Introduction
– Mighil
This chilling story takes the reader on a descent into darkness. We witness the genesis of one man’s ruin through unspeakable experiments and endless torment. His transformation from subject to avenger is disturbing yet gripping to experience. Peeling back the layers of a sprawling underground colony reveals the suffering concealed within its prosperous facade. Rather than offering easy answers, “Genesis of Ruin” aims to unsettle. It probes humanity’s capacity for cruelty and our defiance in the face of inhumanity. I hope this tale, for all its shadows, will keep readers engaged.
CHAPTER 1
He opened his eyes and saw nothing but darkness. He blinked against the black, willing his vision to adjust. Blinded shapes began to emerge slowly – walls outlined in fading gray, shadows retreating into deeper shadows.
As awareness came, so did pain. His body throbbed as if flayed open. He tried to lift a hand to inspect the source but found himself bound, his limbs stretched tight against an icy surface. Panic swelled in his chest, but he fought it down, focusing on slow, steady breaths.
Where was he?
How did he get here?
His mind scrabbled for answers but came up blank. The last thing he remembered was…nothing.
There was only the darkness and the pain.
He lay listening for any sign that might reveal his circumstances. Distant sounds reached him gradually – a low rumble, a metallic groan, faint vibrations traveling up from the floor. A machine of some kind, grinding relentlessly.
Time passed. Occasionally, a distant flicker of light would dance across the walls, casting fleeting snapshots of his confinement. The space was small and barred, like a cell. Or a cage.
Finally, after an eternity in the murk, a piercing whistle split the air. The rumbling began to slow, grinding down with protesting screeches until silence fell once more.
Footsteps then, approaching purposefully from some unseen corridor. He held his breath, muscles straining against their bonds as a figure emerged into view, backlit by the sullen glow framing it from behind.
It regarded him wordlessly for a long moment before a grating voice issued forth.
“So. You live.”
CHAPTER 2
The words triggered an avalanche of memories, scattered pieces falling suddenly into place with terrible clarity. The research facility. The experiment has gone wrong. Waking here, again and again, in an endless cycle of disorientation and pain.
He’d lost count of the repetitions long ago. Each rebirth delivered him to a new compartment in this subterranean maze, only to endure another bout of excruciating transition as his molecules broke down and reassembled according to some inscrutable design.
For what purpose? To what end was he being subjected to this hellish purgatory? His tormentor never deigned to explain, content to observe his ordeals in obscene fascination like some demented zookeeper.
The figure shuffled closer, dragging metallic implements that arced and crackled with unstable energy. The sounds sent needles of dread piercing through him, but he gritted his teeth, determined not to give the satisfaction of seeing him scream. Not this time.
A sibilant hiss as the tools powered on. “Perhaps you will provide some novelty this cycle. You grow predictable in your responses. Let us see if we can…surprise each other.”
The agony began anew.
CHAPTER 3
When awareness returned, he found himself splayed upon a hard floor, limbs splayed akimbo. Disoriented, he took stock – no pain, no restraints, only a deep weariness permeating his bones.
How long had it been this time?
Slowly pushing up on shaky elbows, he peered around, immediately on alert. The cramped space was featureless but for a narrow slit on one wall, admitting a thin row of daylight. He rolled onto hands and knees, joints creaking in protest, and scanned for any clue about his whereabouts or means of escape.
Nothing. Only bare, unyielding surfaces enclosing him on all sides.
He shuffled to the slit and stretched onto his toes, craning for a glimpse outside. At first, he saw only endless stacks of identical modules stretching to the horizon under a pale sky. An industrial complex of some kind. The movement in his peripheral – a distant figure in a protective suit striding purposefully along a walkway between the stacks.
A colony, then. He was within an enclosed habitat of considerable scale. Swallowing panic, he redoubled his inspection of the small space, probing every crack and seam. But his cell had been crafted with diligence, leaving no openings or weaknesses to exploit.
Hours passed.
Thirst and hunger gnawed at his insides, but he pushed the needs of his broken body aside, focusing his flagging strength on methodical investigation and planning. There had to be a way out. He could turn a fault, an oversight, or some vulnerability to his advantage. He would no longer be trapped here as a plaything for that inhuman creature’s depraved experiments.
Exhaustion pulled at his limbs and eyes like lead weights, but still, he forced himself onward, probing every inch once more. And again. On the third pass, his desperate fingers happened upon it – the barest sliver where two panels joined, the seam fractionally wider than the rest.
Heart leaping with new hope, he braced himself and began to work at the minuscule gap, wedging and levering with ragged fingernails. Skin tore and bled, but he bore down relentlessly. An eternity seemed to pass before; with a pop and a breath of dust, one panel finally gave way just enough for fingertips to find purchase.
Gritting his teeth against the searing pain, he began slowly, carefully peeling back the panel, opening a sliver at a time. Dust and filings rained down, but he ignored them, focusing only on the incremental progress. When the slit was wide enough to peer through, his hands were flayed and dripping. But he had done it. An opening, however small, had been achieved where before there was only a solid wall.
Cold, fresh air ghosted through, followed by the distant mechanical noises he’d heard each time, awakening in a new cell. He squinted out, surveying the warren outside. Row upon row of identical structures stacked dizzyingly high, connected by catwalks and maintenance tunnels. It was an overwhelming maze. But somewhere in its depths lay answers and perhaps even escape.
Steeling himself, he began worming his battered body through the gap. Out in the passage, the stale confines of the cell were replaced by a harsher environment, but he took heart, wrapping bleeding hands in rags torn from his meager clothing. His ordeal was far from over, but he felt a flicker of something new – a purpose for the first time since waking in that subterranean hell.
Determination. A plan taking shape amid the desperation.
He would roam these mechanical deserts until he found what he sought. Answers. And retribution for his nameless tormentor would be sweet indeed.
CHAPTER 4
Weeks passed as he navigated the endless labyrinth. The colony sprawled for kilometers in every direction, a vast hive of industry and habitation stacked impossibly high under the domed ceiling. Machinery clanked and hissed constantly, driving rows of towering processing plants that belched fumes and packaged endless goods into cargo containers.
Periodically, the giant slabs would belch open, disgorging hauls to be sorted and redirected through the complex network of transit tubes and conveyors lacing the myriad levels. Along these routes, he picked his halting way, sticking to shadows, scrounging what meager supplies he could find.
Most colonists he glimpsed went about their duties, faces obscured behind masks and goggles, indifferent to the ragged figure scuttling through maintenance tunnels in their midst. Occasionally, he would happen upon patches of greenery or recreation areas where residents mingled sans protective gear, going through the motions of normal daily life. Children played while adults socialized, tending flower gardens or lounging beside shimmering fountains that flowed with fresh water purified from the colony’s industrial runoff.
All were ignorant of the hell that lived concealed beneath their prosperous facade. He felt like a spectre as he watched them from hiding places, so close yet utterly cut off, belonging nowhere in this thriving settlement. An outsider in every sense.
As weeks passed with no sign of his mysterious captor, desperation began to set in. He pressed ever deeper into untraveled regions, probing the endless subterranean landscape. Each new level looked like the last – towering tier upon tier of utilitarian construction stretching to the vaulted ceiling. Few colonists traveled these peripheral levels, leaving them eerily deserted.
It was in one such forsaken sector that he at last heard it – a distant chime of recognition echoing faintly through the rock and girders. Hope surged as he picked up his pace, letting intuition guide his footsteps. Around another blind corner was an unremarkable portal set flush in stark metal siding, identical to the thousands he’d passed.
But he knew this one. Knew the claustrophobic gloom that lay beyond and the nightmares it held.
With a primal yell, he flung himself at the entrance, ramming it again and again with his shoulder until battered seals finally gave way. Darkness yawned inside just as he remembered. Gulping air to still his pounding heart, he ventured within.
His eyes slowly adjusted to reveal row upon row of cells lining narrow corridors – an entire level dedicated to the nameless scientist’s depraved experiments. At the end was the familiar control center, where countless ordeals were observed and documented through one-way viewing panels.
Quiet reigned now, but he knew the place held more secrets. Breaking into a run, he burst into the control room, eyes feverishly scanning for any clue as to this nightmare’s orchestrator. Banks of darkened screens and instrumentation lined the walls, retrofitted from old equipment scavenged from other levels of the vast colony.
In one dim corner, a flicker caught his eye. A panel glowed with a sequence of symbols, signaling an automated shutdown process was still engaged. Without thinking, he lunged forward and began stabbing buttons, canceling the sequence in the hopes of awakening dormant systems.
Slowly, screens around the room flickered to life, bathing the space in an eerie glow. Status reports scrolled down many surfaces, journals, and experimental logs arranged in neatly labeled sections. His hands flew across panels, digging through archives with growing desperation.
There had to be answers here. Names, places, anything that could lead him to finally confront the one responsible for his torment. His breathing grew ragged as he rapidly sorted through petabytes of collected data.
And then, at last, in a buried personnel file – a discovery. A face appeared on one screen, attached to a dossier with all relevant details.
Doctor Elana Vasquez, lead researcher for Sector 17 & bioengineering initiative. Home colony Nova Canaan.
Rage turned his vision red. This was the architect of the hell that had been his infinite life for who knows how long. His screams echoed off cold metal as he vented anguish and fury upon the screens, smashing them with his fists until glass and circuits spilled across the floor in twisted heaps.
Panting, he leaned against a still-functional panel, staring unseeingly at the carnage. A nagging thought wormed its way into his exhausted mind – what now? Vengeance was within reach, but how could he make the doctor pay after enduring her experiments so long?
A flicker at the edge of his vision stirred him from dark contemplation. One surviving screen still scrolled listlessly through files. His eyes, drawn by some instinct, scanned titles drifting by until freezing upon one in particular.
Project Omega. Restricted access.
His hands moved of their own accord, coaxing deeper layers of encryption from the outdated system through some intuitive perception. Level-by-level barriers melted away, revealing blueprint after blueprint of unidentified engineering marvels, exotic alloys, and power sources like nothing in recorded science.
Weapons, he realized with a jolt.
Bioweapons have the potential to level entire colonies if unleashed in population centers. Doctor Vasquez’s magnum opus heralded humanity’s grim new epoch under her misguided vision.
All at his fingertips now to command as he saw fit. A terrible idea was taking hold, borne of all the suffering etched upon his soul. He would make them pay. Make her watch as all she sought to create was unmade by her own creations.
Let the fire be his justice.
CHAPTER 5
He worked through the endless night, decrypting specifications and running covert factory overrides on wheezing colony systems still partially under his foul captor’s control. Raw materials were requisitioned through dummy orders and rerouted to hidden workshops where autonomous assembly lines sprang to destructive life under his direction.
By dawn’s pale light, the first fruits of his twisted labor were ready. Clad in bulky armor plating and DNA-targeted biocanisters, he slipped unnoticed from the condemned research ward and began infiltrating the sprawling colony above.
Levels stretched endlessly, but he moved with grim purpose, sticking to maintenance tubes and seldom-used conveyor routes. His enhanced sensors swept ahead, mapping population centers and key infrastructure to maximize overall damage potential. Weak points and control nodes were identified and tagged for coordinated first strikes.
Finally, on the 50th sublevel, he emerged into a vast green courtyard bustling with morning activity. Colonists strolled paths or socialized at outdoor eateries, basking in simulated sunlight beaming down from the colony’s energy-intensive sky panels high above. Children played and laughed without a care as he ghosted between manicured hedgerows, Attachments to his armament click-hissing as bioweapons primed for dispersal.
With a mental command, the first wave was unleashed upon the unsuspecting residents. Panicked screams rent the air as a colorless mist billowed out, searing lungs and melting flesh on contact. Pandemonium erupted as survivors fled in all directions only to trigger more dispersed payloads or fall victim to secondary infection. Blood and gore painted once-serene walkways as a canvas for his retribution.
He moved on without looking back, sensors alerting him the engineered plagues were already spreading rapidly through ventilation and packed living quarters.
Secondary targets were engaged – power stations overloading in spectacular explosions, construction drones reprogrammed as kamikaze bombers tearing through barricades and armor.
News of the attacks spread like wildfire through the newsphere. Evacuations were mounted but hopelessly disorganized against his strategically sited destruction. Carefully orchestrated crises sucked up emergency response crews only to rip apart their efforts with new catastrophes unfolding behind them. Level after level fell to the engineered chaos as defense networks learned they were defending the wrong things too late.
An hour passed, then two, as the meticulously planned doom consumed the colony from within. Communications broke down under relentless electronic warfare. Areas that had been evacuated filled once more as survivors tried to outrun the creeping plagues only to find new horrors awaiting.
He felt no remorse, only the collector satisfaction of a symphony reaching its apocalyptic crescendo exactly on cue. This, Vasquez’ grand vision, was now his to unmake according to his designs. Truly, her magnum opus would be the undoing of her entire deluded society and ambitions.
As predicted, in the pandemonium, she sent repeated hails to his commandeered receivers, demanding updates and intervention. He permitted only minimal responses, letting her dread and confusion mount until the time was right. There, in the gutted heart of what had once been Sector 22 Command Central, he finally materialized through smashed bulkheads as emergency warnings wailed their death knells.
Vasquez whirled from disintegrating monitors, face gone bloodlessly ashen at the spectre appearing through the smoke and wreckage. “What have you done…” she breathed, backing away in horror.
“Justice,” he replied simply, advancing with remorseless intent. His weaponry crackled as payloads primed for a single living target.
“For all the suffering you put me through without end. Now you see the fruits of your magnum opus, Doctor. I hope it was worth the knowledge gained.”
She had no words, face frozen in rictus as menacing shapes closed in for the kill. There would be no escaping retribution this time. Her lifetime of depravity ended here, consumed by the creations birthed from her mad ambitions and inflicted upon a soul too stubborn to let the hellish nightmare continue undefended.
With her death, it was over at last. The colony lay in ruins. Its dreaming ended in a baptism of righteous fire. From beyond, the ruins would spread more plagues to unmake what remained of this place and its foul memories.
As for him, there was nothing left but the void.
With a thought, his armor disintegrated into waste particles. The experiments were concluded, and the vengeance enacted as a concussive blast leveled the ruins into oblivion. All traces of the colony, its inhabitants, and the nightmares they spawned vaporized on the spot.
His work done, he let oblivion reclaim him once more. Perhaps a different fate might await in his next genesis or in some other place. For now, there was only dark and the long quietus of an ending written in fire.