🖤 STRAY KIDS FANFICTION: The Witness (10)⚠️🤰🧬

The safehouse was gone.

Abandoned. Compromised. Reduced to flames and smoke behind you as the black SUV sped away, Felix driving like a man possessed.

You sat in the back seat, wrapped in a blanket. Chan beside you. One hand on your thigh, the other wrapped around your shoulder.

You didn't speak. You couldn't. Not after what you saw in the mirror that morning.

"My eyes, Chan..." you whispered. "They glowed."

He didn't flinch.

"I know."

"What's happening to me?"

He looked straight ahead, jaw tight.

"You're adapting. The baby's blood is changing yours. Merging it. Making you both into something they wanted to control."

"But they didn't count on you surviving it."

An abandoned lab.

Deep in the outskirts. Hidden in a forgotten forest.

Felix led you both inside.

"This is where your brother worked before he vanished," he said quietly. "The files he left here are the only clue we've got."

You moved like a ghost through the halls.

Flashbacks hit you hard. Cold metal. Needles. Screams. Your own? You weren't sure anymore.

Inside one of the back rooms, Felix found it: a dusty, locked cabinet.

He cracked it open.

"What is this?" Chan asked.

Felix pulled out a folder labeled:

PROJECT: HADES. SUBJECT: Y/N. STATUS: GENETICALLY STABLE. EMBRYO ACCEPTED. EVOLUTION IN PROGRESS.

You stared.

"That's me."

"No..." Chan said softly, eyes scanning the document. "That's not you. That's what they tried to turn you into."

Suddenly—PAIN.

A sharp scream ripped from your throat.

You collapsed, clutching your stomach. Heat radiated from your skin. The floor under you cracked.

Chan was by your side in seconds.

"Y/N—!"

Your hands gripped the floor so hard your fingernails cracked.

Felix shouted.

"She's reacting. Her body's releasing an energy spike. The fetus is generating... I don't know... a defense mechanism?"

Blood trickled from your nose. Eyes wide. Breath ragged.

"It hurts—Chan, it hurts!"

"I got you," he whispered. "Let it out. I'm here."

"You're not alone."

And somehow, his touch—calmed it. Your body slowly eased. The burning stopped. The light faded from your eyes.

You collapsed against him, weak but alive.

"What... is our baby?"

Chan didn't answer right away.

Then he said it, voice soft but haunted.

"A miracle."

"And a weapon."

You woke up screaming.

Blood on your lips. Crimson soaking the sheets. The pain in your stomach was unbearable—like your organs were on fire, rearranging themselves without mercy.

Chan was already there, holding you down gently, whispering your name like it was the only prayer he knew.

"Y/N—look at me, look at me—breathe—just breathe—"

But you couldn't. You choked, coughing up more red, vision blacking out around the edges.

Felix ran in with a scanner. One look at the monitor and his face dropped.

"Her cells are breaking down. She's losing too much blood. The fetus is draining her. It's... feeding on her."

Chan's breath caught.

"What?"

"The baby's over-evolving. It doesn't know boundaries anymore. It's not even fully conscious yet and it's already... surviving at her expense."

Chan stared at you—shaking, crying, clinging to his hand with bloodied fingers.

And then he did something he never thought he would.

He let go.

Stepped back.

And whispered—

"I don't want this child anymore."

The room went silent.

Even you—half-conscious, still bleeding—felt it.

Felt that shift.

You looked up at him, heart cracking like glass.

"What... did you say?"

Chan's voice broke, quiet and tortured.

"I didn't mean—Y/N, I can't lose you. I won't. If that thing inside you is killing you, then I'll—I'll—"

"Kill it?" you said, voice shaking. "You'd kill our baby?"

His face twisted in pain.

"I'd kill everything if it means I get to keep you."

Tears streamed down your cheeks.

"You promised me... You said you'd protect us."

"I didn't know 'us' meant losing you."

"You said it was a miracle."

"Miracles don't bleed you dry, Y/N!"

"Then maybe it's not the child that's the monster..." you whispered. "Maybe it's you."

Chan left the room.

Door shut behind him.

You broke.

Cried until your body couldn't hold another tear. And the baby? It stirred inside you. Almost like it knew. Like it heard every word.

And it didn't like it.

Elsewhere...

Hyunjin stood in the shadows, watching Chan collapse against the wall outside your door.

"You don't mean it," he said softly.

Chan didn't look up.

"I do."

"You love her."

"Exactly. Which is why I'd rather see that thing ripped out of her than watch her die for it."

Hyunjin stared at him for a long moment.

"What if it's both?"

Chan lifted his head.

"What?"

"What if saving her means saving the baby, too?"

"Then we better figure out how to make that happen," Chan whispered, wiping his face, "before I become the villain in her story."

The note was short. Trembling hands had written it. Still stained in blood.

"I'm sorry. I have to go. This child deserves a chance. Even if it kills me. Even if you won't love it. I still do. Please don't follow me."

Chan read it once. Then again. Then he shredded it in his fist.

"Where. The hell. Is she?" he growled.

No one answered.

The silence in the safehouse was thick—suffocating.

Felix stepped forward carefully.

"She took one of the bikes. Eastbound. We think she's heading to the old district."

"Why didn't you stop her?" Chan snapped.

"Because you're the reason she left," Seungmin muttered from behind.

Chan turned—eyes blazing.

"Say that again."

"She trusted you, hyung. With her life. With that child. And you made her feel like she was just a science project. Or worse—a burden."

Bang Chan's jaw clenched so tight it creaked.

Then he turned to Hyunjin.

"Track her."

"Chan—"

"Now."

✴️ Meanwhile... You

The old metro tunnels were cold.

You clutched your stomach, one hand curled protectively around the small bump that had only just begun to show. Three weeks. That's all it had been. And yet it felt like your body wasn't your own anymore.

You slid down the wall of the tunnel, curling into yourself.

"It's okay," you whispered to the baby. "I won't let them hurt you. Not even your father."

Your fingers trembled.

"Even if he doesn't want you anymore... I still do."

And then— A flutter.

Not pain. Not heat. Just the faintest sensation—like tiny fingers reaching out from inside you, touching you back.

It brought tears to your eyes.

"You hear me, don't you?" you whispered, voice breaking. "You know I love you."

⛓️ Elsewhere... Chan

The warehouse doors exploded off their hinges as Chan stormed in, his coat soaked from rain, eyes feral.

"She's not here," Hyunjin said quietly. "Only signs of recent movement. She's staying ahead of us."

Chan's hands curled into fists.

"She's not going to survive on her own. Not in her condition. She's too tiny. Too weak. That baby's eating her alive and she thinks she's protecting it."

"...So what are you gonna do when you find her?" Hyunjin asked carefully.

Chan turned to him. Eyes glassy. Voice raw.

"I'm gonna get on my knees and beg."

"And if she won't come back?"

"Then I'll carry her."

"And the baby?"

Chan looked away.

"I don't know. But if anything touches her again—even it—I swear to god, I'll kill it."

--TO BE CONTINUED--