Chapter 2
The air in the "Furnace" held an inescapable scent of ozone—the heavy load of the circulation system trying to drown out the reek of death.
I pushed my squeaky catering cart slowly down the long corridor toward the "Security Zone." Every step I took sent spasms through my corroded muscles. I didn't stop. During a gap in lunch delivery, I’d used a maintenance key stolen from a service hatch to hack the security scan records. It was my only secret path.
My heart hammered against my ribs. The damn suppression chip in my spine sensed the acceleration and sent jolts of current surging through my nervous system. The stinging pain washed over my will like a rising tide. I forced myself to recall the smell of Sarah—a faint scent of soap, the only soft thing in this frigid underground tomb.
Ten years. To keep the promise of Sarah's survival, I had crafted myself into this grotesque monstrosity.
The Security Zone was five hundred meters underground. The moment the blast door slid open, I clutched the cheap nutritional meal, my heart rhythm completely shattered.
"Sarah?" I rasped, my voice sounding like sandpaper on steel.
No answer.
The room was empty. Save for the narrow medical bed, there was nothing. Sarah’s signature doll, stitched together from tattered canvas, was gone. The screen of the life-support system on the wall was pitch black, its wires ripped out by force, dangling like broken, withered tentacles.
A colossal, frigid void filled my chest, squeezing out all oxygen.
"Sarah?" I strode into the room, my cart clipping the door frame with a jarring metallic shriek.
No one was there. No sound of breathing. The room remained saturated with the stagnant scent of acidic disinfectant—the standard smell after a body has been processed.
I sprinted toward the desk, sweeping the rotting filing panels to the floor. Among the chaotic pile of documents, a conspicuous electronic printout slid out, bearing the gray, cold stamp of the BAC (Deep Abyss Defense Bureau).
My fingers trembled as I picked up the paper.
【Clearance Order: #S-7704】
【Subject: Sarah Thorne】
【Reason for Clearance: Nutritional allocation threshold exceeded; output-to-benefit ratio out of balance. As a non-core personnel, life-support facilities failed to meet company annual performance expectations. Recommendation: Immediate termination of cycle.】
【Time of Disposal: Three days ago.】
Three days ago. Right when I was in the isolation pod for forty-eight hours, suppressing "Behemoth." I had been at the bottom of the Furnace, fighting with my life to build a psychic barrier, protecting them—their gateway to hell—while behind my back, they had shut her off as easily as turning out an abandoned lightbulb.
My gaze drifted from the paper to every corner of the room. This was where she used to curl up, waiting for me to bring back a "share" of rations. She was always so well-behaved; even with only half a can of expired food, she would save half for me, though she was wasted down to bone. She used to say her brother was a hero. That her brother was protecting everyone.
A hero?
I looked down at my battered, ink-black hands. My "heroism" consisted of letting those idiots in expensive suits throw my only kin away like excess trash into an incinerator.
The chip flared again. This time, the burning sensation felt as if it were melting my skull. The jolt was疯狂 (manic), stimulating my pain receptors, trying to force me back into "miserable rationality" and "submissive slavehood."
It was warning me. It sensed a lethal spike in my killing intent.
But I didn't hold back this time.
I felt the "Aberration Core"—repressed for ten years—tremble within my spine. It wasn't pain; it was a roar, a fury bottled up for three thousand days and nights. If I had spent my life suppressing the abyss, then this door-lock held no more meaning, because the prisoner behind the door had already burned the house down.
I slowly straightened my back. My spine emitted a series of bone-cracking snaps.
I didn't bother checking the chip’s warning light. I folded the clearance order neatly and tucked it into my tunic. My eyes went dead. A hollow, frozen void, like the ice of the deep earth that never sees the sun.
"Nutritional cost too high," I whispered, void of all emotion.
The metallic grinding of my voice sounded ominous in the quiet room. I turned and walked toward the exit. As I did, the blood vessels in my body, mutated by years of radiation, began to throb in an irregular, rhythmic pulse.
I am no longer the Keeper.
From this second on, I am the return of the Abyss. I’m going to find Marcus. I’m going to find those bastards in the Core Control Room and ask them one question: when they finally face the true hell, I wonder if their "performance expectations" will be enough to pay for their flesh and blood.
