CHAPTER 29: PARASITE

Zyrus’s gaze flickered toward Richard, the unnatural glow in his eyes dimming like a dying ember. His voice rasped, thinner now, every word pulled from a place of pain that had already consumed most of him.

"Because they want to make weapons, not soldiers. Perfect soldiers who can’t disobey orders. Who can survive anything, even death." His breathing hitched. "The Tainted Bloods... they’re the success stories."

The overhead lights buzzed. Lance stepped back, disbelief painting his features pale. "You’re saying we’re next?"

A hollow laugh escaped Zyrus, more a rattle than a sound.

"You already are. The air down here... the serum isn’t just injected anymore." His fingers twitched, reaching for the wall. "It’s airborne. You’ve been breathing it since you came in."

A cold, sinking dread spread through Richard’s limbs. He looked down at his own hands, at the faint tremor he’d brushed off as exhaustion. Under the new weight of Zyrus’s words, it felt like something else. Something seeded beneath his skin.

Zyrus grabbed Richard’s arm with surprising strength. His eyes locked onto Richard’s, fierce even as life ebbed from them.

"Listen to me. You have to find the central lab. Destroy it. Don’t let them continue." His voice cracked. "Promise me, Captain."

Richard nodded, throat tight. When he spoke, the sound barely rose above a whisper. "I promise."

Zyrus let out a faint sigh. A tiny, fragile smile touched his lips, shaped by resignation rather than hope. "Good. Maybe you’ll... do what I couldn’t."

Moments later, his breath stilled.

Silence fell. Not gentle silence, but the kind that stands heavy and unwelcome. Only the low hum of the buried facility filled the void, as if the place were mocking them, alive in all the wrong ways.

Rhea’s voice broke the stillness. "If this is true... then we’re just pawns."

Richard stared down at the cooling body, at the man who had once worn pride like armor. His fists tightened. "No. We’re survivors. And if they think they can use us like tools... then we’ll make them regret it."

Lance stepped close, resting a steadying hand on Richard’s shoulder. "What’s the plan, Captain?"

Richard looked toward the dark corridor where the map indicated the Central Core waited. Something malignant stirred there, he could feel it.

"We move forward," he said. "We find that lab. And we burn this whole place to the ground."

But as he spoke, he couldn’t shake Zyrus’s final warning. If the air itself was tainted, then the transformation had already begun. And deep under his skin, a strange, rhythmic pulse responded, foreign and unwelcome.

They burned Zyrus’s body before leaving. The fire was small, reluctant, but it cast long, dancing shadows against the ruined walls. No one spoke, because no one knew what words would do justice. They only watched until the flames faded, then turned back toward the depths of the facility.

The deeper they descended, the more the environment warped. The air thickened, taking on a heavy, metallic weight that clung to their lungs. The lights overhead flickered in irregular pulses, almost syncing with Richard’s heartbeat. Every few minutes, the floor vibrated, as though something large shifted far below.

According to the map, the Central Core was close. The heart of Project Genesis.

Richard kept walking, though Zyrus’s words crept along the edges of his mind.

"You’ve been breathing it since you came in."

At first, he told himself it was fatigue, the kind that gnaws at the senses after too many hours on edge. But then the symptoms arrived.

A faint ringing in his ears. Then heat blooming beneath his skin. His heartbeat quickened, too fast, too strong. His senses sharpened. The slow drip of water several halls away became a steady rhythm. The faintest trace of blood in the air stung his nose. The hum of distant generators felt like pressure behind his eyes.

When he caught his reflection in a broken shard of glass, his pupils were stretched, darker. Predatory.

He forced his expression to be neutral.

"You okay, Captain?" Lance asked beside him, tone clipped with worry. "You’re pale."

"Just tired," Richard said. "We’ve been walking for hours."

Lance didn’t push. But he didn’t believe him either.

They passed through a half-open security door into a room that felt unsettlingly untouched. Clean. Maintained. Cylindrical tanks lined the walls, each one filled with luminous blue fluid. Human forms floated inside several of them, suspended and motionless, faces slack like dolls waiting to be animated.

Rhea swallowed hard. "This has to be the core lab."

Richard approached a control panel and wiped the dust away. The screen flickered to life, revealing columns of data, gene maps, blood reports, and glowing warnings. One section pulsed red.

[Adaptive Infection Progression – Subject Group Delta].

A video file waited.

He hesitated, then opened it.

A masked researcher appeared, voice steady but eyes darting as though he sensed something watching. "The airborne strain is spreading faster than expected. Initial exposure induces heightened senses, improved reflexes, and accelerated cellular regeneration."

Richard felt the words like cold knives.

"However," the researcher continued, lowering his gaze, "subjects begin showing aggression within forty-eight hours. Loss of emotional restraint. Then..." He swallowed. "They stop recognizing their own kind."

The screen went black.

Richard stood motionless. Inside his chest, fear twisted tight.

Will we also lose our consciousness and become similar to those infected in experiments?

The symptoms matched him exactly.

"Captain?" Lance called. "What does it say?"

Richard shut the monitor off.

"Just old records," he lied. "Nothing useful."

It might be selfish of me, but I don’t want my team to commit suicide.

He couldn’t let them see the truth. Couldn’t watch the fear bloom in their eyes. Especially if there was no cure. The documents mentioned none. Only "containment" and "termination."

From across the room, Owen called out. "Captain! You need to see this!"

They followed him into another chamber sealed with reinforced glass. Inside, faint lights flickered. On the far wall, words were scrawled in dark red, uneven and jagged.

THE CURE IS A LIE.

Lance exhaled sharply. "What the hell is this place?"

"The truth," Richard murmured. "And we’re standing right in the center of it."

The hum of the machinery deepened, reverberating like a heartbeat through the walls. Richard’s pulse answered, too fast, too strong. The heat under his skin spread like wildfire, and a prickle of something inhuman crawled along his spine.

For the first time since joining the Division, Richard felt fear burrow deep.

Not fear of death.

Fear of the thing he was turning into.