eyes widening when a monstrous gloom as dark as night appeared at the farthest end of the hall. For a moment, it halted.

Then it moved.

Rushing like water through the pipes, the monster gorged through everything in its wake. Nothing, even the advanced and powerful hybrid weapons the militants possessed, was able to pacify the shadowy force. And when it touched skins, it swallowed wails and cries and molded it as its tongue, creating an inhumane symphony of agony and despair as if to mock them.

Hysteria intensified. People, mostly wearing long and white labs coats, barrelled down the steel-walled passage like a crowd of ants racing out of a flooding anthill. Some tripped; some got trampled on. No one dared to stop for them.

Trembles of terror kept on attacking the woman's body at every heartbeat, but she kept her grip firm despite her state. Amid the chaos, she started to doubt and despise herself even more than she had recently. She had been questioning hers and the organization's methods, their deeds.

If only they haven't done what it is that they have done, then perhaps they wouldn't be in this situation right now. Perhaps they wouldn't have to face the retribution and wrath for all the sins they've laid waste in the past.

After reaching past the immense bulkhead that laid suspended at the end of the hall, the woman let out a breath she didn't realize she held onto. The room expanded to hundredfolds where underwater vessels made of alloy steel surrounded a massive pool of deep blue.

On the bulkhead computer system, men were trialed in weighing between their logic and mercy. The gloom was nearing in; they needed to close the bulkhead. But doing so meant sealing the fate of those people, including their men who were still behind the door.

There was no choice.

"Seal the bulkhead!" shouted the commander. And from a command containing three words, the scales flipped.

The engineer fiddled with codes and controls. And the next thing that happened, the bulkhead slammed down from above several unsuspecting individuals, crushing their insides and trapping out the people behind like cornered rats.

A wave of spine-chilling wails arose. Sudden cries, begging and a violent beat hammered behind the steel door. But the choice of that with authority was what was nailed.

"Bullcrap!" yelled a lab-coated man to the soldiers guarding a vessel's entrance. "What do you mean this vessel is reserved for higher personnel?!"

"It was an order to us, sir," one soldier answered, almost yelling just so his voice could be heard against the raucous noise. "We can't do anything about it. We advise you to board another vessel."

There were a few vessels left. It was obvious that not all of them could get into one. The man's hands balled and he gritted his teeth, his face then seething red.

"This is preposterous!" he screamed. "People are going die, and you're still here licking someone else's shoes?!"

A crowd participated in barraging the officers. Some of them were planning on pushing them out of the floating platform. Their scheme, however, didn't last long. They shrieked, backing off at once when one of the paramilitary soldiers pointed a gun at them.

"I'm going to have to warn you. Back off," the soldier warned.

The woman earlier fidgeted. She looked around, but no one seemed to be aware of her. She tugged the baby's cover, hiding any of its exposed skin, in a desperate attempt of trying to conceal it.

Though her heart was heavily drumming inside her chest, she decided to push on. The woman skittered cautiously past the uneasy crowd. When she reached the armed men, she flipped a platinum identification card from a pocket and whispered, "Isabelle Ginelart."

A soldier turned to look at her. Even without any verification documents, he immediately recognized the woman wearing a distressed white lab coat, silver-rimmed eyeglasses, and a falling bun, even when her current appearance variated to her usual conventional and pristine image.

It wasn't a surprise, being one of the most significant figures who contributed a mountain to all of the big projects their company worked on earned her that.

Especially now with the current "Project X."

"Professor Ginelart!" the soldier shouted. "I'm glad you made it through. Please get inside immediately!"

"Thank you," Isabelle replied. Her hold on the baby tightened when the soldier's eyes lowered to what was on her arms. She immediately raced inside the vessel, not letting the man question nor pick up on what she was doing.

Inside the vessel, Isabelle found her balance more brittle from the unstable floor underneath her. She had to hold onto a wall to keep her legs from collapsing. All the fear, terror, and guilt had made her weak. She was even surprised she had made it this far. Maybe if it wasn't for the baby, she would have given up already.

Isabelle began to drag herself towards the inner section of the vessel, holding onto the baby ever so tightly, when—

Kaboom!

Isabelle was hurled backward when an instantaneous force suddenly detonated outside, causing the vessel to be launched forward.

For a moment, there was silence. Then a new wave of screaming arose.

The bulkhead had been destroyed, and the gloom had broken through.

With hesitation out of the list, the crowd outside the vessel where Isabelle was immediately charged at the soldiers guarding it, now overlooking their weapons nor expertise anymore. It was a gamble. The people would take any chance they could get to survive.

The soldiers had a good start of holding their ground at first, but they were soon overwhelmed. A lot was pushed out of the platform and into the blue. Some of the civilians also fell, but nobody bothered to help anyone out. To them, it was as good as being dead.

People started to leap for the vessel, which was propelled quite far from the port due to the outbreak's impact. Due to the surging crowd, two results came out—people were either shoved out of the platform or were cut off too short for the jump.

Isabelle's eyes were wide and beyond terrified at what she was witnessing. Suddenly, she saw the gloom. Her hearing clouded and her breathing came into spurts. Such monstrosity, she thought.

... But aren't we as well?

Steam blew out from the vessel's entrance. In all her life, Isabelle saw hell for once beyond it.

The bulkhead then shut, and suddenly, all was quiet.