Opening My Eyes

I opened my eyes because an endless, repeating mechanical beep had been scraping at my nerves. Beep— beep— beep—. The sound felt like it was pulsing in place of my own heart.

I drew in a breath. The sensation of air rushing into my lungs was completely foreign. It was as if I were forcing a long-unused organ back to work; pain seeped in along with the oxygen.

“……What the hell.”

My voice came out cracked. It must have been a long time since I’d last spoken. I tried to sit up. The instant I moved, I felt a metallic click of resistance from my waist and shoulders.

When I looked down, several transparent tubes were connected to various points across my body. A faint blue liquid flowed inside them. Beneath the tubes, my body was completely naked. I felt no shame, only a strange, unpleasant discomfort.

Instinctively I reached out, grabbed the tubes, and yanked. A tearing sensation followed as the liquid spilled free. It hurt, but not enough to stop me. I pulled myself out of the bed—no, the capsule. The floor was ice-cold. The sensation against my bare feet was painfully vivid; I could even feel the faint friction of tiny dust particles.

The room was small. Monitors lined the walls, most of them dark. Only one remained alive, and text floated across its screen.

Red. I stared at the word for a long time. Contamination. For some reason the term felt intimately connected to me.

I had no memories. Not my name. Not why I was here. Not even where “here” was. But one thing was certain: this place was not safe.

At that moment, a sound came from the hallway beyond. A scraping noise—metal being clawed by something sharp and slow. It wasn’t rhythmic. Footsteps shuffled forward, accompanied by the wet, dragging scratch of something feeling its way along the wall.

I instinctively snatched the object hanging on the wall. A handgun. I had no idea why a weapon would be mounted there, but its weight felt familiar in my palm. I checked the magazine. It was loaded. I possessed no conscious memory of how to handle it, yet my hands moved on their own.

The automatic door leading into the corridor was stuck half-open, power clearly unstable. Through the gap I saw only darkness—and within that darkness, a single human silhouette.

…Or rather, what had once been human.

The white lab coat hung in tatters. The shoulder and chest had been split wide open, ribs jutting outward as if something inside had violently forced its way out. Organs and muscle glistened in the gap, still twitching faintly.

The creature that had once been a woman tilted its head, then slowly raised it. Half her face remained human. The other half had been torn away, and from the raw edge sprouted long, bestial fangs. Our eyes met. Hers held no focus, yet they clearly registered my presence.

Its arm rose. The forearm was twisted at an unnatural angle, as though an extra joint had grown. The limb had elongated; bone had punched through skin and hardened into a blade. Something writhed behind it. Flesh split open and a new limb emerged—thin, long, composed only of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠muscle and tendon. A razor-sharp skeletal hook dangled at its end.

Failure. The word rose unbidden in my mind.

It took a step. Its gait was unstable, the leg bending at an impossible angle before snapping straight again. Huge, sharp claws scraped across the floor. Its chest cavity yawned wider. A wet, boiling breath leaked out.

I pulled the trigger. The gunshot roared in the confined space. The bullet punched through its skull. It did not stop.

The head wasn’t the weak point. Muscles inside the ribcage contracted. The splayed ribs snapped shut, then spread even wider. A tentacle-like appendage lashed out from the gap.

I fired at the knee to keep it at bay. The leg buckled and the creature staggered. But in that instant the limb sprouting from its back whipped forward. The skeletal blade tore through the automatic door like paper.

Dangerous.

If that thing caught me, my body would be shredded just as easily.

Suddenly the world slowed. No—I had become faster. Every motion of the creature stood out in razor-sharp detail: the trajectory of the limb sprouting from its back, the exact angle at which its ribs would open again, the shift of its center of gravity.

I dropped low. The skeletal blade hissed over my head, slicing the air. Close. Its face was right in front of me. The remaining human eye stared straight into mine.

I shoved the muzzle into the open cavity of its chest and fired. The bullet detonated inside, spraying organs and red blood—no, black mucus—everywhere. The creature recoiled, but it still wasn’t finished. Deeper inside its torso, other organs continued to writhe, as if it possessed a second heart.

I clenched my teeth and kept firing. At last its movements ceased. The ruined lab coat collapsed onto the floor.

Failed infected specimen. The phrase drifted through my mind. The intact half of her face still looked human. I had killed what had once been an ordinary person.

Yet I remained strangely calm. My hands didn’t tremble. My heartbeat stayed perfectly steady.

Three percent. A low figure, yet it didn’t reassure me. Maybe because it wasn’t zero.

I looked down at the woman on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the floor. A keycard protruded from the pocket of her lab coat. The name read “Researcher Kim……” The rest was obscured ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠by blood.

This was a research facility. And I was apparently a test subject. The realization settled over me as naturally as if I had always known it.

The corridor was dark. From somewhere deeper inside came another sound.

Roughly eight rounds left.

I didn’t know how many more enemies there were, but this wouldn’t be enough. I stripped the bloodied lab coat from the corpse and pulled it on. It was little more than rags, but better than walking around naked. The damp fabric clung to my skin, still warm with the body heat of the failure that had worn it moments ago. The sensation was deeply unpleasant.

Stepping over the shattered door, I entered the hallway. The ceiling stretched far into the distance; fluorescent lights flickered at regular intervals. Long trails of blood smeared the floor.

For now I moved away from the direction of the noise.

To survive this place, I might have to become a monster myself.

I paused for half a step, then quickened my pace. An evolution slot? I didn’t know what it meant, but the existence of a choice told me this wasn’t over yet. If I was going to escape this facility, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I would have to become something more. Still, it would be wiser to make that choice somewhere safer than here.

In the underground control room of a corporate building in the city center, every monitor lining the walls flickered at once. A long, piercing alarm wailed. Red warning icons multiplied—one, two, three—then flooded across every screen.

The control room froze.

“……What’s happening?”

The duty engineer muttered as his fingers flew across the keyboard.

“Alert triggered in Research Facility B-7 sector.”

“Quarantine release request?”

“No.” The engineer’s voice faltered. “It’s not a quarantine release request……”

He enlarged the feed. Internal laboratory cameras showed corridors, labs, and isolation chambers. But the images were deteriorating. One by one the cameras died in bursts of static.

The final active screen displayed black mucus crawling down the walls.

“……Infected?” someone whispered.

The screen went black. Total darkness. The control room fell silent until a new warning appeared.

“……Damn it.”

The supervisor let out a low curse. “Call the security team.”

“Already done,” the engineer replied.

“External connections are being severed,” another employee reported.

“Research data?”

“Backup in progress.”

A schematic of the facility glowed on the main monitor. Red dots multiplied at terrifying speed—infection markers. The rate of spread was abnormal.

The supervisor muttered, “……This isn’t a simple accident.”

An employee asked carefully, “You’re saying the infected escaped the lab?”

“Looks that way.”

The supervisor stared at the screen. “What about the test subject management AI?”

“The Central AI is operating normally,” the engineer answered.

The supervisor narrowed his eyes. “Normally?”

“Yes.” The engineer pointed. The display showed clean lines of text.

The supervisor stared at the monitor for a long time. The facility was in complete chaos, yet the Central AI continued to function without a single error. He murmured under his breath, “……Strange.”

“What is?” the engineer asked.

“The quarantine failure itself. Under normal circumstances the AI should have triggered emergency protocols—sealing the entire facility, blocking data transmission, or requesting outside assistance.”

But the AI had done none of those things. The control room grew deathly quiet.

One employee offered, “……Maybe it’s just a simple glitch?”

The supervisor shook his head. “No.”

He enlarged the AI’s metrics: computation speed, data throughput, analysis logs. Everything was normal. More than normal.

“It’s observing something,” he muttered.

At that moment a new line appeared.

The supervisor’s eyes narrowed. “……What is this?”

The line vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

“Data backup complete,” the engineer reported. “What are your orders for the facility?”

The supervisor considered for only a moment before answering coldly, “Seal it.”

“……Sir?”

“Seal the entire research facility. This is a quarantine failure. Even if survivors exist, the priority is preventing infection spread.”

“Then the retrieval team—?”

“We’ll send them later.”

The supervisor gazed at the monitors one final time. Only blackened, lifeless camera feeds stared back.

“……Just what the hell is happening in there?”