The air inside the facility reeked of rust and static, a metallic tang clinging to the back of Dr. Elara Voss’s throat. She stepped over a shattered monitor, its screen flickering with corrupted data streams. The hallway stretched before her, walls lined with faded blueprints of impossible geometries—diagrams that seemed to shift when she blinked. Her boots echoed, each step a defiance against the silence. She had left this place five years ago, but the numbers on her wristband pulsed like a heartbeat, forcing her forward.
The lab door hung ajar, its seal torn open. Inside, rows of glass cylinders lined the walls, each containing a figure suspended in amber liquid. Their faces were familiar—colleagues, students, strangers. Elara’s breath hitched. None of them had aged.
A voice crackled through the vents. “You shouldn’t have come back.”
She spun, hand flying to the holstered pulse weapon at her hip. The speaker emerged from the shadows—a man in a tattered lab coat, his face obscured by a respirator. His eyes gleamed with something between fear and madness.
“Who are you?” Elara demanded.
“A ghost, like them.” He gestured to the cylinders. “This wasn’t an experiment. It was a prison.”
The floor trembled. A low hum resonated through the walls, vibrating her bones. Elara’s wristband flared, its numbers accelerating. The man lunged, but she fired. The blast struck him in the chest, and he collapsed, his body dissolving into smoke.
She ran. The corridors twisted, doorways leading to rooms that shouldn’t exist—a library with books that whispered, a garden blooming with silver flowers. Each step pulled her deeper, the air thickening with the scent of ozone and something sweetly decayed.
A child’s laughter echoed ahead. Elara froze. The sound was familiar, though she had no children. The laughter stopped.
“You’re here to fix it, aren’t you?” A voice, soft and hollow, emerged from the darkness.
Elara’s pulse roared in her ears. “Who’s there?”
“The question is, why did you come?” The voice shifted, layered with countless others. “Curiosity. That’s all it takes. One question, and the labyrinth opens.”
The walls pulsed, revealing hidden passages. Elara hesitated, then stepped into the nearest corridor. The air grew colder, the hum louder. At the end stood a door marked with a single symbol: a spiral.
She touched it. The door dissolved. Beyond lay a room bathed in green light, where a single cylinder floated, its occupant unmistakable—herself, frozen in time.
“You’re not the first,” the voice said. “But you’ll be the last.”
Elara’s hand hovered over the cylinder’s control panel. The numbers on her wristband exploded into a cascade of light. She had one choice: to awaken the experiment, or to let it consume her.
The labyrinth waited.
