The darkness did not fade gracefully, it shattered.
Min-sun drags her eyelids open, a sickening chemical weight pulling at her skull.
Her limbs feels like lead, cold and unresponsive.
When she tries to step forward, her knuckles scraps against cold,curved glass.
She isn’t in her room.
She isn’t at school.
“Hey! Where am I?”a voice shrieks to her left, muffled but frantic.” Let me out !
Someone let me out!”
Min-sun blinks through the condensation coating the glass cylinder.
The room outside is massive, sterile and blindly white.
Rows of identical glass rubes lines the walls, each containing a terrified teenager.
She looks down at herself.
The familiar color of her clothes were gone,replaced by a pitch-black, coarse fabric.
She twists her head straining to see her shoulder.
Printed in harsh white ink across her back is a single identifier:319
“Subject 319 is conscious “a voice echoes through an intercom.
“Vital signs stabilizing after the sedatives. Prepare the neural link.”
Outside the glass, figures in pristine, white hazmat suits moved methodically behind control panels.
“Let me go!” Min-sun slams both palms against the thick glass,the impact vibration rattling up her arms.” Where is my sister?
What did you do to Prim?
Answer me!”
“Look at them all,”a scientist whispers nearby, his voice carrying through a stray microphone channel.” They are waking up faster than the old batch”
“Quiet,Dr Akane. Just monitor the adrenaline spikes. ” a woman replies coldly.
Min-sun’s heart hammers against her ribs.
To her right, a boy is crying hysterically, his forehead placed against his enclosure.
“Please, i have a family! My dad has money, he can pay you! Just let me go home!”
“Quiet down in there,”a booming, resonant voice cut through the panic.
At the center of the laboratory stands a man in a flawless, tailored charcoal suit.
His posture is commanding, his expression entirely devoid of warmth.
Principal Kenjiro.
Beside him, clutching a digital clipboard with trembling hands, is his secretary, Ms.Sato.
“Director Kenjiro,”Dr Akane says bowing slightly.
“The subjects are highly unstable. Subject 319 is risking damage to the glass integrity with her physical resistance. ”
Kenjiro barely glances towards Min-sun.
“Then silence her Dr Akane. We can not have any distractions during the preliminary evaluation. ”
“Right away sir.”
Dr Akane flicks a switch on the console.
Instantly a heavy, pressurized hiss fills Min-sun’s tube.
The air turned thick, stealing the sound right out of her throat.
She screams but not a single vibration left her lips.
The sound was completely vacuumed away.
Desperate, she kept thumping her fist against the barrier, her long blue hair ruffling wildly around her face from the sudden internal updraft of localized pressure.
“Can you here me candidates?”Kenjiro’s voice filled every tube simultaneously, smooth and terrifyingly polite.” Welcome to the final stage of your admission process.
You have been chosen for your unique spiritual aptitude.
Today we test the limit of that aptitude.
”
“Admission?”a girl in tube 312 gasps, her voice leaking into the main room’s audio feed.” This is kidnapping!You’re insane!”
“The world belongs to those who can master the unseen.” Kenjiro continues, ignoring her entirely.” Those who fail are simply static in the grand design.
Ms.Sato, initiate the sequence for subject 311″
Ms.Sato swallow hard,he4 knuckles turning white against the clipboard.” Sir…the synchronization levels are still in the red zone.
If we proceed, the psychic backdraft could be _”
“Initiate it Ms.Sato, ” Kenjiro repeats, his voice dropping an octave.
“I don’t pay you for ethical assessments.”
“Yes Director.”she whispers,her fingers hovering over the activation sequence.” Subject 311,engaging chamber seal.”
The floor beneath his tube opened.
A thick viscous, black mist bubbled up from the depths,swirling violently within the cylinder.
Min-sun watches in horror.
Her hands frozen against her own glass.
From the black smoke a shape forms .
It isn’t human.
It is a grotesque, shifting entity of jagged horns, weeping crimson eyes and a maw lined with rows of needle-like teeth.
A demon, manifests and dripping with pure malice.
“What is that?”the boy screams, scrambling backwards until his spine cracked against the glass.” Get it away from me!
Help!”
“Face your fear candidate.
“Kenjiro commands through the speakers.” Dominion or death.
Choose.”
The demon lunges.
A sickening tear echoes through the audio feed as claws made of dark energy rips through the boy’s uniform.
“It’s burning! It’s burning me inside!”The boy shrieks, blood bursting from his nose and ears as the entity forced itself down his throat.
Within seconds, his body went rigid, his eyes rolls back into a solid, horrific white, and he collapses into a heap of ash and twisted limbs.
The mist vanishes.
The tube empty save for the remains.
“Subject 311 terminated” Dr Akane reports mechanically, though his hands shakes as he logs the data.
“Spirit assimilation failure. Complete cellular collapse.”
“Pitiful,”Kenjiro mutters.” Next, Subject 315″
“Please,no!”a girl cries out from two rows down.” Let me out!
I want my mummy!
Please!”
“Begin sequence.”Kenjiro orders.
Min-sun could only watch, her eyes wide with un adulterated fear as the nightmare repeats itself.
One by one her peers are subjected to horrors of the mists.
Some screamed until their vocal cords tore; others were consumed by flames of black fire that left nothing behind.
Blood splatters against the interior of the glass tubes, a gruesome testament to their failures.
“This a slaughter, ” Ms.Sato whispers,tears brimming in her eyes as she looks away from the monitors.
“Director ,we’ve lost five candidates in twenty minutes. The spiritual density is too volatile today.”
“The mafia world isn’t meant for weaklings” Kenjiro corrects coldly.
“Now,we arrive at our most promising subject. Prepare tube 319”
Min-sun’s heart stops, she looks directly at Kenjiro.
“Isolate 319’s chamber.”the technician orders.” Bypassing the standard tears.
Injecting a high-density,upper rank Legionnaire entity.
Maximum lethal threshold.”
“Wait!”Ms.Sato gasps ,stepping forward involuntarily.
“Director,an upper-rank entity? That will completely obliterate her nervous system! No candidate can withstand that level of spiritual corruption!”
“Then she will die like the rest.
“Kenjiro replies smoothly.
“Do it.”
The base of Min-sun’s tube groans.
A foul,freezing wind rushes upward,swirling around her ankles.
The air grows so cold her breath forms thick plumes of with vapor.
Then,out of the darkness, it appears.
It is massive, filling the tight space of the tube instantly.
The demon had no definite shape, just a writhing mass of pale ,elongated limbs,a dozen weeping eyes,and a gaping maw lined with rows of human-like teeth.
It wraps itself around her, it’s freezing, slimy flesh pressing against her face, it claws digging deep into her shoulders and thighs.
The pain was unlike anything Min-sun had ever comprehended.
It isn’t just physical;it feels as though something is reaching through her mind,ripping apart her memories, her thought, her very soul.
She screams a silent,agonizing scream, her head snapping back against the glass.
The demon forced itself down into her throat, forcing its dark essence down into her lungs.
Outside, Ms.Sato drops her tablet to the floor .
The screen cracked but she didn’t care.
She covers her mouth, her eyes wide with horror as she watches Min-sun’s viens turn pitch-black, tracing jagged dark lines up her neck and across face.
The vitals are dropping to zero.
Her heart has stopped.”
Inside the tube, the violent thrashing suddenly ceases.
The entity dissolves back into yhe shadow of the lower trench, its work complete.
Min-sun’s eyes rolls back into her head.
Her limbs goes completely limping she drops like stone,her body falling in a broken, lifeless heap at the bottom of the tube.
The automated voice drones through the room:” Subject 319 vitals: Flatline.
Brain activity:Zero.
Test concluded.
”
The laboratory falls into a brief, heavy silence, save for the hum of the cooling fans.
Kenjiro stares at the limp form of Min-sun’s body for s long moment, the let’s out a long, dismissive sigh.
He smirks, shaking his head without a shred of genuine concern.
“A pity,”Kenjiro whispers, turning his back on the glass cylinder.
“I had higher expectations on Seul-gi’s neice. It seems she was just as fragile as the rest of the cattle.”
“Director…”Ms.Sato whispers, regaining a calm voice.
“What do wr do now?”
“Clean the chamber.”Kenjiro orders the technicians.” Get rid of the body.
Throw it in the lower disposal bins with the other failures.”
He pauses glancing over his shoulder at his secetary.”And Ms.Sato?
Contact Seul-gi.
Inform Min-sun’s aunt that unfortunately her neice wasn’t able to pass the Standard entrance examinations for our academy.
Express our deepest…condolences.
”
“Yes sir.”
Two orderlies in heavy protective gear steps up to tube 319.
The unlock the heavy seal at the base,causing the glass pane to slide upwards.
A wave of foul ,icy air escapes.
They reach in ,grabbing Min-sun by her arms,dragging her limp, pale body put onto a cold gurney .
Her head lolled to the side, her dark uniform stained with sweat and grime.
As they begin to wheel the steel gurney towards the heavy exit doors, a tiny, barely audible sound echoes through the room.
“Pr…Prim…?”
The orderly pushing the cart freezes.”Did you hear that?”
“Hear what? Keep moving!”The order snapped.
“Princess…Prim ” Min-sun’s lips twitches.
“Wait! Look at the monitor!”Dr Akane screams, his hand flying across the keyboard.
“Director, look at the biometric feed for Section Three.”
Kenjiro stops dead in his tracks
He spins around, his cold eyes locking onto the overhead display.
The flat line on the monitor suddenly jagged upwards violently.
A sharp ,rhythmic beep echoes through the silent lab.
Then another.
And another.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
“Her heart is beating.”Dr Akane yells , his voice cracking I’m share disbelief.” It’s not just beating- her cellular regeneration is spiking at three hundred percent!
The demonic energy…she didn’t die from it.
She’s absorbing it!”
Kenjiro walks back to the gurney, his eyes locks with Min-sun.
Sheer astonishment replaces his calm look.
Min-sun’s fingers curls into a fist on the steel table.
Her eyes snaps open no longer human,but glowing with a faint dangerous and terrifying dark light.
“She broke the limits?!”