The first breath of outside air hit Zubair like opening an oven in winter.
It wasn't hot enough to burn, but it carried a stale, baked taste that clung to the back of his throat and made everything taste… off.
After hours in recycled underground air, the sky felt huge and wrong. Wrong enough to make both him and his creature to wrinkle their noses.
The hatch refused to close behind them given the fact that it was not much more than soft metal clinging to what it used to be.
Zubair didn't turn around. The facility was dead. Whatever remained under their feet belonged to rust and pathogen now. He didn't bother to hold back the smirk on his face… the Director and the others fought so hard against disease…
Only to be completely conquered by it.
He looked briefly at the creature called Aerenyx. He didn't know what it meant for him… whether he would lose himself completely to the creature inside of him or not.
But if it meant power like that…
