You remained there, motionless, as time seemed to stretch on forever. A lone figure dwarfed by the indifferent steel giants and the field of pulsing, bone-white growths. The sheer wrongness of the place was a physical weight, pressing down on you, squeezing the air from your lungs. The static hum wasn't just auditory; it vibrated through the soles of your boots, up your legs, settling deep in your bones like a parasitic frequency.

  Arthur’s Nexus. It felt less like a source and more like an open wound in reality, bleeding coldness and alien thought into the world.

  You had to move. Staying exposed on the plateau felt like painting a target on your back for any patrolling Sentinels. Your eyes scanned the immediate area, searching for cover, for options. The three towers stood stark against the paling sky. The central tower, the largest, was surrounded by the densest concentration of Still-Blooms, its base looking almost like it was growing out of them, or they out of it. Getting close seemed like a spectacularly bad idea. The two smaller towers flanked it, less infested but still radiating that unsettling hum.

  Then there was the bunker. The squat, windowless concrete control building nestled near the base of the central tower. Its heavy steel door faced away from you, towards the towers themselves. It looked sealed, abandoned, lifeless. But it was the only structure up here, the only potential shelter, the only place that might contain answers–equipment, logs, maybe even something Arthur left behind, if he ever made it up here himself.

  Could Arthur have hidden something inside? His notes mentioned needing to preserve the research, finding the Nexus. If this was it, the control bunker was the most logical place to look for... well, for whatever he thought was important.

  Getting to it meant crossing about thirty yards of open, windswept ground, then skirting the edge of the main Bloom field near the central tower. Risky. But less risky than trying to climb one of the humming, potentially reality-warping towers or wading directly into the thickest cluster of those icy growths.

  Decision made. You took a deep breath, tasting the metallic tang of ozone, and started moving, low and fast, darting from the meager cover of the plateau edge towards the bunker. Every scrape of your boot on the gravel sounded like a gunshot in the profound silence. The whispering wind swirled around you, feeling colder, more probing now, like icy fingers searching your pockets. You kept scanning the surrounding hillside, the bases of the other towers, expecting a tall, pale figure to detach itself from the shadows at any moment. Nothing. Just the oppressive stillness and the low, bone-jarring hum.

  As you neared the bunker, you had to skirt the edge of the main Still-Bloom cluster. The cold intensified dramatically, leaching warmth from the air, frosting the ground. The Blooms pulsed gently, their facets shifting with that familiar, nauseating lack of true reflection. Up close, you could see intricate, vein-like patterns within their translucent depths, like frozen neural networks. The air around them shimmered faintly, distorting the view of the tower base behind them. Looking at them for too long made your head spin, filled your vision with phantom static.

  Don’t look directly at them. You averted your gaze, focusing on the bunker wall, the rough texture of the weathered concrete.

  You reached the side of the bunker, pressing yourself against the cold, solid wall, momentarily hidden from the open plateau. You listened intently. Just the hum of the towers, the sighing wind, the frantic thudding of your own heart.

  No clicking. Good.

  You crept around to the front of the bunker. The heavy steel door was even more imposing up close. Thick, reinforced, coated in layers of peeling paint and rust. A heavy wheel mechanism, like on a bank vault or submarine hatch, was set into its centre, presumably for sealing it. It looked like it hadn’t been opened in decades. Faded lettering above the door read:

  You gripped the cold metal wheel. Locked tight? Rusted shut? You put your shoulder into it, straining. It didn't budge. Not even a groan of protest. Sealed tight. Maybe welded shut from the inside or outside?

  Frustration gnawed at you. All this way, risking encounters with clicking nightmares, only to be stopped by a locked door? You scanned the door again. There was no visible keyhole, no padlock. Just the wheel mechanism.

  Wait.

  Below the wheel, almost hidden by rust and grime, was a small, rectangular slot. Not a keyhole, more like… like a slot for a keycard. An electronic lock? On a building this old and derelict? It seemed unlikely. But maybe it was retrofitted later?

  You pulled out your own city ID badge. Hopeless, probably, but worth a try. You slid it into the slot. Nothing happened. No beep, no click, no light. Dead. Or just incompatible. Of course.

  You slumped against the cold steel door, despair washing over you. Dead end. Unless…

  Your eyes fell on the useless burner phone in your pocket. The one that got fried when you tried to search for Thorne. The one that displayed those warning messages. Could it be…? No, that was crazy. Using a cheap, fried burner phone as a keycard?

  But what if the phone wasn't just blocked by the network? What if it was somehow… changed? Marked? Hacked, in an almost positive (or negative?) way? What if the system monitoring those searches wasn't just blocking information, but was part of the same… thing that permeated this place? What if being 'flagged' meant the phone now carried some kind of digital signature recognizable to whatever alien logic governed this Nexus?

  It was the longest of long shots, fueled by desperation and sleep deprivation. But you had no other options. You had to tried what you got. You pulled out the burner phone. Its screen was dark, dead. You hesitated, then slid its thin plastic edge into the card slot on the bunker door.

  For a terrifying second, nothing happened. Then, the slot itself glowed. A faint, sickly green light pulsed from within, illuminating the dead screen of the burner phone. The phone vibrated violently in your hand, emitting a high-pitched whine that grated on your nerves. The air crackled with static.

  And then, with a deep, resonant THUNK, something heavy shifted inside the door mechanism.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  The green light died. The phone stopped vibrating. The slot was dark again.

  Disbelieving, you gripped the heavy steel wheel. You turned it. This time, with a groan of protesting metal, it moved. Slowly, stiffly, you rotated the wheel until it clicked into its fully open position.

  You pulled on the edge of the door. It resisted for a moment, sealed by time and neglect, then swung inwards with a low, scraping screech that echoed across the desolate plateau, revealing utter blackness within.

  Holy shit. It actually worked. The burner phone was the key. Or rather, being 'flagged' by the network, being marked as an 'unwelcome thought-form,' was the key. Some kind of perverse, alien logic at play. Were you expected? Invited? Or had you just accidentally stumbled upon a back door left open by the system's own corrupted protocols?

  The air that wafted out from the bunker was stale, cold, and thick with the smell of dust, mildew, and something else… that faint, underlying scent of ozone and decay associated with the Blooms. You couldn't see anything inside.

  Using your work phone now seemed like a marginally acceptable risk compared to entering pitch blackness. You switched it on, ignoring the flood of missed work notifications, and activated the flashlight feature. The bright beam cut through the oppressive darkness, illuminating a short corridor lined with peeling paint and damp-stained concrete walls. Electrical conduits snaked across the ceiling, coated in cobwebs thick as shrouds.

  You stepped inside, then, heart pounding, used all your strength to heave the incredibly heavy steel door shut behind you. It grated protestingly on warped hinges, closing with a deep, resonant CLANG that echoed like a tomb sealing. You spun the heavy central wheel mechanism, trying to re-engage whatever internal locking bars remained functional. It turned stiffly, grinding with rust, but seemed to partially catch, offering at least the illusion of being secured against casual entry, though you doubted it would hold against a determined assault. The moment the door slammed shut, the external hum of the towers seemed to fade significantly, replaced by a profound, tomb-like silence within the bunker itself. You were sealed in. For better or worse.

  The flashlight beam swept across the corridor. Empty. Doors led off to the left and right, likely storage or equipment rooms. Straight ahead, the corridor opened into what seemed to be the main control room. You moved forward cautiously, boots crunching softly on dust and fallen plaster.

  The control room was larger than you expected, dominated by banks of obsolete electronic equipment–massive consoles studded with dead gauges, buttons, and switches, thick bundles of cables spilling from opened panels like metallic entrails. Everything was coated in a thick layer of dust, undisturbed for decades. It looked like a museum exhibit on Cold War paranoia.

  Your flashlight beam played across the consoles, the defunct machinery, the stained floor. Empty chairs lay overturned. Papers were scattered across a central table, yellowed and brittle with age. Nothing seemed out of place for a long-abandoned facility.

  Until your light fell on the far wall.

  Growing directly out of the concrete, spreading across the surface like a cancerous ice formation, was a massive Still-Bloom. Far larger than any you'd seen outside, it covered nearly half the wall, reaching from floor to ceiling. It wasn't just bone-white; veins of sickly, phosphorescent green–Veridian?–pulsed within its depths, casting a faint, nauseating light that competed with your flashlight beam. The air near it was visibly distorted, shimmering like intense heat, yet the temperature in the room plummeted, your breath pluming in front of you. The static feeling was almost unbearable here, a physical pressure inside your skull.

  This wasn't just a Bloom. This felt like… the heart? The core. Or at least, a major artery connected directly to whatever alien consciousness was anchored here.

  And nestled within the crystalline folds of the giant Bloom, partially embedded, like a fly trapped in amber, was a laptop computer. A relatively modern one, completely out of place amidst the decaying retro-tech. Its screen was dark, but a small, insistent blue power light blinked rhythmically on its casing.

  Arthur’s laptop? Had he made it here? Had he… plugged himself into the Bloom? Become one?

  You approached cautiously, the flashlight beam wavering in your suddenly unsteady hand. The cold radiating from the wall-Bloom was intense, painful. The static buzz intensified, making your vision swim. Whispers seemed to coalesce out of the silence–fragmented voices, snippets of code, mathematical equations spoken in impossible languages.

  The laptop looked functional, albeit eerily integrated with the alien growth. A standard keyboard, a touchpad. The blinking blue light pulsed in time with the faint green veins in the Bloom. Was it drawing power from the Bloom?

  On the dusty floor in front of the Bloom-infested wall, arranged in a neat semicircle, were several objects that made your blood run cold.

  1. A worn leather-bound notebook, identical to the one you'd taken from the lockbox.

  2. A framed photograph of a smiling woman you didn't recognize.

  3. A single, dried, pressed flower–maybe a hawthorn blossom?, and

  4. A small, ornate, slightly rusted skeleton key.

  Arthur had been here. This was his… final setup? His shrine? His interface point?

  You knelt, ignoring the waves of nausea and disorientation rolling over you, and reached for the notebook. As your fingers brushed the worn leather, the laptop screen flickered to life.

  It didn't boot up normally. No logos, no operating system loading screen. Just lines of stark white text appearing rapidly on a black background, written in a style that was chillingly familiar–precise, analytical, yet utterly unhinged. Arthur’s voice, filtered through the Bloom.

  The screen pulsed, the green veins in the wall-Bloom behind it glowing brighter. The whispers intensified, swirling around you, trying to pry open your thoughts.

  Arthur wasn't just completely gone. Maybe part of him was here. Trapped. Integrated. Speaking through the machine, through the Bloom. And it knew you were here.

  You stared at the screen, at the blinking cursor waiting for a response you didn't know how to give, the cold seeping into your bones, the whispers promising knowledge and oblivion in equal measure. You were inside the Nexus. And it was awake.