„SECTOR 13“
Pairing: Owen Grady x !female reader!
Summary: You're a technician in the park, and an outdated distress signal code is coming from Sector 13—an area that's officially been erased. It's painted over on the maps, the power supply is cut off, and all cameras are deactivated. You're curious, just want to "take a look"—and you end up in the middle of the jungle. But what you find there isn't a forgotten laboratory or an experiment missing someone. It's a cage. And it's open.
->„SECTOR 13“
Sector 13. Nobody Talks about sector 13. It is just an empty spot on the digital maps. No data. No paths. No entry’s.Just a bright patch of jungle, surrounded by warning signs long since torn apart by the wind.
And yet, tonight, a red light flickers on your terminal. A coordinate.
A code. SOS – manually sent.
You're alone in the control center. The rest of the team is asleep or ignoring it – because you don't enter Sector 13. Not anymore. Not since it went quiet. You tell yourself it's just a malfunction. You hope it's just a malfunction.
But I leave anyway that evening.
I pack up my bag like always, check out at the gate with a tired wave to the security guy, and drive home through that same foggy stretch of road I’ve taken a hundred times.
I try to make the evening feel normal.I cook dinner — something frozen and fast, barely taste it. Take a long, hot shower and stand under the water until my fingers start to wrinkle.I feed the cat. Change into pajamas.Sit on the couch. Scroll through my messages.
And the whole time, every thought that passes through me circles back to the same place.Not to work tomorrow. Not to my deadlines.
Just…
Sector 13.
And that red light.
The signal wasn’t random. It wasn’t corrupted.
It was sent.
Manually.
I tried to sleep.I really did.I closed my eyes, focused on my breathing, even put on music just to drown out my thoughts. But all I could see was that red dot.
Again and again. SOS.
Now it’s 4:32 AM and I’m pulling jeans over still-warm legs, slapping together two slices of bread without even thinking, wrapping them in foil I can’t find the end of. No butter. Doesn’t matter.
I keep telling myself I’m just going to check. Just in case. Maybe it was a false alarm. Maybe a glitch.But I know I’m lying.The road to the operations compound is completely dead. Just my headlights cutting through the fog, gliding over wet grass and gravel. I park by the side gate and unlock the back entrance with my ID chip.
No one’s around.
Good.
I move fast through the empty hallways, grab my gear bag, the tablet scanner, the emergency med kit. Sling the radio over my shoulder. I head for the only vehicle I know won’t get stuck on those older jungle paths — the mud-caked field rover. The tires squish when I climb in.I turn the key. The engine rumbles to life like it’s waking up reluctantly. I know the feeling. I’m on the road before the sun’s really up.
The sky is a tired grey-blue, just hinting at morning. Rain must’ve come through in the night — the path is soft, the air thick. Branches hang heavy overhead. I follow the trail as far as I can, then stop when the fence comes into view.
Or… what’s left of it.
The gate’s open. Not torn. Not broken. Just… open. Something crawls up my spine. Not fear exactly. More like pressure. Like I’m walking into something that’s been waiting. I kill the engine. Step out. My boots crunch into wet leaves and I scan the trees, listening. Nothing. Not even birds. No wind. Just me. And this feeling. I grab the radio, test it. Static. No response. I head down what used to be a service path, now half-swallowed by roots and moss. The scanner pings weakly — there’s still power somewhere up ahead.
Then I see it.
A dark structure crouched between the trees, overgrown and hunched like it’s hiding from the sky. Steel walls streaked with moss and rust. The old outpost lab. I exhale slowly. It’s still here. And if the signal came from anywhere… it came from inside.
I step closer.
The outpost looks… wrong.
Not just old — abandoned places always feel a little off — but something about this one is watching. Like the building itself remembers more than it should.
The door is slightly ajar.
Bent at the hinge.
Something big went through here.
I reach for the scanner. It gives off a faint pulse, but I don’t even need it now. There’s power inside. A weak, flickering source, barely enough to register — but it’s active. Which doesn’t make sense.
The lab was supposed to be shut down. Disconnected. Archived.
I push the door open.
The metal creaks against the frame, echoing too loud into the silence. The hallway beyond is dark — except for a light. A single strip of emergency LEDs blinking at the far end like it’s caught in some broken loop.
My boots hit the tile. Soft crunch underfoot.
Dust?
No.
Glass.
I lower my flashlight. There’s shattered equipment all over the floor — broken monitors, a desk overturned, a chair bent out of shape like something hit it. Or threw it.
The air is heavy. Warm.
Not stale like I expected. Not like a sealed room.
Something’s been in here. Recently
I pause. Listen.
Nothing.
And then — a flicker.
One of the monitors along the wall flashes blue. Just for a second.
Then black again.
I walk toward it, slowly, keeping my back to the wall.
The screen buzzes. And there — just for a moment — a map. A rough layout.
Dots. One blinking red.
My location.
And another dot, maybe fifteen meters away.
Also moving.
My finger hovers above the blinking dot.
It’s definitely moving.
Not fast, but steady. Like something patrolling.
I don’t breathe.
Just stand there in the glow of that flickering screen, staring. Counting the seconds between each blink, like I can read its heartbeat.
Then the monitor goes black again.
No warning. No noise.
Just… gone.
My skin crawls.
I back away, scanning the room again. There are claw marks on the wall to my right. Shallow, but deliberate.
Too high up to be a raptor.
Too wide to be human.
Something brushes past my foot.
I jolt back — but it’s just paper. Old files, scattered across the floor. Wind? No… there’s no air current.
I pull the radio off my shoulder and press the side.
“Base, this is Reyes. Do you read?”
Static.
I try again. Still nothing.
I step into the hallway, following the direction the second dot seemed to be moving in.
It’s darker here. No lights. Just my flashlight beam cutting through the dust.
Footsteps.
I freeze.
Not mine.
Slow. Deliberate. Then silence.
I turn, light shaking.
Nothing.
But I swear I heard breathing.
I hold my flashlight tighter. My heart is going crazy in my chest, and I know I should leave — I should turn around and get out before whatever’s in here knows I’m here too —
And then something grabs my arm.
I spin, a scream tearing out of me as I wrench myself backward —
And slam into a chest.
Strong arms catch me before I fall.
I swing the flashlight up — and nearly blind Owen Grady in the face.
“Jesus—!” he snaps, pulling back with a glare, hand raised. “Calm down, it’s just me!”
I stumble, panting. “You— what the hell?! You don’t sneak up on someone in a haunted lab, you psychopath!”
“You’re the one who came alone into a sealed sector with no backup,” he shoots back, lowering his voice like someone might hear us. “What the hell are you even doing here, Reyes?”
My hands are still shaking. “I saw the signal. It was real.”
“You shouldn’t have come,” he says immediately, deadly quiet now. His tone changes. Drops.
“Why?” I whisper.
He looks past me. Into the dark hallway behind.
Then back at me.
“Because it’s not dead.”
I feel my stomach drop.
“What?”
“The thing they built here,” he mutters. “The reason this whole place was shut down. It’s still alive. And it knows when someone enters its territory.”
I swallow. “Then why are you here?”
He looks at me — but doesn’t answer right away.
“Because it’s been quiet for too long.”
“Because it’s been quiet for too long,” he says again, and this time his voice is sharper. Like he’s trying to convince himself of something.
“What is it?” I ask, quieter now.
He hesitates.
“They called it ‘Subject E-19’,” he says eventually. “It wasn’t bred for the park. It was made as a prototype—smarter, stronger, almost invisible in certain environments. And worst of all… it learns. Fast.”
I stare at him. “You’re telling me there’s a predator out here that can camouflage, stalk, and—”
A sharp clank. Metal, falling. We both freeze.
“Where was that?” I whisper.
“Too close,” he whispers back.
There’s a sound — not a growl. Not even a footstep.
Just… breathing. Slow. Deliberate. Wet. My flashlight flickers.I clamp it tighter.
“Move,” Owen hisses.
We turn and bolt down the corridor — through broken glass, past rusted doors, around a fallen cabinet that nearly trips me.
Behind us, something moves.
No footsteps. Just air shifting. The sound of a large body passing through space that was too narrow for it.
“Left!” Owen shouts.
I follow blindly, heart in my throat. A siren goes off somewhere, faint and broken — probably motion-triggered, from a system that should’ve been shut down years ago.
“Storage closet,” he yells, yanking open a door. We duck inside, slam it behind us.
And in that moment — crash.
Something hits the door from the other side. The hinges groan.
“Hold it shut!”
I press my shoulder against the frame. Whatever’s on the other side doesn’t roar — it presses. Pushes. Slowly. Testing.
“It knows we’re here,” I gasp.
“Yeah,” Owen grits. “And now it’s curious.”
A loud snap — the top hinge gives way. The door slants inward.
“Run!”
I scramble backward, but as we try to push through the opposite wall — a vent panel barely big enough — Owen slips. “Shit!” I grab his arm and pull, but blood smears under my hand.
“Your leg—”
“I’m fine, just go!”
“No chance in hell,” I snap. I wedge my shoulder under his arm, and together we haul ourselves through the panel just as the door behind us gives one final groan—And shatters. The creature doesn’t scream. It breathes. Slow. Patient. Watching us crawl away.
I can barely breathe. My shoulder aches from dragging Owen, and my legs are shaking under his weight. Behind us, I hear it move into the room we just left. Not fast. Not chasing. Just… searching. I feel it—like pressure against my spine, like a thought I didn’t have whispering too close to my ear.
We keep crawling through the narrow service tunnel, barely lit by Owen’s flickering flashlight. He winces with every movement, blood dripping from a gash just above his knee. “Keep going,” he grits out. “It’s following the scent.” I don’t respond. My chest is burning, my heart racing so fast I can feel it behind my eyes. And then I make a mistake.
I look back. The tunnel curves just enough to let me see a sliver of the broken room. A long shadow appears on the wall — not human. Tall. Lean. The outline shimmers, like heat waves in summer air. I turn too fast, panic flaring, and my hand slips. My arm slams into a jagged metal edge. I bite down a scream as pain flashes up to my shoulder. Blood’s already soaking my sleeve.
Owen sees it instantly. “Shit. Your arm.” He doesn’t stop moving, but he reaches back, grabs my wrist, and pulls me faster through the tight space. “You can’t slow down now. It’s too close.”
We reach the hatch at the end of the tunnel. Rusted shut. Of course. Owen hands me his multitool with bloodied fingers, and I force it under the latch. My hands are slick, the metal slips, my arm throbs—but finally it gives. The door pops open and we tumble out into another corridor—this one familiar.
I realize where we are. Lower Sector maintenance hall. It’s connected to the emergency access lift—if it still works.
“I’ll call backup,” I gasp, grabbing my comm. “Assuming the signal can still get through down here.” I open the channel. “This is Reyes. Sector 13 is compromised. We need evac and containment—now. And bring heavy tranquilizers.”
Owen presses his weight to the wall, breathing hard. “I told them we should’ve destroyed this place.”
Behind us, the silence breaks.
The sound isn’t loud—it’s soft. Delicate. A scraping, almost thoughtful noise. Like claws tapping concrete with no hurry at all.
I don’t think. I grab Owen under the arm and pull. He doesn’t argue this time. We stumble toward the lift. I hit the button. Nothing. Dead.
But then—faint buzzing. The backup generator. It kicks in.
The doors slide open with a shudder.
We get in, slam the panel, and the lift starts to rise.
And right before the doors close, I swear I see it. Standing at the end of the hallway. Watching. Head tilted. Not attacking. Just… observing.
Like it knows it lost us. But it doesn’t care.
The ride up is silent except for our breathing and the faint hiss of hydraulics.
When the doors open, three security units are waiting—armed, focused, shouting into radios. One rushes forward and takes Owen from me. Another grabs my arm—“You’re bleeding”—but I shake my head. “Where’s containment?”
“Inbound,” they say. “ETA two minutes.”
“Make it one.”
I turn back, just for a second, and look at the lift behind us.
Still no noise. No movement. But I feel it.
Like it’s still down there.
Waiting.
They lock the entire sector down within minutes. The creature is tracked by thermal scanners and finally cornered in the sub-lab. They dose it with enough tranquilizer to drop a T. rex. It takes three darts before it stops moving.
I watch it from behind reinforced glass later that night. It lies perfectly still. Breathing shallow, eyes half-lidded.
They ask me if I think it’s over.
I don’t answer.
Because even sedated, it doesn’t look unconscious.
It looks… bored.
A week later, we’re sitting on my balcony. The sun’s low, painting everything gold, and there’s a soft breeze that smells like summer and burned coffee—because Owen tried to help in my kitchen and almost lit my French press on fire.
My arm’s in a sling. His leg’s still stiff. We’ve both got bandages, bruises, probably mild PTSD—but we’re alive.
He’s sipping beer, leaned back in my creaky lawn chair like nothing happened. I’m holding a mug of something that was supposed to be tea but just tastes like hot regret.
Neither of us says anything for a while.
Then he glances over. “You’re lucky, you know.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Because I didn’t die horribly in an abandoned murder lab?”
He smirks. “Because I saw you leave the compound and followed you.”
I stare at him. “You followed me?”
He shrugs. “Yeah. I knew that look. You weren’t gonna let it go.”
I set my mug down. “Owen. If you hadn’t—if you hadn’t shown up when you did…”
He nods slowly. “You’d be a very neat pile of bones in a hallway right now.”
I groan. “God, I was so stupid.”
“You were,” he agrees, without hesitation. “Completely. Reckless, impulsive, arrogant.”
I blink. “Wow. Thanks.”
He pauses. Then his voice softens. “But also brave. And right.”
I glance over at him. The sunlight catches on a scar near his eyebrow, fresh from the lab.
He shifts forward a little, elbows on his knees. “Next time,” he says, “you wait for backup.”
I nod. “Promise.”
A beat.
He looks at me again. “You’d better.”
We sit there for a while longer, just listening to the cicadas and the faint hum of traffic far off. And even though we both know that thing is locked up in the deepest cell they have, and even though we both know this probably won’t be the last time something escapes a sector it was never supposed to exist in—
—for now, we’re okay.
Damn that’s my first post on here kinda scary anyway hope u liked it. Appreciate everyone who interacts! 🩷