A soft groan echoed through the dimly lit office as the doorknob turned, and the door creaked open. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting a sickly yellow hue over the scuffed linoleum floor. Each flicker scraped against Haturii's skull like a memory he hadn't asked for.
He stepped inside, his shoulders sagging beneath the weight of another sleepless night. His light goatee was uneven, and dark eye bags framed eyes that had seen too much and done even more. The rain had soaked through the back of his coat, and it clung to him like regret.
Across the room, two officers sat at a battered metal table, a half-played game of poker between them, their fingers lazily curling around glasses of amber whiskey. Smoke from a cigarette curled toward the ceiling fan that spun with a tired, mechanical hum.
Before you judge them, do remember: if your job involved upholding law and order while also hunting down creatures that defied logic, physics, and sometimes God Himself, you'd probably drink too.
Some retrieval events were uneventful. Others were nightmares.
This one?
It wasn't a nightmare. It was the moment the nightmare woke up.
"Welcome back," one of the officers mumbled without looking up.
"How'd it go?" the other asked, dealing a fresh hand with the bored flair of a man playing cards beside a ticking bomb.
Haturii sighed—his signature, soul-drained exhale—and walked toward them. With a dull thud, he dropped a thick stack of weathered folders onto the table. The force rattled the whiskey glasses.
The cards stilled. The men exchanged glances.
"That bad, huh?"
One officer reached for the top file. He didn't even flinch at the large red stamp slashed across the front: BREACH CONFIRMED.
"Alert the Claive Officers on patrol," he muttered. "We've got a rogue anomaly on the loose—containment cell 096. Systematic Wraith-Class."
The room changed instantly. The haze of alcohol and apathy burned away.
"Right." The younger officer pushed back his chair so fast it screeched, knocking over his glass. He didn't stop to clean it. He left the room at a near sprint.
The older one leaned forward, flipping the folder open. "Wait. Not just an attempt—an actual breach this time?" His voice lowered. "Those idiots at Sector Theta couldn't hold a balloon, let alone a Category 2."
His eyes skimmed the report, skipping line after line of jargon until—
There it was.
RS-07. Causes rapid atomic decay in reinforced alloys. Prolonged exposure destabilizes molecular bonds.
He closed the folder like it burned his fingers. "Oh, fantastic," he muttered. "A walking entropy engine. Just what we needed. And what about the two juvenile firecrackers you've got trailing you? Orange and Yukimo, was it?"
Haturii didn't flinch. "Orenji and Yukira."
"Right. Right. Never seem to get their names right."
"No, you don't," he said flatly, removing his coat and tossing it over the back of a chair. Steam rose from the fabric as it began to dry. "I gave them the day off."
"To keep them out of the way?"
"To keep them safe," Haturii said, his eyes narrowing. "Category 2s don't break out often. I don't want them involved."
The officer snorted, pouring another glass of whiskey. This time, he took his time with it, swirling the liquid like he was stalling for something to say.
"Yeah? Well, I'd bet my entire life savings and then yours that those delinquents won't sit this one out."
Haturii's jaw tightened. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, come on." He leaned back in his chair, tipping it dangerously. "We were just like them back in the day. You, the soft-spoken bookworm with a god complex. Me, the charming rebel. Running around disobeying orders and making our own damn rules. Good times. Good times." He said again.
"Those days are over," Haturii said, but there was no real conviction in it.
Truth was, he'd started carrying the weight of every mistake he couldn't fix. Every life lost when he hesitated. Every anomaly that slipped through his fingers.
He used to believe in justice. Now he only believed in containment.
The silence stretched between them. The distant sound of an alarm began to echo faintly from the lower levels. It was barely audible through the concrete walls, but unmistakable.
Containment breach confirmed.
Haturii turned toward the door, but Emmett stood and clumsily draped an arm over his shoulders. "You used to be fun, Haturii. What happened to you?"
The younger man didn't answer. His hand gripped the doorknob with quiet fury.
"You got old, man. You got scared. And you stayed that way."
Haturii turned slowly, his eyes dull but firm. "You're wasted, Emmett."
"I'm realistic," Emmett corrected with a tired grin. "That anomaly out there? It's going to burn this place to the ground. And I don't think you've got the fire left in you to stop it."
But Haturii was already walking away, footsteps heavy, his coat dripping behind him like ash—
fitting for a man who once played with fire and got burned.
He didn't reply, but in the hallway, away from Emmett, the words finally formed in his throat like a curse:
"I don't need fire. I need to survive."
"Even if I don't deserve to."
Because deep down, he still wasn't sure.
If the job was redemption… or punishment.
If he was protecting the world…
Or just running from everything he'd already let fall apart.
---
Outside the office, the hallway lights dimmed once. Then twice. Then flickered out entirely.
The backup generators kicked in. A cold, mechanical hum filled the base.
And somewhere miles away, under the drowning hush of rain and neon, a child's rubber ball rolled into the middle of an empty street. The air warped faintly around it like heat, but colder, hungrier. Paint peeled from nearby lampposts. Rust bloomed in fast-forward across stop signs. A stray cat hissed once, then vanished into the fog.
And from the edge of town, something stepped into the light.
Its outline blurred as if reality itself was rejecting it. Pavement cracked beneath each footfall. A distant power grid surged, then died with a groan. Streetlights blinked, sparked, and decayed in silence.
RS-07 had arrived.
And with it, came the slow unraveling of everything it touched.
Everything it leaned against.
And everyone who thought they were strong enough to stop it.
---
Humans fear the unknown.
And what they fear, they judge as evil.
What they cannot control… they destroy.
Dare I say, this is the world through my own eyes.
The sun didn't shine over Stonehaven today. Thick gray clouds stretched across the sky, dulling the light and pressing low over the rooftops. The air felt heavy, like the whole town was waiting for something to fall—rain for a second time today, maybe, or worse.
Wind moved through the streets in short, sharp gusts, stirring dust and loose trash. The buildings, worn down by time and weather, looked even older in the dim light.
Everything seemed darker, quieter, like the city was holding its breath.
The boy walked through it like he belonged to the silence. Not hidden, just ignored. A part of the background, easy to miss. His hoodie was pulled tight, sleeves torn at the cuffs. A bent cap covered his eyes, and a wrinkled surgical mask ripped from a hospital trash bin clung to his face.
It smelled faintly of antiseptic and ammonia, just enough to keep the world at a distance.
Trash for the trash.
It fit.
Rain hadn't started yet, but it was close.
He could feel it.
His face was too strange now. Too remembered.
If anyone looked too long—really looked—they'd scream. Or worse, recognize him.
He didn't know where he was going. Only that he had to keep moving.
Because stopping meant thinking.
And thinking meant remembering.
Although...
He stumbled.
A sharp breath. A flash.
I don't remember this happening…
The thought sliced through his head like a falling shard of glass; sharp, unwelcome.
Then the memories bled through.
Too fast. Too loud.
Men in black.
Red lights.
The crack of gunfire in a sterile corridor.
His body hitting the window. The glass shattering. The ground rushing up to meet him—
The pain blooming in his shoulder like fire beneath skin.
God.
Even now… it still hurt!
The Foundation.
Their pristine white walls, soaked in red.
The sounds. Screams. Wet ones.
Bones snapping like brittle branches.
A man folding like paper beneath a single kick.
His kick.
He sucked in a shaky breath. His feet dragged for half a second before he forced them forward again.
There'd been a time when he thought he could go home after this.
To her.
Her smile was already fading in his memory like heat leaking from a forgotten cup of tea. He couldn't even remember her voice anymore. Just the sound of it… safe.
It was stupid, but he used to think survival meant something.
Now, it just meant being awake for the next nightmare.
Now, here among civilians, he kept walking.
Kept his fists clenched at his sides until the tension made his hands ache.
He didn't trust his body anymore.
It moved too fast. Hit too hard.
Reacted before he could think.
And when he did think, it terrified him.
A metallic taste sat on his tongue.
It was blood from the split on his lip.
He'd bitten down too hard again.
A mother passed by him on the sidewalk, clutching her child's hand tighter as she glanced at him.
She didn't say anything.
But she didn't have to.
Some part of her probably sensed it—
the wrongness beneath the hoodie.
The ticking under his skin.
He turned his head away.
It was always like this now.
Eyes darting. Shoulders hunched.
A quiet war between staying hidden… and not exploding.
And in the space between his ribs, a thought pulsed like a bruise:
If they knew what I really was…
they'd put me down like a dog, for sure.
Because no matter how far he ran,
one truth stuck to him like ash:
He wasn't supposed to survive.
And whatever had crawled out of that lab wearing his skin—
wasn't sure it wanted to, either.