The hallway was suffocating—walls humming low, like something alive beneath the plaster. Ephraein's feet pounded against the grime-slick floor as they turned corner after corner, a stuttering rhythm to their desperation. At last, a distant shaft of light. A broken panel in the ceiling—a way out.
They didn't speak. There was no time.
Toff grunted as he shoved a rusted filing cabinet aside, revealing a narrow crawlspace leading to the surface. "Go," he barked. "Now!"
Ephraein climbed, skin scraping metal, lungs burning. Every inhale tasted of mildew and long-forgotten dust. The darkness behind them pulsed. It chased them like a thought that wouldn't die.
Then—
Air. Real air. Cold and sharp and furious with wind.
They collapsed on the frosted ground just outside the hospital's perimeter, the trees groaning overhead like something ancient waking up. The moon was a bruised eye in the sky, and night swallowed everything.
And then—footsteps.
A silhouette emerged beyond the trees, bathed in flickering blue and red. Sirens, faint and rhythmic, rolled like thunder in the bones.
"Sasha...?"
She stood still, arms wrapped around herself, hair wild, eyes hollow. Her clothes were damp. Her voice sounded like it had forgotten how to exist.
"I just woke up..."
Toff and Ephraein exchanged looks. Ephraein stepped closer, his voice a whisper: "What do you mean?"
Sasha blinked slowly. "I was dreaming... or maybe I wasn't. I don't know. It felt real. I was floating... in something. It wasn't water. It was black. Heavy. It moved around me, inside me. I was trying to swim up, but it kept pulling me down."
She looked at them, a child lost in a nightmare she couldn't describe. "Then a hand grabbed me. It was huge. It didn't hurt me... it just pulled me under. I couldn't scream. I saw... flashes of faces. And then I woke up... in the woods. Alone."
Toff's face twisted with suspicion. "You were dead. We saw it."
Sasha shook her head slowly. "I don't think death works right in that place."
Before Ephraein could respond, a sharp beam of light broke through the trees. A voice cried out—rough, desperate, relieved.
Officer Jasper stumbled into view, limping and bloodied, his uniform torn. "Ephraein?! Toff?! Jesus—you're alive!"
He ran to them, scanning them for wounds. "I thought everyone inside was gone. I've been circling the perimeter—there's no way in through the front. It's locked down. But we've got backup. Dozens of officers posted at the entrance now."
"Then we have to go," Toff said. "We found a way out—we can guide them in."
They ran through the skeletal trees, shadows warping as the sirens grew louder. The hospital behind them moaned in the wind, its windows like watching eyes.
When they reached the entrance, the scene was surreal—forty, maybe fifty officers surrounded the property. Some were armed to the teeth, others shouting into radios. Floodlights lit up the dead grass and cracked pavement like a warzone.
"TOFF!" a woman shouted. "Ephraein!"
The officers swarmed them, pulling them into safety. One officer offered a blanket, another checked Sasha's eyes with a flashlight.
Toff raised his voice. "There's a crawlspace! We got out through it. There's something inside—you have to listen. It's not human."
Ephraein nodded. "It's made of ink. It moves. Thinks. It remembers us."
"You need to burn it," Sasha said quietly. "It doesn't like heat. Or... milk."
"Milk?" an officer echoed.
"It's hard to explain," Ephraein muttered.
Without hesitation, a tactical team armed with rifles, gas masks, and riot gear charged into the crawlspace, vanishing into the hospital's innards.
Minutes passed. The floodlights buzzed. No gunfire. No screams.
Then—
The radio burst with static. Followed by—
"CONTACT!"
"SHOOT IT! IT'S—IT'S NOT—"
The gunfire that erupted was deafening. Shouts echoed through the radios. Then screaming. Wet, gurgling, inhuman.
An officer was launched back out through the crawlspace. His chest was gone. Just a smoking hole.
The Ink came next.
It moved like a living puddle, black as obsidian and shaped like fear. It pulsed with memories—limbs stretching from it only to dissolve again, faces briefly visible before vanishing. It absorbed bullets like water absorbs rain. It roared—not like an animal, but like a thousand voices shouting at once.
It surged toward the barricade. Officers fired relentlessly, rounds ripping through it with no effect.
One screamed, "FALL BACK!"
Another screamed as a whip of black tendril tore him in half.
Jasper shouted, "TOFF! RUN!"
Toff grabbed Sasha's hand. "BACK TO THE PASSAGE!"
They sprinted across the field, zigzagging through panicked officers. The Ink twisted, turned—scenting them, wanting them. It chased with a terrible patience, sliding across the grass like spilled venom.
Sasha dove through the passage first. Toff followed. Ephraein last.
Behind them—THUD. The Ink slammed into the door.
Again—THUD.
Sasha pushed her back against the steel. "Hold it!"
"It's not going to stop!" Toff yelled.
The third impact rattled the bolts. A shriek vibrated the metal. Then—
BOOM.
The door exploded outward.
Officers opened fire. Muzzle flashes danced like lightning. One of them rolled forward and hurled a grenade into the center of the mass.
"DOWN!"
They ducked.
The explosion tore the night in two.
Chunks of Ink flew like liquid shrapnel. A piece hit a car. Another screamed midair. The central mass recoiled, writhing, reshaping itself.
Then, as if rehearsed— Milk.
Officers came forward, wielding tanks. Sprayers hissed and unleashed white streams. The Ink sizzled on contact. It twisted, screeched, tried to flee—but more milk poured down. It steamed. It thinned. It shrank.
Sasha stared, whispering, "It's dying."
Ephraein watched as the final shape—a boy's face, maybe Lukas's—faded in the dissolving ink. The memory screamed silently, then vanished.
And then—
Silence.
Ash on the ground. The stench of death and milk. And stars above, watching like indifferent gods.
The officers fell back. Some sat. Others wept. One was on his knees, clutching a locket.
They were alive.
It was over.
Or so they thought.
Lights approached. Black vans. Reporters. Cameramen.
The news had arrived.
Zhianea Xi, sharp-eyed and fearless, stepped out with a mic already live.
"Toff Rivera? Ephraein Keane? Sasha Leblanc?" She pressed toward them.
Ephraein blinked, voice cracking. "We... survived. But others didn't."
"What happened inside?" Zhianea pressed.
"There was something... old. Made of thoughts and pain. They were experimenting on people. On memory."
"Is it true it couldn't be killed with bullets?"
"Yes," Sasha said. "But it could be broken. With belief. With heat. With milk."
The reporters murmured.
Toff turned to the camera. "We didn't ask for this. We were just trying to help someone. But they opened something they couldn't control."
Behind them, the hospital smoldered. Sirens sang. Spotlights scanned the building like blind gods.
Zhianea turned back to the lens. "An entire hospital locked down. Dozens dead. A memory-driven entity destroyed. Tonight, three survivors step forward to tell the world—science and the supernatural may no longer be separate."
She paused. Then: "And Ephraein Keane... the boy who survived the Ink... what's next for you?"
Ephraein looked at her. Then looked at the hospital.
"I think it's not over," he said.
The end of Volume 9: Born as a Marked Child