The room sat in thick silence, save for the distant echo of wind rattling through cracked windows. Elie clutched the edge of the gurney, her knuckles pale, her eyes flickering between fear and disbelief. The tray now rested limply at her side, but the memory of it flying across the room haunted everyone.
Kent finally broke the silence, walking slowly toward the nearest desk. He pulled out a battered notepad and flipped it open. "We need to track everything," he muttered. "What happened. When. What changed. How. This isn't random anymore."
Evelyn leaned against the wall, arms crossed tight. "This… This is exactly what Dr. Fatal wanted, isn't it? He wanted to trigger something in us."
Shin nodded grimly. "Except he didn't plan on us surviving."
"I don't feel like I've survived," Elie whispered. "I feel… invaded."
Shin looked over, his usual edge softening. "That metal plate you caught… It was clean. Sharp. You could've hurt any of us—and didn't. That says something."
Alix knelt by Elie, adjusting the bandage near her wrist. "You're in control. That's what matters."
"Barely," Elie said, swallowing hard.
Kent, eyes still on the notepad, scribbled a few more lines before looking up. "We've got to get back to base—any kind of base. Someplace with power, data, maybe satellite. If Elie's got powers… it's possible others do too. People we know. People we don't."
Evelyn's brow furrowed. "You're saying there might be more of us?"
"I'm saying this is a test site," Kent answered. "Not the battlefield. This is the start. Dr. Fatal doesn't strike me as the kind of lunatic who sets one trap and sits back with popcorn."
Shin took a slow breath, looking around at the infirmary walls, the rusted shelves, the broken lights overhead. "We need to move before nightfall. We've already lost too much ground."
"I'm not sure I can walk," Elie said. "Not like this."
"We'll figure it out," Alix replied quickly. "We'll make something—stretchers, braces. You're not being left behind
"We're not leaving anyone," Kent confirmed. He looked at Shin. "You still have the map?"
Shin nodded. "It's soaked, but readable."
"Then we'll head north," Kent said. "There's a research bunker two clicks from the mountain base. I saw it on the route."
"Will Elie make it that far?" Evelyn asked.
Elie shifted her legs slowly, grimacing. "I'll try."
Kent crossed the room and crouched next to her, his tone serious but gentle. "It's not just about trying. You've got something now. Something new. We don't know what it means yet—but if Fatal thinks he can use you, then you sure as hell can use what you've got against him."
Elie looked at him, eyes searching. "And if I lose control?"
Kent didn't blink. "Then we'll stop you. Together."
She gave a small, wavering nod.
The group exchanged looks—silent understanding threading between them.
Then Shin stood. "Pack up. We move at dusk."
As they gathered supplies and prepared Elie for the trip, none of them noticed the flicker of movement outside the broken window—a mechanical lens focusing in, watching, tracking.
And somewhere far away, Dr. Fatal smiled. "Excellent," he muttered. "She's blooming faster than anticipated."
The game was far from over.
The sun was beginning to dip low against the treeline, casting jagged shadows across the broken glass of the infirmary floor. A cold wind crept through the shattered window panes as the group made their final preparations.
Shin fashioned a crude shoulder brace from scavenged leather straps and reinforced it with broken clipboard pieces for Elie. Evelyn and Alix constructed a makeshift stretcher using stripped bedframes and medical sheets—sturdy enough to carry her when the pain got too much.
Kent, map in hand, led them outside. "North is downhill from here. Two miles, maybe a little more if we hit rough terrain. Keep your eyes sharp and voices low."
No one argued. The silence between them was no longer awkward—it was survival.
They moved slowly, boots crunching against dead leaves and cracked gravel. Elie, limping but determined, kept pace for the first half-mile. Her face was pale and slick with sweat, her eyes unfocused. Alix stayed close to her side while Evelyn carried her pack.
"Let me help," Kent eventually said, stepping beside Elie again.
"I can still—"
"You don't have to," he interrupted gently.
Elie nodded reluctantly, and Kent hoisted her onto his back without complaint. She clung to him with one hand, the other still wrapped in a bandage, pulsing faintly with dull green light beneath the gauze.
Half an hour passed before Shin slowed his pace. The forest had become dense, unnaturally quiet. He raised a hand, signaling a stop.
"Something's off," he muttered, scanning the tree line.
"What now?" Alix whispered, tensing.
The air vibrated—low at first, then rising into a strange, metallic hum. From the brush ahead, a group of shadowy shapes emerged.
They weren't zombies… not entirely.
Each one was grotesquely augmented—metal arms grafted onto raw muscle, eyes replaced by glowing lenses, their spines armored in sleek, plated steel. They looked like humans rebuilt with no care for sanity or pain.
"Hybrid units," Kent breathed. "He's upgrading them…"
One of them let out a guttural, distorted shriek—and charged.
The group scattered into a tight defensive formation. Kent set Elie down behind a thick tree trunk. "Stay low. Don't try to use your power again unless you have to."
Evelyn drew a pipe she'd kept from the infirmary. Alix gripped a crowbar. Shin cracked his knuckles—then surged forward.
He ducked under a swinging blade-arm, twisted, and struck the hybrid in the side of its exposed knee. Metal cracked. The creature fell sideways as Kent tackled another from behind, jamming a rusted scalpel between its neck and shoulder.
Alix and Evelyn fought in tandem, covering each other's flanks, but they were outnumbered.
Behind them, Elie winced as her wrist throbbed. The green glow was returning—brighter, deeper. Her vision blurred. She didn't want to use it. But her fingers twitched, and the broken fragments of metal around her quivered.
She looked down at her hand, swallowing her fear.
Then a voice echoed again—inside her head this time.
"Do you see now, Elie? You were always meant to be more. Just like I planned."
Dr. Fatal.
She screamed and lifted her hand involuntarily. A storm of jagged shrapnel ripped from the forest floor and hovered midair.
"Elie, wait—!" Kent yelled, trying to get to her.
But it was too late.
With a crack like thunder, the metal shards exploded outward—not toward her friends, but toward the hybrids.
Three of them were torn apart instantly. Screams—inhuman and grating—rattled the trees.
Then silence.
Elie collapsed backward, gasping for breath, hand twitching violently as the green light faded.
Everyone stood frozen. Shin looked at her with awe and dread. Kent knelt beside her, speechless.
"I didn't mean to," she rasped. "I couldn't stop it."
"You controlled it," Kent said. "More than last time."
Elie shook her head. "I don't know how long I can keep that up…"
Alix knelt beside them. "You just saved all of us."
"But for how long?" Evelyn murmured, staring at the fallen hybrids.
In the stillness, Kent turned toward Shin. "We keep going. No more stopping until we get to that bunker. If Fatal's watching… we need to disappear."
Shin nodded, then looked up. The first stars had begun to pierce the sky.
Behind them, the path was soaked with oil, blood, and twisted metal.
Ahead of them? Only darkness. And war.
The night air grew colder as the group pressed forward, every breath misting like smoke in the dark. The adrenaline from the battle had faded, leaving behind silence and the distant echo of owls calling through the forest. Every tree looked like it could hide something worse. Every sound now had weight.
They walked for nearly an hour more before Shin finally pointed to a narrow ravine just up ahead.
"There," he said. "Natural choke point. We can set up a temporary camp."
"Do we have to?" Alix asked, exhaustion pulling at her voice.
"We do," Kent replied, lowering Elie gently near a moss-covered boulder. "We can't keep moving with her like this. And if we're attacked again, that terrain gives us a chance."
No one argued.
While Shin and Kent scouted the perimeter, Alix and Evelyn began laying down makeshift bedding from old jackets and torn-up clothes. Elie sat quietly, eyes distant, wrist still faintly glowing beneath the now-tattered bandage.
Alix sat down beside her, her voice quiet. "How's your head?"
"Loud," Elie whispered. "It's like… something's waking up. Like it's not me, but it is."
"You've been through too much too fast."
"I think it was always there. The metal… it listens to me. But now it's starting to talk back."
Alix frowned, unsure how to respond.
Meanwhile, Kent and Shin crouched near the treeline, peering through the scope of a broken-range optic Kent salvaged from one of the hybrids.
"No signals," Kent muttered. "No drones, no scouts. We're either alone… or he's watching and waiting."
Shin folded his arms, a line of blood dried across his temple. "Elie's power—it's not natural. Fatal didn't just want to create monsters… he wanted to evolve us. Twist us into something we'd never want to be."
Kent nodded. "That serum… it wasn't a cure. It was a template. Each victim is like a puzzle piece. He's watching which ones fit best together."
Shin's jaw clenched. "And we're the final test."
They returned to camp, and soon, all but one were asleep—bodies huddled close, breaths syncing in rhythm.
Only Elie remained awake now.
She sat cross-legged, staring at her bandaged wrist. Every once in a while, a faint spark would jump from her fingers to a pebble or piece of stray metal. She didn't know if it was fear or control. Maybe both.
Then, something strange: her fingers began to move on their own, tracing symbols into the dirt. Circles. Lines. Sharp geometric patterns that looked like circuitry.
Evelyn stirred in her sleep. "Elie…?" she mumbled.
But Elie didn't answer.
A thin piece of metal, no bigger than a coin, hovered in the air in front of her. Slowly, she reached for it, and it snapped into her palm with a sharp click.
Her voice was barely a whisper.
"…Fatal did this to me. But I'm not his weapon. I'm not."
She clenched her fist—and the metal disintegrated.
The wind stirred again. But it wasn't cold anymore. It was heavy—charged. As if something deeper in the forest had just awakened.
And it had sensed her.
A low hum vibrated in the air—a resonance almost too subtle to notice, like the aftershock of a whisper carried on a thunderclap. Elie's eyes darted upward.
She wasn't alone.
The trees surrounding their makeshift camp rustled, but not with wind. The sound was too steady, too rhythmic. Like a presence was moving through the woods—not aimlessly, but purposefully. Watching.
Elie instinctively placed her hand on the dirt again, trying to replicate the strange circuit-like pattern she'd drawn earlier. Nothing happened.
Her palm tingled.
Then—clink.
A broken scrap of metal armor from one of the hybrid beasts rattled beside her. It twitched once… twice… then began sliding toward her like a magnet was pulling it. Her breath caught.
"Elie?" Evelyn stirred beside her, blinking groggily. "What's wrong?"
Elie slowly turned. "Something's coming."
In an instant, Evelyn was up, nudging Shin and Kent awake with urgent, whispered words.
Alix jolted upright next. "Another one of those creatures?
"No," Kent said grimly, standing and grabbing the rusted pipe he'd been using as a weapon. "This doesn't feel like a scout. This feels like a warning."
Shin nodded. "We're being shepherded."
Elie stood, her eyes glowing faintly silver now, the green aura still wrapped around her wrist like a curse. "He's close. Fatal. I can feel his frequency. Like a wire running through me."
Suddenly, a distant shape moved beyond the trees. A creature, but not like the others. It didn't stumble or shriek. It stood tall—too tall—its body sleek and plated like it was grown out of molten alloy. Eyes burned white. And its head… was human.
It didn't attack.
It just watched.
Kent stepped forward. "Shin."
"I see it."
The creature raised its arm, and a small capsule dropped from its palm. It hit the ground with a soft thud and released a hiss of gas.
They all tensed.
But then—it vanished. The figure blinked out like smoke in wind.
Shin ran over and picked up the capsule, but Kent grabbed his wrist. "Wait—"
Too late.
The capsule opened.
But no poison spilled out. No virus. No bomb.
Instead… it projected a hologram.
Dr. Fatal's face flickered to life in cold, green light. Half his face was scarred, his voice slower now, more distorted—but unmistakably him.
"I'm disappointed," the image said, with a crooked smirk. "You've lived longer than I expected. Perhaps I underestimated your will to survive. Or perhaps… you're exactly where I want you."
The image distorted—brief static.
"But let me be clear: You aren't here to stop me. You're here to change. You've all been marked. My children. My catalysts."
Elie backed away slowly. "He knows what I am."
Dr. Fatal's voice dropped to a near whisper.
"The world will burn, and from its ashes… something superior will rise. And you? You will either evolve—or perish."
Then the hologram cut out.
Silence.
No one spoke for several seconds. Then Alix exhaled shakily. "What the hell does he mean, 'marked'?"
Kent turned to Shin. "We need a real plan. Not just running. Not just reacting. We need to get ahead of this."
Shin nodded slowly. "Then tomorrow, we head east. There's an abandoned biotech lab just beyond the mountain ridge—one of the old government outposts before the Collapse."
Evelyn glanced between them. "You think there's still equipment there?"
"We don't have a choice," Shin said. "If Fatal's using old tech to hijack biology… we'll need old tech to reverse it."
Kent looked back toward Elie, who hadn't moved since the message ended.
"Elie?" he asked softly.
She blinked.
The metal plate still floated near her hand.
"I'm fine," she said, not looking at him. "But next time he sends something for us…"
She turned, her voice cold and sharp as iron.
"I'm sending it back."