The Rulebook of Hive 13

 We thought that after barricading ourselves inside the bunker, after holding off waves of the infected with homemade flamethrowers and rusted machetes, we had found safety.

We were wrong.

The first mutant bug appeared three days after the last known zombie was decapitated and burned. It crawled out of one of the corpses like it had been gestating in there. And it wasn’t alone.

By the end of that week, our “safe zone” was nothing but Hive 13 — the thirteenth attempt to survive. Most didn’t make it. I did. But only because I followed the rules.

If you’re reading this, burn the paper when you're done. And for your own sake, follow every single rule below.

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Rules for Surviving Hive 13

1. Never kill a mutant bug inside the base.
When squashed, they release spores that enter your eyes and nest in your brain. You’ll still look like yourself for 72 hours. After that… your skin splits open like wet tissue and something else crawls out.

2. If you hear buzzing from the vents, lock yourself in the freezer room and don't make a sound.
It’s not a bee. It’s a scout. If it hears you breathing, it marks you by vomiting bile on your door. Then comes the Queen.

3. Don’t trust anything that looks like a friend who died.
They’ve started using the bodies now. They wear them like puppets. You’ll notice the teeth are always wrong — too many, or facing inward.

4. No mirrors after sunset.
They don’t have reflections. You’ll see that. But worse — if you look too long, you’ll see yourself smiling when you shouldn’t be.

5. The red lights mean the hive is beneath you. The green lights mean it’s above. If both are blinking, pray.
They’ve tunneled into the walls. Into the ceilings. Into us.

6. When you hear the clicking, you have exactly 19 seconds to cut your nails.
It’s a pheromonal signal. The bugs read traces of keratin to identify hosts. If your nails are too long, they assume you’ve already been harvested. They don’t like waste.

7. Never sleep alone.
If they catch you isolated, they burrow through the ear canal. You’ll wake up standing, humming a song that doesn’t exist.

8. Do NOT feed the things in the feeding room after midnight.
We still don’t know what they are. But they grow. And the meat isn’t always from outside.

9. If you find a cocoon in your bed, don’t scream.
Screaming triggers the eggs inside to hatch instantly. Instead, climb in, close your eyes, and wait for the morning shift. They’ll know what to do.

10. Once a week, one of us has to be chosen.
We send them to the tunnel with a blade, a light, and the map. No one ever comes back. The horde slows down when it gets a sacrifice. It’s brutal, but it works.

I was chosen once.

I came back.

But I left something down there. And lately, I can feel it... crawling up my spine.

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Burn this now. Then cut your nails.

And don’t look in the mirror.

Not after sunset.

Never after sunset.

The Contract

I still remember the exact moment I clicked "I Agree." The screen flashed briefly, confirming my acceptance of the service contract. What I didn’t realize then was that clicking that button wasn’t just agreeing to terms — it was signing away more than I could imagine.

A few hours later, a sharp, unbearable pain shot through my left arm. I looked down and saw a thin, red mark forming around my wrist. It wasn’t a rash, nor a scratch — it was a brand, burning into my flesh like molten iron.

Then came the message on my phone:

“You have been entered into the Population Reduction Lottery. Your scheduled service will commence in 72 hours.”

At first, I thought it was a sick joke. But that night, my dreams were filled with buzzing — like a swarm of insects under my skin. I woke to find my sheets soaked in blood, my arms covered with tiny puncture wounds. I tried to scream, but my throat was raw, my voice barely a whisper.

Day by day, the changes became undeniable. My skin peeled away in long strips, revealing muscle and sinew beneath. My nails blackened and split. In the mirror, I barely recognized myself — eyes sunken, pupils dilated unnaturally. The worst part was the hunger. A deep, gnawing craving for raw flesh.

The night of the service arrived. They came without warning. Pale figures, faceless, with blades that gleamed in the dim light. They dragged me into a dark room — walls slick with old blood, the scent of iron heavy in the air.

I screamed, but it was no use.

They cut and carved, piece by piece. I felt every incision, every rip of flesh. Yet, through the agony, there was a cold precision — as if they were harvesting something vital.

When it was over, I was left broken and bleeding on the cold floor.

But the worst was yet to come.

The brand on my wrist glowed faintly, a sinister pulse matching my heartbeat. I could feel the infection spreading. Soon, I would join the lottery again, reborn as something else — a warning to others who dared to click "I Agree."

If you ever see that button, don’t hesitate. Don’t click.

Because once you do, there’s no turning back.

DOCUMENT 017 - EMERGENCY FILE / CLASSIFICATION: CONFIDENTIAL

INTRODUCTION

Audio transcript recovered from the last emergency transmission captured in the red zone of biocognitive isolation. Date and location compromised. Record originally found on a tape recorder inside a sealed bunker. The following content remains without rational explanation, but is believed by civilian and military authorities to be true.

“If you're listening to this, it means that the lockdown failure has already occurred.

The borders have given way. The containment protocol has been broken.

 There is no longer a safe zone.

This recording is not a call for help. It is a warning.

Don't try to understand. Just listen. Memorize. Obey.

Those are the rules. The only chance to stay human.

RULES OF SURVIVAL - PROTOCOL 9/17

1. Don't look out of the windows. Never.

At first, I ignored the warning. It was just curiosity. One second was enough. I saw my neighbor scream and be pulled off the ground by something that shouldn't be there. The glass burst. Blood splattered on the ceiling.

2. Cover all mirrors. Any reflective surfaces must be removed or sealed.

I thought it was an exaggeration. But what I saw wasn't a reflection. It was movement behind me, inside the mirror, even though I was alone. Since that moment, the image has been watching me. Even when I close my eyes.

3. Don't open the door, even if you recognize the voice.

She was crying. She was crying for help. It was my sister's voice. Only she died last week. I know that. I saw the body. So what was outside scratching the wood with its nails?

4. Don't make a sound. No prayers. No sobbing.

My neighbor tried to sing to calm his daughter. The creature descended through the walls like smoke. The girl stopped crying. The singing turned into screams. Now there's only the echo.

5. If you hear scratches under the floor or inside the walls, don't investigate.

I followed the sound. It was something crawling. It was inside the wall. Then behind the wall. Then inside the room. Eyes burst out of the wood like boiling bubbles.

6. Turn off all the lights. Darkness doesn't protect, it hides. And that's a good thing.

The light attracts them. They see in the light. They feel the warmth. When the light bulb burned out, I shivered. But that's what saved me. I saw the neighbors light up. I heard the clicks. Then silence. Now there's just the smell of burning.

7. If you smell iron or sulphur, run.

It was like boiling blood and rotting flesh. And it was coming from the ceiling. When I looked, the black stain was spreading. The ceiling was dripping. The smell made me vomit before I blacked out. I woke up with marks on my arms that weren't mine.

8. If you're bitten, tear off the contaminated tissue. Immediately.

He hesitated. He said it was just a scratch. Two hours later, he pulled out his own teeth and stuck them in his eyes. He laughed as he fell apart inside. It wasn't him anymore.

9. Never sleep unattended. If you're alone, fight sleep.

I fell asleep for minutes. I dreamt of a hand holding my heart. When I woke up, it hurt. As if it had been squeezed for real. As if something had... touched.

10. If someone says everything is fine, run.

Calm no longer exists. Optimism is a symptom of conversion. A smile is the first sign. The second is bleeding from the ears. The third is too late. They talk like humans. But they're not.

EPILOGUE

The recorder closes with wheezing and gasping. After three seconds of silence, there is a muffled noise like fingernails dragging on steel. Then a very low voice whispers:

“You've already raped at least one of them, haven't you?”

---

END OF FILE.

Transmission closed. Document classified as high psychological risk. Not recommended reading outside controlled environments.

The Whistler from the Plains

Cryptid: El Silbón (Venezuelan and Colombian plains)

When young Emiliano killed his father in a fit of rage, he didn't expect mercy. But what he got was a curse.

Condemned to wander the plains with a sack full of his father's bones on his back, his spirit became what is now known as El Silbón - the Whistler.

It is said that his whistle is heard in a paradoxical way: if the sound seems distant, he is close. If it sounds close, there is still time to escape.

One dry night in the interior of Barinas, a lone cowboy heard the whistle for the first time - three ascending, drawn-out notes, like the call of a sad child. He laughed. He thought it was the wind.

The second night, he heard it again. Closer. The sound chilled his bones. The dogs hid under the bed. The horse ran away.

On the third night, everything fell silent.

The next morning, they found the cowboy dry as a thorn branch. And next to the body, an old sack - full of human bones, each marked with the name of the next victim.

Salt in the Wounds

 Cryptid: Yacumama (Peruvian Amazon)

The Yacumama, “mother of water”, is avoided by fishermen in the Upper Amazon. They say that the snake sleeps in the deep riverbeds, and that the sound of a whistle can wake it up - a whistle that no man should have the courage to blow.

But Miguel, an ambitious young fisherman, didn't believe in legends. He wanted to prove that the creature was just superstition. Armed with harpoons, cameras and the courage typical of ignorance, he set off upstream, where the sun barely reaches the surface.

On the third night, he blew a handmade whistle made from fish bones. And waited.

The calm waters stirred. The fish disappeared. And then, from the depths, something emerged.

A snake with scales as dark as oil and eyes the size of windows. Yacumama didn't roar. It didn't attack. It just stared - deeply. Miguel put down his whistle. He tried to row. But the water closed over him like a mouth.

His boat was found days later, riddled with symmetrical cuts and covered in salt - something impossible on a freshwater river.

The Sound of Hooves

 Cryptid: Patasola (Andean forests - Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela)

Forestry engineer Lorenzo worked supervising selective logging in the Colombian Andes. Used to dealing with nature and its silent brutality, he wasn't impressed by tales of the road, let alone warnings about “one-legged women”.

But when men started disappearing at dusk, and contradictory reports spoke of a beautiful woman who cried in the woods - and then attacked like a jaguar - Lorenzo began to pay attention.

One rainy afternoon, he followed footprints in the mud. The marks were strange - deep, wide, always one-footed. At the end of the trail, a female voice whispered his name. He turned around.

She was there.

Long black hair, an angelic face... but from the knee down, nothing. Just a single limb as strong as a mare's, treading firmly on the ground. His eyes glowed red.

They say he tried to run.

They say she caught up with him in seconds.

In the camp, the radio still emits indistinct noises every morning. But among them, a phrase can be heard, if the volume is loud enough: "She walks with one leg. You won't walk at all."

The Lake Never Sleeps

Cryptid: Nahuelito (Patagonian Loch Ness-type creature – Argentina)

In the icy heart of Patagonia lies Lake Nahuel Huapi—a glacial lake so deep, no light reaches its bottom.

Martín was a diver hired by a geological institute to measure the lake’s shifting tectonic patterns. His team laughed off the warnings about Nahuelito, the "lake serpent" said to guard the depths.

On his second dive, Martín descended beyond the last ledge, where the sunlight faded into thick, ink-like water. There, his sonar picked up movement. Large. Deliberate.

He stopped.

Out of the gloom came a shape—serpentine, scaled, and impossibly long. A pair of eyes, reflective like polished stone, blinked once. Slowly.

Then it vanished.

He returned to the surface, shaking. But no one believed him. The footage had been mysteriously corrupted. The pressure damaged the drive, they said.

On his final dive, Martín brought down a harpoon—"just in case." He never resurfaced.

The only thing found was his camera. On it, a single frame: a vast tail disappearing into the darkness, and dozens of small bones scattered across the lakebed—each one perfectly clean.

Locals say Nahuelito is ancient. That it doesn’t kill out of hunger, but because the silence of the deep must remain undisturbed.