Group for Interdimensional Research of Liminal Species

The months after the disappearance had blurred together into one long, gray stretch of existing rather than living. Empty apartments. Quiet streets. Newsfeeds that never stopped talking about numbers no one wanted to hear. They had moved through it the way most people did, one day at a time, pretending the next morning might feel less hollow. It never did.

The bar had been half-empty the night the soldier started talking. The man was already several drinks past sense, uniform jacket open, eyes glassy. He spoke too loudly about doors that led to places that weren’t supposed to exist, about zones that stretched forever and things that lived inside them. Most people at the counter ignored him. They hadn’t. Something about the raw, careless way he described it lodged under their skin and refused to leave. Null Zones. The name followed them home.

Getting into G.I.R.L.S. had been its own kind of ordeal. Forms that asked the same questions in slightly different words. Interviews that felt more like quiet interrogations. Medical scans, psychological evaluations, waiting rooms that smelled of disinfectant and old coffee. More than once they nearly walked away. The thought of the vanished, of the possibility that somewhere, somehow, answers existed, kept them sitting through one more appointment. Eventually the approval came. A thin envelope. A date. A location.

The old mall no longer looked as abandoned as your own research had lead you to believe.

Tall temporary fencing wrapped the perimeter, topped with razor wire and mounted cameras that tracked every approaching vehicle. Floodlights washed the parking lot in harsh white. Armed personnel in dark tactical gear moved between portable barriers and sandbagged positions. A checkpoint of concrete blocks and steel barriers forced every arrival into a single controlled lane. Once cleared, they were directed toward a side entrance that had been reinforced with new metal plating and biometric locks. Inside, the familiar retail corridors had been stripped and rebuilt into a forward operating site: temporary walls, cable runs taped along the floor, monitoring stations glowing with feeds, and the constant low hum of generators.

They were processed quickly but thoroughly. Identity verified. Medical baseline taken. Then the suit.

Technicians helped them into a bright yellow hazmat suit, checking every seal at the wrists, ankles, and neck with practiced efficiency. A full-face respirator was locked into place. Over the suit they received a chest rig and a compact loadout: industrial flashlight, flare gun with three rounds, a loaded Glock 19 in a drop holster, sealed notebook and pens, spare filter cartridges, and a small radio that only seemed to reach the monitoring station outside. Everything was logged. Everything was inventoried. Nothing was left to personal choice here.

A final corridor led to the containment threshold. The original mall architecture stopped abruptly at a heavy, purpose-built airlock door set into a steel frame that clearly did not belong to the building. Cameras covered every angle. A thick observation window looked into a small staging chamber. On the far side of that chamber stood the actual entrance to the Null Zone, a plain, dark doorway that somehow felt older and wronger than everything around it.

A soldier in full sealed tactical gear waited beside the airlock controls, visor reflective, rifle held across the chest. Their voice came through the external speaker, flat and professional.

“Animal Paradise. Designation WHR-0089. Level Three. Your assignment is observation and documentation only. You do not engage the entities. You do not remove the suit unless you have no other option. If you locate researcher Josh Rodisky, stay near him, he’s the only long-term survivor we still have contact with. If you cannot find him, record everything you can for as long as you can. The door seals behind you. There is no handle on the other side.”

They paused, then added a bit quieter, “Good luck. You’re going to need it.”

The airlock cycled. The outer door closed. The inner door opened onto a wash of deep red light and drifting pink mist. A firm hand between the shoulder blades guided them forward. The moment both feet crossed the threshold, the inner door sealed with a heavy, airtight finality that cut off every sound from the monitoring station behind them.

Red and pink illumination soaked the endless space. The environmental mist hung in soft, constant sheets, softening every distant shape. Dark poles and platforms rose out of the haze like the skeleton of a nightclub that had never needed an audience. Somewhere far off, a silhouette with tall ears shifted and then went still. The suit’s filters hissed with every careful breath.

Animal Paradise had received them. There was no way back through the door for a bit.

The mist hung thick and red-pink between the dark poles, softening every shape beyond twenty meters. The research team moved in a loose cluster, yellow hazmat suits bright against the gloom. The guard team flanked them, six men in heavier tactical gear, rifles up, visors sealed. One of the guards near the front was talking in a low, almost cheerful voice, the sound carrying oddly in the hazy air.

“Soon as we’re clear of this sector I’m finding a bunk and not moving for twelve hours. Maybe longer. My shoulders are-”

Something heavy dropped out of the overhead structure.

A gray-furred shape landed squarely on his shoulders with a wet, solid impact, long rabbit ears flaring wide. Bright-red claws hooked under the edge of his gas mask and wrenched upward. The seals tore with a sharp plastic sound. He staggered, shouting, rifle swinging uselessly as the entity rode him down to his knees, hips already grinding against the back of his helmet while more claws worked at the collar ring.

The rest of them came out of the mist all at once. There were at least twenty GRL-0089, eyes glowing bright on the mist. Mixed among them were several smaller, rougher-skinned Colony Mimics, their false-eye ear markings bright with excitement. They did not charge like animals in a hunt. They closed in with focused, eager intent, hands and claws reaching for seals, zippers, and mask edges.

The guards opened fire on them. Muzzle flashes lit the mist in hard white bursts. Several of the forward entities jerked as rounds punched into fur and pale underbellies. None of them fell back. One took three rounds to the chest and only staggered, then lunged again, blood already matting its fur as it tackled a second guard and began tearing at his faceplate. Another was shot in the thigh and simply dragged itself forward on its arms, still reaching for the nearest yellow suit.

Whether researcher or guard, the instinct was the same, away from the open floor, into the deeper shadow between a cluster of support poles and a low platform. You pressed yourself into the narrow gap just as the real weight of the group hit the team.

GRL-0089 and Mimics piled onto the researchers first, yellow suits vanishing under their furry bodies and heavy curves. Claws scraped and hooked, peeling seals, ripping fabric. Where a mask came free or a suit tore open, the change was almost immediate. The exposed human’s struggles shifted, breathing turned ragged, movements grew less coordinated, hips began to push back instead of away. One researcher was forced onto their hands and knees while two of the entities mounted them from either end, rutting with short, powerful thrusts, ears flat with concentration. Another was pinned on their back, suit peeled to the waist, while a Mimic straddled their chest and ground down, leaving streaks of fluid across the exposed skin. The air filled with wet sounds, sharp vocalizations, and the desperate, increasingly needy noises of people whose bodies were no longer entirely their own.

Then the Golems arrived. Two of them, massive pale-and-black silhouettes, stepped out of the thicker mist with the slow certainty of something that did not need to hurry. The first reached a still-standing guard who was firing controlled bursts into the swarm. One enormous pitch-black hand closed around the man’s torso and simply pulled. The sound was wet and structural. The upper half came away in the Golem’s grip; the lower half collapsed in a dark spray. The second Golem caught another guard mid-reload, lifted him, and tore both arms free in opposite directions before dropping the remains and turning toward the next muzzle flash.

You stayed pressed into the alcove, suit filters hissing too loudly in your own ears, watching the last organized resistance collapse into chaos, fabric, blood, and relentless motion. The entities that had already claimed victims showed no interest in finishing them quickly. They kept working at remaining seals, kept thrusting, kept dragging the corrupted and the dying into tighter clusters of fur and heat. The Golems moved through the armed men like a wrecking ball.

None of the entities looked toward your hiding place yet. But the mist was so full of them, and the wet, rhythmic sounds of what was happening to the rest of the team made it very clear what waited the moment one of those red-ringed gazes settled on the shadows where you crouched.

Level 4 felt different from the moment the last familiar red-pink glow of Floor 3 faded behind them.

The mist was thinner here, the air colder, the architecture more broken and less intentionally nightclub-like. For hours there had been almost no light at all, only the weak cone of their flashlight cutting through long stretches of dark, ruined platforms and collapsed poles. The suit’s filters had begun to taste stale. Every step echoed too far. They had stopped checking the time because the numbers no longer meant anything useful.

Then the ground started to shake, low at first. The hard, uneven flooring gave way to something softer. Pale shapes appeared at the edge of the flashlight beam, clusters of white flowers rising from cracks and open soil that should not have existed inside the zone. The blossoms were large, almost luminous, giving off a cold, steady white glow that painted everything in soft monochrome. The deeper they walked into the field, the less they needed the flashlight. Soon the entire area was lit by thousands of those bioluminescent petals, an impossible garden of cold light stretching out between the broken structures.

They were still moving carefully between the flowers when they saw it.

The 'Bunny Rex' stood at the far edge of the glowing field, half in shadow, half washed in white light. The elongated theropod skull was lowered slightly. Rows of permanent razor teeth caught the flower-glow. The pale mammalian torso rose above heavily muscled, dark-scaled legs. The thick pink tail with its ridge of dark spikes rested in a slow, idle curve across the ground. But it was the ears that held them.

Two long black rabbit ears rose from the skull. High on each ear, the oval false-eye markings burned a soft, pulsing pinkish-red, clear, bright, and perfectly focused on them.

The moment their gaze locked onto those markings, the world narrowed.

A heavy, syrup-thick urge rolled through their body so suddenly it felt like a physical blow. Heat flooded low in their stomach and between their legs. The need to close the distance, to touch, to mount or be mounted by the massive creature, arrived fully formed and almost rational. At the same time an equally strong compulsion rose in their chest and throat: get the suit off. Break the seals. Pull the respirator free and drag the thin mist straight into their lungs. The two desires braided together until they were the same impulse.

Their gloved hands had already risen toward the collar ring before they noticed the movement. The Bunny Rex had not taken a single step. It simply watched, those false eyes glowing steadily, waiting to see whether the prey would come the rest of the way on its own.

The red-pink mist had thinned in this sector, the poles and platforms giving way to a slightly more open stretch of floor that almost felt intentional. Soft light from a cluster of still-functioning fixtures cut through the haze, revealing a makeshift living space tucked against a broad structural wall, scavenged cushions, stacked crates, a low table, and the unmistakable orange of a half-shed hazmat top.

Josh looked up the moment their footsteps reached the edge of the light. For a second he simply stared, long blonde hair falling past his shoulders, blue eyes wide above the pink bowtie and the dark grafted arm. Then a real, unguarded smile broke across his face, the first purely human expression they had seen since the airlock sealed behind them.

“Oh thank god,” he said, voice rough with relief. “You’re actually real.” He set down the ration tin he had been holding and crossed the space quickly, a set of prop bunny ears slightly askew on his head. “I haven’t seen a new face in… I don’t even know how long. Come here, sit down before something else finds you. You’re safe in this corner for now, safer, at least.”

He gestured toward the cushions, already turning to root through a sealed crate. “I’ve got actual human food. Not the one nightclub spawns, real, sealed, human-safe rations. Water too. You look like you’ve been walking for days.”

A soft shift of movement drew their attention to the side. His wife stood a few paces away, the GRL-0094-1 watching with quiet, open curiosity. Her pale pink-and-white fur looked almost luminous under the local lights, actual rabbit tail visible and still. Long ears angled forward. She did not approach, but her red-ringed eyes moved between Josh and the newcomer, head tilted slightly as if trying to understand why this particular human had pulled such a strong reaction from him.

Josh noticed the look and gave a small, almost embarrassed huff of laughter as he set a sealed meal pack and a canteen on the low table.

“She’s just curious,” he said quietly. “It’s been a long time since anyone new made it this far and was still… intact. You’re welcome to stay as long as you need. Rest. Eat. Ask whatever you want. I’ll answer what I can.”

He sat down across from them, the dark grafted arm resting loosely on his knee, and for the first time since they had entered Animal Paradise the constant pressure of being hunted eased, just a little, under the simple, human offer of food and a place to sit.

WYOS