The deep medical lab at the GBDC headquarters smells of pulverized concrete, ozone, and the sharp, metallic tang of fear.
The emergency lighting flickers, casting long, erratic shadows across the sterile walls. The heavy steel door is still buckled inward, a massive, hairline fracture splitting the center of the metal. The air is freezing, the ambient temperature having dropped twenty degrees during the Formless’s probe.
I kneel on the cold floor, my heavily bandaged hands trembling as I wipe a smear of dried blood from beneath Asher’s left nostril. My son is slumped against Kade’s chest, his eyes closed, his breathing shallow and ragged. The geometric lattice in his silver eye is dull, receding back into the dormant depths of his stem cells, but the physical toll of repelling the probe
