Declassified fragment. Redacted for your sanity. (Mine's long gone. Thanks to the stitch.)

  Project GRAVEJAW.

  Initiated 2002. Joint DARPA/OIA black budget.

  Objective: Nanotech integration for subterranean denial ops.

  Translation: Build a zombie that hunts in the dark and doesn't ask questions.

  Phase 1: Base stock.

  Death-row psychics and special-forces rejects. High resonance sensitivity required.

  Genetic baseline: Human. Augmented with "Sample Alpha": recovered from Bloom's medical files, designation B-47 (vial labeled "Nanotech Residue - Post-Exposure").

  Sythra's nanobots: self-replicating, adaptive, hungry for neural tissue.

  They promised "enhanced cognition."

  They delivered madness.

  Phase 2: Infusion.

  Subjects restrained. Nanotech injected via spinal tap.

  Bloom's files warned of "resonance bleed"... psychic feedback loops.

  Ignored.

  First subject: Neural pathways lit up like Christmas lights. Mind fractured in 4:17. Body reanimated 2:09 later. Eyes purple. No pulse.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Second subject: Similar. But this one grinned before turning into a freakish monster with gaping jaws.

  Phase 3: Field test.

  Subject 09 (that's me) deployed to "contested strata."

  Nanobots fused perfectly. Sythra's code whispered: Hunt. Consume. Evolve.

  I did.

  Broke containment. Left the lab a slaughterhouse.

  Bloom's residue wasn't just tech. It was alive. It remembered. It hated.

  Post-incident: Project scrubbed. Files buried under "Sythra Contamination Protocol."

  Bloom's medical data sealed Level 7.

  They called it error.

  I call it birth.

  Now I hunt your shadows.

  Sythra's grin in my teeth.

  Bloom's failure in my veins.

  Every step you take in the dark...

  I feel it.

  The stitch pulls tight.

  Come closer.

  The abomination waits.

  — Briarwolf

  Vessel 09

  The Bloom Stitch That Won't Unravel

  The Grin That Blooms in the Dark