Chapter 44: Belly of the Beast

Nana

Her elbow hurt more than she admitted.

Mio had been gone for maybe ten minutes. The bruise was already forming—turning purple under the skin from when they fought over the key and Mio shoved too hard.

“I’m fine,” Nana had said. “I win.”

She wasn’t fine. But Mio was weird this morning. So Nana smiled and pocketed the potion instead.

Fair trade.

Now the room was quiet. Bureau quarters. Mio’s phone on the pillow, no messages.

OG was supposed to come. Hadn’t shown up.

Stay here. Stay inside. Stay scared.

Mio always said that like Nana was going to listen.

But she had a potion of invisibility, and Can wasn’t here to build ramen towers with her. A smile stretched across her face. She wiped her cheese-crusted fingers on the bedsheet. The orange stayed.

Nana took out the tiny vial.

Mio was falling apart. The way her hands shook when she grabbed the key. The way she flinched at knocking that wasn’t there. The way she kept staring at the door like something was coming through.

And the name. Nami.

She’d said it to tongue guy in the van. Over and over, just to annoy him. Nami Nami Nami Nami—

He’d gone quiet. Not angry-quiet. Hollow.

She hurt many people.

That’s all he’d said. And then he’d looked at her—really looked—like he was seeing someone else.

Mio kept asking about Nami too. Kept getting threatened for it. Caged, she’d called her. Somewhere in this building.

Nobody would tell them anything.

But Nana had a potion. And invisible worked both ways.

She uncorked the vial.

The door swung open.

“Good morning, Nana-san!”

Nana shoved the potion under the pillow.

OG stood in the doorway, blonde hair catching the hallway light, arms full of convenience store bags. She smelled like old perfume—something floral.

“Your sister asked me to take care of you.” She set the bags on the desk. Onigiri. Juice boxes. Melon bread. “Have you eaten?”

“I had chips.”

“That’s not breakfast, sweetie.”

Nana watched her unpack.

“OG-san.”

“Hmm?”

“Where do they keep the prisoners?”

OG’s face grew devious.

Then it didn’t.

“Prisoners?” She laughed softly. “This is a government building, sweetie. Not a jail.”

“But there are people. Downstairs.”

OG unwrapped a melon bread and set it on the nightstand.

“Who told you that?”

“Nobody.”

“Mm.” OG’s eyes crinkled. “You’re a bad liar. Just like your sister.”

Nana grabbed the melon bread and bit into it.

“Tongue guy said someone hurt a lot of people.”

“Did he now.”

“And Mio called her caged.”

OG stopped moving.

“Nami.” Nana said the name like a test.

Nothing. No flinch. No threat. Still that same smile.

“You’re braver than you look, Nana-san.”

“Is she bad?”

OG sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress barely dipped.

“That depends on who you ask.”

“I’m asking you.”

OG didn’t answer. Her eyes found Nana’s pillow—the tiny lump where the vial hid.

“Sublevel Four.” Her voice dropped. “West corridor. Past the medical wing. There’s a service stairwell—keycard access, but the lock’s been broken for weeks.”

Nana swallowed.

“Last door on the left.” OG stood and smoothed her skirt. “But you didn’t hear that from me.”

“Why are you telling me?”

OG picked up the empty bags and folded them.

“Because nobody else will.”

The door clicked shut.

Nana stared at the pillow.

Sublevel Four. West corridor. Last door on the left.

She pulled out the vial.

Five minutes.

The potion tasted worse than glue. She drank anyway.

Her fingers vanished first, then her arms. She checked the bathroom mirror and saw nothing.

She grabbed the door handle and stopped. Mio’s phone sat on the pillow.

She couldn’t answer it invisible. Couldn’t take it either.

She left it.

The hallway was busy. Suits with coffee cups. Someone laughed at a joke Nana didn’t hear. A woman held the elevator for a man carrying too many folders.

Nana moved along the wall.

She waited for a group to pass, then slipped into the stairwell behind them.

Sublevel One had fewer people. Lab coats instead of suits, quieter conversations.

Two agents rounded the corner ahead. Nana flattened against the wall.

“—didn’t disclose the residue levels—”

“I filed my 7-B, check the log—”

They stopped three feet away. One of them sniffed.

“You smell that?”

Nana’s heart stopped.

“Smell what?”

“Cheese. Like… cheap cheese.”

The other one frowned. “Is that me?”

“I don’t know. Breathe.”

“What?”

“Breathe on me.”

The second agent leaned in and huffed. The first one recoiled.

“That’s not cheese. That’s coffee and regret.”

“Then it’s you.”

“It’s not me. I had miso.”

“Whatever. Come on, I need to show you the timestamp.”

They moved on, still arguing.

Nana didn’t breathe until they turned the corner.

Sublevel Two was the secondary medical wing. A nurse pushing a cart bumped Nana’s heel. She froze in place. The nurse murmured something about the wheels being old and useless. Nana kept on.

Sublevel Three was the training area. She’d been here before. Mio crying. Everything going white.

She shook the memory away.

The service stairwell was where OG said. Keycard reader blinking red, door shut.

A janitor came around the corner with a big cart, mops and buckets piled high. He swiped his card and the door clicked.

Nana grabbed the handle and slipped through behind him, pressing into the corner of the cart with cleaning supplies jabbing her ribs.

She didn’t notice the orange smudge she left on the metal.

He hummed off-key. Went down one flight. Stopped. Checked his phone. Turned around and went back up.

Nana slipped off.

Sublevel Four.

The air changed the moment she stepped through—thin and wrong. Her chest tightened.

The corridor stretched ahead with glass on both sides. Not mirrors. Windows.

Nana stopped.

The first window showed a creature curled in the corner, gray skin and too many limbs. Tubes ran into its back, pumping yellow fluid. Its chest had been opened. Metal clamps held the ribs apart. Something inside was still beating.

The second held a slime. Bones floated in the gel. Hair. Teeth. A hand that kept opening and closing. The label on the glass read BATCH 7 – FAILED.

The third contained something canine, wolf-sized with six legs. Its skull had been removed and replaced with a glass dome. The brain inside pulsed with light.

Nana walked faster.

More windows. A serpent coiled in preserving fluid, scales peeled back in strips to expose the muscle beneath. A winged thing pinned to a board like a butterfly, chest cavity hollow, wires where organs should be. Something covered in mouths, all of them open, all of them silent.

Jars lined the back walls. Organs. Eyes. Things she didn’t have names for.

The Bureau did this. The good guys.

They’re the good guys, Nana. Just keep going.

Her hands were shaking.

I smell like chips.

The thought came out of nowhere. Stupid. There were monsters in glass boxes and she was worried about chip smell. But she couldn’t unthink it.

The corridor turned. One last stretch.

At the end stood a chamber larger than the others, floor to ceiling glass. And inside—

Nana stopped breathing.

A giant. Twelve feet, maybe more. Pale skin stretched over muscle and bone. Chains wrapped its arms, its legs, its throat. Tubes fed into its spine, pumping orange and yellow that pulsed with its breathing.

Its eyes were closed.

Then they opened. Looking right at her.

Move.

Those eyes tracked her across the corridor. The giant’s head turned slow, following her.

Its eyes were white. No pupils. No iris. It couldn’t see her. It shouldn’t be able to see her.

But it knew exactly where she was.

You’re invis. You’re invis, Nana.

Her hand flickered. Fingers visible, then gone, then visible again.

The potion was wearing off.

She ran for the last door on the left—reinforced steel, tiny window.

She reached for the handle. Her wrist was fading back into view.

It smelled like OG’s perfume.

The door swung open.

The woman inside looked up. A chain ran from the wall to a collar around her neck.

Green eyes.

Like her sister’s.

“Hello, Nana-chan.”

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