Keene / Rose / Mira / Lsael

  The dark doesn’t arrive all at once.

  It creeps in.

  First the ceiling lights die, one strip at a time, leaving long bands of shadow between emergency reds. Then the machines soften—screens dim, numbers blur, alarms drop into a low, distant murmur like the hospital itself is trying not to be noticed.

  The hum of ventilation fades next.

  Then the faint whirr of stabilized air.

  Then even the small background noises—the ones no one notices until they’re gone.

  The hospital isn’t powering down.

  It’s holding its breath.

  Keene feels Mira’s grip tighten.

  Her fingers are cold.

  Too cold.

  “I’m fine,” she says quickly, too quickly, when he looks at her.

  She isn’t.

  Her breathing is uneven now, shallow pulls that don’t quite finish. The machine beside her clicks, hesitates, then resumes like it’s arguing with itself.

  The oxygen line twitches faintly.

  Keene notices everything.

  Too much.

  The room smells different without full circulation—metallic, stale, faintly burnt from earlier gunfire. He hates that his brain registers it.

  Rose watches all of it.

  She stands a few steps back, bow lowered, jaw tight. Her eyes keep moving—door, hallway, window, back to Mira. Calculating paths that don’t exist anymore.

  She doesn’t pace.

  She doesn’t fidget.

  But the tension in her shoulders gives her away.

  Lsael shifts his weight.

  The movement is small, controlled—but Keene hears the sharp intake of breath anyway.

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  Blood has soaked through the fabric around Lsael’s ankle again, dark and sticky against the floor. It spreads slowly, deliberate, like it has nowhere else to be.

  He doesn’t look down.

  He hasn’t since the arrow came out.

  “My foot’s not working right,” Lsael says, voice even. “I can’t keep pace like this.”

  Rose turns on him immediately. “If you want to die here, I’ll let you.”

  Her voice isn’t loud.

  It doesn’t need to be.

  Keene stiffens, but Lsael just exhales.

  “If you’re tired,” Rose continues, cold and precise, “feel free to sit down and wait for it. If you want to live—then you move.”

  There’s a beat.

  The kind where a weaker person would snap back.

  Then Lsael smiles. Small. Stubborn.

  “Nope,” he says. “I want to live tonight.”

  The tension in the room shifts by a fraction.

  Keene lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

  Mira coughs.

  Harder this time.

  The sound is thin.

  It shouldn’t be thin.

  Keene is at her side instantly, one hand steadying her shoulders, the other gripping the bed rail like it might anchor her to the world.

  “Keene,” she whispers. “I’m… I’m getting dizzy.”

  Her pupils aren’t tracking right.

  He looks up at Rose.

  “If anyone can stabilize her right now,” he says quietly, “it’s the Doctor.”

  Rose’s head snaps toward him. “He’s the reason this is happening.”

  “I know,” Keene says. “But he’s also the only one who understands the machines keeping her alive.”

  The red light flickers overhead.

  For a second, Rose’s face disappears into shadow.

  This is the choice.

  Ten Piece… or Mira.

  Outside, somewhere deeper in the building, something heavy shifts.

  Metal on concrete.

  Slow.

  Rose closes her eyes.

  Just for a second.

  Her fingers tighten around the bow grip until her knuckles pale.

  Then she reaches up and taps the small device at her ear—the grain-resonant communicator the old man insisted Noel build, without explanation.

  “Everyone,” she says softly. “Change of priority.”

  Her voice tightens, but it doesn’t break.

  “We’re saving her.”

  The device hums faintly as responses begin to come in.

  Short acknowledgments.

  No arguments.

  Even in the dark, she still commands.

  Keene swallows.

  He doesn’t thank her.

  He doesn’t need to.

  But something shifts between them.

  Not trust.

  Not yet.

  But direction.

  ---

  Razan / Elva / Noel

  The darkness here is different.

  Not quiet—thick.

  It presses against the goggles before they’re even lowered.

  Razan leans against the wall, listening to the echo of his own breathing. Somewhere ahead, metal scrapes. Somewhere behind, something drips steadily onto tile.

  He rolls his shoulder once.

  Pain answers immediately.

  He ignores it.

  Elva stops suddenly.

  “…Using goggles might’ve been smart,” she mutters.

  Razan blinks. “Goggles?”

  She reaches up and flips a set of Veinrunner night goggles down over her eyes.

  The corridor snaps into sharp, sickly green.

  Shadows sharpen into edges.

  Heat signatures bloom faintly in the distance.

  Razan stares. “Where did you find those?”

  Elva shrugs. “From Veinrunners. Of course.”

  She glances back at him, faint smirk visible even through the lenses.

  “Some of us think, you know.”

  Razan frowns. “What do you mean?”

  Elva adjusts the strap, tone dry. “Exactly.”

  Noel lets out a quiet laugh as he pulls his own pair down. “I told you she was terrifying.”

  The lenses hum faintly as they calibrate.

  Razan mutters something under his breath and takes the goggles Elva tosses him.

  The world changes.

  The corridor stretches long and clear now—heat signatures smeared along the walls, boot prints glowing faintly on the floor.

  Ceiling tiles hang crooked.

  Doors half-open.

  And at the far end—

  Something big moves.

  Too big.

  Razan stills.

  The shape steps forward, filling the width of the hallway. Armor thick. Shoulders wide enough to scrape the walls. Vein energy pulsing slow and heavy beneath the plating like a second heartbeat.

  The air around it feels dense.

  Like pressure before impact.

  A Tier-2 Veinrunner.

  Even without Vein flare, the thing feels engineered.

  Razan’s mouth twitches.

  “…Only crap.”

  The Veinrunner tilts its head slightly.

  Then moves.

  Fast.

  Too fast for something that size.

  Razan doesn’t think.

  He throws a punch—

  —and the impact never comes.

  Something slams into his side instead, a brutal backhand that lifts him clean off his feet and sends him crashing through the doorway of an adjacent room.

  The wall explodes inward.

  Glass, tile, and dust swallow him whole.

  Sound drops into a ringing vacuum.

  Elva shouts his name.

  Noel swears and ducks back as the Veinrunner steps forward, unhurried, certain.

  Each footstep dents tile.

  The goggles flicker.

  Static crawls across the lenses.

  The lights flicker once more.

  Then go out completely.

  Darkness.

  Total.

  Somewhere in that black—

  The Veinrunner breathes.

  Slow.

  Measured.

  And Razan pushes himself up through the debris, coughing dust, teeth bared.