Lab Z-13

Title: Lab Z-13: No Cure, No Mercy

It started with a whisper in the dark. Not the sound of a voice, but the low hum of machines restarting after years of silence. Deep beneath the Siberian permafrost, buried in isolation, Lab Z-13 came back to life.

Dr. Elina Mirov didn’t believe in ghosts. She believed in data, in controlled environments and clean procedures. But when the Russian government covertly hired her to investigate a “communication blackout” at an old military bio-research facility, she sensed more than a simple technical failure. Something was wrong the moment her boots hit the cracked concrete floor of the subterranean lab.

The complex was cold. Not the kind of cold that came from lack of power—it had electricity. It was the kind of cold that lived in places where no living thing had walked for a long, long time. Her team of five, all elite scientists and engineers, descended into the facility with heavy gear, hazmat suits, and weapons. No one asked why biologists were issued firearms.

The airlock sealed behind them with a mechanical hiss. The heavy steel door groaned shut, trapping them in the past.

“Ventilation's working,” said Karim, their systems engineer. He tapped his tablet. “But atmospheric composition is...off.”

“How off?” Elina asked.

“Like someone exhaled something... not human.”

They pressed deeper. The lights flickered to life as motion sensors, somehow still functional, followed their path. On the walls were remnants of Soviet insignia, crossed out with black paint. Below them, scrawled in Cyrillic, were three chilling words: "No Cure. No Mercy."

They found the first body in Lab C. A scientist, mummified in his suit, face frozen in a scream. His arm was reaching toward a red button labeled Purge.

“It’s like he was trying to stop something from escaping,” muttered Anya, the team’s microbiologist.

The data logs were fragmented. From what they could piece together, Lab Z-13 had been developing a viral agent—Project Thanatos. A bioweapon meant to render enemies incapacitated in minutes. It was designed to mutate. To adapt.

"They used human test subjects," Elina whispered, reading through an entry. "Prisoners. Political dissidents."

Then they found the holding cells.

Scratched into the walls were hundreds of tally marks. The steel bars were twisted, as if something inside had gained the strength of a god. Blood painted the walls in arcane shapes, long dried but still pungent.

That night, the screaming started.

It wasn’t coming from any of the team. It came from the walls. From the ventilation shafts. A howling mix of pain and rage, echoing down the dark corridors.

“Motion detected in Sector D,” Karim announced, his voice shaking.

“That’s impossible. We’re the only ones here,” Elina said, but she was already gripping her pistol.

They followed the signal, tracking it through the narrow maintenance tunnels. What they found in Sector D was not human.

At first glance, it looked like a man. But its skin shimmered with a translucent, veiny membrane. Its eyes were gone, replaced by sockets that pulsed with red light. And its mouth... it stretched too far.

It didn’t speak. It screamed.

Bullets slowed it down but didn’t stop it. Only fire, from a makeshift flamethrower, drove it back.

“What the hell is that?” Anya cried, as the creature retreated into the dark, flesh bubbling.

"A host," Elina said. "The virus... it didn’t just mutate. It evolved."

They tried to leave. The airlock wouldn’t open. System override failed. Communications were jammed. One by one, the team was picked off—Karim vanished near the generators, his radio left behind in a pool of blood. Anya tried to find an escape route through the old freight elevator and was torn in half by something too fast to see.

Only Elina remained.

She sealed herself in the central control room. Her breathing was shallow. The emergency power wouldn’t last much longer.

She stared at the final report on the mainframe:

PROJECT THANATOS: TERMINATED
STATUS: BREACH CONTAINMENT
DIRECTIVE: NO CURE. NO MERCY.

Elina realized the truth. There never was a plan to recover the lab. She and her team were the final test. A data point. A sacrifice.

Outside the reinforced window, shadows moved. Something waited.

She picked up the last syringe on the table—a viral suppressant prototype. It wouldn’t cure her. But it might let her stay herself... for a little longer.

She pressed record on the facility's black box.

“This is Dr. Elina Mirov, Lab Z-13. Do not send anyone else. This place cannot be cleansed. It cannot be understood. It must be buried. Burned. Forgotten.”

The lights went out.

And something began to knock on the door.

END