CHAPTER 36: TIME TO LEAVE

Richard ran like hell.

The alarms wailed behind him, shrill, metallic screams that tore through the labyrinthine corridors like dying sirens. Crimson lights pulsed above his head, bathing the walls in an endless rhythm of blood and warning. Every flash seemed to cut time into pieces, heartbeat, breath, step, until the world became nothing but sound, light, and panic.

I need to hurry back!

Something moved in the dark behind him, inhuman, heavy, relentless. The metallic scrape of claws on tile echoed down the hallway, followed by a guttural hiss that didn’t belong to anything nature had ever made.

He didn’t dare look back.

The only thing that mattered was forward.

His boots pounded against the cracked floor, splashing through puddles of old water and oil. His breath came ragged, lungs burning, muscles screaming, but he pushed harder. He had seen too much. He had to bring it back, to the others, to the world, before the truth vanished with him.

A monstrous impact slammed into the wall beside him, the concrete denting inward with a deafening crack. Shards of plaster exploded across his face. He fired blind shots behind him, muzzle flashes illuminating grotesque shadows that twisted and vanished in the haze.

The corridors bent and turned, one indistinguishable from the next. Blood trails led to dead ends; flickering monitors displayed static like faint, ghostly whispers. He passed shattered pods, broken restraints, and doors that seemed to breathe as the building groaned under the weight of its secrets.

It felt endless, an asylum designed not to heal, but to trap.

By the time Richard stumbled into a corridor washed in dim, gray light, he had no idea how long he’d been running. His watch was cracked beyond repair, his throat dry as sandpaper, his heartbeat thunderous in his ears. The alarms had stopped, but the silence that followed was worse, unnatural, heavy, listening.

When he finally emerged into what passed for daylight, the sky above City E7 was the color of ash. The horizon glowed faintly orange through the perpetual smog, casting long shadows across the broken towers. Somewhere in that dying light waited the last of his squad, their safehouse, the crumbling hospital they had made their temporary refuge.

His heart sank the moment he saw it. The door was open.

No.

No, no, no...

He ran faster, stumbling through the threshold, rifle raised. The stench hit him first, iron, smoke, and something fouler beneath. The air was heavy with it, thick and suffocating.

Inside, the room was chaos. Tables overturned, blood smeared across walls, bullet holes pocked through plaster. The faint flicker of their generator light threw everything into ghostly motion, the shadows of a battle long over.

"Arden!" Richard shouted, voice cracking. "Lance! Zia!"

No answer.

Then he saw him.

Arden was slumped against the far wall, what remained of him barely recognizable. His uniform was shredded, his skin deathly pale. Everything below his ribs was gone, a void of blood and ruin.

Richard dropped beside him, his rifle clattering to the floor.

"Arden! Stay with me!" His voice broke. "Hey, don’t you dare close your eyes!"

The doctor’s chest hitched once, twice, a rattling gasp. Blood spilled from his lips as his eyes fluttered open, unfocused and glassy. "...Captain..."

"I’m here," Richard said quickly, gripping his shoulder. "What happened? Where are the others?"

Arden’s fingers twitched weakly, reaching for him.

"They came... out of nowhere. Fast. Strong." He swallowed hard, his voice trembling. "Zia fought... she, she didn’t make it. I tried..."

Richard shook his head violently. "Don’t. Don’t talk like that. We can still..."

But Arden’s weak smile silenced him. It was the kind of smile that only the dying had, resigned, weightless.

"No use, Captain. You know it." His breath came in shallow bursts. "You have to go. You’re the only one left who can tell them what really happened here..."

"Arden..."

His bloodied hand gripped Richard’s tighter. "Please... save yourself."

Then, his body went still.

The silence that followed was absolute.

Richard sat frozen beside him, unable to breathe. The distant hum of the dying generator filled the void, flickering over Arden’s lifeless face. For a long moment, Richard didn’t move. Couldn’t. His mind refused to accept what his eyes already knew, that his last comrade, his medic, his friend, was gone.

When he finally stood, his legs trembled. His vision swam. Rage, grief, exhaustion, all of it boiled beneath his skin until he felt hollow. He reached down, took Arden’s dog tag, and closed his eyes gently.

"You did your duty," he whispered. "I’ll do mine."

Then he turned away.

The rifle in his hands felt heavier than ever.

The hospital around him groaned, wind seeping through cracked windows. The city outside was dying, but he could still hear its faint heartbeat, the hum of machines, the distant echoes of things that should not be alive.

He couldn’t leave it like this.

If anyone found this place, if the Division returned, they’d rebuild. They’d continue the experiments, the breeding, the corruption that had turned men into monsters.

He couldn’t allow that.

Richard picked up a match from Arden’s scattered supplies. His hands shook as he struck it, the flame catching with a sharp hiss. It flickered uncertainly for a moment, then steadied, casting gold over his bloodstained fingers.

He dropped it.

The fire caught instantly, spreading over the soaked bandages and tattered curtains. It raced up the walls like it had been waiting for the chance.

Room by room, he moved through the complex, throwing matches, tipping canisters, feeding the flames until the air shimmered with heat.

Each flame was a memory.

Lance’s laughter.

Zia’s defiant grin.

Owen’s loyalty.

Arden’s final plea.

Every flicker devoured another piece of the past until all that remained were ashes and ghosts.

When he reached the laboratory, the chamber that had haunted his mind since the moment he found it, he stopped. The glass pods were still there, their inhabitants silent and still. The children that were never children. Victims of science, victims of ambition.

He stood in front of one pod, the girl with silver hair and eyes too familiar, and whispered, "I’m sorry."

Then he raised his rifle.

Glass shattered, liquid spilled, alarms screamed once more. He shot the control panels, the consoles, the power cores. Sparks burst, wires spat flame, and the lights died in a shower of static.

The ceiling groaned, the structure giving way under the growing inferno.

Only when the heat became unbearable did Richard turn toward the exit. His silhouette cut through the flames as he limped through the collapsing hallway.

Outside, the night greeted him with cold wind and silence. Behind him, the hospital burned, its fire painting the horizon in violent gold. Smoke billowed into the heavens like a funeral pyre for all the lives lost within.

Richard tore the Division patch from his uniform, staring at the insignia that once meant purpose, pride, and belonging. Now, it was only a symbol of everything he’d destroyed.

He dropped it into the fire. Watched it curl, blacken, and die.

"Goodbye, Squad S," he murmured. "Rest now."

The flames reflected in his eyes as he turned and walked away, each step heavier than the last. By dawn, the building was gone, swallowed by its own sins. And so was he.

Richard Jing, Captain of Squad S, ceased to exist that night.

In his place walked only a ghost, a man carrying the truth too dangerous to speak, and a promise too sacred to break.