2025-10-27 04:27:01The highway leading out of Braxton City stretched into a ribbon of darkness. The storm from the previous night had not yet cleared; clouds hung heavy and brooding, the kind that carried more than rain. Leanna gripped the steering wheel tightly as their black SUV cut through the mist. Beside her, Ethan stared out the window, the photo of the mystery woman resting in his lap. The coordinates had led them to the outskirts of the city, a region long abandoned, where old research facilities once stood before the government declared the zone “biohazardous.”
“No one’s been here in years,” Leanna muttered, glancing at the cracked road ahead. “The last satellite record of Sector Nine was wiped clean. Whatever happened here… someone wanted it buried.”
Ethan’s gaze stayed fixed on the fog ahead. “Then let’s dig it up.”
They reached a massive iron gate, rusted but still standing. Faded warning signs hung crookedly from the fence: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY — BIOLOGICAL RISK.
Leanna parked the SUV and checked her weapon, a small security-issue sidearm. “Old habits,” she said when Ethan raised an eyebrow. “You used to hate guns.”
“Guess I’m relearning,” he replied, pushing the gate. It creaked open slowly, revealing a dirt path swallowed by weeds. The air inside was unnaturally still. Every footstep echoed like a heartbeat in a graveyard.
Beyond the overgrowth, they found it — a large concrete structure buried halfway into the ground. Its steel doors were welded shut, but a faded sign above it still read: Lazarus Research Division — Property of Braxton Pharmaceuticals.
Ethan froze. “My name,” he whispered. “This place belonged to me.”
Leanna crouched by the door, examining the electronic lock. “Old security tech — your old style too. If you coded this, you could break it.”
He placed his hand on the pad. It scanned him silently, and after a tense moment, a soft green light flickered to life. ACCESS GRANTED.
The doors groaned open. Inside, the air was stale and cold. Rows of medical pods lined the walls, each one covered in a thick film of dust and condensation. Some were shattered, others still faintly glowing with power.
Leanna shone her flashlight on the pods. “Ethan… these are human stasis chambers.”
He stepped closer, wiping a hand across one of the glass panels. Behind it lay a body, motionless, pale, but not decomposed. A faint mechanical pulse blinked on the side of the pod.
“They’re alive,” he murmured. “In suspended animation.”
Leanna’s voice trembled slightly. “Are you saying these were test subjects for Project Lazarus?”
Ethan’s throat tightened. “No… these were patients. We were trying to heal people with terminal brain damage.”
He activated the nearest control terminal. Old data filled the screen, glitching text and corrupted video files. Leanna leaned over his shoulder as he decrypted one labeled Trial 23 – Subject Beta.
The recording began. It showed Ethan — the old Ethan — standing beside Dr. Voss in this very facility.
“The procedure is ready,” the younger Ethan said. “Subject Beta shows 92% neural reconstruction.”
Voss’s voice followed, calm but cold. “Proceed. The board wants results.”
The video flickered. A bright light filled the room, then alarms blared. Ethan in the video turned in panic as sparks exploded from the control panels. And then — a woman’s scream. The footage cut abruptly to black.
Leanna exhaled shakily. “That woman’s voice… Ethan, that was her. The woman in your photo.”
He nodded slowly, staring at the screen. “She wasn’t just a patient. She was Subject Beta.”
They continued deeper into the facility until they reached a locked elevator at the end of the corridor. Ethan keyed in the same override code that had worked earlier. The elevator doors slid open, revealing a descent into darkness.
“Still sure about this?” Leanna asked, her voice steady but cautious.
“I have to know,” he said. “If she’s still alive… she’s down there.”
The elevator hummed as it descended, the metallic groan echoing through the shaft. When it stopped, a cold rush of air swept over them. The lower level was unlike the rest of the facility — cleaner, still powered, and lined with flickering lights.
In the center of the room was a single pod, larger, newer, and connected to a tangle of cables. Leanna stepped closer, and her voice faltered. “Ethan… look.”
Inside the pod lay the same woman from the photo, alive, floating in a viscous liquid, her face peaceful as if she were merely sleeping.
Ethan’s heart pounded. “It’s her.”
He reached for the control panel, but a sharp click echoed from behind them.
Leanna froze. From the shadows, armed men in black tactical gear stepped into view, rifles raised. Their insignia — a silver serpent wrapped around a cross — gleamed faintly under the light.
A cold voice came from the intercom above. “Dr. Braxton,” the voice said smoothly. “I told you to stay dead.”
Ethan’s blood ran cold. “Voss.”
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Voss continued. “But since you have, perhaps it’s time you remembered everything.”
Leanna’s hand moved subtly toward her gun, but before she could react, the pod beside them hissed open, releasing a wave of icy mist. The woman inside began to stir, her eyelids fluttering.
Ethan took a step forward. “She’s waking up.”
Then her eyes opened, and they were glowing faintly blue. The soldiers stepped back as she slowly rose from the pod, liquid dripping from her hair. Her voice came out hollow, echoing strangely.
“Ethan… you came back.”
He froze. “You know me?”
A tear slid down her cheek, and then, just as quickly, her expression shifted into something unreadable.
“You shouldn’t have.”
The lights flickered violently. The alarms blared to life.
And then the entire underground facility began to shake.
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Chapter 208
The city did not announce Mara’s disappearance.It never did.Disappearances were absorbed the way rain was absorbed by cracked pavement,quietly, unevenly, leaving darker patches that no one wanted to step in. Leanna learned of it the way she learned everything now, indirectly, through absence.Mara did not answer her comms.Mara did not show up for the morning briefing.Mara did not argue when Leanna proposed rerouting supplies.At first, Leanna told herself it was caution,that Mara was lying low,that this was what survival looked like now silence, misdirection, patience.By noon, denial tasted like ash.Leanna stood in the small office behind the clinic, hands braced against the desk, staring at the empty chair opposite her. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and old paper,outside, volunteers moved in low voices, their steps careful, as if sound itself had become dangerous.She replayed the last conversation with Korrin again and again, searching for the moment she might have mi
Chapter 207
The city did not react all at once,and that was what unsettled Leanna most.There was no riot after the Council’s announcement,no cheers either,just a slow, uneven ripple,conversations in doorways, pauses in broadcast chatter, eyes lifting from screens and then dropping again. People absorbed the news the way one absorbed a change in weather,warily, with the instinct to adapt before questioning whether it was deserved.Leanna Hale appointed Civil Liaison to the Council,temporary mandate,oversight of humanitarian coordination.Temporary.Everything dangerous was always temporary at first.She watched the broadcast from a quiet room above the clinic, the sound turned low,her name looked strange in official typography, stripped of context and blood and fear,cleaned,sanitized.Legitimized.Mara stood behind her, arms folded so tightly her knuckles had gone white.“You didn’t warn us,” Mara said.Leanna didn’t turn. “I didn’t know until an hour ago.”“You could have refused.”“Yes.”Silenc
Chapter 206
The city learned restraint the way a wounded animal learned stillness.Carefully,suspiciously,with flinches that never quite went away.Leanna felt it every morning when she walked through the lower districts,the pauses in conversation when uniforms passed, the way shopkeepers kept their hands visible, the way laughter died down too fast,peace had arrived, but it had not been welcomed,it sat heavy in the air, like humidity before a storm.She had stopped pretending this was temporary.That was the first lie leadership burned out of you.There was no until Ethan returns,no until Korrin overreaches,no clean turning point waiting just beyond the horizon. There was only now messy, compromised, fragile,and the question of what kind of damage you were willing to accept in order to keep it standing.Leanna stood in the clinic doorway and watched volunteers work in practiced silence. Bandages. Rations. Quiet reassurances murmured to people who didn’t ask for hope anymore just relief.Mara joi
Chapter 205
The city learned how to live without Ethan faster than it should have,and that was the cruelest part.Leanna noticed it in the small things first the way patrol routes stabilized, the way blackouts became scheduled instead of sudden, the way people stopped looking over their shoulders every time a rumor passed through the streets. Order settled in like dust, quiet and persistent, coating everything.Korrin’s order.She hated how efficient it was.Three days after Ethan left, Leanna stood on the balcony of the safehouse and watched the city breathed,morning traffic crawled below,vendors argued over prices,children ran across cracked pavement chasing something that looked like hope but might have just been boredom.Life went on.That should have been comforting.Instead, it felt like betrayal.She pressed her palms against the railing, grounding herself. Sleep had become optional these past nights,brief, shallow, full of half-dreams where Ethan was always just out of reach,not dead,not
Chapter 204
The city did not celebrate.That was the first thing Leanna noticed when they released her.No crowds,no cheers,no whispered legends rising up the way they always had when Ethan broke something that was supposed to be unbreakable,just streets moving at their usual pace, people stepping around each other with careful indifference, as if nothing monumental had happened at all.As if the world hadn’t tilted.She stood at the edge of the transport bay long after the guards unlocked her cuffs and shoved her forward,the metal doors slid shut behind her with a sound that felt final in a way she couldn’t explain,not imprisonment ending,but something else.Something quieter.Her wrists were raw,her body ached in the dull, exhausted way that came after fear had burned itself out,but it was her chest that hurt most tight, shallow breaths, like her lungs didn’t trust the air anymore.Ethan.That was the thought she couldn’t escape.Not where he was,but what did he do.She had seen the broadcast.
Chapter 203
Night did not fall in the city anymore.It descended.The kind of darkness that didn’t simply remove light but rearranged meaning,turning familiar streets into corridors of intent, every shadow a decision waiting to be made. Ethan moved through it without disguise, without haste. That alone felt like a provocation.People noticed.They always did now.Some turned away quickly, fear reflexive and sharp. Others stared too long, eyes burning with questions they would never ask out loud,a few inclined their heads, gestures small but weighted, like prayers offered to something they weren’t sure deserved worship.Ethan hated that most of all.He adjusted the strap of his jacket and kept walking.Korrin’s perimeter loomed ahead not a wall, not a gate, but a gradual shift in atmosphere. Surveillance density increased,patrol patterns tightened,the air itself felt watched. This was where the city stopped pretending it was shared.Ethan crossed the invisible line anyway.Immediately, his comm ch
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