Main Hall — Moments Later

  Footsteps thundered across stone.

  The bald man’s voice carried down the corridor, raw with panic.

  “What happened?! Where’s the mayor?”

  Kai didn’t slow.

  “Smith,” he said evenly. “Seal the compound. Full lockdown. Call additional guards.”

  A breath.

  “If they resist, sedate them.”

  Smith hesitated only a fraction before moving.

  Kai turned to Ray.

  “Separate holding. One per cell.”

  Ray blinked once. “You’re serious.”

  “They’re unstable.”

  That was explanation enough.

  Guards began pulling the townsfolk apart. Boots scraped. Metal cuffs snapped shut. Fear sharpened into anger as restrained voices echoed against the high ceiling.

  Ray stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Implantation? Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “If this backfires, you lose them completely.”

  Kai’s gaze drifted toward the detainees — faces pale, furious, confused.

  “They were already lost,” he said quietly. “I need results.”

  Silence settled between them, not emotional — strategic.

  Then, almost as an afterthought:

  “The limiters… can they be administered orally?”

  Ray’s eyes shifted. “For who?”

  “The townsfolk.”

  Ray’s pupils tightened to pinpoints. His gaze flicked to the detainees, then back.

  “To give them willingly?”

  “No.”

  Kai inhaled slowly. Not hesitation. Calculation aligning.

  “We’ll introduce it into Bram’s water supply.”

  The hallway seemed to contract around the words.

  Behind reinforced doors, metal groaned as another cell sealed shut.

  Ray did not answer immediately.

  Dread Mar Prison — Outskirts of Cifad Capital

  The air was wrong.

  Henry noticed it before the bodies.

  Even through the mask, it coated his tongue — metallic, sour, thick enough to feel physical. Each breath dragged, as if the corridor resisted being inhaled.

  The overhead lights flickered without rhythm. Some were shattered entirely. Others buzzed weakly, threatening to die.

  His boots stuck slightly with every step.

  He looked down.

  Not water.

  His stomach tightened.

  They moved forward anyway.

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  The walls crackled with exposed wiring, faint sparks spitting into the dim. Every small sound felt amplified, pressed tight against the ears.

  Then Henry saw the first body.

  He stopped without meaning to.

  The man’s chest cavity wasn’t cut.

  It was forced open.

  Ribs bent outward. Spine exposed through torn muscle.

  Henry forced his eyes away.

  “Keep moving,” he ordered, though his voice came rough through the mask.

  They stepped around it.

  Further down, more bodies.

  Some missing limbs. Some folded at angles that defied bone structure. One reduced to half.

  The smell thickened.

  Fresh.

  Henry raised a clenched fist. The squad froze behind him.

  He listened.

  Nothing.

  No breathing. No shifting.

  Too quiet.

  “What the hell…” someone whispered.

  The sound came from behind them.

  “Kyee—!”

  High. Tearing. Not loud — but sharp enough to vibrate in the skull.

  Henry turned.

  Under the wash of their weapon lights, the half-closed blast door they had passed shuddered slightly.

  No one touched it.

  His pulse quickened. Not panic.

  Recognition.

  “Close ranks,” he said quietly.

  The lights died.

  Darkness swallowed the corridor in a single breath.

  Someone swore.

  Then something hit the floor behind them.

  A body dragged.

  A scream followed — cut off too quickly to process.

  Henry spun. Night vision flared green, grainy and delayed.

  Something moved along the ceiling.

  Not running.

  Flowing.

  “Regroup!”

  Gunfire exploded. Muzzle flashes burned afterimages into his vision. Each burst revealed fragments — limbs too long, joints bending backward, skin absorbing light instead of reflecting it.

  Another man went down.

  Henry moved toward the nearest cell, training taking control while his mind screamed warnings.

  Inside, the air felt hotter.

  His boot nearly slipped; even through the sole he could feel the texture of the floor.

  A body hung against the bars, throat opened so wide the jaw sagged loose.

  Breathing.

  From the corner.

  Slow.

  Wet.

  Henry raised his rifle toward the sound.

  It unfolded.

  Limbs straightening past natural limits. Head tilting too far, as if studying him.

  Its eyes caught the night-vision glow and held it.

  Henry fired.

  The recoil slammed into his shoulder. Concrete chipped behind it.

  It wasn’t there anymore.

  Impact.

  He didn’t see it move — only felt himself driven backward. His spine struck iron bars hard enough to rattle them.

  Claws raked across his chest plate. Sparks snapped inches from his visor. The sound of metal peeling.

  Stronger than it looked.

  They went down together.

  The fall knocked breath from his lungs. For a brief flash, death felt close enough to recognize.

  Pain kept him conscious.

  He shoved the rifle down like a brace and forced himself upright. Blood ran warm beneath his armor, pooling at his waist. Each breath scraped against fractured ribs.

  Across the hall, more shapes shifted in the fractured light.

  They weren’t rushing him.

  They were watching.

  Their silhouettes folded and unfolded in impossible ways, eyes blinking in and out between drifting smoke and failing lights.

  Henry spat blood into his mask filter and adjusted his stance.

  A dragging sound echoed behind him.

  He didn’t turn fast enough.

  Weight slammed into his back, driving him forward. His rifle discharged into the floor as claws tore across his shoulder plating, searching for weakness.

  He rolled, crushing the thing beneath him for half a second before it slipped free like oil. Fingers hooked under the edge of his armor and tore.

  Metal bent.

  Henry jammed his forearm into its throat and felt cartilage give. It only fought harder.

  Its breath flooded his mask — hot, wet, rotting.

  Teeth snapped inches from his visor.

  He drew his revolver.

  Pressed it beneath the jaw.

  Fired.

  The recoil cracked through bone. The creature’s skull snapped back — but its hands kept moving, clawing even as its nervous system failed to understand it was dead.

  Henry shoved it aside and staggered upright.

  The hall narrowed.

  Not in space — in vision. Darkness pulsed at the edges in time with his heartbeat.

  A scream cut through the ringing.

  One of his last men was lifted upward, dragged toward the ceiling pipes. Boots kicked against air.

  Henry fired without aiming.

  The muzzle flash revealed two shapes clinging flat against the concrete above. One dropped with the soldier, crashing down in a tangle of limbs and blood.

  Henry limped toward them.

  The soldier barely breathed.

  The creature rose slowly from the impact, limbs snapping back into place with quiet pops.

  Henry’s revolver lifted.

  Click.

  Empty.

  The creature tilted its head.

  Henry threw the weapon at its face and drew his combat blade.

  The weight steadied him.

  “Come on,” he muttered.

  It came.

  Claws tore across his side before he could fully react. White-hot pain flared. He answered with steel, driving the blade upward beneath the rib line.

  They collided again.

  This time he didn’t try to overpower it.

  He leaned.

  Forced it backward step by step, boots slipping in blood and hydraulic fluid, until its spine struck broken railing.

  He pinned it there.

  And drove the blade into its throat again.

  And again.

  Until the resistance weakened.

  The body sagged.

  Henry left the blade buried a moment longer, catching his breath in ragged pulls.

  When he stepped back, his legs nearly failed him.

  Silence returned in fragments.

  Sparks crackled overhead. Smoke drifted low. Somewhere deeper in the prison, something scraped slowly against concrete.

  Not gone.

  Waiting.

  Henry pressed a shaking hand against his bleeding side.

  “Squad Nine, report.”

  Nothing.

  No static.

  Just the sound of his own breathing.

  “Squads One through Eight — regroup at main hall.”

  The silence stretched longer than it should have.

  For the first time since entering the prison, the truth settled cold in his mind.

  This wasn’t an outbreak.

  This was territory.

  And they had walked into it.