Crossdressing To Survive An Apocalypse [BL]

Something slammed into the facility door.

Skyy froze mid-step, spine tightening. He wasn't supposed to be here. Not yet. He hadn't even told Chné he'd left the caravan early—he'd returned alone, restless, drawn by the gnawing feeling that something was wrong.

And something was wrong.

It knocked again. Harder.

Not fists. Not wood. It sounded like iron being driven by rot. A wet, slapping, thudding force. Almost…hungry.

Skyy looked around. The overhead lights flickered as if sensing what approached. The entire structure groaned, just slightly, as if under pressure. A heat began leaking in around the sealed windows, one Skyy could feel on his cheek. The air tasted of charcoal and sap.

Prisitsky was in the back room, screaming.

Skyy rushed down the corridor, shoes squealing against the linoleum. He threw open the door—and halted.

Prisitsky was on the floor, curled, clawing at his chest. His back arched unnaturally, ribs flexing like something was pushing outward from beneath his skin.

The branch-creature—what Skyy had jokingly called "Leaf"—was no longer perching lazily on Prisitsky's shoulder. It now stood rigidly by the door, its spindly frame quivering, tail wagging like a dog scenting its master.

It stared straight at the entrance.

Another knock. Boom. This time the door cracked.

Skyy backed toward Prisitsky. "We need to go. We need to—"

ScreeeeeeeEEECH.

A sharp, splitting sound rang out, like steel nails dragged across glass—but deeper. Ancient. Violent. A line of flame burst through the base of the door. Fire, yes, but blue, unnatural, crawling like tendrils seeking entry.

Then the door exploded inward.

A man surged through the flames.

Tall. Broad. His limbs shimmered in motion—arms and legs of articulated chrome. Not armor. These were his limbs. Machinery fused into flesh. Gears twisted subtly beneath his skin. His face, though, was human—scorched and sweating, wide eyes frantically scanning.

"P!"

His voice cracked like thunder. He sprinted forward, skidding past Skyy and falling to his knees beside Prisitsky. His metal hand cradled Prisitsky's head as he collapsed into his arms. For a moment, the writhing subsided, as if the presence of this man soothed whatever was growing inside.

The man hugged him hard, whispering something Skyy couldn't hear over the fire now licking up the corridor walls.

"F*ck," he growled, lifting Prisitsky like he weighed nothing. "Let's get out of here—now!"

He turned to Skyy, gaze hard and familiar in a way that rattled Skyy's chest. "What the hell are you standing there for? Run!"

Skyy stared, speechless. Not at the man, but at the thing he was doing.

His right arm rippled.

The smooth silver surface of it melted, flowing like mercury over Prisitsky's chest and back, coating him like armor. It shimmered and pulsed as if alive, hugging the curves of Prisitsky's transforming body.

"What—what is that?" Skyy managed to gasp, backing toward the doorway.

The man didn't answer.

The floor behind them began to ripple.

Skyy looked down—and realized the walls were…bleeding.

Sap. Black, tarry, writhing sap. It oozed from the corners, crawling in veins. And where it touched the floor, the tiles softened. Warped. As if the very structure of the building was being digested.

The leaf-creature turned and ran, galloping on its twiggy limbs like a deer possessed.

"Go!" the metal-limbed man shouted again, turning as the hallway collapsed behind them.

They ran through the corridor—Skyy, the metal-limbed stranger, and Prisitsky wrapped in a sloshing skin of quicksilver.

Behind them, the facility groaned. Wood—not from the beams or doors, but something far older—was bleeding through the cracks in the walls. Thick, viscous liquid pulsed like veins, growing, searching. Wherever it touched, the structure softened and warped, sagging like wet paper.

The lights exploded above them one by one, raining sparks.

Skyy risked a glance over his shoulder. He wished he hadn't.

The hallway was alive.

From the point of the breach where the door had fallen, long wet tendrils of bark and sap were slithering across the ceiling. They weaved like tree roots searching for moisture—except now they sought them.

"It's speeding up!" Skyy shouted, his boots slipping.

"It wants him," the stranger growled, nodding toward Prisitsky.

"What the hell is it?"

"You'll see if we don't move."

They rounded a corner, Skyy nearly crashing into a cabinet. The man spun, kicked open a steel door with his metal leg, and shoved Skyy through.

He followed and slammed it shut just as one of the tendrils slapped into it with a fleshy squelch.

Inside was a storage room—dim, half-burnt from the advancing heat. Metal cabinets lined the walls, and a fire suppression system had melted, dripping into a steaming puddle on the floor.

The stranger knelt, Prisitsky still limp in his arms. The mercury armor rippled, reacting to every twitch of his body, clinging to him as though trying to hold him together.

Skyy dropped beside them, panting. "What is that thing? Why does it want Prisitsky?"

Before he could answer, the stranger bolted to a row of shelves, tore them open, and began yanking down dusty glass bottles.

Each one had a thick cloth stopper shoved in the top. The liquid inside glowed faintly red, like fermenting hellfire.

Skyy stared. "Is that—?"

"Bombs," the man grinned grimly. "Molotovs."

He took one, held it up to the sputtering emergency flame in the corner, and the cloth caught fire with a quick whoosh.

Skyy scrambled back. "Are you crazy? We're in a sealed room!"

"We won't be if I do this."

He turned, kicked open the door—and flung the bottle.

It exploded just as one of the bark-covered tendrils tried to slither under the frame.

FWOOM.

Fire roared down the hall in a cone, eating into the liquid wood. It shrieked. Not like a person, or even an animal. The sound it made was like splitting trees and tearing bone. High-pitched. Ancient. Furious.

For a moment, the hallway cleared.

The stranger turned, tossing more bottles to the ground, building a crude barrier of fire at the door. "Fire's the only thing that slows it down. It remembers being burned. It hates it."

Skyy nodded numbly. His heart thundered in his chest.

"Wait," he muttered. "Where's—"

Leaf.

The branch-creature wasn't with them.

Skyy spun around. Through the smoke, he saw it—charging toward the fire, eyes wild, mouth open in a silent hiss. Its body was taut, tail flaring, claws out.

"No!" Skyy screamed, lunging forward. "Stop!"

But the little creature didn't listen. It darted between tongues of flame, bounding straight toward the pulsing form that had once been hallway—now a mass of intelligent, liquifying bark.

It leapt.

The bark reacted. A thick tendril whipped out like a whip, slamming Leaf mid-air.

The creature hit the wall with a crack, limbs snapping.

Skyy screamed, reaching instinctively—but the stranger grabbed him. "Don't. It's too late."

"No, it's—!"

Leaf, broken but alive, dragged itself forward with one arm. It hissed again, stabbing a jagged splinter into the black sap. The bark screeched. For a second, it recoiled.

But then it surged forward—and swallowed Leaf whole.

Skyy stood frozen.

He watched the bark twist, melt, and reshape. Where Leaf had been absorbed, thin branchlike antlers now jutted from the surface. It wore the creature like a trophy. Something deeper than rage, deeper than horror, coiled in Skyy's gut.

It had learned.

"Come on," the stranger growled, grabbing Skyy and dragging him away from the door. "We have to move. It's adapting. We can't let it touch him."

Behind them, the doorframe crumbled. Blue fire raged against the encroaching sap—but it was already worming around the edges, dripping from the ceiling in long, black strands.

Skyy stumbled along, his gaze locked back on the spot where Leaf had been.

"That thing," he whispered, voice breaking, "it just…took him."