Mari didn't waste a single, goddamn microsecond after hanging up with Lena. She threw the sedan into reverse, tires screaming and burning thick rubber against the asphalt as she tore away from her apartment. Her heart hammered a violent, deafening war drum against her ribs, every tick of the clock screaming that she was running out of time.
First stop: Adrian’s garage downtown.
She slammed on the brakes outside his workshop, leaning her weight hard on the horn until the metal rolling door rattled in its frame. When Adrian finally yanked it open with a dark, irritated scowl, she didn't offer a single pleasantry. She reached across the console, shoved the passenger door wide, and roared, "Drop the fucking wrench and get in the truck right now!" Before he could even form a protest, she grabbed his collar, hauled him toward the cab, and floored the gas before his boots had even cleared the floorboards.
Second stop: the university campus.
Knowing the subways were already a festering deathtrap, Mari drove like a maniac possessed, weaving recklessly through choking morning traffic, jumping curbs, and ignoring every red light until she spotted Sera shoving her way out of the main student plaza amidst panicking crowds. The second Sera reached the vehicle, Mari unlocked the door, yanked her inside by the wrist, and threw the shifter into drive—tires squealing just as the first massive, sector-wide blackout plunged the neighborhood into sudden, eerie darkness.
Now, with Adrian crammed angrily in the back and Sera gripping the passenger side handle with white-knuckled terror, the car tore out of the city limits.
Nobody spoke for the first several minutes. The silence inside the cabin wasn't comfortable; it was heavy, suffocating, and dripping with raw unease. Sera kept darting nervous, hollow-eyed glances at Mari, her brows drawn together in a tight knot of distress, while Adrian watched her through the rearview mirror with a deeply guarded, suspicious scowl.
Mari ignored both of them, though their tense, probing attention prickled against her skin like static electricity. She had one destination burning a hole in her mind: Hart Research Facility.
In her previous life, the facility had become a bloody death trap. By noon, government vehicles would surround the property. By evening, the building would be reduced to ash, and Lena Hart would disappear with it.
"How... how much longer?" Sera asked, her voice cracking with a fragile, trembling worry.
"Twenty minutes," Mari bit out, her jaw tight.
"You still haven't told me why the hell we're going there, Mari. Talk to me!"
"I'm looking for a scientist," Mari replied, keeping her eyes glued to the asphalt.
"And you know her?" Sera pressed, her eyes flashing with desperate skepticism.
"I knew her," Mari whispered, the words heavy with buried grief. Then, glancing at Adrian in the rearview mirror, she added with chilling finality, "She dies tonight."
The car went dead silent. Sera's expression shattered entirely, shock widening her eyes. "What?!"
"How the hell do you know that?!" Sera demanded, fear sharply biting into her tone. "Are you out of your mind?"
"I don't have time to explain," Mari snapped.
Adrian studied her profile closely, his concern hardening into cold suspicion. "You've been acting strangely since this morning. You knew about the earthquake, you knew something was going to happen at the university, and now you're telling us a scientist we've never met is going to die?"
Mari tightened her grip on the steering wheel until her knuckles paled to a stark, bone-white. She remembered the last time Sera had looked at her like that—right before she died in the ruins of the old sector. The memory hit her like a physical blow.
"I know things I shouldn't bloody well know," Mari said, her voice dropping to a harsh, gravelly whisper born of suppressed terror.
They continued driving until a thick column of black smoke smeared the pale horizon. Mari slammed her foot down harder on the gas.
"Is that the facility?" Adrian asked, alarm flashing across his face.
"Yes," Mari breathed.
As they reached the entrance, armored vehicles blocked the way, and the building ahead poured smoke from shattered windows. Mari didn't even tap the brakes. "Hold on!" she yelled, swerving violently around the first vehicle and smashing straight through the iron gate. Metal screamed in agony as the car bounced hard onto the facility grounds.
"Are you completely out of your mind?!" Adrian shouted.
"Probably," Mari shot back, sliding to a smoking halt. She jumped out instantly. "Stay here."
"I am not sitting here waiting to die!" Adrian yelled, stepping forward defensively.
Mari closed the distance, stepping right into his personal space, her eyes blazing with a terrifying intensity. "Then consider it friendly fucking advice."
Before he could fire back, Mari sprinted toward the burning side entrance, navigating the corridors on pure, instinctual muscle memory. She reached a reinforced door, jammed her boot knife into the electronic panel until it sparked blue fire, and forced the lock with a savage twist.
Inside the dark laboratory, a computer terminal ran a single terrifying message: PROJECT ORIGIN.
A sharp scrape came from the shadows. Mari spun around into a defensive stance.
Dr. Lena Hart stood in the doorway, blood covering her face, gripping a heavy metal surgical scalpel like a trembling dagger. "Who the hell are you?!" she demanded.
"I'm here to get you out," Mari said, lowering her knife.
"How the hell did you bypass a level-four biometric lock?!" Lena snapped hysterically.
"Because this bloody building is going to be flattened. Project Origin isn't an invasion—it's a doorway."
A heavy, concussive impact shook the foundations, raining dust from the ceiling. Outside the ruined blast doors, a low, guttural, vibrating growl rolled through the corridor—a sound of pure, nightmarish hunger.
The steel door frame bent inward with a sickening shriek, tearing completely from its hinges. A grotesque, spindly nightmare crawled through the dust, its horizontal jaw dripping with venomous saliva.
From the upper hallway, Sera screamed a blood-curdling warning.
Mari moved with lethal, blood-soaked precision. She ducked beneath the creature's sweeping claw, drove her shoulder into its chest, and slammed her hunting knife straight up beneath its jawline. Black acid blood hissed against the linoleum as the beast collapsed into a twitching heap.
"Move, or you die right here!" Mari yelled, snatching the primary secure data drive from Lena's terminal and hauling the stunned scientist toward the exit.
Bursting into the blinding daylight, they found roaring chaos. Sera stood near the sedan, her hands glowing with swirling, freezing frost, while Adrian held a scavenged iron pipe.
Mari shoved Lena into the back seat, dove behind the wheel, and tore out of the compound just as the ground beneath them began to split open.
Lena clutched the data drive to her chest, staring wide-eyed out the back window at the sky. Above them, the clouds were tearing open into a jagged, bruised purple wound.
"According to my real-time atmospheric models..." Lena whispered, her face pale as a corpse, "...the world doesn't have until six-thirteen anymore. We have bloody minutes."
The car fell dead silent. Across the horizon, the first wave of black tendrils began to descend upon the city like the fingers of a descending god as Mari floored the gas toward the university, racing desperately to outrun the birth of the apocalypse.