Arya rushed toward his friend—
But froze.
The warehouse lights snapped on with a harsh buzz, flooding the room with searing white light. He squinted, disoriented. Then he saw them.
And ice sank into his veins.
They surrounded him. A dozen figures.
Human once—maybe.
Now twisted beyond recognition.
Their eyes were blank. Movements jerky, unnatural.
Pale skin shimmered with a bluish hue, slick like they'd been pulled from deep water.
Thick black veins writhed beneath their flesh—alive, like worms fighting to surface.
Some had extra limbs growing from impossible places.
Eyes blinking from their palms.
Gaping mouths carved into stomachs.
Fingers crawling like tendrils from their necks.
It wasn't science fiction anymore.
It was a nightmare made flesh.
Arya had seen death.
He'd seen executions, bombings, ambushes gone wrong.
But this—
This made bile rise in his throat.
This wasn't just a kidnapping.
This was something far worse.
"Welcome, Mr. Arya."
A calm voice echoed from a hidden speaker, cold and sterile—like it had never known emotion.
"We've been expecting you. Your friend, Mr. Bayu, has been very cooperative in… our trials."
Arya's hand tightened around his pistol.
He shifted position, back pressed to Bayu's still-tied form, eyes locked on the monsters encircling them.
He aimed. Jaw clenched.
"Who are you?" he growled. "What did you do to them? What did you do to him?"
A chuckle answered him.
Not human. Not amused.
More like bones grinding together in the dark.
"I am Professor Hadiwijaya," the voice said.
"Head researcher at Serambi Nusantara. And what we've done—"
A pause. A sense of twisted pride.
"—is give them the honor of becoming part of humanity's next evolution."
A massive screen flickered to life on the far wall.
A man appeared—middle-aged, neatly dressed in a pristine white lab coat, as if that could cleanse what he'd done.
But his face—
A burn scar stretched from forehead to cheek. Raw. Puckered. Melted.
One eye milky white. Blind.
The other burned with something else.
Obsession.
Madness.
Righteous fury.
"I know what you're thinking," the professor continued, his voice smooth—like a rehearsed confession.
'Why would a respected scientist throw everything away?'
He touched the scar on his face with something close to tenderness.
"Twelve years ago, I lost everything—my wife, my daughter—in a lab fire. We were researching cellular regeneration. Then came the accident."
His voice dipped lower.
"For three minutes and forty seconds, I watched them burn alive. Trapped behind glass. The safety doors locked. I couldn't help them. Couldn't even scream."
Arya stood frozen, pistol still raised. The monsters didn't move. They didn't need to. The voice did all the damage.
"You know what haunted me afterward, Mr. Arya?" the professor asked.
"Not their screams. Not the fire.
But how easily the human body crumbles.
To flame. To force. To time."
He stepped closer to the camera.
His breath fogged the screen.
"We are gifted with minds that dream of stars.
Yet trapped in bodies that snap under pressure.
Our flesh is fragile. Weak. Disease-ridden. Doomed."
The professor's voice hardened.
"But what if we weren't?
What if evolution didn't crawl?
What if someone… gave it a push?"
The lights flickered.
And Arya finally understood—
He wasn't fighting a criminal.
He was staring into the eyes of a man who had already buried his soul.