The Five Evolution

Chapter 33: Roll of the Dice (II).

『"Sixes and Nines. Playing for all of the stakes..."』

The second die rolled... rolled... and settled: 1

"Four," Hiro breathed. "That’s even. That’s good, right? That’s good?"

Golden light flashed out from the Game Master board as pieces moved around, and for a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Then, glowing footprints appeared on the floor as outlines that led down the corridor to their left.

"Well," Naomi said. "That’s fucking creepy."

"More like amazing," Amara said with a smile, already moving toward the footprints. "Let’s go."

They followed the trail through the chaos, past debris and shattered glass. They kept following, going around corners where the walls showed scorch marks from energy blasts.

The footprints glowed softly, leading them unerringly through the maze of corridors. And as they continued, Ethan stumbled.

Raj caught him immediately, one hand steadying him as he offered his back. "C’mon, buddy. Piggyback time."

"I’m fine," Ethan said through gritted teeth. He pushed himself upright, shaking off Raj’s grip with as much dignity as someone actively bleeding could muster. "Keep moving."

The footprints led them to a damaged section of the facility where the ceiling had partially collapsed. Emergency foam had been deployed to seal breaches, creating strange organic-looking formations.

There, under an overturned table wedged between two support beams, they found him.

Weesil Lockwood was curled into a ball, hands over his head, muttering to himself. "—not my fault, defective console, anyone could have—"

"Weesil," Amara said.

He jerked up so fast he cracked his head on the underside of the table. "OW! Shit!"

Tova, who had grown a little more confident these past few hours, reached under and grabbed his arm, hauling him out. "Let’s go. We don’t have time for this."

Weesil emerged disheveled, face streaked with what might have been tears or sweat or both. "You... you guys came for me?" he whispered with a shaky voice.

Once everyone was together again, the reality of their situation sank in. The corridors were wrecked. No working submarines were visible, and most groups had likely already fled.

"Okay," Sophia broke the silence, saying what was on everyone’s mind. "We found him. Great. Now what? We didn’t spot any working submarines on our way here. They were either destroyed during the SCP distortion, or every other group already left."

In that moment, the ground trembled and everyone exchanged glances with one another.

"It appears Hiro may have been right about that breather," Amara said.

"What are we going to do?" Tova asked, pushing his glasses up.

Ethan spoke up, "the Warden. Gaius. They must have had a way to leave this place. They can’t all just be stuck here."

"Yeah," Raj said, nodding slowly. "That’s true. There has to be an emergency submarine or escape route. Something like that."

"Okay. But how are we going to find it?" Andre asked.

As one, everyone turned to look at Hana again.

She stared back, raising both hands. "Whoa, whoa. Are you serious? You guys want to risk it? Roll again?"

Her usual dramatic persona cracked a little, revealing genuine concern underneath. "You might not be so lucky next time. Anything can happen."

"Just do it... please," Amara said.

Hana studied her for a long moment, then nodded once. "Alright. But if you all get turned into frogs or something, don’t blame me."

The Game Master board shimmered back into existence and new words appeared: INTENT: FIND A WAY OUT OF THE CLAM.

The two dice materialized again in Hana’s palm. She shook them. Longer this time. Building tension.

Then she threw.

The dice hit the board with soft clicks, tumbling across its surface.

First die: 6

Everyone leaned forward as the second die kept rolling and rolling... teetering on the edge between a nine and a two, and everyone held their breath.

Then it fell and landed on a 2.

"Eight!" Raj exhaled so forcefully it was almost a shout. He bent over, hands on his knees, breathing hard. "I didn’t even know what to expect, but I did not like that feeling. At all."

"Even number!" Hiro grabbed Sophia in a hug she immediately pushed him out of. "We did it! We’re gonna live!"

The group let out a collective sigh of relief.

The Game Master board pulsed with golden energy, brighter this time. The light spread outward, washing over the group and continuing down the corridor.

What happened next almost went unnoticed. There was a shift in air pressure as though reality subtly adjusted itself, like changing the contrast of a photograph.

Then there was the sound of metal creaking in a very specific direction and the emergency lighting seemed to point toward a section of wall that looked completely ordinary.

Hiro walked toward it, hand outstretched. "Is it just me, or does this wall feel..."

He pushed and the wall swung inward, revealing a hidden passage. The kind that should not exist in a facility this well-mapped unless someone deliberately kept it off the blueprints.

"I’ll be damned," Andre breathed.

They moved through the passage, which led downward via a narrow staircase. The air grew colder and the smell of saltwater intensified.

The stairs opened into a small, concealed dock, barely large enough for a single vessel.

And there it was. A submarine.

Well. "Submarine" was generous.

It looked like someone had welded together spare parts from three different submarines, none of which came from the same era or design philosophy.

Rust covered significant portions of the hull, rivets looked loose, and one of the external cameras was held on with what appeared to be duct tape.

Hiro stepped forward, examining it with fascination. "It’s like a Frankenstein’s monster of submarines."

"That’s not the compliment you think it is," Andre pointed out.

"Does that thing even work?" Sophia asked flatly.

"Only one way to find out," Ethan said, already moving toward the hatch.

Naomi kept one hand beneath her chest and gestured towards the sub. "Are we really getting into this death trap?" She muttered. "Really?"

They climbed through the hatch one by one, ignoring her. Reluctantly, Naomi sighed and followed until the interior was cramped with all ten of them.

Ethan made his way to the pilot seat, which creaked ominously under his weight. His hands moved across the controls with surprising familiarity, flipping switches, checking gauges.

"You know how to pilot a submarine?" Hiro asked.

"I’ve had a few training sessions." Ethan’s fingers found the ignition sequence. "Required course for coastal rescue operations."

"Of course you have," Hiro said. "Of course you’ve had submarine training. Why am I even surprised?"

Ethan glanced back at the group crowded into the small space. "I should mention I might be a bit rusty. And I might also pass out. So... brace yourselves."

"What!?" Multiple voices shouted.

"I’m joking," Ethan said. "Probably."

"Wait, what—" Tova started but Ethan hit the launch override.

The submarine’s engine coughed repeatedly before roaring to life with a sound like a mechanical beast waking from hibernation. The whole vessel shuddered violently.

"Hold on to something!" Raj shouted, grabbing onto anything bolted down.

The submarine shot forward like it had been fired from a cannon, rocketing through the underwater dock’s exit tunnel and into the open ocean beyond.

Everyone slammed backward from the sudden acceleration and Weesil screamed way louder than the rest of them, while Hana laughed maniacally.

"Fuck, fuck!" Naomi cursed as she held on tight to the closest person to her which just happened to be Raj. "Hold fucking still!" Her grip tightened.

Tova who’d been standing near the hatch when Ethan hit the override flew backward and collided into a support beam hard.

CRACK.

The sound was distinct, wrong, and also weirdly responsible for calming everyone in the vessel down.

"Duuude," Hiro was there in an instant, checking him over.

"I’m okay," Tova gasped. But his left arm hung at an odd angle.

"You’re not okay," Hiro said gently. "Your arm’s broken man."

"Oh." Tova looked down at it like he’d just noticed. "Oh. Yeah. That’s... that’s broken."

Shock was just beginning to set in when Sophia moved to help, carefully wrapping up the arm with strips torn from Hiro’s uniform.

"We’ll get you to medical as soon as we surface," Amara promised, her eyes shifting to Ethan as well in that moment.

As the vessel moved through the black water, Amara stood at the viewport, no longer screaming, just staring back at the monstrous shell from a distance which was starting to open up.

Like a vacuum, it began pulling in microscopic whales its SCP had attracted with some kind of pheromone.

From where she stood, they looked like clouds. Massive schools of organisms smaller than plankton but numerous enough to form visible swarms.

The Clam was feeding. And anything caught in that feeding process...

She didn’t want to think about what happened to anything caught in that. But it didn’t take a marine biologist to know it wouldn’t be good if they got sucked in as well.