Caleb’s arms shook as he peeled himself off the chair and away from the table. Staggering over to the door, he leant against it with full force before trying to open it.

  His vision blurred and broke, like a video feed losing connection. In the snowy black, an angel reached out towards him with its palm open.

  “Take my hand”, it seemed to say.

  Caleb reached out, his consciousness ejecting from his body as he made contact. He saw himself standing on the angel’s palm, against a backdrop of constellations.

  I wonder where we are in all that noise, he thought, letting his mind wander to the possibilities of infinite worlds.

  The one where he was nothing - a resentful burger-flipper failing his way through college…

  The one where he was a victim - dying time and time again at the hands of horror…

  And the one he had dreamt of since childhood.

  The universe where he was all powerful.

  “The Abyssal Savior…” whispered the angel. The words hit Caleb like a 10 ton truck, even though they were so softly spoken.

  The fantasy has a name. No. Not fantasy.

  Prophecy?

  The burden frightened Caleb to his core.

  And then he was back in the room.

  Caleb desperately tried to get his breath back. Sweat drenched through his blood stained and ripped clothes. He was just as he was before he died.

  Let’s forget what could be, what might be, he mused. Let’s get the facts around this world straight first.

  He slapped himself in the face a few times, then pulled open the door.

  “How the fuck did you get up here so fast?” Kayleigh and Oliver were sweaty messes. Their hair and clothes smoke from their close proximity to the acid shower.

  “I… I - killed it.” Caleb felt so impotent.

  “How?” demanded Oliver. He drove a finger into Caleb’s shoulder, making him stumble back. “You ran after...” he choked up. “… after what happened to Dave.”

  “Where did you go, Caleb?” Kayleigh’s softly worded question seemed more of a condemnation than Oliver’s angry interrogation.

  “I found a flamethrower,” he said, realizing as he relived it just how far-fetched the entire saga was about to sound. “Torched them all, the momma included.”

  Oliver’s eyes narrowed. “That’s pretty convenient.”

  Caleb shook his head. “It’s not all good. Then…” He stuttered again. “A robot came to steal Dave’s head. I couldn’t let it. I followed the bot. There was a crazy scientist guy. He shot me in the head.” Caleb mimicked Belker holding the gun. He whistled, mimicking the suppressed gunshots. “Then I woke up here.”

  Kayleigh couldn’t look Caleb in the eye. “That is pretty wild.”

  “Yeah, it is.” He said sarcastically. “So I would say on the traumatised scale, I’ve probably got you two beat.”

  Oliver collapsed against the wall and slid to the floor. “You said you had a plan.” He threw Caleb a dirty look. “He trusted you.”

  Caleb tried not to break down in tears. “I know he did. Look, we can’t waste his sacrifice. We misjudged the encounter. Horribly. We know now. Don’t take risks. Save yourself. We can’t predict anything.”

  Oliver shut his eyes tight. “And you didn’t even get his head back.”

  Caleb kicked the wall. “Don’t remind me.”

  “Okay, well, it’s happened now. So we all have to deal with it. And it doesn’t look like your ‘saved game’”, she put the words in air quotes as she said them, “has helped anyone but you. Which means we all need to find some ink ribbons NOW.”

  Oliver had a brainwave. “Enemies drop stuff when they die, don’t they? Loot or whatever?”

  Kayleigh nodded. “He’s right. Did the momma drop anything useful?”

  Caleb shook his head, but didn’t want to give his colleagues any more of a reason to hate them. “I didn’t get a real chance to look. That damn robot, he was too quick.”

  “So go back down there and look.” Oliver said, his hand primed around the m19’s handle.

  Caleb surrendered. “Hey, look, no way. I got literally murdered the last time I went down there. This is Belker’s laboratory.”

  “Belker,” Kayleigh had taken on her hero’s voice again. “That rat bastard.”

  “First Ravensbrook village,” Oliver said, in a voice also not his own. “Now he’s taken the whole damn city.”

  It was like a shared psychosis that suddenly shone a light into this weird new world. The longer they stayed in this world, the more these intrusive thoughts had spilled out in these odd asides.

  Will they overtake us eventually? Is this the person I’m supposed to become, begging to get out.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  The trio exchanged glances with each other. “These experiments are contagious.” Kayleigh said. Her eyes turned wide. “We could turn into those things.”

  “Suddenly outside of this place doesn’t seem like much of an escape.” Oliver said, sulking.

  “At least we’re at the site of patient zero.” Caleb countered. “It means there is a way out. Okay, I’ve talked myself into it.”

  Caleb felt invigorated by the hero’s voice, like he’d just chugged a six-pack of Monster Energy. “Let’s get back down there.”

  “I’m just worried about the ground level.” Kayleigh said, looking around. “If we’re going down to the basement, then-“

  Oliver interrupted. “Are we going down into the basement?”

  The group fell silent. This was so frustrating. For every answer they had, a hundred different, more pressing questions bubbled to the surface. There was no obvious route to success.

  They headed back through the door to the stairwell. Caleb was happy to see that the light had remained on. “Can anybody read these yet?” He asked.

  “Yet?” Kayleigh scoffed. “Are you asking if we’ve managed to learn an alien language in the half an hour or so we were apart from each other?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Caleb said. “It’s more like, if we’re saying impossible things… things we couldn’t possibly know about this world, maybe we’ll be able to read the language. In time.”

  “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.” chimed in Oliver.

  Under the bright hospital lights, Caleb saw the full detail of the staircase. In the darkness, he had only noticed the dividing point between steel and bone, but now he could see that the reality was much more nuanced.

  Thick steel rope intertwined with rich meaty sinew in a powerful statement of man’s unity with machine. Caleb poked the muscle and it audibly squelched. His finger came away bloody.

  The meat machine became skinnier and skinnier as they got closer to the ground until it was just metal augmented with bleached white bone.

  “The fucker grew his own staircase,” Kayleigh said, her nose turning up in disgust.

  “Shit,” Oliver said as he touched down onto the foyer. “I guess you weren’t lying.”

  The place was carnage. It was just as Caleb had left it. He had hoped against hope that somehow Dave would be waiting downstairs for them, picking razorpi bits from his hair, but only his melted insides remained now.

  “Which way?” Oliver asked.

  Caleb didn’t want to follow Belker. He was sure that Oliver still had a few rounds left, but he was also sure that there was much more to Belker than met the eye. And there was already a lot to take in.

  “Nothing behind the staircase.” Kayleigh said, after a quick scour of the area.

  “Into the pit we go, then.” Oliver thumped Caleb hard on his back.

  Broken glass broke underfoot and the remaining droplets of razorpi blood ate into the rubber soles of the workboots.

  Curiously, the hatch was open.

  “Oh, that’s not good.”

  Caleb remembered the only words that Belker had said to him before ending his life - “You shouldn’t be here yet.”

  And yet here he was, the place he shouldn’t be was completely unguarded.

  Was Belker bluffing?

  He tried to ask the hero inside what he knew of Belker’s personality, but whatever force summoned that train of thought wouldn’t listen to demand. Caleb was not in charge.

  “This is where he popped a cap in your ass, is it?” Oliver sniffed.

  “Yes,” Caleb said, scouring the floor for evidence. “Look!” He pointed at the small pile of gore plastered across a nearby tank. Red-black blood dripped to the floor, where it pooled alongside chunks of greasy brain.

  “Not very substantial,” Oliver joked. “I thought you’d be brainier than that.”

  “Very funny,” Caleb rolled his eyes. “Now can we focus on the task at hand please?”

  “Another hallway,” Kayleigh said. “I think we can handle it.”

  It was true. The sheer monotony of their surroundings was getting more than a little tiring.

  I hope this game has a tropical level at some point…

  Oliver stepped into the unknown with zero hesitation. Caleb winced as he watched Oliver cross the threshold into Belker’s territory.

  But all of this is Belker’s territory, the hero thought.

  So you are there. Caleb thought.

  The hero did not answer back.

  Oliver turned back. “Are ya coming or not?”

  Kayleigh and Caleb exchanged worried glances. Remembering their moments earlier, Caleb wrapped his hand around hers and pushed forward.

  The moment they cleared the threshold, the door slammed shut.

  Caleb threw himself into the perfect white portal, trying to pry it back up with his fingertips. His nails splintered, the sharp ceramic edge biting into his finger pads.

  “Stop now.” Kayleigh whispered. “There’s no going back.”

  She’s right.

  The hallway light flickered. Green, red and amber LEDs lined the walls, blinking for incomprehensible reasons. A great smear of gore ran along the brilliant white walls.

  A bulky body slumped against the floor. Like Martinez, the soldier was surely dead. A dark bloom of ruby red dyed his chest, the flak jacket ripped up by what must have been giant claws or the aftershocks of an explosion in close quarters. Even though his body was in bad shape, his face was unmarked. His eyes were closed and his helmet was still firmly attached to his head.

  “I’m going to pat him down for supplies.”

  “Ammo?” Kayleigh asked, her voice rich with hope.

  “I think I can see something better…” Oliver spied the butt of a sub-machine gun under the dead man.

  “Fingers crossed for bandages.” Caleb said. “Or even a spray.”

  Oliver grabbed the man’s tactical harness to free the precious weapon…

  The soldier gasped for air. His eyes snapped open - they were bloodshot and laced with tiny blue veins, like he hadn’t slept in a thousand years and existed on a diet of meth.

  “My pocket!” He choked. “A spray! Please. Be quick.”

  Oliver hesitated, shaking from the sudden fright.

  “Go on.” Caleb said. “He can help us!”

  Oliver dove into the bulkiest pocket on his chest and found the spray. It was slick with blood, and he realised as he was retrieving it that whatever injury this guy had suffered had forced the spray half-way into his chest cavity.

  His finger slipped as he readied the aerosol, firing a short burst of pure health into the air. Caleb hungrily inhaled the cloud of green goodness, and it felt revitalising in a way he was sure should probably be illegal.

  Oliver carefully applied the contents of the can to the hole in the soldier’s flak jacket. The soldier closed his eyes, letting out a groan as his wounds were healed.

  “This guy should have answers as well.”

  Does this guy know anything about angels? I don’t know which would be worse… If he doesn’t, maybe there’s no way of getting home. If he does, why hasn’t he gone home yet?

  The soldier tried to clear his throat, coughing up blood and mucus in the process.

  “Thanks,” he growled. Caleb noticed that his eyes were still bloodstained and bulging. As he looked closer, he saw the tiny blue veins lacing the way to his dilated pupils weren’t veins at all. Worms wriggled through the man’s eyeballs.

  “Woah,” Caleb jumped back. “We need to go.”

  Before Kayleigh and Oliver could even ask why, thick black spikes exploded out from the soldier’s back. He rose to standing as if puppeteered by an unseen force, as the parasitic razorpi’s beak forced its way through through the broken maw of his mouth.

  Looks like we just found out how they’re born…