Permafrost Protocol
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Chapter-1 The First Breach
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I am a microbiologist ,dr.Rivan Hale and in this virus-torn world we are the only survivors and for you to know the whole tale I will tell you how it all happened…………
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Around 2 years ago..
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10 june,2025 ,
Me,dr.Rene nezhoda,dr.ivy calvin and major.skaara arrived to Vostok-12 Cryo-Research Station,to do some research on newly found virus spores that was found in siberian permafrost ,recent research tells that it dates back to ice age it was found in a mammoth body and strangely when it was bought to lab conditions and connected to some live tissue it reactivated instantly as it was not dead in ice it was sleeping ,suddenly we saw some black substance first we thought it of the virus decaying in heat so we immediately sealed the chamber ,later we returned to the mammoth carcass and dr,rene found the black spores.
It was night, so we rested.
At exactly 2:06 AM, a siren shattered the silence.
Suited in full bio hazard armour we rushed towards containment cell 2045 and saw the horror of our life the virus had somehow shattered the glass and had vanished it was a complete disaster but after we got the spore detector and found that the whole room was filled with spores and the infected live material was there on the floor we were relieved but it was the mistake of our lives it has actually found a way out those were only decoys of it that it had made, we underestimated it it could make duplicates of itself in 0 degree centigrade actually it was a extremophile-a virus that can reproduce in extreme temperatures and when we found it all .it was extremely late to react it took a week for all of us to get this info ,no we got cases of people from a small village who were dying ,local doctors couldn't find a cure as the symptoms were unseen,it was like something struck life from it,initially symptoms were dramatic weight loss,muscle mass loss,fatigue,and weakness,then blood vomit ,loss of vision,memory,hearing and loss of control over body,and paralysis and death.and the skin and lungs showed black spores,there were instances of deformed,violently attacking ,bears and deers etc, these were from russia itself but in a few days we got cases from india,iran,england,pakistan,us,australia and from were not and stranger thing it showed little consciousness the spores collected at certain places in mass when we dug same animals with same virus but with little genetic difference like the older one was trying to get the other one out then before we could do or say anything major retrieved a C4 plastic explosive from the biohazard vehicle and told us to evacuate and he blew the thing apart we all were satisfied but he had unintentionally fused the viruses due to the heat the viruses mutated but we didn't know this and we went away a week later we got a new reports that a man has been somewhat controlled by something else after autopsy,the body was sent to the research station in the postmortem room we saw something ,the man wasn't dead ,”He wasn't alone”
Suddenly the body flinched
Just once,.
That was enough.
Major Skaara didn't blink. His sidearm was out before the rest of us could even react. One clean shot — straight to the skull.
The echo rang through the lab.
“You don't hesitate with something like that,” he said coldly, holstering the weapon.
I crouched beside the remains. The brain matter was... wrong. It pulsed like it was still thinking.
Dr. Ivy leaned in, pale. “It’s not dead. That shot only stopped the host.”
And as I looked at the black spores oozing from the bullet hole, I realized the virus didn’t need a body.
It had found a way to move on its own.
It is evolving ,it is our worst nightmare coming true,all apocalyptic movies were comedies. In front of this evolving virus it fused with bodily liquids and made it its own . but major could no stop he also tried to burn the virus but it only grew then dr,rene said lets spill compressed liquid nitrogen on it cold will neutralize it ,we did the same ,and voila the virus crumbled to death at -196 degree celsius
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Chapter-2 the containment illusion
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Three days after the autopsy incident the research station was put under strict lockdown,satallite relays were silent and the external perimeter was under survallence by armed drones but the internal building was in rush we all were working major keeping an eye on the whole area he was wearing a full military armour battle suit a MK24 in hand and an M4carbine strapped on the shoulder and with at least 12 tactical grenades on his belt ivy and i were calibrating the nitro vortex cannon,ivy said we need to put in at least 85 percent saturation this time we can’t take risk of underfrezzing with the cyto-calibarating console in his hand i said if it dident freeze in -196 degrees,ivy gave an cold answer”we are fighting something colder than death”,and at the same time rene was doing some so called experiment with the black virus ,suddenly a scream broke the scilance it was rene in the lab we rushed something was battering the lab door with force of denting reinforce titanium door it was rene but his eyes were black but in this last words he saidit is mimicking me, an alarm rang biohazard breach,skarra barked, have you locked all labs and containment chambers airtight ,I answered “yes all labs and containment chambers are locked”,suddenly another alarm rang :the fire alarm, in the lower basement 3 ,suddenly skarra said that floor stores the heat generators and thermal batteries we were shocked it has learned that cold can kill it it has divided itself , but why did he take rene as a host ,is still a mystery ,but when we reached hte lower basement 3 we saw something out of some alien flim:he B-12 reactor hallway was smoke-choked and glowing red. The thermal batteries had burst open like overripe fruit, flooding the air with heat and steam.
And then they saw it.
The spores had formed a shape—not human, not animal. Something in between. Pulsing, twitching, like it was trying to remember how to be alive. It didn’t walk. It flowed.
Skarra whispered target acquired,initiating protocol kakaz ,kill at sight he shot 5 shots at his head before we could say anything,skaara again fired a full burst into the center mass. The bullets ripped through, but the creature didn’t fall. Instead, the holes closed with Reload!” Rivan shoutedSkaara tackled Ivy, pushing her into a coolant pipe. The beast struck where she’d stood, warping the steel floor.
.
But the gunfire had drawn its attention.
It lunged.
a hiss—black liquid forming new muscle, new skin
Skaara tackled Ivy, pushing him into a coolant pipe. The beast struck where he’d stood, warping the steel floor.“We need to freeze it now!” Ivy yelled.
“There’s no portable cryo left down here!” I shouted.
“Then lure it up,” Skaara growled. “To the cryo chamber.
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“Then we need to do protocol lauren”said skarra
Skarra said i will lure it to the upper floors and get it into a cyro chamber and lock the door you guys freeze it to death when I yell
“You will die” said ivy
Skarra said emotionally for the first time “no problem I am dead from inside scince khandhar” ,he did as planned
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The beast burst into the chamber. Skaara dived behind a shield.
“Now!”
I hit the valve.
Liquid nitrogen exploded into the air. The chamber turned to frost in seconds. The beast screamed—not in pain, but rage.
It froze mid-lunge. Muscles locked. Eyes wide.
Skaara stood, frost clinging to his armor. “Tell me it’s dead this time.”
Rivan stepped forward, staring. “It’s not regenerating…”
He placed a probe.
Flatline.
“Temperature?” Ivy asked.
“Minus 198.7,” Rene said.
The team sagged in relief.
Until the lights flickered.
The black spores on the frozen floor twitched.
“It’s shedding itself,” Ivy whispered. “Leaving the body behind. It learned it again.”
Skaara raised his rifle. “So we keep teaching it the same damn lesson.”
He opened fire—shattering the frozen husk.
But Rivan’s eyes stayed on the twitching spores in the corner.
“It's adapting. Faster than anything alive.”
He looked at the others.
“We’re not in a containment lab anymore.”
There was silence.
Then Skaara said what they all feared.
“This… is a war.
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chapter -3 the hive awakens
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Five days after the freezing incident,The facility was a fort under siege,soldiers lined the perimeter an armored ring of steel and frostbitten nerves,A T-14 Armata tank regiment hummed slow and steady
An Orlan-30 drone from the 3rd Tactical Reconnaissance Battalion of the 22nd Spetsnaz Brigade hovered above, scanning for bio-anomalies as thermal signatures flickered across the Siberian snow. Inside Vostok-12 Cryo-Research Station, the atmosphere was one breath short of suffocation.The NADIR strain was locked inside the cyro containment unit 51 in -198.7 degree celsius motion-none,brain signals-none but no one slept easily
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Dr. Rivan Hale stood at the observation deck, eyes on the tundra. Ivy was at his side, silent. Skaara, patched up and as tense as a tripwire, loaded his MK24 with fresh rounds.
A secure and encrypted line beeped.
Command to Vostok-12. Clearance Alpha. Directive change. Iskander-M Missile en route,Irkutsk to vostok 12 missile will connect in 50 minutes,.over”
What the hell!?” Ivy gasped.
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I grabbed the microphone-”vostok-12 to Irkutsk,vostok-12 to Irkutsk,please repeat the command,I repeat: please repeat the command,over”
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“Orders from Eastern Coalition High Council. NADIR strain now classified Alpha Extinction-Class,over” the voice told from Irkutsk
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Are you insane? We have survivors here! We’re containing it!”
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containment is compromised. Satellite scans show biomass growth underground. Estimated spread: 3.4 kilometers. Orders are final.over”
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The line went dead.
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30 minutes later
Below the Cryo-51 containment chamber , something stirred.
It began with a vibration—faint, like a slow heartbeat through frozen concrete. Then,a little warmth. A tunnel, slick with melted ice, pulsed with black threads of spore-root tissue. The virus had not died, it adapted.
It fed on geothermal heat, NADIR evolved past the need for surface hosts. It spread like mycelium—intelligent, sensory, purposeful. It remembered Rene. It remembered the freezing pain. It remembered a sound—a genetic echo of the one lost calling,
It wasn’t just surviving.
It was searching,his twin,his shadow
Erebus.
Another strain. Another being. Another half of what it once was,
Back on the surface, soldiers reported strange anomalies.
Men disappearing near vents. Equipment malfunctioning. Drone feeds cutting to static when flying too low.like something was jamming the signal,
Skaara ordered a sweep team into Tunnel E-71.
Only screams and blood came back.
Ivy bolted into the data core. “Rivan! The NADIR strain—it’s… it’s not just alive. It’s broadcasting.”
“What?” he turned sharply.
He pulled up seismic maps. “It’s creating a network. Electrical pulses in the spore roots. Synaptic pathways. Like a brain.”
“Are you saying it’s… thinking?”
“It’s building something. Maybe even… calling out to somethingor someone he cares,”
20 minutes to missile impact
A low boom shook the station.
Everyone froze.
“Breached tunnel 4!” a soldier yelled. “Sector 51! They’re coming out of the ice and permafrost!”
I rushed to the monitors. Cameras showed a grotesque shape tearing out of the snow—amorphous, dripping black ooze, spiked limbs twitching like nerves. It wasn’t alone. Behind it, a whole wall of the glacier had been hollowed out. Tendrils curled through the ice, forming tunnels.
Creatures emerged—half-human, half-something else. Some were wearing pieces of the sweep and research team’s old uniforms.
“Oh my God…” Ivy whispered. “It’s using them.”
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Skaara stormed into the war room. “We hold here. Arm everyone. Full lockdown.”
“What about the missile?” I asked.
Skaara didn’t flinch. “We survive until impact. Or we die holding the line.”
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10 minutes to impact
Outside, a lone human-like shape emerged from the snow.
It looked like Rene. Same height. Same walk.
He approached the first battle tank.
The gunner hesitated.
“Rene?”
The figure smiled—and burst apart, releasing a shockwave of black tendrils that wrapped around the barrel, pulling it down. The tank exploded.
Another scream. Then another.
Fire filled the sky.
NADIR had baited them. It wasn’t mindless—it was tactical.
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In the control room
Rivan stared at the missile tracker.
T-minus 8:42.
Then the screen glitched.
Missile locked on Vostok-12.
Trajectory interference: “UNKNOWN SOURCE.”
“What the hell?” Ivy shouted.
Rivan’s heart stopped. “It’s jamming the satellite.”
Skaara burst in. “What now?”
Rivan pointed. “It hijacked the comms. It knows we’re targeting it. It’s protecting the hive.”
Skaara looked at the frozen chamber. “It’s using electrical feedback. Just like a brain.”
Suddenly, a tremor shook the station. Lights flickered.
The missile disappeared from the radar.
“Gone!” Ivy cried. “The missile—lost contact!”
A second later, another alert blinked:
OBJECT DESTROYED.
“No...” Rivan said slowly. “It… shot it down?”
Back in the command center
Skaara slammed his fist on the desk. “We have to leave.”
“Where?” Ivy snapped. “We’re surrounded!”
“There’s an old Soviet launch tunnel beneath Chamber 7,” Rivan said, eyes wide. “It leads five miles west to the ice shelf. If we blow the connecting bridge and seal the tunnel, it might hold.”
I said”it only wants heat lets flood it with liquid nitrogen”
“Then we have ten minutes to evacuate,” Skaara growled. “Arm up. No second chances.”
As the team ran, behind them, the chamber with the frozen virus pulsed—just once.
Cracks spread across the glass.
The beast was walking
Chapter-4
Snowy wind whispered against the reinforced glass like fingers brushing across a coffin. It was the fifth night since the missile vanished from radar, and the United nations and NATO had stopped pretending that everything was under control,and it was nothing to be scared of.
I hadn't slept for 9 days n
ow
Not really.Not since the last time Skaara stood in the corridor outside his bunk and said, in a voice hoarse from smoke and screaming, “It’s learning, Rivan. Faster than anything I’ve seen.”
Now, Vostok-12 was buried in silence. Communications were cut again, deliberately this time. No one trusted what might be listening.
The infected area—the “Hive” as they’d started calling it—was now off-limits. Sealed behind titanium alloy sheets welded shut. Not that it helped much. Drones still caught tremors. Vibrations pulsing like a heart under the icy floor.
A biological heart.
Or worse—a brain
I sat at the edge of Ivy’s makeshift lab. he hadn’t said more than five words since they’d lost half the sweep team.
The only light came from the faint glow of petri dishes. Fungal growth under microscope. The culture squirmed—not visibly, but with a presence. He felt it.
“Ivy,” I whispered,
he didn’t look up.
“Ivy. You said something yesterday. About NADIR forming new synapses.”
He moved like a droid. His voice was a ghost. “It’s mapping behavior. Each human host gives it… more than just biology. Memory. Instinct And more problematically , Emotion.”
“Then Rene…”
“He wasn’t just copied,” he said. “He was… harvested both genetically,and physically .”
“Have you read rene’s service file he was a awarded military doctor ,a national gold medalist martial artist,” said ivy
The fluorescent lights flickered.
They both froze as permafrost for a second,
Then, footsteps in the corridor.
Heavy.
Measured.
Metallic.
Skaara?
Rivan edged to the door. Ivy grabbed his sleeve. “Don’t,” he mouthed.
skarra opened it anyway.
The corridor was empty.
“Just cold steel and shadows, maybe emotional damage all cold reminds me of that virus in the cryo chamber and all dark of its spores”said skarra as he entered and in frustration he emptied a magazine of his MK24. on the dark corridor
But the cameras—one was dripping. A smear of black oil across the lens.
Suddenly the lights flared white, then black. Alarms screamed—a new tone this time. Not breach. Not contamination.
suddenly the lights flared white, then black. Alarms screamed—a new tone this time. Not breach. Not contamination.
Psychogenic Hazard Detected.
Rivan’s blood ran cold.
“Ivy… What does that mean?”
She stared at the blinking console “It means... something's trying to interface with human thought.”
He took a step back.
Skarra as usual loded his gun but this time he had instinctively grabbed a bazooka
I said “this would work if we were not dealing with……”
“NADIR”said skarra
Throwing down the bazooka and picking up the cryogenic liquid nitro blaster designed by me ,and said “this time i will freeze that basard to death”
“Ivy, what is NADIR trying to do?”i asked
Her voice cracked, like something inside her had broken.
It’s not trying to kill us anymore.”
He turned slowly toward him.
“It’s trying to… join us.
“It’s trying to… join us.”
The words sounded like a curse sent , echoing through the dread and frosty air of the titanium walled bunker. Ivy’s hands were trembling over the console. Skaara gritted his teeth, gripping the nitrogen blaster.
But I—Rivan—moved slowly to the back of the lab, where the emergency lockers lined the far wall. A keypad blinked red in the darkness, barely visible beneath frosty panels. I typed in the access code I’d memorized, not just with logic—but with dread.
The code was -N.A.D.I.R 700x
CRYO–VAULT: AUTHORIZED ACCESS14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqPUZmH2LUd
Dr. Rivan Hale – Bunker Level 2
The metal door hissed open with a breath of freezing gas.
Inside, resting like a sleeping beast, was the CRYO LANCE X-700.
A weapon I built not as a scientist… but as a man out of time, out of hope, out of fear, and running out of humanity.
“What the heck is that?” Skaara asked, stepping closer, lowering his blaster.
“My insurance policy,” I muttered, brushing frost from its polished titanium frame. “I designed it when we realized that bullets and fire weren’t enough. It doesn’t destroy like a grenade—it erases, forever,into shards”
I slotted in the twin fusion cores and heard the signature low hum of readiness.
“I thought this was still in the prototype phase,” Ivy said, standing at a distance.
“It was,” I said. “Then NADIR woke up.”
I lifted the barrel and turned toward the titanium-reinforced door.
Ivy stepped back as the Cryo Lance700 iced to life—ice-blue plasma dancing like lightning trapped in glass. I fired at a discarded metal pipe on the floor.
It froze solid mid-air before it even hit the ground, then shattered into snowflakes and glittering shards.
Skaara whistled. “Now that’s satisfying.”
I looked at them. “It will be more than satisfying. If this thing touches NADIR’s exposed tissue during growth—it might destabilize it. Stop its network from syncing further.”
Ivy frowned. “Or it could provoke it. What if it sees this as an attack?”
I looked up. “Then we’ll know what it’s afraid of.”
Suddenly—BOOM.
The military grade titanium wall above groaned.
Dust fell,
Skaara raised his weapon again. “Now what?”
The console lit up in red. A new alert blinked.
Thermal Displacement: Tunnel Sigma-614Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKmIeY0qlxJ
Foreign Motion Detected – Inverted Patterning14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVDY490xCsi
Biological Signature: Unclassified. Hybrid. Cold-Resistant.
Body state -solid/fluid
I took a breath.
NADIR was sending something new.
“Ivy, lock this lab down,” I ordered. “We take the Lance and scout Sigma-6. If this thing can walk through −80°C without slowing down, it’s not just adapting anymore. It’s evolving.”
Skaara gave me a sideways look. “You really think that ice stick will work?”
I powered the Cryo Lance, its hum now growing. “Let’s find out but I will tell you this thing stops the atoms in any body from vibrating and if its cells cant vibrate ,it will die breaking into shards. ”
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.
The door sealed shut behind them with a hiss. I gave Ivy a final nod before vanishing down the reinforced tunnel with Skaara.
Now he was alone.
Well, not quite. Something else was here. Watching. Waiting for the right moment.
The air inside the bunker had thickened — not just with frost, but with presence. A tension you could chew through. Like breath fogging the mirror of your soul.
Before leaving, Rivan had handed me a compact device. Sleek. Matte-black. Cold as a corpse.
And first time we saw skarra’s soft side he gave me a prototool a laser blade with 3 mods,ice,heat and electricity.
“This is the Cryo Lance Variant-X,” he’d whispered. “Handheld. Condenses the X-700 tech into a single-strike weapon. Don’t use it unless you’re cornered.”
Ivy nodded. “What’ll it do?”
“If it hits something alive,” he said, “it stops its atoms from vibrating.”I said
Ivy blinked. “So it just… dies?”
“No,” I corrected grimly. “It breaks. Into shards. Like frozen glass.”
Now, Ivy cradled those terrible little miracles like a crucifixes
Around him, the bunker trembled. Lights flickered. Something—something—was moving behind the walls. Not footsteps. Not metal. Groaning. As if the structure itself was being consumed, bone by bone,nut by nut , brick by brick,
Then came the smell.
Not rot. Not blood.
Ozone.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJq1HovfDsj
And titanium
A strange fusion was happening just beyond the titanium-alloy blast doors — doors now slick with a black sheen that pulsed like veins. NADIR wasn’t just absorbing memory and emotion anymore.
It was learning manufacturing.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnbE16cDBvD
Forging.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtAzNLjxsCt
Evolving.
The leftover suits of the sweep team were missing. One had vanished from the gear rack right in front of me an hour ago. I thought I was hallucinating — but now I knew better.
I powered up the console again.
A new seismic echo rang back.
The Hive wasn’t just expanding. It was changing shape. Moving upward — toward me.
Suddenly, the emergency lights dimmed to blood-red. Every camera feed but one cut to black. That single feed showed Corridor-Delta-92, a dead-end shaft.
Or it should have been.
But something stood there now.
A figure. Human in height, but clad in a fused exo-suit — patches of Russian titanium, synthetic fiber, and pale skin weeping black plasma. Its head turned slowly, eyes glowing amber.
It was wearing one of our badges.
And some of skarra’s medals
Ivy stepped back from the screen. My hand tightened on the Cryo Lance trigger.
A static whisper crawled through the speakers.
“Join... us... Ivy.”
Ivy didn’t scream.
But something inside me cracked.
Then the door broke or tore
Ivy blasted the blaster some of its parts broke some remained the gun was in reset mode ivy grabbed the prototool switched it into ice and chopped the tentacles of the beast but by mistake the prototool had changed into electric and in one blow the whole thing like melted
One new discovery in IvY’s list NADIR couldn't handle electricity
And then just before NADIR could send any more goons on us I and skarra made a blockbuster entry (literally we broke into the wall made of concrete titanium reinforced wall ) grabbed ivy and the tools and a german log book which skarra had found,and went many kilometers away in a few minutes in a safe house far away from the hive,
Now time for one of skarra’s bad habits telling the detailed description of his weapons he started-
Vehicle Designation: HEKATON-X
Base Specifications
Type: Ultra-Heavy Armored Assault Tank14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgFNmb2gerc
Crew: 2–3 (Pilot, Weapons Commander, AI Tactical Support Unit)
weight: Approx. 80 tonnes
Length: 10.5 meters (including gun)14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhLyqPm6YOe
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Height: 3.2 meters14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoaoWEm9HUT
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Width: 4.6 meters
op Speed: 90 km/h (on flat terrain), 60 km/h off-road14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡazjq8fGXrr
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Power Source: Hybrid Fusion Reactor with Cryo-Stabilized Core14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡksYUnijb2I
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Range: 1,200 km without refuel
Armor & Defensive Systems:
- Hull Armor: 9-inch multi-layered military-grade pure titanium alloy, lined with graphene-composite shock absorbers.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx9IHEavniJ
14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxlOQjLl43v - Reactive Skin: Nano-scale plating that changes electromagnetic signature to resist detection and energy-based attacks.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmoG5w373xY
14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdnnI3sxXI8 - EMP & Psychogenic Shielding: Internal circuits are guarded against both EMPs and unknown signal-based biological interference (developed post-NADIR breach).14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtixqjnPrDP
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Weaponry Loadout:
1. Plasma Lance Cannon X-P90
- Primary forward-mounted weapon.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz6ur8xcPxv
14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGS9FfsxhSm - Fires ultra-hot focused plasma capable of melting 2 meters of steel in seconds. Used against armored threats or to clear path through reinforced terrain
CRYO LANCE X-700 (Dual Barrel Version)
- Mounted on rotating turret.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI7y0vzMTwH
14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLPML75zVS6 - Fires a pressurized stream of cryogenic liquid and atom-dampening gas that brings the temperature of the target to -150°C in seconds.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR1zJfkBPic
14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc7t947vHoJ - Effect: Halts atomic vibration—causing living organisms to shatter and mechanical systems to lock irreversibly.
. Micro Drone Tech & Systems:
AI Module: HERMES-OS
Real-time threat assessment, predictive targeting, and auto-defense. Can operate tank in emergency mode without crew for 15 minutes.
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Interface: Holographic combat dashboard with neural-link support for commanders trained in Tactical Interface Control (TIC).
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Navigation Swarm Pods
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🚀 4. Seismic Shockwave Generator
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navigation: Terrain-Adaptive Suspension, capable of self-leveling over ice, swamp, and rubble.
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skaara’s voice thundered proudly through the chamber as the HEKATON-X powered down, steam hissing from its undercarriage
“Plasma, cryo-lance cannons, and nine inches of titanium armor. We named it HEKATON-X—after the hundred-handed giants of Greek myth,” he grinned. “Because sometimes one weapon isn’t enough
Ivy doesn't respond.
The shards from the creature still glimmered on the bunker floor—half-melted, half-alive.
I touched the German logbook Skaara had recovered from the tunnel. Its leather was scorched, frostbitten, and embedded with fungal residue. The last entry wasn’t written. It was carved—into the page.
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The second god does not die. He returns.
Chapter-5 the silent threshold
The snowstorm had stopped, but the silence hadn’t.
Outside the safehouse, frost clung to the skeletal trees like ancient ash. Not a bird. Not a howl. Just a stillness so complete it felt wrong, like the Earth itself was holding its breath.
Inside, the house was thawing—but barely. The rusted radiator hissed once every few minutes, spitting heat that didn’t seem to reach the corners. Skaara sat with his boots still on, cleaning his sidearm with the reverence of a ritual. Ivy hadn’t spoken in hours. He hunched over a salvaged Soviet workstation, lips twitching silently as he coded something no one else could understand.
And I—Rivan Hale—was lying on a cot that creaked with every breath. I haven't slept properly in days,i hust have fallen into insomnia but this place offered more than sleep.
It offered distance.
Distance from the Hive. From the whispers. From the black sheen spreading like veins under titanium. But not from the questions.
Ivy suddenly spoke up “guy’s look at this report this report it says NADIR only effects homosapiens , ”
“Nonsense ,i have myself seen infected bears ,deers and myself shot a siberian infected tiger”said skarra
“But look at that raven near that infected dead body..the raven is clear of any infection”said ivy
“Just coincidence”said skarra now get ready we are moving in 6 hrs there is an old russian airbase out there 5 hrs from here there we will get an plane someone will be there, we will get out of here ,i have got intel that NADIR is facing problems getting out of arctic circle ,then we will go to new delhi to meet dr,arvind sharma renowned virologist the russian government has gave me clear command”
So let’s get moving
Rivan ! called out skarra grt every thing u can get,food,petrol,fusion cores,guns,cyro stuff,my prototool everything!!now
After six hours of labour we had all necessary things
Then refueled the tank with 2000 liters of diesel
Now his military instincts
Time for seating arrange ment
skaara stood in the commander's cupola of the HEKATON-X, his gloved hands gripping the mounted HMG like it was part of his own body. His breath fogged the targeting scope as he scanned the snowy terrain ahead, jaw clenched like stone.
I was the gunner handling the cannons
And ivy was driving and handling the other stuff
Then we were on the way 3 km away from the safe house all ok but there was something…… abnormal.
The snow didn't fell as it usually did
There was no one around us ivy cross checked “nothing in radius of 12 km) confirmed nothing, not even NADIR. It was a strange feeling like silence had weight.
Like the storm had paused just to watch us.
I glanced at the frost-coated window. The snow wasn’t swirling anymore. It was falling straight—unnaturally straight. As if gravity itself had been corrected.
Skaara shifted on the HMG mount, scanning the pale ridges. “This… this ain’t peace,” he muttered. “This is withheld violence.”
We didn’t talk after that. Even Ivy stopped typing. Every meter the tank crawled forward felt like dragging a coffin across ice.
Then, far ahead—movement.
Something low, heavy, stalking across the snow.
Not NADIR.
An outline—broad shoulders, slow gait, powerful legs.
Tiger.
Skaara froze. “That—no. That’s impossible.”
The Siberian tiger turned its head. A deep, puckered scar gleamed on its skull—exactly where Skaara had fired that fatal round six nights ago.
It blinked. Alive. Breathing. Not infected. Just… returned.
“That's the one I shot,” Skaara whispered. “Why or how the hell is it walking?”
Ivy leaned forward. “The scanner says it’s clean. No infection. No NADIR markers.”
I stared, numb. “It’s healed.”
The tank came to a halt. The tiger stood just fifty meters away now, watching us. Not hunting. Not afraid.
Just... aware.
Skaara gripped the HMG tighter. “So what the hell does NADIR want, if not them?”
I said what none of us wanted to say out loud.
“It only wants us. Homo sapiens.”
And for the first time, the silence wasn't empty.
It was personal.
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I said quietly. “It was healed.”
Ivy blinked. “Healed… by NADIR?”
Skaara snapped. “Why would it save a tiger?!”
“Because it sees us as the problem,” I said. “Not them.”
Ivy leaned forward, voice dry. “You’re saying it’s defending the biosphere… from us?”
“It’s not a parasite,” I said. “It’s a purifier
There was no one around us. Ivy cross-checked again, tapping the console.
“Nothing in a 12-kilometer radius,” he murmured. “Not even NADIR. It’s... too quiet.”
A strange silence had settled over the ice plains—one that didn’t feel like peace. It felt like a held breath, as if the world itself were waiting.
Skaara, crouched atop the HEKATON-X’s machine gun turret, scanned the horizon through his scope. “This area was a hot zone three days ago. Now it’s ghosted?”
Ivy’s instruments began to flicker. First, the compass on the HUD started spinning like a roulette wheel. Then the radar turned to static. Even the Cryo Lance, resting beside me, gave a short whine—a pulse of cold air humming out.
“Something’s wrong,” Ivy said. “The Earth’s magnetic field here... it’s fluctuating. That doesn’t happen on its own.”
“EMP?” I asked.
“Not exactly. More like… an intelligence is rewriting the field itself.”
And then the pulse hit.
A soundless wave—a moment of null. The lights inside the tank died. The engine hiccupped. Even my breath felt paused.
Ten seconds later, it was over. Everything rebooted. The screen blinked back online.
“That wasn’t from above,” said Skaara. “It came from below.”
Just then, the tank rumbled over a ridge—and we saw them.
A dozen rust-eaten trucks, tank hulls, and twisted steel skeletons littered the frozen pass. It was a convoy, ancient Soviet military hardware long abandoned, buried in snow. But something was off. The vehicles had black veins running along their hulls—coiling, frozen mid-slither.
One of the trucks had writing on it—half-erased Cyrillic letters, and a name:14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡch9DPkeVXp
Dr. Kaspar Löwe. Bundeswehr Virologist.
My pulse kicked. “He was German,” I said. “From the 1991 Arctic Biosample Exchange.”
Skaara jumped down and pried open the rear compartment. Inside was a crate, sealed but cracked. Ivy picked up a weathered logbook. He wiped frost from the front and opened the pages.
“He knew about NADIR before any of us,” Ivy said softly. “He wrote something—listen to this.”
He read aloud.
‘We were wrong. It’s not a virus. It’s a biomechanical archive. A living repository from an older Earth. It selects. It stores. It adapts. But one species it cannot—will not—merge with. Homo sapiens.’
I stared at the note. The ink was smeared, but the final line was clear:
‘It doesn’t hate us. It fears us.’
The wind howled again. This time, it didn’t sound like wind.
Behind us, the ice cracked.
50 minutes later…………………
The tank rolled to a halt just outside the blast-gouged airbase, its floodlights sweeping across cracked tarmac and wind-scoured hangars. The entire site looked like a fossil—forgotten, frozen, dead.
But the gates were open.
And someone had powered the landing strip.
Faintly, a beacon pulsed from the tower—a military code. Russian, but modified. Skaara narrowed his eyes, muttering a curse in his mother tongue.
“That’s… impossible,” Ivy whispered. “That code’s not in circulation. It was retired during the Siberian drawdown.”
Before I could respond, Skaara climbed up to the turret, his silhouette sharp against the blue dusk. He brought the binocs to his face. “No damn way.”
“What?” I asked.
His jaw dropped down, teeth bared in a surprised grin. “That’s Zakir. My old junior. He’s alive.”
Moments later, a camouflaged VTOL aircraft emerged from one of the hangars—sleek,weathered, but armed. Its engines rumbled low, and standing near it was a man in snow gear, waving a flare.
The HEKATON-X pulled in as spotlights flickered on overhead. For a few heartbeats, it almost felt like rescue.
But it wasn’t that simple.
Zakir met Skaara at the base of the ramp, grinning. “Sir. Didn’t think you'd make it out of Vostok-12 alive.”
Skaara clapped his shoulder. “Didn’t think you were even stationed this far north.”
“I wasn’t,” Zakir said. “We were sent after your signal—right before everything went dark. Then something… interfered.”
His eyes shifted to me, then to Ivy, then to the tiger in the back.
“I hope to God you brought answers.”
Ivy stepped out, pale and silent. “We brought worse. But we also brought a chance.”
the night wind howled.
The beacon kept pulsing.
And beneath our feet, even here, the ground felt too warm.
About an hour later at the first light of sun we left everything,vostok-12,NADIR and our fear in siberia and we flew towards the indian subcontinent where dr.arvind is waiting for us
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Chapter-6 the warmest lie
The trio’s plane landed beneath a haze of ochre clouds as the sun blazed over the horizon. Below them the great national capital ,New Delhi — vast, radiant, humming with life. After the frozen dread of the Arctic Circle, the heat was almost medicinal. Not just on the skin — but something deeper. A reminder they were still human,still alive,still feeling,
we landed at Hindon Air Force Base, where the runway shimmered under the June sun. Soldiers moved with a casual efficiency that made Skaara’s rigid posture look almost theatrical. For once, Ivy wasn’t scanning for viral and heat signatures,skarra was not fighting,I was not going here and there with a cryo blaster. No one was. There were people here — thousands of them. People arguing, laughing, sweating, living. The normalcy made their silence louder.
I glared at skarra”feel that”
“What”he asked
“LIFE”ivy whispered
we were escorted in an armored vehicle to the (IIV)Indian Institute of Virology — a high security facility veiled in the city's outskirts,waiting for them DR.Arvind narayan-india’s leading and one of the world’s best virologist ,recipient of ICN (International Congress of Virology) Award,breakthrough Prize in Life Science,and nominee of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine,
2 hours later
We reached the IIV .IT was a quiet fortress of knowledge tucked inside the concrete and steel veins of New Delhi. We were led through sterile corridors to a sealed lab where Dr. Arvind Narayan, India’s foremost virologist, waited behind glass.
“Welcome to Delhi,” he said, offering them water and shade. “You’ve been through hell.”
Skaara muttered, “Hell froze over.”
He was in his sixties, weathered but alert, and as soon as we handed him the sealed vial containing the NADIR culture, he motioned to his assistant. “Ivy, you said it’s a living intelligence?
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“It doesn’t just copy. It learns. And it doesn’t harm animals anymore. Just humans.”
Dr. Arvind's brows furrowed. “Then we must test its viral pathways immediately.”
While the culture was processed in a level-4 biocontainment chamber, he led us into a separate, wood-paneled study. Three ancient manuscripts rested there on silk cloth, each in a different script.
One came from Tamil Nadu, carved into temple stones in ancient Tamil. Another was recovered from Petra, written in Nabataean. The last… from a Siberian shaman burial, in extinct Yeniseian script. We had to carbon-date them to confirm they’re real.”
Each mentioned something terrifyingly similar: a ‘black breath,’ a ‘soul sponge,’ and a ‘memory mold’—entities that did not kill outrig
t but merged with thought, imitating life, and corrupting it.
Ivy stared at the Tamil carving, silently reading he couldn't read as he didn't knew tamil
Suddenly dr.arvind prompet
Let me tell you what is written in these
He first picked up the tamil manuscript and started reading tamil it read as
From the dark belly of the ice-mother, a breathless fire was born — a hunger without shape, whose tendrils sought not flesh but memory, and in memory, dominion.(translation)
He picked up a mecopotamian clay inscription
The Mesopotamian clay translation appeared on his PC
The black vein, uncut by blade nor burnt by flame, came from the skyless deep where time sleeps; and whosoever it touches, it eats not the body, but the knowing within the bones.
Then he picked up the Mesoamerican manuscript
He read ots translation
It read as
It walks not with feet, nor flies with wings, yet crosses lands faster than storms, taking from each it touches — their wisdom, their wrath, their wounds — and becoming all they were.
skaara muttered, “That’s NADIR.”
“No,” Ivy corrected softly. “That’s what it’s becoming.”
Arvind raised an eyebrow. “Then let’s find out what your ice-born guest has been feeding on.”
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scilnce fell so thick, even the air conditioning seemed to hush.
“That’s not an infection,” Ivy whispered. “That’s identity theft at a specific level.”
Dr. Arvind folded his arms. “I’ve tested your sample, Ivy.”
Rivan’s head snapped up. “And?”
“I exposed NADIR’s dormant tissue to lab-simulated viruses: HIV, SARS-CoV, covid,even archaea fragments from ancient samples.”
He placed a digital tablet on the table, graphs glowing.
“It adapted. It mimicked. Not passively — actively. It copied the retroviral shell of HIV within hours. Reconstructed spike proteins. Became airborne-compatible. But not in a random way. It… chose what to keep. Like curating a toolkit.”
it's building a biological arsenal,” Ivy said.
No,” Arvind replied. “It’s building a mind. Using viruses as neurons. Each infection expands its cognitive mesh. Each body it touches, it learns.”
Rivan whispered, “And it doesn’t harm other species.”
Dr. Arvind turned slowly. “No. Every non-human test subject recovered. Including a macaque, a Siberian tiger and… even a chimpanzee.”
“Then,” Ivy said slowly, “NADIR isn’t at war with life.”
I finished the thought. “It’s at war with us.”
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Chapter 7 — Shadows Beneath the Sky
The military aircraft cut through the blue haze of the Himalayas like a scalpel through skin. Below, jagged ridgelines rippled like frozen waves. Nothing moved—no birds, no people, just the sun glaring off white rock and bone-dry cliffs. Ivy leaned against the porthole window, wide-eyed. “So this is Ladakh?” he murmured ,Not what you expected?” I asked.
“I thought... there’d be snow,” he said.
“Wrong season,” Skaara grunted, seated beside the mounted crate of bio-sensors. “And wrong war. This place hasn’t seen ice in months. Just silence and scars.”
We touched down on a deserted military helipad beside an old satellite station, half-collapsed. As the rotors whined to a halt, the silence closed in. Even the wind seemed hesitant
ANADIR hadn’t reached here—not physically. But if it had ancient counterparts, if the strain we called Erebus had kin… this place would know.
2 and a half hours later, we reached the site.
The cliff face yawned open like a scar. Carved into the rock was something impossible: the same spiral-and-tendon symbols we’d seen in the Tamil manuscript—etched deep into the stone, weathered by centuries, if not millennia.
I stepped forward, brushing my fingers over the symbols. “These weren’tBeneath our boots, the ground felt warmer.
Skaara knocked the rock with his hand. “The wall is hollow here ,there mAs the dust cleared, the smell hit us: old air, minerals, and something... alive.
A cave yawned open into darkness, older than our species.
Behind us, the wind picked up.
And somewhere deep inside, something echoed back.
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Chapter 8 – The Breathless Fire
The lamp light flickered against the deepslate walls, casting long, skeletal shadows. The cave’s interior felt impossibly old—smooth-worn but sharp at the edges, like something intelligent had shaped it… but not with tools. With heat. With decay. With time.
Ivy knelt beside a series of ridged carvings on the lower wall. “These aren’t just pictograms,” he whispered. “They’re molecular diagrams. Protein chains. Viral helixes.”
Skaara exhaled. “You’re telling me ancient people knew what RNA was?”
No ,i replied i think someone or something had showed what is RNA and what can it do,
We then walked into a tunnel going straight but then on the walls what we found was breathtaking and i skipped a beat
My torch light suddenly fell on an smooth rock unnaturally smooth like someone had smoothen the rock with his hands
These carvings or symmbols were etched in a spiral, radiating out from a central eye. Around the eye were five figures—not quite human, not quite beast—drawn with a surreal grace. Each held a different weapon, or tool, or crown.
One had a bleeding head which bled stars
Another one had skin made out of smoke
One knelt on a mountain of bones
One had a mirror with no reflection
And one was unfinished
likes the artist never got to finish the story. Or was interrupted or killed. We then walked straight into the tunnel
Then a line in pahadri was written, then ivy translated by his translator it read- Split the voice into five, and the silence will sleep. But when the echoes rejoin, silence shall scream.”
Something was strange the number 5 was repeated throughout the tunnel
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Suddenly we found a central chamber that opened into a domed cavern, blackened at the top like it had once held fire. And at the very center: three stone pedestals. Each bore a flat slate, polished smooth by centuries of wind and worship. But on each one, markings had been carved deep—old languages, untranslatable at first glance.
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Until Ivy stepped forward, his voice unsteady. “Tamil. Sumerian. And Mayan script... all in one place? This makes no sense.”
“It does,” I said. “They’re warnings. We saw pieces of this in New Delhi. These are... original copies.”
We began photographing each inscription. As Ivy began slowly decoding them, a pulse moved through the cavern floor—just one, like a breath from the deep.
Skaara drew his rifle. “ i Don’t like caves. Never did.”
hen Ivy looked up, eyes wide with revelation.
“Each slate speaks of the same thing. A presence—not a god, not a demon—but a hunger. One that moved across continents. It had no name, but they gave it titles. In Tamil: Irunthirakkini—the 'Breathless Fire.' In Sumerian: Imdugud-Ga, the ‘Vein That Remembers.’ In Mayan: Kʼax Olomal—‘That Which Devours Knowing.’”
He swallowed hard.
“They say it came from beneath the ice. It didn’t kill directly. It learned. And in learning, it became worse. It grew stronger from every memory it touched.”
Skaara’s voice dropped. “Like NADIR.”
“No,” I said. “NADIR is just a shard. This... was the whole.”
And then we noticed the fresco above us. Partially buried in soot and mineral runoff, it showed three tendrils converging—each marked with the same symbols we’d seen etched into infected tissue in Vostok-12.
torchlight shimmered as Ivy scraped soot away from the fresco. Beneath centuries of grime, the truth emerged.
Not one. Four.
Four spirals. Four icons. Orbiting an empty center.
“Wait,” Ivy muttered. “That’s not NADIR alone. It’s... a quadrant system.”
He pointed to each sigil.
“This one—NADIR, the memory strain. Next—Erebus, the chaotic one. But these—” He paused. “We never knew there were more.”
“What are they?” Skaara asked.
I stepped forward. One symbol looked like ribs twisted into a wheel. The other was a serpentine line, open-mouthed, whispering.
“Thryon,” I said. “The Bone-Furnace.”
“Velkra,” Ivy whispered. “The Whisper-Skin.”
The ground pulsed again.
“They’re looking for each other,” Ivy said. “All of them. Like shattered stars falling toward the same gravity.”
And the fresco’s center—blank, black—shimmered faintly.
“They’re coming home.”
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“What if NADIR is just one part?” Ivy asked. “Like a shard of something older. Something broken. And what if it’s... looking to reunite with its missing pieces?”
A rumble echoed through the cave. Far above, maybe from the cliffside. Maybe not.
Ivy rose slowly, breath fogging.
“I think... it knows we’re here.”
And then the cave’s wind shifted—from dry and mineral, to warm. Wet. Alive.orchlight shimmered as Ivy scraped soot away from the fresco. Beneath centuries of grime, the truth emerged.
Not one. Four.
Five spirals. Four icons. Orbiting an empty center.
“Wait,” Ivy muttered. “That’s not NADIR alone. It’s... a quadrant system.”
He pointed to each sigil.
“This one—NADIR, the memory strain. Next—Erebus, the chaotic one. But these—” He paused. “We never knew there were more.”
“What are they?” Skaara asked.
I stepped forward. One symbol looked like ribs twisted into a wheel. The other was a serpentine line, open-mouthed, whispering.
“tamasi,” I said. “The Bone-Furnace.”
“maya,” Ivy whispered. “The Whisper-Skin.”
And another
The ground pulsed again.
“They’re looking for each other,” Ivy said. “All of them. Like shattered stars falling toward the same gravity.”
And the fresco’s center—blank, black—shimmered faintly.
“They’re coming home.”
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I tapped the comm. “Pack up. Now. We're heading out.”
Skaara didn’t argue. Ivy just stared once more at the ancient inscriptions.
He whispered, “It doesn’t want to destroy humanity. It wants to... become it.”
We stepped into the dark, the cave behind us no longer silent.
It was breathing.
The torchlight shimmered as Ivy scraped soot away from the fresco. Beneath centuries of grime, the truth emerged.
Not one. five.
Five spirals. Five icons. Orbiting an empty center.
“Wait,” Ivy muttered. “That’s not NADIR alone. It’s... a fivent system.”
He pointed to each sigil.
“This one—NADIR, the memory strain. Next—Erebus, the chaotic one. But these—” He paused. “We never knew there were more.”
“What are they?” Skaara asked.
I stepped forward. One symbol looked like ribs twisted into a wheel. The other was a serpentine line, open-mouthed, whispering.
“Thryon,” I said. “The Bone-Furnace.”
“tamasi,” Ivy whispered. “The Whisper-Skin.”
The ground pulsed again.
“They’re looking for each other,” Ivy said. “All of them. Like shattered stars falling toward the same gravity.”
And the fresco’s center—blank, black—shimmered faintly.
“They’re coming home.”
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To be continued………………
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“Memory is not what is remembered. It is what survives.”
— Unknown Arctic Researcher, 1994
End of Phase I: The NADIR Event-
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