The UV lights died just as the doppelgängers' faces sloughed off.
For three heartbeats, we stood in perfect darkness - me clutching my leaking side, Insha hyperventilating, Zayn's translucent fingers still gripping my arm. Then the central monitor flickered, bathing us in sickly blue light.
Security footage from Facility C loaded in jagged fragments.
DATE: 18/12/2029
LOCATION: AESIR BIOMEDICAL HEADQUARTERS
SUBJECT: DR. E. KWON - FINAL LOG
The woman on screen had no eyes. Just smooth skin where they should've been, her lab coat stiff with dried black fluid. When she spoke, her voice glitched between human and something echoing:
*"Ouroboros-7 was never a pathogen. It's an invitation."*
The footage cut to a surgical theater. Strapped to the table wasn't a person but a shape - something prismatic and wrong that hurt to look at. Needles filled with black fluid pierced its surface.
"We thought we were creating a vaccine. They were creating receptors."
Another cut. A containment breach. The prismatic shape unfolding like a flower made of knives, staff members melting into it. Dr. Kwon running, the camera shaking. Then her face filling the frame, whispering:
"The eclipse isn't coming. It's already here. It's in our-"
The video corrupted. When it resumed, a different figure stood before the camera - a man in a pilot's uniform. Captain Wang. Except his insignia were wrong. His eyes darker than any shadow operator's.
"This is Flight Engineer Cho," the thing wearing Wang said. "Facility C compromised. Proceeding with neural extraction."
The screen went black.
In the silence, we heard it - the wet sound of our doppelgängers reforming.
Zayn's grip tightened. "They're not invading," he whispered. "They're remembering."
Outside, the false dawn pulsed.