Seraphina's Revenge: A Rebirth In The Apocalypse Novel

Chapter 455: No More Cheap Experiments

The main mass inside the host writhed in a frantic pattern now.

Tendrils punched outward in every direction they could find. Some lashed at the air, some tried to dig into the walls, and some went straight up toward the vents.

Alexei saw their attempt at an escape, moved his hand, and sent frost into the duct surfaces. The sudden cold cracked vent grates. Parasites that tried to force themselves through touched the metal and slowed.

Ice formed along their length, causing them to lose all mobility and droop.

Her creature settled. It cannot escape that way. Finish it.

Sera stepped into the widening pool at the host’s feet and reached into the cavity. Her fingers closed around the central knot of cords where they braided together. The mass there pulsed faintly, still trying to coordinate.

It tried to drive barbs into her palm, but they scraped against her skin without sinking in.

She tightened her grip and pulled the parasite out of the man completely.

The body collapsed, empty of its engine. The head lolled forward. Whatever was left of the homesteader disappeared under the shape of what had been growing inside him.

She held the parasite up.

Its cords whipped and twisted as its hooks scraped at the air. The pits along its surface focused on all directions at once. It tried to speak again, but the sound came out broken now, without the host’s lungs and diaphragm to shape it.

"You do not belong here," Sera said, her voice completely devoid of emotions.

Her creature agreed with absolute certainty. You ruin the food. You ruin the world. You will not spread.

She slammed the parasite down onto the concrete and drove her heel into the thickest part of it. The mass squashed as its internal channels burst. Fluid sprayed and then pooled. The remaining tendrils thrashed without aim.

Zubair stepped closer, heat ready if needed.

"Burn it?" he asked.

Aerenyx shook his head once. "It is already breaking," he said. "Whatever made it hold together cannot survive without a host. It definitely cannot survive her."

Sera ground her heel again.

The last coherent movements stopped.

Around them, the lab settled into a new quiet. Monitors beeped erratically as their inputs died. Pumps whirred a few more times and then shut down. The few parasites that had not been directly touched lay slack.

Her creature tested the air. No more live strain here. Only remnants of the dead.

Sera looked around the room.

There were host bodies in cages, broken specimens in jars, more equipment than anyone really needed. But what annoyed her the most was the notes on clipboards and the terminals with data.

"They are going to try again," Zubair grunted with a shake of his head. "If not here, then somewhere else. They had enough time to think this up once."

Lachlan nudged one of the burned jars with his boot. The glass cracked and leaked cloudy fluid. "Maybe it will go worse for them next time," he said. "That would be fitting."

Aerenyx’s eyes narrowed at a nearby terminal. "They recorded everything," he said. "Parameters. Failures. Adaptations. If someone finds this, they will not have to start at the beginning."

Alexei pursed his lips. "Then we erase it."

Sera’s creature agreed. If they cannot resist playing god, you take their tools away. Make it harder. Make it hurt.

"Destroy it all," Sera announced before turning around.

They did not need more instruction.

Lachlan poured power through the largest console first. Screens blew, glass fragmenting inward. Smoke rose from the ruined casing. He moved down the line, frying circuits one cluster at a time.

Zubair turned his heat onto racks of drives and storage units. Plastic warped. Labels bubbled. Metal housings sagged.

Aerenyx walked past the specimen shelves and let his presence corrupt what remained of the parasite structure. Even dead samples degraded faster, proteins twisting into useless shapes.

Alexei directed his attention to the structural supports around the containment room. Frost crawled into bolts and cracks, widening damage Zubair’s heat created elsewhere. Walls fractured. The ceiling above the main cage sagged under the new stress.

Letting the guys do what they need to do, Sera moved through the cages.

She opened the ones where the hosts had already been emptied or fully overtaken and broke any remaining parasite bodies under her hands and feet. The ones that still had people partially present, too far gone to save but still aware enough to see her, got quicker ends.

She did not feed from any of them.

Her creature had no desire for that meat now. Spoiled. Wrong. You had your meal. We’ll stick to the humans. This is just closure.

When they were done, the lab no longer looked ordered.

Equipment lay in heaps as glass from shattered screens and jars coated the floor. Smoke drifted toward vents that would not carry it far. The main containment cell had collapsed inward.

Sera stepped back to the doorway and looked over what they had done.

"This strain is finished here," Aerenyx said. "Whatever spores or fragments are left will not thrive."

"It will take them years to rebuild this," Alexei added. "If they try."

"Someone will," Zubair said. "Somewhere."

Sera’s creature settled into a steady line. Let them. You are not done walking. You can always break the next nest.

She turned away from the ruined room.

"I am not eating anything they grow in concrete again," she said. "Next time, I want something that was actually alive before it died."

Lachlan huffed a soft breath that almost passed for a laugh. "We’ll find you a better meal," he said. "This one was a mistake from the start."

They retraced their steps through the corridor. The technicians who had remained down here pressed themselves against walls and stayed out of reach. No one tried to block their path.

At the control room, the crouched man had not moved far. He watched them come back with the eyes of someone who knew his work had just been torn apart.

"You killed it," he screamed, his voice breaking. "Do you know how much data we lost? How many years—"

"Yes," Sera replied. "And I will do it even more from now on."

He opened his mouth again, then closed it. There was nothing left for him to argue.

They climbed the stairs.

The alarm above still wailed, but there was a different note in it now, less focused, as though the system did not know which emergency mattered anymore.

Outside, the light felt harsh and honest.

Sera took in a breath of air that did not carry bleach or preservatives. Her creature stretched under her skin, still pleased, still hungry in a distant way, but no longer irritated.

"Now what?" Lachlan asked.

Sera looked at the sky and at the road beyond the fence.

"I want something that can actually fight," she said. "Nothing that pretends to be smarter than it is."

Her creature agreed. Real prey. Real teeth. No more cheap experiments tonight.

They walked back toward the truck together.