Professor.

  Yan Qing felt his consciousness sinking as if into water—floating, dipping, rising again.

  “Professor!”

  The distant voice suddenly detonated beside his ear.

  He opened his eyes and saw Lanice’s bronze-toned face.

  “I… I’m still alive?”

  “For now,” Lanice said grimly as he helped him sit up. “After that, I can’t promise anything.”

  Yan Qing understood at once what he meant.

  Out of Genesis’s original fifteen-person team, only six were still breathing.

  Yan Qing looked around—and his whole body began to tremble uncontrollably.

  A room only a few dozen square meters wide was saturated with the metallic stench of blood. The walls, ceiling, and floor were smeared with it, spattered everywhere—along with chunks of something that looked disturbingly like flesh.

  His empty stomach heaved with nausea. Yan Qing refused to think too hard about what those pieces really were.

  “Professor! What the hell is this place? Weren’t we supposed to be at the Genesis test site?” Aiden, slumped nearby, demanded with near-hysterical intensity. His entire body was drenched in red—whether it was his own blood or someone else’s, Yan Qing couldn’t tell.

  “I… don’t know.” Yan Qing wasn’t a soldier. His mind was a mess, and the scene in front of him made rational analysis feel impossible.

  “Then let me say it!” Sam, who had been stomping around searching for an exit, slammed his fist into the wall and whirled around. His young face was tight with fear and rage. “We signed up for this operation and nobody said anything about these goddamn things! Damn it—I’m a month away from going home on leave! What did you science lunatics do at Genesis?!”

  Two years ago, the experiment had been kept secret due to certain religious and political sensitivities. The public knew nothing about it.

  “Say something!” Sam grabbed the professor by the collar and shook him, barking the command into his face.

  Lanice stepped in before the soldier could take his frustration out on the scientist. “This is not the time to fight. Let Professor Yan Qing go. That’s an order.”

  “Hmph.” Sam released him reluctantly and dropped down beside Aiden with a hard thud.

  “There’s only one person here who actually understands Genesis,” Lanice said, turning to Yan Qing. In the dim light, his gray-blue eyes were sharp—nothing like the gentle, restrained man Yan Qing had first assumed him to be. “Isn’t that right, Professor Yan Qing?”

  “…Yes.” Yan Qing’s voice came out weak. “I didn’t participate directly in the test that day, but Genesis was launched based on my research.”

  His work had still been in an early stage—yet a colleague had stolen it. That colleague, chasing reputation without proper safety validation, had pushed out results and triggered the Genesis experiment. During it all, no one in authority had listened to Yan Qing’s objections.

  “See? I knew it was his damn theory!” Sam snapped.

  “Sam, shut up!” Lanice roared at him, then turned back to Yan Qing. “Professor—do you know where we are?”

  “I know this sounds insane.” Yan Qing dragged a hand through his black hair, forcing his mind to replay everything after the team entered Genesis’s influence zone, hunting for any clue.

  By all logic, they had been pulled into the artificial black hole Genesis created. Nothing escapes a black hole’s gravity. That meant they had truly crossed the threshold.

  Then there had been the vision of space.

  And then—

  This room.

  The bloodstained walls had a sheen like metal, but the texture under his fingertips wasn’t metal at all. From the ceiling hung rows of wavelike structures, like stalactites in a cavern—yet their spacing was too precise, too intentional. Manufactured.

  So who had built this room?

  And who had taken the Genesis team out of open space and placed them into a chamber reeking of slaughter?

  “Genesis was meant to prove the existence of alternate dimensions,” Yan Qing said, forcing the words out with effort. “Theoretically, there’s only one way to open a door through space and time—concentrate an enormous amount of energy into a single point. If mass is energy, then that ‘door’ is a black hole capable of tearing spacetime itself.”

  He paused, then continued, voice tight.

  “If the space we saw can be taken as proof we passed through that door… then this is—tens of thousands of light-years away from Earth, or Earth in another time… or—another universe.”

  “That’s impossible.” One of the other physicists snapped back. “Multiverse theory is still hypothetical, and using a black hole for spatial transit is pure theory. If Genesis was trying to prove this, how do you explain the fact the experiment failed?”

  “It didn’t fail,” Yan Qing said stubbornly—softly, but with iron in it. In physics, Yan Qing was famous for being relentless. “Something went wrong before it could complete.”

  “Enough.” Another soldier cut in impatiently. “We’re not here for a physics seminar. The real question is: are we still on Earth?”

  “I don’t know,” Yan Qing admitted. “If we want answers, we need to get out of this room.”

  “Why can’t we stay?” the other physicist insisted. “Someone might come in and explain what’s going on.”

  “Yeah?” Lanice’s tone sharpened with cold sarcasm. He pointed at the blood and meat on the floor. Embedded in the red, half-congealed mess was a metal tag glowing faint blue—the kind issued to soldiers for identification in the event of death. “If we stay, we may end up joining Peter and the rest of them.”

  So the other nine were—

  The physicist went pale and lost his voice completely.

  “Vote,” Lanice said. He raised his right hand. “We leave.”

  “I agree.” Yan Qing lifted his hand too.

  Aiden scratched his head shakily. “Boss, I’m with you. I’m not staying in here.”

  “Same,” Sam muttered. Majority ruled. The last two had no choice but to follow.

  “You can do what you want,” the physicist suddenly said, planting himself on the floor. His face was bloodless, but his stubbornness was absolute. “I’m staying.”

  “Dr. Walter… are you sure?” Yan Qing softened his tone. “We should stick together right now. No one knows what’s happening.”

  “So we go out there and die?!” Dr. Walter shot back.

  “Staying isn’t a plan either.”

  The room breathed.

  Yan Qing noticed it only because the sound was wrong—not airflow, not machinery, but something closer to pressure redistributing through a sealed space.

  Too slow to be a blast.Too deliberate to be a leak.

  The walls glimmered faintly, their surface neither metal nor stone, but something in between—smooth, matte, faintly yielding beneath the fingertips. The air smelled sterile, yet metallic, like disinfectant layered over rust.

  “Professor…”

  Lanice’s voice came from behind him, tight.

  Yan Qing turned.

  Walter sat against the wall, knees drawn up, breathing too fast. His face was pale, lips tinged faintly blue—not from blood loss, but something else. Something systemic.

  Yan Qing’s chest tightened.

  “Walter,” he said, stepping closer. “Slow your breathing.”

  “I—I can’t,” Walter gasped. “My head—something’s wrong—”

  Yan Qing saw it then.

  The veins at Walter’s temples stood out unnaturally, dark lines against flushed skin. Tiny crimson spots bloomed along his neck, like a rash.

  Capillary rupture.

  “Don’t move,” Yan Qing said sharply. “Everyone, step back.”

  Too late.

  Walter screamed.

  It wasn’t a long sound. Just a sharp intake of breath, cut off mid-syllable—

  —and then his body convulsed.

  Not outward.

  Inward.

  Yan Qing saw the moment his eyes went glassy, the instant his chest spasmed as if something inside him had pushed back harder than flesh could contain.

  There was no blast wave.

  No fire.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Just a wet, concussive thump—as if the room itself had exhaled.

  Blood hit Yan Qing’s face.

  He staggered back, stunned, ears ringing, white noise flooding his skull. His shirt was soaked through, warm and slick. Something bounced off the floor near his foot.

  Walter was gone.

  Not vaporized. Not shredded.

  Collapsed.

  As if his body had failed to remain a single system.

  “Oh God—” someone retched.

  Yan Qing couldn’t move. His mind raced faster than his body could follow.

  Not decompression, he thought wildly. Not vacuum.

  Too uneven.

  Too localized.

  His gaze snapped to the walls, to the faint shimmer pulsing beneath their surface.

  Pressure differential.

  Internal vs external.

  Not air pressure alone—but biological pressure.

  Blood. Dissolved gases. Vascular integrity.

  The body could stretch, yes—but blood vessels couldn’t expand indefinitely. Gas coming out of solution wouldn’t wait for tissue to adapt. Once capillaries ruptured, pressure wouldn’t equalize gradually—

  —it would cascade.

  A chain failure.

  Like popping a thousand microscopic seals at once.

  “Get us out of this room,” Yan Qing said hoarsely. “Now.”

  Lanice grabbed his arm. “Professor, explain.”

  “This isn’t a holding chamber,” Yan Qing said, voice shaking. “It’s a transition space. It’s adjusting environmental parameters faster than our bodies can compensate.”

  “For what?”

  Yan Qing looked at the remains on the floor.

  “For something that isn’t human.”

  Another wave of dizziness hit him. He pressed a hand to his mouth, bile rising.

  “Understood.” Lanice nodded, sweat sliding from his temple to his jaw and dripping onto the floor. “Sam. Aiden. Joe. Help. Find the exit—now!”

  The five pressed close to the walls, sweeping their hands over the surfaces, lifting their heads to scan for any crack, any seam that might be a door.

  “Then why are we still alive?” Aiden asked as he searched.

  “Can’t be sure,” Yan Qing said, “but it could be individual physiological variation. Small differences in tolerance.”

  The room had no visible light source—only a dim, ghostly blue glow that barely outlined shapes.

  “Joe, you okay?” Sam asked, noticing their teammate leaning against the wall, holding his head.

  “Ugh…” Joe shook his head as if trying to dislodge something. “Headache.”

  So the pressure was still dropping?

  Yan Qing searched harder, faster. But the gray-black wall was smooth like polished glass—without a single seam. Stranger still: despite its smoothness, it didn’t reflect like a mirror.

  “Damn it!” Aiden kicked the wall in frustration. “What kind of bastard builds something with no gaps—”

  “Head down,” Lanice snapped. “Find what we’re looking for.”

  “Got it, sir!”

  “!” As Aiden muttered curses under his breath, Yan Qing’s fingers brushed something different.

  Not smooth.

  A raised point.

  He leaned in. In the dim light he could make out only a geometric pattern, with a circle about the size of a palm at its center. He tested it with one fingertip—

  And his hand sank in, like plunging into water.

  “Beep.”

  A seam appeared inside the pattern, then widened, expanding until it became a rectangular doorway.

  “Incredible…”

  Blue light poured in from outside, illuminating Yan Qing’s stunned face.

  “Move,” Lanice ordered, jaw clenched. “Now.”

  They left the room and entered a broad corridor, walking without direction. Everything was washed in pale blue light. There was no smoke, no dust—yet beyond three hundred meters, shapes blurred into haze, deepening the oppressive, unnatural atmosphere.

  “What is this place…?” Aiden whispered, scanning the emptiness. One hand rested on the semi-automatic pistol at his lower back, ready to draw.

  “God knows,” Sam said, also gripping his pistol. “But I’d like to know how the idiots who brought us here were dumb enough not to confiscate our weapons.”

  “Either they’ve never seen guns,” Joe said, “or they don’t care about guns at all.”

  “Or they’re just stupid,” Aiden joked, trying to bleed off fear.

  “That joke isn’t funny,” Lanice concluded flatly.

  The corridor’s design was brutally simple—whoever built it cared about function, not beauty. The only “decoration” was the same wave-like ceiling structures and a strip of blue light embedded in the wall, like runway guidance lighting, stretching into the distant blur.

  After about an hour, they reached the corridor’s end.

  And there—

  All five stopped dead, mouths open, staring into a vast space that looked like it had been torn from a science fiction novel.

  Countless strange, sleek craft darted between platform after platform. Gray-blue metal surfaces flared with harsh reflections. Everything felt alien—wrong, unfamiliar, and coldly predatory.

  Yan Qing stood frozen.

  No one would believe him.

  He could barely believe himself.

  As an astrophysicist, he’d always kept an open mind about life beyond Earth.

  But he had never—never—expected to witness extraterrestrial intelligent life with his own eyes.

  “Holy shit,” Aiden breathed. “Did we time-travel? If we were gonna travel, why not land in the Jurassic? At least that’s still Earth—better than this hellhole!”

  “Great joke, Aiden,” Sam said with a sneer.

  “What do we do now?” Joe asked, turning to his superior.

  “I don’t know,” Lanice admitted.

  “Click.”

  A sound echoed faintly behind them.

  It wasn’t loud, but Yan Qing—silent until now—heard it. He turned toward where they’d come from.

  “What is it, Professor?” Aiden asked, noticing the scientist’s body go rigid. Yan Qing was staring down the corridor they’d just walked, mouth half open as if trying to speak.

  “Run.”

  “Professor?”

  “Run! Everyone—run!!”

  “What—!” The others spun—

  —and saw something straight out of a horror film charging at them.

  The four soldiers raised their guns and fired.

  The dead space exploded with gunfire.

  “ROAR—!” The creature bellowed in pain but didn’t slow, slamming toward them.

  “Sam, down!”

  “Fuck—!”

  Sam moved fast, but the monster still raked a gash across his back. Blood blossomed through the white fabric of his vest.

  The creature vaulted to the ceiling, baring its teeth down at them—then paused.

  Only then did they truly see it.

  It was about the size of a lion, jet-black, its smooth hide reflecting light like waxed leather. Its face had no eyes—only a massive mouth, each tooth as long as a human hand. Worse, it had eight spider-like limbs tipped with claws.

  “Why did it stop?” Sam whispered, eyes locked upward. His back burned, but he forced himself to ignore it.

  Lanice kept his muzzle trained on the thing. “You run. Now. I’ll hold it.”

  “No!” Aiden flared. “We’re not leaving you, sir!”

  “We stay together,” Yan Qing said, jaw set. “That’s our only chance.”

  “This isn’t the time for heroics,” Lanice snapped, face hard. “The moment I fire, you run!”

  “Boss—”

  “This is an order, Aiden!” Lanice looked at his men—and then, unexpectedly, smiled. “I’m not dying. Trust me.”

  Aiden’s eyes went red.

  The monster moved.

  “Run!!!”

  Bang—!

  A shot cracked. The creature shrieked and lunged straight at Lanice.

  The remaining four sprinted into the next corridor, boots pounding the floor.

  Behind them, gunfire rang out—once, twice, a few times—

  Then stopped.

  “Aiden—what are you doing?!” Joe saw him twist to turn back and grabbed his arm. The momentum threw Aiden off his feet and he hit the ground hard.

  “Let go! I’m going back to save that bastard!”

  Joe pinned him down. “Calm down! That’s the lieutenant’s order!!”

  “Bullshit! When have we ever listened to his orders?! Let go!”

  “Shut up!” Sam hissed, then lowered his voice. “I heard something.”

  The two on the ground scrambled up, weapons raised, scanning.

  “Watch out!” Yan Qing saw a dark shadow slip behind Sam and shoved him aside.

  “Ugh—!”

  Agony ripped through Yan Qing as his right chest was pierced clean through.

  A tail—lined with bone spurs—had impaled him.

  “I’ve got you!” Yan Qing clamped both hands around the weapon, forcing himself to ignore the pain as he shouted, “Fire!”

  Gunshots erupted.

  The attacker dropped.

  They stared.

  This wasn’t the spider-thing.

  This was—

  Humanoid.

  But the folded wings on his back, and the tail behind him, made his inhuman nature unmistakable.

  Joe approached, gun raised, and kicked the body.

  “Dead.”

  They all exhaled.

  But Yan Qing’s pain surged back brutally. Every breath was a blade.

  He couldn’t pull the tail out—not unless he wanted to die.

  “Professor, hold on. I’m cutting it off,” Sam said, drawing his combat knife.

  Yan Qing shook his head. “This needs immediate treatment. Otherwise I won’t last. You go—carrying me makes me dead weight.”

  “No!” Aiden snapped. “First our boss, now you too—I’m done with this!”

  “I can’t move,” Yan Qing said, face chalk-white as he forced a thin, reassuring smile. He lowered himself to sit on the floor. “Find an exit. Once you do, come back for me. I’ll wait.”

  Aiden fought it—but reality won. Before leaving, he said, “I’ll come back. I swear.”

  Yan Qing could only nod.

  It wasn’t pessimism—he simply didn’t know how long he could hold on, or whether another monster might appear at any moment.

  Maybe this was what he deserved.

  If he hadn’t dared to open a dimensional rift, hadn’t pursued that research, the report wouldn’t have fallen into the wrong hands. There would have been no Genesis experiment. They wouldn’t be trapped in this alien place, desperately searching for an exit—assuming one even existed.

  The answer was obvious. His companions just didn’t want to shatter their last shred of hope.

  And all of it was his fault.

  The crushing weight of guilt combined with pain until it felt impossible to breathe. Yan Qing shifted his gaze to the motionless humanoid body in front of him, hoping the distraction might help.

  He hadn’t noticed the attacker’s face before. Now that he looked closely, he couldn’t help but be struck by it.

  It was a breathtakingly beautiful face—one anyone might dream of. Had this being been human, he would have drawn attention wherever he went.

  Golden hair was tied neatly back, gleaming with an almost metallic sheen. From the strange black robe he wore, it was clear he came from a highly advanced civilization—very possibly the master of this place.

  First contact with an intelligent species, and violence was their language.

  How ironic.

  Yan Qing actually laughed.

  Then the smile faded. His obsidian-dark eyes hardened with resolve.

  He tightened his grip on the tail still embedded in his chest, muscles tensing.

  I’m sorry, Xiaowen. It seems I won’t be able to put that wedding ring on your finger.

  He closed his eyes, preparing to pull—

  “!”

  Something grabbed his hands.

  Yan Qing’s eyes flew open.

  The being who should have been dead was kneeling in front of him, holding his wrists. Faintly glowing golden eyes stared straight into his.

  The creature smiled—beautiful, sly, delighted—like someone who’d just pulled off a successful prank.

  He’d been playing dead.

  “Let go of me!” Yan Qing struggled violently, shock giving way to panic.

  “If I do, you’ll die,” the being said calmly. “Does that not matter to you?”

  A smooth baritone voice.

  Yan Qing froze, staring at him in disbelief.

  He was talking?

  “You—how—”

  The being ignored the question. With one hand, he ran his fingers lightly along the point where their bodies were joined. The tail snapped clean off.

  Golden liquid splashed across Yan Qing.

  Blood.

  The shock sent him reeling backward. At the same time, pain flared through his wound so intensely that his vision went dark.

  The other showed no reaction at all—as though he’d severed someone else’s limb. He flicked the remaining length of his tail. The wound had already stopped bleeding and was visibly healing.

  For him, it would take only half a day to recover completely.

  The one who truly needed treatment was the trembling alien lying on the floor.

  Narrowing his uncanny eyes, he rose to his feet and tapped the wrist-mounted device on his left arm. A red indicator lit up immediately.

  “There are intruders aboard the ship. Capture all of them alive. And I want an explanation.”

  “What did you say?” Yan Qing asked. The language had been unfamiliar—and yet the being was now speaking English.

  “I said,” the being replied, looking down at him, golden eyes steady, “you need rest.”

  A sharp pain struck the back of Yan Qing’s neck.

  That was the last thing he heard before consciousness slipped away.