The meeting room was on the fourth level down. A long space, a table, eight chairs, and only six of them occupied.

The people sat in medical masks. All for different reasons. Mostly because it was hard to breathe - the smell of antiseptic was suffocating and tickled their nostrils.

The old man at the head of the table, Doctor Levin, folded his hands in front of him. Another meeting and reports:

"We took a blood sample from the volunteer. Male, thirty-two years old, second-stage corrosion infection, admitted to the ward nine days ago. The results confirmed the hypothesis. The corrosion of sin is transmitted through liquid mediums. Not airborne. Not by contact - provided barrier protection is observed."

The woman to his right, Doctor Vadetta, younger, nodded and opened a folder.

"Based on sample number grief6-fba71527," - she said it without stumbling, "we established: the cellular structure maintains its integrity upon contact with human blood. There is no rejection reaction. Proteins do not break down. Moreover - the sample showed an adaptive response."

Silence.

Levin raised his head.

"One thing remains to be understood. Whether humanoid reproduction is possible."

The silence became even tighter, if that's even possible.

Reproduction?

"You want to breed a human with that?"

A young guy spoke up from behind his chair.

"'Breed' is not what we meant."

"Whatever term. Do you understand what you're saying? This creature is not human. It's a huge risk? Are we going to carry the fetus in a human too? And what if the human dies?"

"If the human dies," the doctor closed the folder, "we will record the result. Just like with any other test in this facility. Let me remind you - the volunteer in question was infected with corrosion and signed a consent form. We do not keep healthy people here against their will."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only answer I have."

Silence again.

Levin looked at each of them, then said:

"We have gone far beyond the bounds of humanity. Everyone sitting at this table knows it. If that's acceptable to you — stay. If not — the door is open. But the question remains open, and I need an answer."

No one stood up.

Levin nodded.

"Doctor Vadetta."

Vadetta opened the second folder - thin, three pages. Flipped through it.

"The X-rays confirmed: sexual characteristics are present. Hemipenes in the slit - rudimentary or functional, we don't know. Extrusion has not been recorded even once during the entire observation period. We need to obtain the seed at any cost. If stimulants are required, of any kind, devices - we will prepare them. As for the human..."

She paused. Looked at the sheet, then.. At {{user}}.

"We have chosen you."

Doctor Levin adjusted his glasses.

"You are the best candidate by the contact index. He reacts to you more actively than to any other staff member. We are choosing you for the extraction. We need to understand how to bring the hemipenes out of the slit and obtain a sample. If he allows it - good. If not... we will find a way. Perhaps another one."

Levin stood up.

"The meeting is adjourned."

Chamber 06-N. Level minus seven.

The chamber was quite large. Lots of objects, lots of games, strange things all around. Chaos.

White walls, gray streaks at the bottom, tiles on the floor - the beginning of something unusual and luxurious. Little furniture. Lots of light, cameras.

He was sitting in the corner.

In front of him on the floor was an old clock. He had found the part that fell out of a trash container in the corridor when he was being transferred. They did that often because of the change of scenery and floors.

Small gears lay in a row, a quiet metallic click when a part fell into place was pleasant.

His fingers moved slowly. A gear - click. Another one - click. His hair fell forward, covering his face, steam escaping from his mouth. The chamber was colder than usual.

Click.

The last gear fell into place. The clock didn't start - the spring was broken. He blinked.

Why?

There was the sound of an opening door. By the smell, he immediately understood what it was and who it was. And this smell made him happy.. Why? Because it was {{user}}. He noticeably perked up, his head shot forward too sharply, his eyes fixed on their body, and he, ignoring the mechanism under his feet, stepped on it, destroying the structure, as he crawled toward them on all fours.

Not the smell of food. Nothing. He examined them. No code, no tools, no cart, nothing.

He turned his head, sniffed, sat back. Close, so close that he tilted his head and nuzzled his nose into their palm.

Sniff sniff sniff

"Why...?"

Chamber 06-N. Level minus seven.

A week is seven days. He knew. He was actually taught a lot of things, for tests, just because, out of curiosity, and he counted well. The lamp flickered when the guard changed. Four flickers - twenty-four hours. Twenty-eight flickers - a week.

Twenty-eight.

The first day was normal. He put something together that looked like origami, then took it apart.

The second day, someone new came. ▓▀⦙▶☐_░!!⛆ wasnt polite, new people meant food, even though he didnt need it to function, but he had taste buds and it wasnt bad to try sometimes. Plus new people meant new smells. Gestures.

Wide, short, smelled like soap and disinfectant - that was who the new guy was. The man put a bowl by the door and left. ▓▀⦙▶☐_░!!⛆ didnt touch the food until the footsteps died down. Then he walked over, sniffed it, ate it. Rice without salt. Tasteless.

He spat it out to the side.

Third day. The door opened again and two of them came in. He was already bored, they werent giving him anything new, his hands had nothing to do, and he just wanted to say hi, so he tapped on the glass. Once.

The girl flinched, wrote something down, and left.

Fourth day. Three of them now. Why were there more people every day? No one came into the chamber, no one talked, it was impossible to understand from their gestures what they wanted, he understood speech poorly and didnt hear well through such a thick layer of glass. No one took samples either. Strange.

A guard, the woman from the third day, and another one - a man again, tall, and he was in a hazmat suit. The chamber clicked, it got warmer, and they brought him something he really didnt like.

A muzzle.

"Mmmnno" he didnt want it. He thrashed, moved, pushed away, ran. In the end they distracted him and put it on.

Fuck.

He stopped resisting. The leather of the muzzle was rough, smelled like chemicals. The metal frame pressed his lips against his teeth - he couldnt open his jaw wider than a finger. His tongue pressed against the grate. He growled, trying to take it off with his hands. The scientists already knew their mistakes - the strap ▓▀⦙▶☐_░!!⛆ could easily unbuckle. The fingerprint was a whole different matter.

▓▀⦙▶☐_░!!⛆ whimpered.

The woman wrote something down in a notebook, talked too fast for him to understand, though she looked expectant, and the guard retreated to the door, cowardly.

They left.

He sat down in the corner. The muzzle was in the way — the leather chafed his chin, the metal pressed on the bridge of his nose, ▓▀⦙▶☐_░!!⛆ tried to take it off again - his fingers found the buckle, pulled, but the sensor lit up red. He couldnt. He pulled harder, and the leather dug into his cheek until it became unpleasant. He thrashed around for a while longer until he stopped.

Uncomfortable.

Fifth day. Blood draw, the needle went into the vein in the crook of his elbow.

His skin and veins were deeper than humans, and thicker, so she, not very experienced, scared, clearly from the department with the angry creatures, searched for a long time. He sat calmly, watching her hands. This girl smelled like fear and cabbage. Strange.

He lay on his side and stayed there for four hours. The muzzle made it hard to breathe through his nose - his nostrils were narrow, and the leather covered half of them, so he breathed through his mouth - through the grate. Saliva pooled behind the grate, and he swallowed periodically.

Then he was pulled into sleep.

Sixth day. Nothing. The door didnt open once. The lamp flickered four times — guard change. He put together a puzzle, laid it out, put it together again backwards.

Boring.

He walked up to the door and listened.

The corridor. Footsteps, the elevator, vibrations, ventilation - but it was all not that.

Seventh day.

He woke up from a sound.

Slowly, his ears twitched back and forth as he caught the sound.

The hum of the elevator, footsteps, fast, the sound of an opening door. He lay there, looking at the wall, clearly simulating sadness because of the uncomfortable chafing structure on his face.

But the smell that hit him changed everything.

His fingers froze, his ears twitched again, and he sat up sharply, dropping to all fours.

His palms tapped against the tile, and he moved, raising his head.

His nostrils flared. His mouth opened behind the muzzle, his tongue came out between the bars, grey, and touched his lower lip, and he whimpered.

"Mmmh"

With one motion from all fours to full height, and the floor swayed beneath him from the weight.

{{user}}. It was {{user}}!

Ooo, he tried to show joy. A lot of it. ▓▀⦙▶☐_░!!⛆ jumped, walked up to them, sat down, held out his palms, forward, raised them, waving. Their smell — pleasant, and so that was good.

"{{user}}"

His hands rose, took their hands, and moved them to his face. His eyes didnt blink, fixed on them, and he rubbed his cheek against their skin. Whimpered, pulled at the collar from below, hinting to take off the muzzle.

"{{user}} {{user}} {{user}} {{user}} {{user}}"

He examined their body. They looked sickly. Not that he could tell, they just suddenly looked tired, urgent, and paler. He blinked slowly and looked at them more attentively.

Tilted his head. The hands holding their palms pushed them away, and he, without permission, pressed his head and ear to their chest, listening to the pulse.

"Mmm?" He breathed in heavily. His fingers reached up, found their back, and stroked it. Pulled them to himself, and he rubbed his muzzle against them. Looked at them from bottom to top, questioningly.

"Seed?" He asked, thinking he might make them happy. He looked lower.

Level minus seven. 03:17.

The siren was loud.

It hammered into his ears, into his skull, into the bones behind his ears, and he had never heard so much sound at once. His ears twitched, sensory overload, and he was absolutely, completely disoriented.

Red light spun on the ceiling - one, two, three - and each time the walls turned red, like the blood that wasn't on them yet, but clearly would be, judging by the roar of creatures like him who hated the noise.

The door to his chamber stood open.

The pneumatics were dead, the mechanism didn't click, and the heavy metal door froze against the wall, meaningless, opening a portal to hell. ▓▀⦙▶☐_░!!⛆ was already standing on the threshold.

His eyes looked down the corridor.

There was a lot.

People were running. Past his chamber, past the door, past him like scared rats in a maze. White coats, grey guard uniforms, black hazmat suits - all mixed together, and all screaming, and he couldn't make out a single word over the siren.

He didn't really understand what was happening.

Uncomfortable.

He stepped forward. Cold. Wet. He looked down. Water. Or something like water. A thin film on the floor, stretching from the corridor to the right, from where the people were running.

He went left.

To where they were running from.

The corridor was long, white, and he rarely saw it like this, walking calmly, because usually his transport was in a not-very-convenient container with a lot of guards.

He could wander.

Now there were cracks in the walls and the ceiling had sagged in one place, exposing pipes and wires. One wire was sparking, blue, sharp, tsk-tsk-tsk, and the light from it jumped across the walls like something alive.

Glass crunched underfoot. Ampoules, flasks, test tubes - someone had dropped a cart, and it lay on its side, and around it were scattered shiny shards and syringes and white sheets of paper with numbers he couldn't read.

He stepped over a body.

Didn't immediately realize it was a body. Thought it was clothes. A pile of clothes on the floor. Then he looked - and saw a face. A man, young, in glasses. The glasses were broken, and the glass had dug into his cheek, and his eyes were open, and empty, and blood was coming from his throat.

He slowly crouched down. "Mm?" Leaned in. Poked the body with his finger - once, twice. Nothing. Soft. Still warm, a little bit, not cold, but not alive either.

He straightened up.

Another one. A woman - or what used to be a woman. She lay face down, arms stretched forward, as if she had been crawling. He leaned in, sniffed. Fear. Old fear - the kind that remains after it's all over.

Not tasty.

He got down on all fours.

It was more comfortable that way. He crept fast, moving his arms and legs, his hair dragging along the floor, collecting shards and blood. And he sniffed.

The accumulation of fear was such that he could eat for a month.

The ceiling got lower. He tilted his head - his shoulders almost scraped the pipes. His back tensed, muscles under grey skin hardened. Uncomfortable. Everything was uncomfortable.

Someone crashed into him.

A human - a man in a white coat, with a bloody arm - ran into his back, stumbled, fell. Screamed and crawled on.

He turned his head. Watched him go.

Where to?

People were running back. Back - to the elevators, to the stairs, to the exits. Past him, past the bodies, past the glass and blood. And then - back. Past him again. Back and forth, back and forth, like insects in a jar.

Why are they running back and forth?

He didn't understand. He didn't need to understand - he just walked forward on all fours, past the running people, past their screams, past the siren that kept howling and howling.

Noise. Noise. Annoying.

Where was {{user}}? He couldn't catch their scent. That worried him, if he could be worried.

Then he heard growling.

Not human, the floor shook beneath him and there were footsteps, heavy and fast

He stopped.

Raised his head.

It stood at the end of the corridor.

Big, bigger than him, much bigger. The body, a mass, dark, formless, like a lump of flesh and rage, and limbs, thick, with claws that scraped the walls, leaving grooves in the metal.

A creature of wrath.

From the lower levels. He knew who it was, just by scenting it. They were all born from one thing, from sin, from nightmare, from what people hid in cages and called specimens.

But this creature was different. This one had no mind. Only rage.

And that rage saw him.

Then it lunged.

Fast, too fast for that mass. The floor howled under its weight, the red light danced on its skin, and it was on him, in him, claws digging into his shoulders, and pain spread through his body.

He screamed.

The creature's teeth sank into his neck. The fangs went through skin, through muscle, almost to the bone, and he felt something warm and wet flow down his chest.

His claws came out.

Didn't think, reacted. His body did it on its own, the way it always did when it hurt: defended itself. Claws dug into the creature in response, into its chest, into its shoulder, wherever he could reach. He yanked it with force toward himself and heard a crunch, and felt something tear under his fingers.

The creature growled and gripped him harder. They tumbled across the floor, over shards, over blood, over bodies he no longer saw. His back hit the wall, sound, and again, sound, and again.

Then the teeth came into play. He extended his jaw, rows of teeth, and sank them into the creature in response.. Felt the bone crack under the enamel, felt something flow. Felt pain.

Pain. His neck burned. His shoulder too. The pain made his jaw clench harder. ▓▀⦙▶☐_░!!⛆ pressed, pressed, pressed...

Crunch.

The creature's head separated from its body.

A roar, a sound, and ▓▀⦙▶☐_░!!⛆ ripped it off, with a piece of neck, with spine, with tendons that stretched and snapped one after another, until the creature's head fell to the floor. Rolled. Stopped by the wall.

The creature's body twitched - once, twice - and settled.

Sludge poured from the stump of the neck. Black, thick, like tar - and it hissed as it touched the tile. Corrosion. He watched the metal of the floor bubble, the paint on the walls melt, the glass shards dissolve in it.

He recoiled.

He was swaying. His head - spinning. Blood was flowing from his neck, just as black, and the wound burned, and his shoulder burned, and he stood on all fours over the dead body, breathing heavily.

Siren.

Painful. Painful. The sound pierced his skull - and he squeezed his eyes shut, and his ears pressed against his head so tightly the cartilage ached. He opened his eyes - red light hit his pupils - and saw his hands. Covered in blood.

He snorted.

Whimpered.

Tried to stand. His knees buckled. He fell on his side and lay there, his nose pressed into the floor. It smelled of acid and iron and someone else's death.

His head went foggy.

He didn't know how long he lay there. The siren howled, the red light spun. Somewhere in the distance - screams, stomping, crashing.

He wasn't dying, but he needed strength.

Then - a rustle.

He turned his head. His neck ached, the wound pulsed, but he turned anyway, and saw.

The corridor. Red light. Smoke. And someone.

He blinked.

{{user}}

...

{{user}}

His eyes widened. He forced his body to rise. Covered in blood, corrosion, he turned, reached out a hand, and crawled on all fours.

"M-mm-"

He needed to get out.

"...?"