Calista slumped at the bottom of the dusty duct, her back against the cold metal wall, gasping hard.
In the darkness, the only sounds were her own heavy breathing and the drip of sweat hitting the insulation.
The wound in her left hand seemed to be bleeding much more slowly now, probably because of the bandage and how much strength she had burned through.
She was still alive.
Alone, deep inside a dark, unfamiliar ventilation system, she had killed four mutated walkers.
The weakness of surviving by a hair washed over her, but what followed was an even tougher resolve.
Calista touched the wound on her left hand and felt the strange changes inside her body.
Project Wildfire, what exactly are you?
Are you bringing me destruction, mutation, or... power?
She rested for a moment, then struggled to her feet.
She could not stay here. She had to find a way out and regroup with the team.
Calista turned her headlamp back on, checked her direction, chose a duct that seemed to slope upward, gritted her teeth, and kept crawling.
Her figure disappeared into the darkness of the duct, leaving behind only the cooling bodies of several mutated walkers and the lingering stench of decay in the air.
...
The darkness inside the ventilation duct felt almost heavy, pressing down on Calista's breathing.
The beam of her headlamp was her only anchor, stretching unevenly through the endless metal passage.
The roars of the pursuers behind her had long since faded. The few that had climbed in after her were dead, and the rest were still trapped on Levels B6 and B7.
In their place was a deathly silence, broken only by Calista's heavy heartbeat and the breaths she forced down whenever pain flared from her wound.
She had no idea how long she had been crawling. The wound on her left hand still throbbed beneath the rough bandage.
Her strength was draining fast. The dizziness from blood loss came in waves, trying again and again to drag her under.
Just sleep. Sleep and everything will be fine.
The moment that thought crossed her mind again, Calista jolted hard. She bit down on her lower lip, using the pain to keep herself awake.
She could not sleep. Absolutely not.
If she fell asleep, she would not wake up.
She forced herself to think about anything and everything, from her life before she crossed over to her teammates afterward, and then to Rock Fortress.
Leah's anxious eyes, Carver's incredulous shout, and the weight of the entire team's survival were like invisible threads, pulling Calista forward step by painful step.
Finally, after crawling through a steep upward duct that nearly drained the last of her strength, Calista saw a sliver of natural light ahead, different from her headlamp. It was seeping through the gaps of a maintenance passage grille.
Hope shot through her exhausted body like adrenaline.
Calista crawled up to the grille and carefully looked through the gap.
Outside was a quiet corridor filled with cleaning tools and spare parts. There was no sign of any walkers.
She pried open the rusted latch with her dagger, shoved the heavy metal grille aside with all her strength, and nearly tumbled out, landing hard on the corridor floor.
Air rushed into her lungs, sending Calista into a violent coughing fit.
She breathed greedily, leaning against the wall for a moment before struggling back to her feet.
She had to figure out where she was and find the agreed rendezvous point as soon as possible.
Calista remembered the fire escape route map she had seen earlier on a wall. It had marked several emergency assembly areas.
They had agreed on one of them, the "equipment transfer zone" on Level B5, near a secondary exit.
Getting her bearings was not easy.
The internal structure of Sentinel Station was complicated, and many of the corridors looked exactly the same.
She could only rely on her hazy memory and a rough judgment of the pipe layout as she carefully felt her way forward.
On the way, Calista passed a half-open door labeled [Project Archives - 17].
Almost as if compelled, she pushed the door open and went inside.
The room was neater than she had expected, as if it had not been directly affected when the disaster struck.
Several filing cabinets had fallen over, and a small blast-proof safe in the corner caught her attention.
The safe door was slightly ajar, as though someone had opened it in a hurry and failed to close it properly.
She walked over and struggled to pull the heavy door open.
There was no gold or treasure inside, only a handful of paper documents marked "Top Secret - Project Wildfire," along with a separate black metal USB drive etched with an abstract emblem.
Calista's heart gave a hard jolt.
Instinct told her these things might be extremely important.
She had no time to examine them closely. She quickly stuffed the documents and the USB drive into the innermost sealed pocket of her tactical vest.
Aside from the target equipment, this might be the most valuable "soft asset" they could find inside Sentinel Station.
After leaving the archives, Calista became even more cautious.
Along the way, she ran into two lone ordinary walkers.
After what she had just gone through with the mutated walkers, dealing with them was much easier.
She killed them with two quick knife strikes.
Calista could clearly feel that after that life-or-death battle, her combat instincts seemed to have been sharpened even further. Her movements came more naturally now.
She did not know how much time had passed.
After a difficult stretch of identifying routes and moving silently, she finally found the passage leading to the "equipment transfer zone" on Level B5.
From a distance, Calista heard muffled arguing and the sound of heavy pacing.
"...We have to go back and find her! We can't wait any longer!" It was Leah's voice, clearly choked with emotion.
"Leah, calm down! We just shook off the pursuit. Going back now is walking straight into a trap! Calista, she did that so we could live!" Bossie was trying to persuade her, but his voice was just as heavy.
"Five more minutes." Carver's voice was hoarse, almost dazed. "Just five more minutes, then we go look for her."
Calista leaned in the shadows at the entrance, listening to them, her eyes stinging faintly.
She was still alive. They were all still alive.
She took a deep breath, steadied herself, wiped the blood and dust from her face, and tried to make herself look a little less miserable. Then she stepped into the equipment transfer zone.
Inside, the atmosphere was suffocating.
Leah paced back and forth, her eyes red.
Carver leaned against the wall with his head lowered, his fists clenched tight.
Mike, Turner, Bossie, Danny, and the others were either sitting or standing, their faces full of exhaustion and worry.
Daryl guarded the other entrance, a bolt loaded on his crossbow, every nerve alert.
Michonne stood in the corner holding her katana, her expression hidden by the shadows.
Shane silently checked their dwindling ammunition.
When Calista appeared in the light, time seemed to freeze.
Everyone stared at her in disbelief, frozen in place, looking at the young leader they had thought was already dead.
She looked awful.
Her combat uniform was torn and ragged, covered in black blood, dust, and grease from the ducts.
Her left hand was tightly wrapped in a filthy strip of cloth, the bloodstains long dried.
Her face was smeared with blood, sweat, and grime, but those gray-blue eyes were still bright and steady, even deeper than before, as if they had been forged in fire.
...
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