Lovable N || N x Harem

Chapter 11

For as long as he could remember, N had never felt fear...okay, that was a lie. He always felt afraid when he did something like mess up during hunts and J got mad, but that was different. This? This was a whole new kind of fear. For once in his life, N now no longer felt like the hunter. He was the hunted.

He couldn't stop shaking.

From the moment he stepped foot in the bunker, he could tell something was off. Everything was too quiet. There were no signs of life, not a single worker in sight. And for some reason, he felt as if something was... watching him—something just out of the reaches of his vision. He may not have been able to see it, but he could feel it.

As he continued, his mind kept circling back to J. She should have been here—her body, at least. But the spot where she'd fallen was empty, wiped clean. There wasn't even a trace of her, just an oily, dark stain on the ground. A deep, gut-churning feeling twisted in his stomach, a rare instinct that whispered one clear, insistent message: get out. He'd done what he could. She wasn't here. Leave.

But N hesitated, lingering just a moment longer. Despite everything, he owed her a prayer. J may have been ruthless, even terrifying, but she'd been his squadmate, his friend—if he could call it that. A prayer for her soul seemed the least he could do, if it could even help. Just one prayer.

Then all the lights went out, and he felt something brush past his leg.

N jerked back, his pulse spiking as he frantically scanned the area. His weapon came up, but there was nothing there. Just the darkness, impenetrable and vast. His eyes darted from corner to corner, but the shadows remained stubbornly thick, concealing whatever nightmare prowled within them.

He turned to escape back the way he came from, but somehow, the bunker doors had silently sealed themselves (how the two tonne doors had shut without him noticing was a mystery). He was trapped. And it knew. He could hear it now—the faintest sound, like something sliding across the floor. Slithering. Wet and slow, like flesh dragging over metal, and the scurrying of hundreds of legs.

He stood in complete darkness, the only light being from his very own visor, but that did little to help. Somehow, the little amount of light it provided only seemed to make the darkness seem even more suffocating. He did have night vision, but there was something interfering with his systems that rendered it unable to use.

There was a low, guttural growl from the blackness behind him, vibrating through the air, and N's heart nearly stopped. He whipped around, his visor flashing as he fired blindly into the void. Rockets exploded against the walls of the bunker, flaring brightly for a split second, casting jagged shadows that danced across the walls before plunging him back into the oppressive dark. And in that brief flash of light—he saw it. Just for a moment. A figure, twisted and wrong—a glimmer of movement at the edge of his sight dyed in a hue of blue.

"H-hello?" N called out. He wasn't sure he would get a response, or if he even wanted one. But he prayed that someone, anyone else was there to answer him back.

A beat passed.

Then came the reply.

"H-hello?" he heard something say.

It was his own voice.

Warped, distorted, and the words sounded like they were being forced out.

"What?" N said, taking a step back, his feet stumbling over debris.

A few seconds passed.

...

"What?"

His breath caught in his throat.