The gunshot didn't echo.
It detonated.
A brutal, ear-shattering crack that didn't merely shatter the silence... it annihilated it, ripping through the air like a blade through silk. The sound was so sharp, so final, that for one suspended heartbeat, the entire world seemed to hold its breath in stunned submission.
Then chaos erupted.
Footsteps thundered down the long hallway outside.... dozens of heavy boots slamming against concrete in a frantic, overlapping rhythm. Voices tore through the night in jagged, urgent bursts:
"Contact.... multiple hostiles!"
"Move, move, move!"
"Get down!"
Another gunshot exploded, closer this time, followed rapidly by a third and a fourth. The walls shuddered violently under the sudden onslaught, the entire building groaning and creaking as if it were alive and terrified of the violence it was being forced to witness. Dust drifted from the ceiling. Lights flickered overhead.
Varek didn't flinch.
