Beep. Beep. Beep.
Light stabbed through Caleb's eyelids. The stench of rotting kaiju was gone, replaced by the sterile, chemical burn of bleach.
He was on a cot. Chaos swirled around him in a dizzying blur. Medics shouted in clipped, panicked bursts.
"BP is dropping! Get that line in!"
Jax was suddenly there, hovering over him. His hazard suit was gone, his work shirt torn. His arm was strapped in a makeshift sling, and he looked terrified.
"Caleb" Jax's voice cracked. He sounded out of breath, his eyes wide and frantic. "Man, I... there was so much blood. The gantry, it just... I didn't see it move."
Jax grabbed the metal edge of the cot, his knuckles turning white. "I'm sorry. God, Caleb, I thought you were dead."
Caleb tried to scream. The parasite.
He thrashed, but his body felt like it was made of lead. A thick plastic tube was shoved down his throat, gagging him. He clawed weakly at the crisp white sheets, his internal panic boiling over.
'It's inside me! Cut it out!'
"Hold him down! He's tearing his stitches!"
Through the frantic blur of medics pinning his shoulders to the mattress, Caleb's eyes darted wildly, searching for a scanner, a doctor, anyone who could help.
Instead, his gaze locked onto the observation window of the medical tent.
A figure stood in the shadows just outside the glass. Impossibly tall. Unmoving.
Two glowing, purple eyes stared directly back at him.
The figure radiated a cold, suffocating pressure. The heart monitor beside Caleb's bed shrieked into a continuous, flatline rhythm. The purple eyes burned into his retinas, and it was the last thing Caleb saw before the medical cocktail hit his bloodstream and dragged him back into the dark.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The next time he woke, it was quiet.
The heavy air of the ER tent was gone, replaced by the faint, soothing smell of expensive lavender. The breathing tube was out. His throat felt like cracked glass.
He wasn't in a triage tent anymore. He was in a massive, high-end private medical suite.
Slumped over the edge of his pristine mattress, a woman was fast asleep, snoring softly.
"Mmh... no, slice the potatoes thicker..." she mumbled into her crossed arms.
Caleb's dry lips twitched. He knew that messy dark hair and that scarred leather jacket.
"Elara...?" he croaked.
She snorted, jerking awake. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, blinking rapidly until her eyes locked onto his.
"Potatoes-Caleb!" She scrambled up, gripping his forearm. Her shoulders slumped in a massive, shuddering exhale. "Holy shit. You're awake."
"Barely," he rasped. He glanced at the dark-grey collar peeking out from under her jacket. "First Division Uniform. You passed."
She waved it off instantly, her expression tightening. "A long time ago. Doesn't matter right now. What the hell happened to you down there?"
She leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a serious whisper. "Guild reports said a gantry collapsed, but I saw the logs. Your suit recorded a localized biological strike."
The memories hit Caleb like a physical blow. The heat. The venom. The pulsing cord.
"The Siege-breaker," Caleb whispered, his pulse ticking up slightly. "It was alive. It shot a tendril right into my chest."
Elara froze.
"My suit broadcasted an emergency feed," Caleb rushed out, the words spilling over each other in desperation. "Nobody came. Just one viewer. A private viewer on the military band."
"Caleb"
"They sent a drone, Elara! An Executive-tier capsule. It had a thermal machete and stims. But the parasite... it fed on the stims. It burrowed into my bone."
Silence stretched across the private room.
Elara looked at him, her eyes filled with a terrifying mix of pity and concern.
"An Executive capsule costs millions, Caleb," she said softly. "Nobody drops that on a disposal crew feed."
"I know what I saw!"
Elara held up her hands gently, trying to calm him. "Okay. Okay, listen to me. I checked your charts. They ran everything. Deep-tissue MRI, thermal, X-ray. You are clean."
Caleb stopped breathing. "What?"
"There's no monster inside you," she said firmly. "Whatever attacked you, it didn't leave anything behind."
He stared at the thick white bandages wrapping his entire torso.
No. He had felt it. He had ripped his own hands to shreds trying to pull it out.
"So let me get this straight," Caleb said slowly. "A monster spears me through the chest. My suit starts an emergency broadcast. Nobody from dispatch shows up. One random person starts watching. They send me a capsule worth more than I make in ten years. Then they buy the rights to my feed, pull me off the public grid, and pay for all my medical bills."
Elara sat back in her chair, crossing her arms over her scarred leather jacket. She didn't look happy.
"And flagged your file as highly classified," she added, her voice tight. "The Defense Force cyber-division can't even pull the buyer's ID. It's buried under a dozen ghost networks."
She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Whoever this is, Caleb, they have enough money and influence to make the military look the other way."
Caleb pressed his hand flat against the thick white bandages wrapping his chest.
He took a slow, deep breath, bracing his shoulders for the agonizing grind of a shattered sternum.
Nothing happened.
His brow furrowed. He pushed his fingers harder into the gauze, searching for the crack in his bone, for the raw nerve damage left behind by the barbed tendril.
"Stop doing that," Elara said, stepping forward and catching his wrist. "You're going to tear your stitches."
"Elara, look at me," Caleb said. He met her eyes, his breathing picking up. "I don't feel it. There's no pain."
Elara's grip on his wrist tightened. Her gaze dropped to his chest, then back to his face. "The doctors pumped you full of anesthetics, Caleb. Of course you don't feel it."
Caleb yanked his arm out of her grip. He swung his legs over the side of the pristine hospital bed and planted his bare feet on the cold floor.
"Caleb, sit down!"
He stood up. He didn't sway. He didn't gasp. He pressed both hands against his ribs and inhaled sharply. The skin beneath the bandages radiated a blistering heat, but his muscles felt thick and solid.
"A tendril punched straight through my Kevlar weave," Caleb said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "It broke my chest open. I shouldn't be able to stand. I shouldn't be able to breathe."
The sterile white room suddenly tilted. The edges of Caleb's vision went wavy, blurring Elara's face into a dark smudge.
A sharp, violent cramp seized his stomach. He doubled over.
Bile surged up his throat, and he violently threw up over the side of the mattress.
"Caleb!" Elara shouted.
His legs gave out completely. He fell backward, his head snapping toward the floor, but Elara's hands caught his shoulders just before he hit the tiles. The darkness rushed back in, swallowing her panicked voice.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He woke up to a quiet room. The digital clock on the wall glowed a dim red: 10:14 PM.
The bed was empty. On the metal tray table next to him sat a glass of water and a hastily scribbled postcard.
Please stop doing dangerous stuff. A dungeon's radar detection has gone off and is surfacing four miles away. I should be back in a week or two. Please just rest and don't do anything stupid.
Caleb stared at the card, tracing the rushed handwriting with his thumb.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time blurred. Before he knew it, he was back in his own cramped, freezing apartment.
He sat heavily on his rusted coil couch, staring at the peeling wallpaper. The memories played on a loop in his head; the crushing weight of the Kaiju, the hot cord in his chest, the drone dropping the capsule.
He rubbed his face. Maybe I really imagined it all.
The cheap TV in the corner flickered, cutting through his thoughts. Bright, aggressive text flashed across the screen over footage of heavily armored soldiers firing plasma rifles.
"Are you a strong, able-bodied person looking to go from rags to riches?" a booming announcer voice demanded. "Thrill junkie? Or do you just want the chance to serve and destroy the evil monsters that have been plaguing our world for over a century now?!"
The screen cut to a massive stadium filled with cheering crowds.
"In one week, the Runner trials are opening for graduating seniors and freelance applications! Please keep in mind, everything you do from the moment you walk in will be broadcasted as entertainment and learning for the entire society. So don't get shy when you hit those steps!"
The commercial cut off, replaced by a dull static hum.
Caleb stared at the blank screen. His grip tightened on the edge of the couch.
A vivid flash of memory hit him. The wind rushing past his ears. The terrifying vertigo of the training academy's rappel tower. He remembered slipping, the rope burning through his gloves, the sheer panic of gravity taking over.
He let out a heavy sigh and pushed himself off the couch. He grabbed his stained Guild disposal uniform from the back of a chair and started pulling it on.
"Well," Caleb said out loud to the empty room, zipping up his jacket. "The bills won't pay themselves unless that mystery person gets high off my cleaning like he or she did me fighting."
He walked out into the cold morning air.
The streets of the lower sector were already busy. As he walked down the cracked sidewalk toward the transit rail, a group of young adults pushed past him.
"I'm putting it all into speed augments," one of them bragged loudly. "If I pass the trials, the sponsorship money is insane."
"Yeah, well, I'm aiming for the upper tiers," another replied. "Gotta climb higher."
Caleb watched them go.
Another memory surfaced, uninvited. Elara, years ago, standing at the base of the academy gates before their training began. She had been grinning, vowing to kill as many monsters as possible, calling the whole war a massive competition.
Then came the memory of the tower again. He had flunked out that exact day. He remembered reaching out, desperately trying to grab Elara's outstretched hand as she tried to save him from falling, his fingers just missing hers by inches.
Whisp.
A sharp, mechanical sound cut through the street noise.
Caleb stopped walking. A small, sleek drone zipped just overhead, banking hard before hovering off in the distance. It had purposely come close to him, its lens adjusting with a faint click.
An odd, glowing purple light pulsed from its undercarriage.
Caleb's breath caught. The image of the impossibly tall figure in the hospital window, the glowing purple eyes - flashed in his mind.
Definitely wasn't a standard news drone, he thought, his heart ticking up a beat.
He looked back toward the transit rail, then toward the towering spires of the testing facility in the distance.
Maybe it wouldn't hurt to at least apply and see what the testing criteria are, he thought. He envisioned himself in the tactical armor, stepping onto the battlefield beside Elara, keeping up with her this time. A faint heat rose to his cheeks.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hours passed. The heavy bay doors of the Guild disposal depot rolled open.
Caleb walked inside, bracing himself. He was incredibly late, missing his scheduled shift by hours. He prepared himself for Vance's usual screaming fit.
Instead, footsteps slapped rapidly against the concrete.
"Caleb!" Jax yelled.
Before Caleb could react, his team members surrounded him, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him into rough, relieved hugs.
"Man, you're actually alive," Jax laughed, stepping back and shaking his head.
Vance walked down the metal stairs from the supervisor's booth, a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth. He didn't look angry. He just looked bewildered.
"I'm surprised to see you standing, Mercer," Vance said, taking a slow drag of his cigarette. "You survived for over an hour with your chest wide open down there. Modern medicine is amazing."
"Yeah..." Caleb muttered, his hand instinctively brushing the fabric of his jacket, right over where the scar lay hidden. "Must be.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a heavy, folded piece of paper, and dropped it squarely on Vance's cluttered metal desk.
Vance frowned, picking it up. His eyes scanned the bold black lettering at the top of the form. The cigarette nearly fell out of his mouth.
He looked back up, his expression hardening. "You serious?"
"Runner trials are next week," Caleb said, his voice perfectly steady.
Jax stepped forward from the doorway, his eyes wide as he looked between Caleb and the stamped paper. "Those trials kill people, man."
"Yeah. I know." Caleb looked down at his own hands. He thought about the near death he almost had… should have had he thought before he stated "However I managed to survive... I feel like I should try one more time at my dreams, you know?"
He offered them a small, disarming shrug, hiding the dark reality of his situation. "I'm sure I'll flunk out in whatever first test they have. They are usually mild in the first round anyways to avoid people dying."
Vance stared at him for a long, quiet moment. He took another drag of his cigarette and let out a heavy sigh, tossing the paper back onto the desk.
"I guess," Vance grunted, leaning back in his chair. "But you will not be paid the day you're acting like you're a young eighteen-year-old."
A faint, cold smile touched Caleb's lips.
"Sounds like a fair trade-off."