Chapter 2
The world came back in pieces.
First, the sensation of something cold clinging to her skin, like a second, clammy heartbeat. Then the smell — sharp, chemical, wrong.
And then, the voices.
Not voices exactly. More like whispers scraped into the back of her skull. Twisting words she couldn’t quite catch, like radio static flickering between stations.
Gwen jerked upright with a ragged gasp, slamming her back into a wall she didn't remember getting near. Her chest heaved. Her palms were slick with sweat — or blood — or something else entirely.
Her phone was gone. Her backpack was gone. The lab around her looked... different.
Or maybe she was different.
The lights overhead sputtered fitfully, throwing long, broken shadows across the floor. The containment pod in the corner lay shattered completely now, black sludge pooled beneath it like a wound.
Gwen pressed her hands to her face, trying to ground herself, trying to breathe. Her fingertips brushed something wrong — her skin wasn’t just cold.
It was slick.
It moved under her touch, shivering as if it had a mind of its own.
"No, no, no," she whispered, rocking slightly. "This isn’t real. I'm dreaming. I hit my head, I'm... hallucinating—"
hungry, something whispered, so close it felt like breath against her ear.
Gwen froze.
Slowly, she looked down at her arms.
Thin tendrils of black were curling up from beneath her sleeves, weaving across her wrists, pulsing in time with her heartbeat.
She slapped at them instinctively, trying to wipe them off, but they clung tighter, sinking beneath her skin and disappearing like ink into water.
"Oh my God," Gwen choked out. Panic clawed up her throat, sharp and choking.
She staggered to her feet, nearly slipping on the debris-littered floor. Every nerve screamed at her to run, but her legs felt strange — too light, too strong, like they didn’t entirely belong to her anymore.
The whispers coiled tighter around her mind.
safe here safe here safe here—
no one will hurt you now—
strong enough to fight—strong enough to survive—
Gwen slammed her hands over her ears. "Shut up!" she shouted, the word cracking the heavy silence.
For a moment, everything went still.
Then, like a muscle flexing, the blackness inside her twitched — and something smiled behind her ribs.
Tears burned Gwen’s eyes.
She stumbled toward the broken door, half-sobbing, half-praying she'd wake up any second now.
The world outside the lab stretched on, twisted and unfamiliar. Hallways she'd walked through minutes ago now looked wrong — like the building itself had shifted while she was unconscious.
Somewhere behind her, the broken lab lights finally sputtered out, plunging the room into darkness.
Gwen didn’t look back.
She ran.
Ran blindly through the abandoned corridors, boots pounding against the cracked floor, breathing ragged and shallow.
She didn’t notice the way the shadows clung to her heels.
Didn't notice the way the black tendrils flickered along her spine when she stumbled.
All she could think — over and over, like a drumbeat — was:
Get out. Get out. GET OUT.
By the time Gwen stumbled up the steps to her front door, her hands were trembling so badly she nearly dropped her keys.
She stood there for a second, chest heaving, forehead pressed to the cool metal of the door.
The black tendrils under her skin had gone quiet. For now.
But she could still feel them — a low, thrumming pulse in her veins, like something caged and restless.
Normal, she told herself. Just act normal. Just get inside.
She shoved the key into the lock and pushed the door open.
Light spilled out from the living room.
The low hum of the TV filled the house, broken occasionally by the deep, familiar sound of her dad’s laugh.
Gwen’s heart sank to her toes.
He was home.
“Gwen?” Captain Stacy called without looking away from the screen. “That you, kiddo?”
Her mouth felt glued shut.
She forced herself to answer, voice tight. "Yeah, it’s me."
She kicked off her shoes with shaking hands and slipped her hoodie off, hiding it behind her backpack before he could see how it was stained — not blood, but some kind of oily residue that shimmered sickly in the light.
She edged toward the stairs, praying he wouldn’t turn around.
“Dinner’s in the fridge if you’re hungry,” he said, waving a hand. “Chicken parm.”
Gwen nodded even though he couldn't see her. "Thanks, Dad."
Her fingers gripped the banister so hard they ached.
Every sound — the creak of the floorboards, the buzz of the overhead light — felt too loud.
The house smelled wrong. Or maybe it was her.
Beneath the familiar smells of laundry detergent and old coffee was something new: sharp, metallic, like rain on hot pavement.
Gwen stumbled up the stairs two at a time, her vision blurring around the edges.
When she reached her room, she slammed the door shut and locked it, her breath coming in short, shallow bursts.
Safe. I'm safe.
But it didn't feel safe.
It felt like something was coiled under her skin, watching, waiting.
Gwen backed into her desk, knocking over a stack of notebooks. They crashed to the floor with a deafening bang, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming.
From downstairs, her dad called, "You okay?"
"Yeah!" Gwen yelped, voice cracking. "Just—dropped something. I'm fine."
There was a pause.
Then the TV volume went back up.
Gwen slid down the door, hugging her knees to her chest.
Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Her heart wouldn’t slow down.
This isn’t happening, she thought desperately. I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy I’m not crazy—
A low, velvet voice brushed across her mind, oily-smooth.
We can help you.
You’re not alone.
Gwen whimpered, pressing her palms against her temples until her vision sparked.
“No, no, get out,” she whispered, tears blurring her eyes. “Get out of my head.”
But there was no getting out.
Whatever had crawled inside her — whatever she’d let in — it was already part of her now.
And it wasn’t letting go.
Gwen curled up on her bed, hugging a pillow to her chest like it could anchor her, could keep her real.
The sheets felt wrong.
Her skin felt wrong.
Everything felt wrong.
The house was dark and silent now, but Gwen couldn’t sleep.
Couldn’t even close her eyes without the room tilting sideways, without a fresh wave of nausea rolling through her.
She dragged herself into the bathroom around two a.m., flipping on the harsh fluorescent light.
The mirror didn’t lie.
She looked like hell.
Pale, eyes glassy, hair plastered to her forehead with sweat.
Her hands trembled as she twisted the faucet on, letting freezing water gush out.
She scrubbed at her arms first — hard enough to burn, hard enough to leave angry red streaks — but the feeling didn’t leave.
The crawling, the itching under her skin.
It was inside her.
She gripped the edges of the sink, knuckles white, and stared at herself.
For a moment, just a moment, her reflection rippled — a shadow slithering beneath the surface of her skin —
but when she blinked, it was gone.
Gwen stumbled back from the mirror like it had bitten her.
Her stomach twisted violently, and she barely made it to the toilet before she threw up.
Nothing came up but bile and air, but she stayed crouched there, forehead pressed to the cold tile, shaking so badly she thought her bones might rattle out of her skin.
This isn't normal. This isn't normal. Something’s wrong with me.
She pressed a trembling hand to her ribs.
Beneath her fingertips, something shifted — not bone, not muscle, something else — something alive.
A ragged sob escaped her throat.
Maybe she was sick. Some kind of infection. Some kind of parasite.
Maybe she was losing her mind.
Maybe this was what schizophrenia felt like.
She'd read about it once, late at night when she couldn’t sleep — about people hearing voices, feeling things that weren’t there, losing touch with reality piece by piece until nothing made sense anymore.
Gwen pressed her forehead to the floor.
Please, she thought, not even sure who she was begging. Please just let me wake up. Please just let it stop.
The house creaked around her.
Every sound felt amplified — the ticking of the kitchen clock, the hum of the fridge downstairs, the groan of the old pipes in the walls.
And underneath it all, the voice — soft, velvet-slick, threading through her mind like smoke.
You are not broken.
You are chosen.
Gwen squeezed her eyes shut.
“No, no, no—” she whispered, rocking back and forth.
We are together now.
We will never leave you.
She clamped her hands over her ears, nails digging into her scalp.
It didn’t help.
The voice wasn’t outside.
It was inside.
It laughed — a low, shivering sound, too wide to belong in a human throat.
Gwen shoved herself to her feet, staggering back to her room.
She collapsed onto the bed, pulling the blankets over her head like they could block it out.
They couldn’t.
Her body felt too heavy and too light at once.
Her heartbeat stuttered in weird, uneven rhythms.
Her skin buzzed.
Her teeth ached.
She curled tighter and tighter, breath hitching in broken gasps, until she didn’t know where she ended and the thing inside her began.
Somewhere, deep in the mess of her mind, a new truth unfurled.
This wasn’t a dream.
This wasn’t a fever.
This wasn’t something she could just fight off.
Something had claimed her.
And it wasn’t letting go.