Ruins and heartbeats

The dead city breathed.

It had been days since the expedition began. The exploration squad still combed through the ruins of the old world, searching for ancient materials and subway passages. A young woman stood in the skeletal remains of an old facility that, somehow, hadn’t collapsed with time. She descended the rusted stairs into the subway, her boots echoing through the hollow dark. The air clawed at her throat with every breath.

What she felt wasn’t a sound. It moved through her bones, an unspoken pressure, a tension buried in the concrete and dust. The crunch of gravel underfoot, the rasp of her breath bouncing off broken walls... and something else. Something was watching her. She knew it wasn’t possible, but she felt it all the same.

The squad had moved on, leaving her behind again. Not that it mattered. She was only here because someone had to test the way ahead, flesh to see if death waited around the corner.

“Do you see anything?”, the gruff voice crackled through her communicator

“Nothing, it just looks like I found a new line.”

Her fingers trembled on the rusted metal of a half-buried door. A flicker of light caught the corner of her eye, something shiny. Throbbing. Embedded in the chest of a collapsed figure.

A human body, twisted in the rubble.

A faint glow pulsed between its ribs. It shouldn’t have been there.

The corpse was desiccated, mummified by time. It should have smelled like rot, but the air brought only dust. She’d seen bodies before, but never one like this. Most of the dead carried scraps, old metal, busted batteries. This one had something shiny in its chest.

Her fingers brushed the stone and an icy current ran up her arm. It was her first time touching one. The air stopped rasping in her throat. The sound of the ruins died away, and for a moment only the beating of her heart remained.

A gem.

An ancient relic from a world no one understood. Beautiful things. Forbidden things.

The order was clear: report every single relic. She didn't understand why something so beautiful should be hunted. Why something so hauntingly beautiful could justify execution.

Still, here she was. Alone. Exposed.

She raised her flashlight. The glow from the object throbbed beneath its beam, slow, steady, alive. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen. Alien. Mesmerizing. And wrong. But it tugged at her. A silent whisper inside her bones that dulled her fear with curiosity.

She knew what would happen if she violated protocol. Firing squad. Quick, public, and loud. But maybe, just maybe, this was worth the risk. Maybe she wanted to know.

"If you die, it doesn't matter."

She’d known that since they conscripted her for being jobless in the commune. If she got shredded in a trap or blown apart, no one would care. She was just meat to clear the path.

But if she survived, maybe then it would matter.

She shoved the gem into her vest, her fingers twitching like it might bite. Then she pressed the comm.

"Boss... I found something. And it’s fucking weird," she said firmly.

The chief’s voice came through in static bursts, distorted by distance. The relay was too far.

She secured the gem and kept running with the communicator on, the radio signal was dying... She needed to get closer to report the new line.

The communicator crackled in her ear as she ran through the ruin. Her footsteps echoed between corroded beams and shattered concrete. The air carried only dust, but a chill crept through her skin, as if something had threaded itself beneath it.

"Boss, do you copy? I repeat, I found..." Static swallowed her words.

She kept running. Her flashlight flickered as she pushed deeper into the hallway. The walls were painted in rust and shadow.

She turned a corner, and felt it.

Not sight. Not sound. Just presence. A weight in the air, the vacuum of silence. Her heart hammered. The hallway ahead twisted in the dim light. A shape slipped through her peripheral vision.

"Fuck..."

A metallic screech rang out. Eyes blinked in the dark. Something scraped along the wall.

She yanked her rifle from her shoulder, a clunky thing cobbled together from pipes and salvaged parts. It wasn’t reliable. She’d only trained with it under pressure, and barely that.

The creature moved. Thin. Insectile. Covered in chitin. It flickered with a pale, unnatural glow. Another screech echoed. Eyes tracked her from the dark.

She aimed and pulled the trigger.

CLICK!

"Shit!" She stepped back and worked the slide. It jammed.

A shadow slithered down the wall. The cold over her chest deepened, like ice under her skin.

"Come on, you bastard..."

She tugged the slide again. Nothing. The trigger refused to budge.

Something moved fast.

She fired.

A burst of sparks and noise. The shadow flinched, screeched like bones snapping under pressure, but it didn’t fall.

The flashlight sputtered. Her fingers went numb.

The shadow lunged.

Click. Click. Click.

"Fucking work, you piece of shit!"

The flashlight burst in a flare of light. The shadow screamed in a high, inhuman pitch that split her skull and recoiled into the walls.

Gone.

Silence fell.

Only her breath. Her pulse pounding behind her eyes. The rifle still in her hands, useless. The freezing pressure in her chest began to fade.

"What... what the fuck...?"

The communicator blinked.

“Where the fuck are you? We're fucking losing you!”

She breathed, trembling.

“Sir!... I think... I found something else.”

“Come back NOW. Do you copy? NOW!”

She looked into the darkness where the figure had been. There was nothing left. Just dust remained.

She ran. Removing the bulb from her flashlight burned her fingers, whatever had happened it had overloaded it.

The way back was too quiet. Her nerves still buzzed, electrified by the first time her weapon had actually tried to kill for her. But the gem was gone. She checked her vest, her pocket. Nothing.

By the time she reached the checkpoint, fatigue dragged her limbs. Cold lights flickered above the corroded metal floor. The dust still hung thick, but now the air tasted like rust.

"Well?" The chief’s voice was as dry as gravel.

She pulled off her helmet, sweat-soaked hair clinging to her neck.

"I found a new line. And something weird."

The chief narrowed his eyes.

"Should I log it as 'Unexpected Shit Number Forty-Five,' or are we actually screwed?"

A chill laced her spine. The memory of that faint pulsing, beneath bone. Beneath skin.

"I'm... not sure."

He gave her a long look, but said nothing. Just turned back to his console and started tapping at the screen.

"Get some rest. Squadron moves out at 0500. You’re on recon again."

She nodded, but something tugged her attention downward. 

Her shirt was damp. A dark stain just under the collar. Blood?

She pulled her vest aside. Nothing on the fabric, but when her fingers brushed her sternum, she felt it.

A lump.

Cold. Smooth. Stone-like. With an alien pulsing.

A wave of nausea hit her. She staggered, catching herself on the wall.

"Everything all right?" asked one of the guards, watching her sway.

"Yeah... just... tired."

She turned and walked out of the checkpoint with her pulse racing. The cold was still there, deeper now. Not just in her chest. It was spreading, threading itself through her veins.

Something was awakening inside her.