The Healer’s Code

Chapter 4 – Echoes of the Pulse

The flash swallowed everything. For one blinding second, David thought he’d been erased, no pain, no sound, only light like static burned into his eyelids.

Then came the noise. A roar, deep and metallic, as if the walls themselves were breathing. Sparks fell like fireflies. He hit the ground hard enough to lose his breath. “Lena!” he shouted.

No answer, only the low hum of electricity crawling through the dark. He tried to stand. The floor tilted; his vision lagged a second behind reality.

Shapes shifted in the half-light: the training mats overturned, a medical tray spinning to a stop. And somewhere beyond that, footsteps.

Not hurried. Confident. The kind of pace that said, We know exactly where you are. David’s pulse quickened. “Elias?”

“I’m here.” The mentor’s voice came from the shadows near the storage door. Calm, but not steady.

“What, what was that?”

“They used an EMP-pulse. Crude, but effective.”

Lena groaned from somewhere behind a toppled bench. “Can we not have a day without explosions?”

“Stay down,” Elias warned.

The footsteps stopped. Then, static. A faint, mechanical hiss. From the glare of the doorway, the intruders reappeared.

Three silhouettes wrapped in that strange, faint glow of blue. Their faces were hidden behind smooth visors that reflected the emergency lights like mirrors.

The one in front spoke through a voice filter that turned words to machinery. “Dr. Morrow. Return the subject. End this chase.”

Elias stepped forward slowly, putting himself between the figures and his students. “You’re trespassing,” he said evenly. “You won’t like the service here.”

The lead figure tilted his head. “You were always a terrible comedian.”

David whispered, “They know him.”

Lena whispered back, “Yeah, and they didn’t bring flowers.”

“Quiet,” Elias murmured without looking back.

The lead intruder raised a gloved hand. A faint blue shimmer built around his palm, a restrained storm.

Elias answered by snapping his fingers.

A small disk at his belt flared to life, throwing a field of pale gold around them. Energy met energy, light without heat, sound without thunder, and the air trembled.

David’s hair stood on end. “What is that?”

“A containment field,” Elias said through clenched teeth. “Primitive. Temporary.”

“Meaning”

“Meaning run when I tell you to.”

Lena helped David to his feet. “You heard the man.”

Elias turned his head just enough to meet David’s eyes. “Do you remember the resonance we practiced?”

David nodded weakly. “Barely.”

“Find it again. Trust it. When the time comes, follow the light.”

Before David could ask what that meant, the containment field cracked like glass. The intruders moved, one step, and the distance vanished.

The room erupted into motion: soundless impacts, flashes of gold and blue, the air twisting around invisible force. David couldn’t follow it.

He saw Elias move faster than logic, redirecting energy with open palms, deflecting blows that landed a breath too late.

He saw Lena dive for cover, dragging him toward the back wall. And he heard the lead attacker say, almost gently,  “Still protecting the boy. Just like before.”

Elias froze for half a second. That pause cost him everything. A burst of light hit the floor where he’d been standing. The shockwave rolled through the clinic like a storm front, flinging equipment and people alike.

David hit the ground again, hard, but this time the world tilted sideways. He felt the echo of energy rush up his spine, familiar and wrong at the same time.

He tried to crawl toward Elias, but his limbs didn’t obey. The air felt heavy, like trying to move underwater.

“Stop,” Elias said, his voice suddenly close, right beside David now. “They can’t take you if you’re not conscious.”

“What?”

Elias touched two fingers to the side of David’s neck. “Forgive me.”

A pulse of warmth, then black. He woke to silence. Not the peaceful kind, the empty, wrong kind. The world around him had changed; it smelled of dust and ozone. His head throbbed.

David blinked until the darkness sharpened into shapes. He was lying in what looked like a different section of the warehouse, smaller, reinforced, lined with emergency lights that pulsed red every few seconds.

Lena sat nearby, wiping blood from her temple. She looked up as he stirred. “About time you joined the land of the awake.”

“What happened?”

“You passed out. Your teacher pulled something straight out of a spy movie, flash bomb, hidden door, the works. When I came to, we were down here. He’s gone.”

“Gone?”

She nodded grimly. “Took one of their suits with him. Pretty sure he wanted them to follow.”

David sat up slowly. His body felt heavy, but the warmth in his hands was gone, quiet now, like the hum had been muted. “He left us?”

“He saved us. Then left. Difference.”

David ran a hand through his hair. “He said to follow the light.”

Lena frowned. “What light?”

He looked around. The emergency lamps flickered again, slow, steady, three pulses at a time. And then, in the middle of the room, one of the lights blinked out, replaced by a faint, glowing symbol burned onto the wall.

A caduceus, drawn in gold. Under it, three words shimmered briefly before fading: “THE VAULT OPENS.”

Lena whispered, “What does that mean?”

David stared at the fading mark, heartbeat drumming louder than the alarms “I think,” he said quietly, “it means the real secret wasn’t him. It’s us.”

The last light flickered, then died, plunging them into darkness once more, and somewhere above, the sound of footsteps began again.