The bunker shook again.
A deep, rolling tremor travelled through the concrete. Dust slid loose from the ceiling and drifted down over the refugees, clinging to hair, skin, and torn clothing. Somewhere far above, metal screamed under stress.
The column of people slowed instinctively.
Kai felt it in his bones—the way the ground trembled unevenly, the way the lights flickered longer with every quake.
'We don't have much time.'
This place wasn't holding together anymore. It was enduring, and barely.
They had been walking for a long time. Long enough for exhaustion to turn into numbness. Long enough for fear to stop screaming and start whispering instead.
At the front of the group, Lieutenant Bucky raised his fist.
The signal rippled backward instantly. Soldiers halted. Civilians stumbled into place. The soft shuffle of feet faded into an uneasy silence broken only by distant rumbling.
Ahead, the tunnel split.
One passage continued straight, its lights dim but steady. Another branched off sharply to the right, disappearing into deeper darkness, its emergency lights blinking irregularly.
Bucky stood at the intersection without speaking at first. His shoulders were tense, his posture rigid, but his hesitation said more than words ever could.
He was afraid just like others.
Finally, he turned slightly, stealing a glance on the safety of his family.
"We're here."
He said to Crimson.
"This junction connects to the bunker's exit routes," he said. "From this point onward, the tunnels interlock. Multiple paths. Multiple exits."
He paused, jaw tightening. Crimson frowned, wondering if Bucky was scheming again.
"They built it this way for emergencies."
That single word settled heavily over the group.
Emergency meant collapse. Fire. Invasion. Death.
Before Bucky could continue, Crimson stepped forward. His boots scraped against the concrete, his presence drawing the attention of both soldiers and civilians. His expression was sharp, impatient—but there was calculation behind it.
"So," Crimson said, gesturing toward the branching tunnels, "it gives us different routes to escape if one goes bad."
His tone wasn't questioning. It was confirmation.
Bucky shot him a glance—frustration flashing in his eyes as his grip tightened around his rifle.
"Yes," he said curtly. "Exactly that."
What he didn't say was obvious.
From here on, there would be no clear right choice.
Most of the civilians didn't fully grasp the implications. They saw tunnels. They heard the word exit. That was enough for hope to cling to.
Kai knew better.
His eyes moved across the crowd. Children pressed into their parents' sides. Wounded civilians leaning on strangers. Soldiers from Area Six—faces pale, eyes darting—trying to look like they still had control over something.
Every tunnel led somewhere different. They can go out but that also means something can come from the other side.
And outside wasn't freedom.
Outside was the surface.
Plaguebeasts prowled freely now. The land above was torn apart by the fallout, crawling with creatures that no longer remembered what mercy was. Pick the wrong exit and they wouldn't even realize their mistake until it was too late.
I was afraid this would happen, Kai thought.
"Our safest bet is to take the further exit you can think of."
Crimson told the lieutenant.
"We can take care of a few monsters. At least until we get away. We can run until we find the nearest shelter after that. We can lose plague beasts as they're slow to follow."
Bucky nodded in agreement.
***
Among the crowd, Kai took a step back, distancing himself slightly from the mass of bodies. Not physically—just enough to breathe, to think.
Daksha, he thought carefully, are you there?
For a moment, there was nothing. The silence stretched, thin and unsettling.
Then the familiar calm answered him.
Yes, master. I hear you. I'm following from a distance.
A small weight lifted from Kai's chest.
Good.
The firebreak would have reached Area Three by now. That much was certain. And once it spread toward the civilian sector—toward the hidden explosives—the base wouldn't last long.
It would collapse.
Everything above them would come down at once, sealing this bunker into a concrete tomb.
But escaping wasn't safer.
Outside, the plaguebeasts waited.
Without Bucky there were no maps, no surveillance. No idea which exit opened into what.
Crushed below or torn apart above.
They were trapped between two different kinds of death.
What about the others? Kai thought. The research staff. The trainees from Area Six.
It's quite possible if Bucky was able to communicate with them. If they're in main tunnel, Scientists and special trainees might have diverted elsewhere—different exits, lower risk.
They might already be out, Kai told himself. They might be alive.
Worst case, he told Daksha, guard me if monsters show up.
Understood, Daksha replied without hesitation.
If things went wrong—if the tunnels opened into disaster—he might have to leave these people behind.
And that possibility twisted something deep inside him.
They were here because of him.
Because of his choices. His obsession. Every decision he'd justified as necessary, every risk he'd taken for his own reasons.
He looked around again.
Children clinging to injured parents. Soldiers gripping rifles with shaking hands. Civilians who had no idea how close they were to dying.
For every life he saved, others had paid the price.
That guilt wasn't something he could wash away.
All he could do was carry it—and keep moving forward.
For a brief moment, the world around him dulled. The tunnel noise faded. The crowd blurred. It felt as if time itself had paused.
A voice spoke behind him.
[Keep moving, idiot. There's no time for regrets.]
Kai didn't need to turn to know who it was.
Zeff stood there in his mind, arms crossed, presence heavy and invasive. Not a hallucination—not quite. More like a shadow cast inward.
Kai's attention drifted deeper, drawn to a familiar shape.
A blue tesseract.
Syphie's data.
It hovered in his consciousness like a foreign object that had grown roots. Somehow, after the armory battle with Leo, it had integrated itself fully into him.
Integration…
So I actually succeeded.
But success meant nothing if he didn't survive.
Years of sharing his mind with Zeff had taught Kai how to navigate these spaces. His thoughts, his body—he had learned how to assert control.
[I helped you, Zeff said. Like you asked.]
Kai turned on him.
"You were ready to blow this place apart when you couldn't see a way out," Kai snapped inwardly. "Don't forget—we see through the same eyes. If we weren't switched back, you would've activated the nukes!"
Zeff didn't reply.
He only stared, expression unreadable.
Then he stepped backward, his presence receding.
The tunnel roared back into existence.
Kai realized he had fallen behind. He quickened his pace, slipping back into the moving crowd.
"Hey," Sunny said beside him. His voice was strained but steady. He still carried his injured captain on his shoulder, refusing to slow down. "You alright?"
"I'm fine," Kai answered.
Every switch with Zeff made the hatred sharper. But blame wasn't clean. They shared responsibility—whether Kai liked it or not.
Sunny kept talking, unaware. "If we didn't have to ditch that stroller back there because of the rubble, this whole thing would be—"
Kai stopped listening.
The group was tightening into formation now. Soldiers moving forward, weapons raised. Civilians clustered between them. An uneasy truce between desperation and discipline.
Crimson raised his palm, fingers spread. His Awakened responded immediately, power stirring beneath their skin.
Even William pulled his family closer, Valeria guiding them forward, her face pale but determined.
Silence spread.
Everyone held their breath.
Then the tunnel opened.
Light spilled in—a thin, silver sliver cutting through the darkness.
Taking another step forward, Kai remembered his reason to be here.
***
Ten days earlier.
The highways near the Nevada border were dead.
Sand drifted across cracked asphalt as a battered van cut through the wasteland, its engine whining under strain. Kai gripped the steering wheel, his hood pulled low, mask tight against his face.
Beside him, the old man shook a pocket watch violently.
"Damn thing's dead again," he muttered.
The air had turned toxic after the meteor strike. Without masks, mutation was only a matter of time. Earth's rotation had slowed, throwing time itself out of balance. Old clocks claimed two months had passed since the Fall.
Reality said otherwise.
"Throw it away," Kai said. "It doesn't matter anymore."
"No," the old man replied, slipping it back into his coat. "I'll fix it."
It was the only vehicle on the road. The world felt abandoned.
"How long to New York?" the old man asked suddenly.
Kai frowned. "Why are you so obsessed with that place? It's worse than here. Monsters everywhere."
The old man chuckled, dry and hollow. "That's why you don't see the big picture."
"See, kid. There's no 'we' after the border. I'm planning to stay in the next settlement I find. Hopefully, the army takes me in. I hear there's one here."
Kai slammed the brakes.
"What? You can't just leave now," he said. "We agreed—""
The old man removed his mask.
The sight hit harder than expected. Sunken cheeks. Pale, wrinkled skin. Lips cracked and dry. A body already failing.
"Kid, I won't last much longer," he said quietly. "My journey ends here. Not yours."
Kai's hands tightened on the wheel.
"My reason ended with that dragon," the old man replied. "Yours didn't."
"Then why New York?" Kai demanded. "You never said why."
The old man stared out at the burning sun.
"You were looking for your family," he said. "I might be able to help with that."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I know how the government tracks people. There's an AI—Syphie. Base 35. Underground. You can find people using that. It contains all the registered digital fingerprints across the world. I know it's not much in a world like this, but it's a start."
Kai barely had time to react. The old man notices the shift in air.
"Perfect. We have incoming."
A sandstorm rose to their right. Fiery shapes emerged, growling.
"Cinderfiends. Just what we needed."
Kai prepared to fight, both getting off the van.
"Are you sure?" Kai asked, drawing his sword.
The old man nodded with a smile.
"Yes."
***
Present.
I hope you were right, old man.
Kai lifted his head.
There was a metal door that's lifted from ground up. The controls were mangled. Crimson prepared to bust through it.
"Take a step back, everybody."
Bucky rushed everyone backwards. The structure was already collapsing. Bucky was a little concerned about the warheads exploding when there's a crisis of getting crushed here.
It was really a close call when they reached here
The exit was closer. They will soon meet the other side.
Crimson activated his ability as his hands summoned fire on his palm.
"This is it."
And monsters waited on the surface.
===