The Night Everything ChangedVictor Graves' final words echoed through the chamber long after he stopped speaking because, although nobody immediately reacted, every person present understood that he had deliberately chosen those words to unsettle Brian. The silence that followed was not the silence of confusion but of anticipation, as though everyone had suddenly been transported back to a night more than twenty years earlier, a night whose consequences were only now beginning to reveal themselves.Brian's eyes remained fixed on Victor while his thoughts raced uncontrollably because he had spent years searching for the truth surrounding the destruction of his family, yet never once had he imagined that the answers might stretch back to the day he entered the world. Everything he had discovered since arriving at Blackwater Institute seemed to point toward the same impossible conclusion. His birth had never been an ordinary event, and every person standing inside the chamber appeared t

The Beginning of the EndThe first burst of gunfire shattered the uneasy silence inside the observation chamber, echoing through Blackwater Institute with such violence that everyone instinctively turned toward the surveillance screens. Muzzle flashes illuminated the enormous central atrium as dozens of Council soldiers opened fire simultaneously, their disciplined formation collapsing into frantic movement the moment Subject A-1 stepped into view. The barrage was relentless, thousands of rounds striking the creature with enough force to tear apart reinforced concrete behind it, yet when the smoke began to clear, the figure remained standing exactly where it had been.Brian narrowed his eyes.The bullets had landed.There was no question about that.His clothing had been shredded, and several impacts had driven him back half a step, but what emerged from the cloud of dust bore almost no visible injury. Small wounds marked his skin