Ethan stood on the ridge, his hand resting on a rusted support beam while sweat cooled against his skin as the wind rolled across the cracked earth. Below, the factory sprawled like a wounded insect. The forge squatted at the center, surrounded by tangled belts, mineral piles, and half-collapsed scaffold limbs.

  To the west, the generator crater still fumed. To the east, Reyes’s pod lay cracked open beneath the ash slope, streaked with resin. The generators pulsed in a steady rhythm that was like a synthetic heartbeat empowering the factory.

  It was not a beautiful sight; instead, it was a charred, half-melted thing stitched together with desperation, but it was his work and it functioned. For the first time in days, he let himself believe it might actually hold.

  He turned toward the eastern slope, where Reyes’s pod still lay half-buried in an oppressive cloud of smoke and silence, and knew it was time to finish whatever was hiding in there.

  Ethan descended with the axe slung across his shoulder. It was getting dull-edged, now a slightly warped tool meant for wood, not monsters, but its weight felt solid and reassuring in his grip.

  He skirted the edge of the crater, just a few meters west of the forge. The ground here shimmered with the remains of the blown generator, covered with warped copper and broken belt frames. Past that, the terrain dipped into the eastern clearing where the pod waited like a tumor, bleeding resin into the dust.

  Redresin ran like veins from the cracks in its hull, pulsing with a faint light as it spidered outward like ivy, branching toward the ground in crooked, searching fingers. Ethan slowed his approach and raised the axe, his mouth suddenly dry. Reyes lay unmoving in the dirt beside the pod, half-curled with his skin drawn tight and pale, blotched with crimson vines that coiled around what was left of his neck like a gruesome and succesful noose. The air near him buzzed with a profound quiet, a stillness that was all too familiar from his encounter with the Apex.

  As Ethan stepped closer, he spoke softly, "I’m sorry. I should’ve done stopped this before things escalated."

  In response, Reyes’s fingers twitched. Ethan froze as a second passed, then another, before the twitch came again with a sharper, more deliberate jerk of the hand. The chest lifted with a slow, rattling breath that gurgled halfway through, and then the entire body spasmed violently. Ethan raised the axe, but he was already too late.

  The sound that followed wasn’t human. It gurgled up from the severed neck with a wet, pulsing rhythm, almost like meat boiling from the inside out. Reyes’s decapitated body spasmed once, then jerked upright with a series of sharp cracks. Tendrils erupted from the open neck stump, thick and glistening, writhing in blind search. Crimson creepers burst from his torn chest cavity, threading through his ribs like wires dragging a marionette to its feet.

  From the hollow where his spine met air, something began to crawl free.

  A slender, segmented stalk slithered upward from the stump of Reyes’s spine, slick with resin and tipped with twitching barbs. It flexed like a scorpion’s tail, dragging scraps of membrane as it tested its freedom. Red creepers pulsed and knotted through the body, binding shattered joints into unnatural motion. The corpse spasmed once before it stood; tall, proud, hungry.

  CelestOS: Subject Reyes has been compromised. Emotional reconciliation is not recommended.

  The barbed stalk curled forward, scanning the ground with a predator’s twitch. Then it found what it wanted.

  Reyes’s severed head.

  The body lurched toward it, guided by a web of glistening muscle-vines. One arm reached out, fingers broken and twitching, and lifted the head with reverence that mocked ritual. The stalk coiled around the neck like a parasite wrapping a host, threading itself into the base of the skull. With a wet pop, the head was slammed back onto the ruined stump.

  Slick tendrils knitted flesh to flesh. Bone clicked against bone. The eyes, once vacant, flared open. They were no longer human, but burning with a ruby light that danced and boiled behind the irises like molten glass.

  The head turned toward Ethan. And it saw.

  He staggered back, heart thudding. The Thrall took a lurching step, then another. Its motion was jagged, wrong—like a marionette tangled in too many strings. The head swiveled independently of the body, held in place only by wet tissue and twitching vines. The barbed stalk supported it like a grotesque periscope, adjusting the view as if sight was optional.

  The torso bent backward, ribs splitting wider with a wet snap. Something inside was stretching, making room.

  Then came the hiss.

  A burst of vaporized resin spewed from the chest cavity in a fine mist, sweet and metallic. Ethan coughed, staggering as it clung to the back of his throat.

  He raised the axe. “Reyes,” he whispered, his voice cracking, “you died clean. Don’t make me do this.”

  The thing lunged.

  He dropped low as the stalk lashed out, cracking past his head and flinging molten resin across the rocks. He rolled through dust and ash, came up hard, and swung the axe into a resin-choked limb. It struck deep and and got stuck, but with a strength Ethan didn't know he possessed he pulled it free and back off.

  The Thrall convulsed. The head twitched on its vine, eyes narrowing. The stalk rose.

  CelestOS: Vital signs elevated. Recommend: increased distance.

  "Working on it!" Ethan yelled back, and he continued backing away, too afraid to take his eyes off even for a second.

  The Thrall flung a resin vine like a tentacle, forcing Ethan to duck a blow that tore a deep scar into the scorched metal plating beside him. The creature advanced, its movements now a slow and deliberate stalk. Behind it, the pod sagged under its own weight as the ground steamed from every patch of spilled resin, before it finally collapsed once and for all.

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  One of Reyes’s legs bent backward at the knee, dragged by the Thrall’s pull. The body was breaking under the stress, but the parasite inside didn't seem to care, using him merely as a shell. This was no longer a man; this was a weapon.

  Ethan retreated toward the raised conveyor spine, a narrow walkway bolted between the ore pile and the power generators. The scaffold at the far end climbed toward the ridge wall.

  He gripped the axe with white-knuckled hands as the Thrall lashed forward again in a twitchy, stuttering charge. He ducked to the side, letting the creature's resin-lined claws rake past him to tear a deep groove in the dirt and fling up a cloud of dirt. He coughed and pivoted, bringing the axe up in a wide arc that connected hard with a trailing limb.

  The edge bit deep into one of the red creepers with a satisfying crack, spraying hot resin like arterial blood. The Thrall recoiled, jerking back as the tendril retracted and the resin pulsed to seal the wound almost instantly, but it had clearly felt the hit.

  Ethan planted his feet and swung again, striking lower near the knee. This time the axe struck meat under the growth, and the impact jolted through his arms. The Thrall screamed again, an airless, hollow sound full of pressure as resin bloomed from its mouth and eyes, as if the scream were exhaled through pulp.

  CelestOS: Damage threshold reached. Target adapting.

  "No kidding," Ethan muttered.

  When the Thrall lunged, Ethan dropped low and let it overshoot, then smashed the axe head into the back of the thing’s leg. The blade chipped this time as a thin line cracked along the haft; the axe was holding, but just barely. They were nearing the broken generator site now, where the ridge narrowed, hemmed in by fractured conveyor rails.

  For all he had been able to repair or replace, the trash piles were adding up. Ethan kicked a twisted pipe into the Thrall’s path, causing it to stumble briefly, and he pressed the advantage with a swing to the side of the neck and another to the shoulder. Resin splattered across his arm and hissed against his suit, making his gloves slick and his forearms scream from strain. If he wasn't careful, CelestOS was going to scrub him within an inch of his life again.

  The axe edge was now blunted and the wood was splitting near the head, but it still had heft for a blunt hit. The Thrall didn’t flinch anymore; it simply watched, its red-lit sockets tracking his movements with an eerie calm. Though one arm dangled limp and one leg dragged, it still stood and moved forward. It wasn't human and didn't need bones. Ethan backed up toward a raised conveyor platform, the scaffolding groaning under his boots as he scrambled up.

  Below, the Thrall climbed after him, its limbs jerking and lurching across the metal. He turned at the top, where the ridge dipped to give him a clear overhead shot. He needed one clean hit, that was all. He raised the axe one more time.

  He stood at the peak of the scaffold, breathing hard while the factory hissed and groaned below. The Thrall was climbing toward him, inch by inch, dragging its ruined body with an unnatural grace. Its torso had split along the spine, where crimson creepers pulsed like worms through rotten fruit, tethering it together even as the meat failed. Ethan gripped the cracked, pitted axe with both hands, knowing it was all he had. He leapt.

  As his boots slammed into the scaffold midair, gravity pulled him down fast and hard, and he brought the axe down with every ounce of weight and fury left in his body.

  The blade struck the Thrall’s clavicle, but it was not the Thrall that gave. With a sharp CRACK, the axe handle snapped in half just above the grip. The blade twisted and bounced off the resin-wrapped limb, tumbling end-over-end down the scaffold. Ethan hit the creature’s side shoulder-first and bounced off, slamming into a conveyor rail with a grunt and landing hard on his back, the air punched from his lungs.

  The Thrall reared. Resin dripped from its ruined limb, but it wasn’t bleeding and it didn’t care. It didn’t even notice the broken weapon, only the man who had dared to resist it. Ethan scrambled up, wheezing, the broken axe haft still clutched in his hand, now nothing more than a useless, splintered stick.

  CelestOS: Weapon integrity: zero percent. Recommend: retreat.

  The Thrall lunged. Ethan threw himself sideways as a barbed tendril lashed out, slicing through the scaffold behind him. Metal screamed and gave way as the structure twisted and collapsed. The Thrall crashed through it, trailing vines behind it like streamers of living wire as ash and sparks filled the air.

  Ethan rolled over a severed belt line and crawled beneath a collapsed walkway while a vine slapped the ground inches from his boot, its resin steaming against the floor. One caught his leg, yelping as it burned through the outer layer of his suit and left a searing welt beneath. The parasite was hunting now, no longer reckless, but with an intentional, focused deadliness.

  He ducked past the mineral pile, skidded beside the first power generator, and slipped under the forge’s outer chassis. Pipes hissed and lights flickered around him. A collapsed beam pinned a conveyor overhead, and resin mist clung to the copper plating like fog.

  No matter what he did, it felt like he was chasing his own tail. His breath was ragged, his legs ached with every step, and his axe was gone. He had no weapons left, and the monster was still coming. He needed to gain some kind of advantage, or it was over. Nothing was working in his favor. Even the turret had stayed silent.

  Even the turret had stayed silent. It was his only chance now. If he could make it there in time, he might still turn this around.

  He glanced at the Thrall, which stood between him and the turret nearly half a kilometer away.

  Why wasn’t the gun firing?

  He stumbled past the forge machinery, which was now humming with life again. Copper ore rattled through intake chutes and steam hissed cleanly from the pressure valves as lights on the fabrication panel glowed green. He slid behind the bulk of a mineral pile, tucked between the chute support and the power generator. Sweat soaked his collar and his right hand was slick with blood from the axe haft's splinters.

  He could still hear the Thrall circling the ridge, searching for him, its footsteps inconsistent and ranging from dragging to sharp to utterly silent. The worst part wasn’t the sound, but the sweet, sharp, acidic smell of resin seeping into every surface.

  CelestOS: Asset vitals: unstable. Threat proximity increasing.

  After a moment, the forge hissed again with a routine steam purge, but the echo was too loud, making him feel terribly exposed. The shriek that followed tore through the air like a blade as something slammed into the forge from the east, buckling metal and snapping a fabrication arm free with a shriek of shearing bolts.

  A second impact followed as a vine whip crashed into the upper frame, punching through the casing and tearing a conveyor clean off its hinges.

  CelestOS: Alert: Forge integrity compromised. Automation suspended. Manual intervention required.

  Ethan pushed himself backward under the collapsed scaffolding, wedging himself into the crawlspace beneath the forge’s lower chassis and sucking in short breaths. Above, the Thrall entered, its limbs clicking against the metal plating as it moved with purpose, inspecting rather than stalking.

  One vine snaked across a copper beam, pulsing with red resin as if feeding, while another limb poked blindly through the ore pile Ethan had just passed. He didn’t move. A jagged, burnt copper shard lay beside him; he took it, turning it in his fingers to find the sharpest edge. It was barely more than a broken plate, but it would have to cut at least once.

  The Thrall exhaled, not with lungs, but with pressure, venting a mist from its torso that curled across the forge floor in red spirals. A tense silence was broken by a single sound: a drip. A lone droplet of resin landed two inches from Ethan's boot, where it hissed against the metal. In response, the Thrall turned with a slow, deliberate motion that locked every muscle in Ethan’s body.

  He knew then that his factory, the one good thing he had going for him was in danger. And Fuck, if he was going to let that happen again.