The heavy silence of the desert vanished in a split second, replaced by the deafening roar of automatic weapons.
Muzzle flashes cut through the darkness, the night into a disorienting kill zone. The air hissed with the passage of lead, thick with the supersonic snap of bullets tearing through the air.
Pinned down on the outskirts of the compound, a small squad pinned behind a sandstone ridge, taking heavy fire. Dirt kicking up into their faces, showering the soldiers in grit as high-caliber rounds chewed through their cover.
"It's over, Sergeant!" one of the younger troopers screamed, his voice barely audible over the chaos. He pressed his back against the rock, "The mission is a bust! We have to get out of here, sir!"
"It's not over until I say so, Donovan!" the commander's voice was iron, cutting through the soldier's panic. "I know how to end this."
He checked his magazine and looked back at his men. "You boys keep their heads down. I'm going in."
"Sir, that's suicide!"
"That is an order, soldier!" The Sergeant grabbed his rifle and rose to a crouch, muscles coiled. "Cover fire! Now!"
The squad hesitated for a fraction of a second before unleashing a torrent of suppressing fire. The Sergeant didn't wait. With a primal roar, he vaulted over the ridge.
He moved with practiced fluidity, darting from cover to cover, firing in controlled bursts. Terrorists dropped as he advanced, but the resistance was thickening. He slammed his shoulder into a concrete barrier just outside the enemy command center, breathing heavily.
Through the gap, he saw it: the fuel tanker. It had been his target from the start, a massive explosive payload sitting right in the center of their operation. But he still didn't have the angle.
He checked his vest. One grenade left.
He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, inhaling the scent of cordite and dust. Then, he moved.
He broke cover, sprinting straight into the teeth of the enemy defense.
The world erupted in noise. Bullets hammered into him, shredding kevlar and biting deep into flesh. His body jerked with every impact, blood misting the air behind him, but momentum and sheer will kept his legs moving.
He didn't fall. Not yet.
With his vision blurring and his strength failing, he ripped the pin from the grenade. He didn't have the strength to throw it far, but he didn't need to. He just needed to be close enough.
"See you in hell!"
He hurled the grenade at the tanker.
The blast was instantaneous. A white-hot shockwave consumed the camp, vaporizing the command center in a chain reaction that shook the earth.
From behind the rocky hill, the surviving soldiers shielded their eyes against the sudden dawn. As the dust settled over the crater, they slowly lowered their weapons and saluted the burning horizon.
That was the day Sgt. Charlie Mercer died.
Or at least, he should have.
Now, the heat of the explosion was gone. The smell of blood was gone.
In its place was a blinding, antiseptic white.
The room was a sterile cube of brushed metal and harsh fluorescent light. It was furnished with the barest necessities of captivity: a bolted-down bed, a toilet, and a sink with a polished mirror.
Lying on the bed, dressed in a thin patient gown, was a girl with skin as pale as the sheets beneath her and long, cascading white hair.
One wall was replaced entirely by reinforced one-way glass. On the other side, barely visible through the glare, shadowy figures stood watching in silence.
The room was dead silent until the girl on the bed began to stir. Her eyelids twitched, and a low, groggy grunt escaped her throat. When her eyes finally snapped open, they weren't human. They were crimson-colored, crystal-like gems that seemed to glow in the harsh light.
She sat up slowly, blinking in confusion. She looked around the unfamiliar metal box, her gaze darting from the glass wall to the steel door. Then, she looked down at her own body.
She froze.
The arms resting on her lap were not right. They were too thin, too pale.
"Aargh!" a deafening, high-pitched scream tore from her throat.
Panic seized her. She scrambled backward, limbs flailing in uncoordinated shock, and crashed off the mattress onto the cold metal floor.
The gown rode up as she fell, exposing the rest of her body. She stared at the slender legs sprawled on the metal. She looked down at her torso, her breath hitching as she saw the heave of a plump chest beneath the fabric.
"What the hell is going on?!"
She crawled backward, kicking her heels against the floor until her back slammed into the wall.
"Hah... hah..."
She forced herself to steady her breathing, clutching the fabric of the gown. Using the wall for support, she shakily got to her feet.
Her eyes locked onto the sink and the mirror above it.
She took a step. Then another.
As she got closer, the reflection became clear. A beautiful girl with a pretty face...
She brought a trembling hand to her cheek.
"Who is that… I-Is that me? But no—No way!"
She moved her jaw, watching the reflection mimic the movement perfectly. She blinked. The reflection blinked.
The realization settled in cold and heavy. That was her in the mirror.
Defeated, her legs gave out, and she leaned her full weight against the sink, gripping the porcelain edges to stay upright.
Click.
"Have you calmed down?"
A static-laced voice echoed from a speaker in the ceiling.
"Who is that?!"
The girl yelled, spinning around wildly, trying to pinpoint the source of the disembodied voice. It echoed from the ceiling, making it feel like the room itself was speaking to her.
Her eyes finally locked onto the wall of reinforced glass. She realized now that the shadowy figures that had been watching her from the very beginning. Like she was an animal in a zoo.
"Where am I? Answer me! What did you do to me, you sons of bitches!"
Ignoring the strange lightness of her new body, she rushed to the glass panel to get a better look at her captors. Through the thick, glare-proof barrier, the shapes resolved into people. There were at least a dozen men in pristine white lab coats, standing in a semi-circle. They weren't looking at her with pity or fear; they were looking at their tablets, tapping away at screens.
She slammed her fist against the glass. Thud. It didn't even vibrate.
"Calm down, Sergeant… Do you remember who you are?"
The voice came again. An old scientist, sitting at a steel desk in front of the standing group, leaned forward and spoke into a desk microphone. He looked calm, almost bored.
The girl took a step back, the title 'Sergeant' hitting her like a physical blow. She clutched her head between her hands, her long white hair falling over her face.
"I—I remember…" Her voice trembled. Patches of memory flashed in her mind like broken film reels. "I was fighting the enemy… the desert… Then I charged in, then—Ah!"
She flinched, a phantom pain searing through her chest.
"I died… I pulled the pin. I died in an explosion…"
She dropped her hands and looked back up at the scientists, who were now taking notes on her reaction.
The old man adjusted his glasses and leaned closer to the microphone. "You didn't actually die, Sergeant. Your body was recovered from the wreckage—shredded, burned, almost dead. It was a miracle, really. High command decided a soldier of your caliber might still be useful. For that purpose, you were kept alive in an induced coma for ten years… Until today."
The girl froze. The silence in the white room was deafening.
Ten years?
She staggered back, circling around the window for a moment, trying to process the insane news. The war, the mission… that was a decade ago?
"That's completely insane…" she whispered, turning back to the glass with wide, desperate eyes. "What about my family… my friends… do they know I am alive? Did anyone tell them?"
"They do not know," the scientist replied coldly. "You are listed as KIA. This is a highly classified government secret."
"Answer me this then…" She gestured wildly at her own body, at the pale skin and the hospital gown. "Why do I look like this! What did you do to me!"
She was shaking as she screamed. It was unbelievable that the government kept him alive after that suicide run, but that didn't explain this. Why was she a girl now?
"I want you to listen carefully, Charlie," the old man said, his tone shifting to something more serious. "What I'm about to tell you might sound insane, but in our world, there are super-human beings known as Magical Girls. They are capable of insane feats, defying the laws of physics."
He paused to let that sink in.
"You are a top-secret project to create an artificial Magical Girl… Your half-dead body was modified using what we call a Magical Core. With the help of genetic scientists and years of reconstruction, you became what you are right now."
Her facial expression froze in shock.
What was this old man talking about? All this nonsense about magical girls? That was stuff from cartoons, not military science.
Am I going insane? Is this a dream? Is this hell? She thought to herself, panic rising in her chest again.
She needed to wake up. She needed to break the illusion.
She clenched her right hand into a fist and swung it down, hitting her own thigh as hard as she possibly could.
BOOM.
The impact didn't make a slapping sound. It sounded like a cannon firing. A visible shockwave rippled out from her leg, blasting the air around her and ruffling her hospital gown.
"Woah… what was that!"
She stared at her fist. She had put enough force into that punch to shatter a normal femur, but…
Most surprisingly, that powerful punch didn't hurt her at all. It felt like tapping herself with a feather.
Looking down, she clenched her fist again, feeling a terrifying, raw power coursing through her muscles. It was a strength that didn't belong to a human, let alone a slender girl.
"Do you believe us now?" the scientist asked, watching the display of strength with a satisfied nod. "You are what is known as a Magical Girl. And regarding your earlier confusion—you still have your male genitals intact, so you do not have to worry about that. A gender reassignment surgery was deemed unnecessary for the integration of the Core. What makes magical girls special is the Core, after all. And you, Charlie, are our one and only successful subject."
She collapsed to her knees, the cold metal floor biting into her skin.
It was too much. The reflection in the mirror, the ten-year gap, the impossible strength... she was a monster now. Her appearance was completely alien, a beautiful shell hiding a soldier who should have died in the sand.
A crushing sense of hopelessness washed over her. She had no one left. Even if she managed to escape this facility, even if Charlie could find his way back home to his wife... what then? She wouldn't see her husband. She would see a stranger. A girl with blood-red eyes. She would never believe him.
At this point, Charlie had lost everything that defined him. His rank, his body, his life. He—she—had nothing.
"I..."
Before she could finish the thought, a spike of agony drove itself into her skull.
"Aah!"
It wasn't just a headache; it felt like a white-hot needle being driven straight into her frontal lobe. She grabbed her head with both hands, her fingers tangling in the long white hair, pulling tight in desperation.
"My head... is exploding! What is this pain?!"
Through the glass, the old man observed her writhing on the floor with zero empathy. He simply nodded to a technician standing behind him.
"We believe you are experiencing neural feedback," the scientist explained, his voice calm over the speakers. "The Magical Girl Core we implanted is... potent. Because you exerted that burst of strength just now, your body is reacting violently. The integration isn't fully stable yet."
He leaned closer to the glass, his tone sharpening into a command.
"From our data, prolonged or unsupervised use of your power at this stage will deteriorate your mental state. So, consider this your first order: You are forbidden from accessing your abilities without direct supervision."
She tried to listen to the scientist, but the words were swimming. The pain was blinding, throbbing in rhythm with her heartbeat. It felt like something alien inside her brain was trying to claw its way out.
"Ah! H-How do I... stop this!" she gasped, curling into a ball on the floor.
"Relax. We are initiating the sedation protocol," the old man said, signaling his team. "My men will come in shortly to perform a full diagnostic check-up. You've already tired yourself enough for one day, especially after being dead for a decade. You can rest now, Sergeant. We will talk later."
The speaker cut out with a harsh click of static. The old man stood up from his chair, turning his back on her as if the show was over.
A soft hissing sound filled the room. From vents in the ceiling, a thick, white gas began to descend.
As Charlie inhaled the first breath of it, the pain in her head began to dull, replaced by a heavy, suffocating numbness. Her limbs felt like lead. Her eyelids drooped, too heavy to keep open.
As her consciousness faded into the black, one final, terrifying thought drifted through her mind:
If this is what waking up was like... what is waiting for me next time?