Something Beneath

Dutch comes into contact with a mysterious black slime seeping from the freshly broken ground and experiences a terrifying vision of bulldozers racing toward him. The fear culminates in a fall onto exposed rebar, seemingly causing his death. The incident is attributed to drinking, but seeds a bleak prophecy about what lies ahead for CGCC.

An ecological conference begins at the newly opened CGCC, with Middleton bringing gravity to the gathering. He meets CGCC manager Symes and event coordinator Khali Spence. Nearby, Eugene Herman practices his keynote in the woods and is pulled into a slime pit, suffocated by an unseen creature. The events hint at an ancient danger rooted in CGCC’s soil.

The next day, Middleton warns Khali about the ominous energy around the conference. Deadmarsh and her assistant Tony search Eugene’s hotel room, while Reggie and Hank continue to hunt for a hidden pipe blockage causing disruptions. They have not seen Eugene, but Deadmarsh and Tony venture into the woods and uncover his body, his face twisted by a silent invasive force.

Middleton’s search leads him to Mikaela Strovsky, a glamorous celebrity chasing her dog Cleopatra while drenched in black slime. She records a chaotic vlog in hopes of entertaining her audience and experiences visions of an eyeless woman in the mirrors of her room. The encounter signals that CGCC is drawing in ancient, dangerous forces.

In a trance, Mikaela smashes all the mirrors and dies from self-inflicted wounds. Staff member Manuela later labels the death as suicide, deepening the sense that CGCC is a trap set by forces beyond human control.

Khali experiences a frightening encounter with the slime, including a hallucinatory pursuit by a dog she once feared. She instinctively reaches for her grandmother’s necklace for protection, and Middleton interrupts the vision to reveal that the dog was Cleopatra. A flashback shows Khali’s Ojibwe grandmother blessing the necklace with a prayer.

In the sewers beneath CGCC, Reggie and Hank are consumed by a massive growth of slime. Middleton and Khali cross paths with Dr. Connolly, who theorizes that the slime is a single organism with a hive mind that arrived when the CGCC project disrupted its habitat. He explains it can reproduce rapidly and spread through any channel, turning the building into a living trap.

Back at the hotel, Deadmarsh reviews Mikaela’s vlog and sees a slime-covered creature slither from Mikaela’s bathtub as she smashes the mirrors. The team then returns to the sewers to search for Reggie and Hank, while Symes becomes paranoid due to contact with the slime.

Symes, now paranoid due to the slime, lunges at the team and is shot by Tony. His body is later found by Middleton, Khali, and Connolly, adding to the sense that the threat is closing in on everyone.

The trio discovers the heart of the creature with a gaping mouth deep within the structure, and Connolly falls into it. Middleton acts quickly to save Khali as she teeters on the brink, and she uses her grandmother’s necklace to calm the monster by reciting the Ojibwe prayer.

The team escapes to the ambulance, where Middleton reconciles with Khali and admits his fear that she might have fallen into the creature. He asks her to leave on his next mission, and they share a kiss, signaling a fragile but hopeful connection amid the ruins.

At dawn, more slime seeps up through a manhole, serving as a grim reminder that the threat is far from over. CGCC’s walls cannot keep the mystery at bay, and the danger lingers in the ground beneath.