“What… are you doing?”
Raven forced himself not to look at the thing they had dragged away.
Where were the others? Lucas? Angus? Had they been taken for testing too — or worse?
The image of the mutated body still clung to his mind, sour and nauseating, but the rifles pointed at him were far worse.
Cold. Final. Unarguable.
His stomach tightened as if something heavy had been dropped inside it.
“What is this about?” he asked, forcing his voice steady.
“Standard procedure,” the guard replied emotionlessly, as if the question itself were unnecessary.
No further explanation came.
The guard raised a device shaped like a handgun. Its front split open into a metallic ring.
Disgusting.
That was Raven’s first thought.
Before he could move, the ring snapped shut around his wrist.
A sharp sting shot through his arm — not deep, not enough to injure, just enough to make his fingers twitch.
A green light blinked.
The device released and pulled away.
Raven stared at his hand.
A smooth black band now circled his wrist, seamless and unbroken, as though it had always been there.
Not tight — but inescapable.
A faint display flickered to life.
Time.
Vital indicators.
And beneath them:
8367310
“What is this?” Raven demanded.
“Ark citizen identification,” the guard said. “Your assigned assets.”
“For what?”
“Purchasing necessities. Food. Supplies. Living access.”
Raven barely processed the words.
His thoughts were stuck on the pain.
Injection? Tagging? Tracking?
He tried to remove the band.
It didn’t move.
The metal felt unnaturally cold, like something that didn’t belong to the living.
“When can I leave isolation?” he asked, stepping back.
The guard tapped the band. A pulse of light scanned across it.
“You are cleared.”
Relief didn’t come.
“Follow me. You will be transferred to the upper residential sector.”
Upper.
So there were lower sectors too.
Of course there were.
The elevator walls were mirrored steel.
As the doors closed, Raven spotted a surveillance camera in the corner.
Watching. Recording. Judging.
The lift hummed as it began to rise.
“Where is the Ark going?” he asked quietly.
The guard didn’t answer, for a few seconds, Raven thought he will never have his reply, then he heard a stiff, cold tone---
"It is none of your business. "
The guard press the button that have written F on it, then turn around not facing Raven, like trying to ignore him.
"Pardon, that is my business, in fact of the opposite way, you don't decide what I will do. "
Raven did got the guard mad on purpose, for getting more information.
"No, it. is. not. "
The guard only was mad for a flash, then remain calm.
"My job, is to sent someone to their group, not killing someone, if allowed so I will have done it on you already, so stop. talking. then have a piece of cake with your group, how does that sounds? "
"Terrible. "
It is hard to tell Raven is talking about the guard or the ring.
Ding.
"Out. you. go."
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The guard pushed Raven out of the elevator then close the door real soon as if Raven is going to run back to him.
"Over here! "
Raven heard Angus's voice then look over, she is waving her hand in the huge crowd, almost all of the twenty-four people are around.
He figures that Lucas is not in a good mood, but what is more weird is that no more even asked her what is going on.
She looks like she was in an argue with someone, or at least like that.
"Hem... how was your room? "
Alex coughs loud when Raven looking at Lucas, who is turning her head at the other way and mad.
"Worst. "Raven talk bitterly, "I saw a infected people taking away by the guards. "
Several people nearby visibly recoiled at the mention of it, their expressions tightening with quiet disgust.
Angus gave Raven an apologetic smile, as if she hadn’t meant for him to hear that part. Then she gently caught his sleeve and pulled him a few steps away from the others.
“Hey,” she murmured, lowering her voice. “Lucas just saw someone.”
Raven frowned. “Who?”
“Her father.”
That made him pause.
“He’s here,” Angus continued. “Working here.”
Raven followed the direction of her gaze.
Across the hall, near another elevator entrance, stood a man in a dark uniform, speaking calmly with several personnel dressed in similar attire. Unlike the guards downstairs, none of them carried weapons.
They looked… important.
Authoritative.
Untouchable.
The man’s posture was rigid, his expression stern, as if the chaos around him had nothing to do with him at all.
Raven glanced back toward Lucas instinctively.
She stood at the edge of the crowd, her jaw tight, eyes fixed on the man with an intensity that bordered on hostility.
Not relief.
Not shock.
Anger.
Raw and unmistakable.
Raven leaned closer to Angus. “Why would she be upset? Isn’t that… good? Her father survived.”
Angus hesitated.
“I don’t know,” she admitted quietly. “She didn’t explain. I don’t think she wants to.”
Lucas finally tore her gaze away and noticed them watching.
Her expression closed instantly, like a door slammed shut.
“Don’t ask,” she said flatly as she walked past.
And that was the end of it.
At least for now.
Raven couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever history stood between Lucas and that man…
It was not something the Ark could contain.
Just as they were speaking, a metallic door embedded in the opposite wall slid open with a sharp mechanical hiss.
Everyone nearby turned instinctively.
From the dim passage beyond, several scientists in full protective suits emerged, their visors reflecting the sterile lights of the corridor. They moved with urgent precision, pushing a reinforced transport cart between them.
On the cart sat a cylindrical water tank.
The liquid inside was crystal clear, almost unnaturally so.
Suspended within it were several translucent jellyfish, their faint blue pulses glowing softly like drifting ghosts.
No one spoke.
Something about the way the scientists handled the tank — careful, controlled, almost tense — made it obvious that whatever was inside was far from harmless.
They rushed past, wheels rattling softly against the floor, heading toward another restricted corridor without sparing the civilians a glance.
It felt less like transporting research…
and more like moving a weapon.
A few unfamiliar personnel stood not far away, talking in low voices.
Sofia had been about to approach Raven, but both of them paused as fragments of the conversation drifted over.
“…ocean contamination…”
“…biological mutation rates increasing…”
“…toxic exposure…”
“…serum stability…”
“…follow standard SOP protocols…”
The words were clinical.
Detached.
Terrifying precisely because of how routine they sounded.
Sofia’s hand slowly tightened around Raven’s sleeve.
“That didn’t sound like they were talking about animals,” she whispered.
Raven didn’t answer.
His eyes were still fixed on the corridor where the scientists had disappeared.
For the first time since entering the Ark, he felt a cold certainty settle into his bones—
The disaster outside wasn’t just weather.
Only for one day and he already seen how infection does to human, it will be much worst if it happens on animal.
The intercom crackled to life, cold and precise: “Ark is about to launch. All residents may proceed to the glass dome on the top level to observe the night sky.”
A ripple of excitement ran through the crowd. Some grabbed each other’s arms, murmuring with anticipation; others muttered complaints about the long wait. Lucas immediately pulled Raven and a few others close, her movements sharp and decisive. “Come on, we’re going to the top.”
They squeezed into several elevators, pressed against the damp steel walls. The hum of machinery mixed with shallow breaths and whispered comments, each floor passing with a hiss of the doors and a faint rush of wind that carried the chill from outside.
Finally, they reached the top level. The lights were dim, casting soft shadows along the railings, yet the view beyond the glass was impossible to miss. Raven’s eyes widened—the night sky was ablaze with auroras, streaks of violet and green weaving through the dark, while countless stars twinkled like scattered diamonds.
Many residents immediately pulled out their phones, snapping photos and sharing them online, faces flushed with brief exhilaration.
But Lucas stood still, unmoving, staring at the sky with an intensity that made her seem almost statuesque. Raven approached, gently tugging her sleeve. “What is it?”
Lucas didn’t turn. She pointed upward. “Look… the stars… they’re flickering.”
Raven and Maple followed her gaze, frowning. At first, it seemed like ordinary twinkles, but then some stars blacked out suddenly, as if a hidden veil had passed over them, before returning to their glow.
Seconds later, they realized the moving black shapes weren’t planes, nor clouds, but enormous birds.
Their silhouettes resembled eagles, yet their flight was stiff, unnatural; wings beat mechanically. Occasionally, one would plummet from high above, the sharp rush of air cutting through the silence.
What made it worse, and deeply unsettling, was that they circled within roughly fifty feet of the Ark, as if tethered to it by an invisible force, flying low and deliberate, forming a shadowy ring around the massive vessel.
A tense coldness settled over the group. Raven’s hand twitched, his eyes darting between Lucas’s focused face and the eerie sky. He realized she wasn’t admiring the stars—she was watching them, alert to some unseen threat.
Maple whispered, “These… these birds… they’re not natural.”
The dim lights reflected off the glass beneath them, stretching their shadows long across the floor. Every breath they took felt momentarily frozen under the weight of the unknown.
Sofia frowned, her voice low: “That’s not eagle behavior. Normally, they wouldn’t fly this high. Above the clouds, there may be slight snowstorms, but hunting at this altitude is unnecessary. And… look at their tails and wings. Flapping is minimal, stiff. They can’t maintain balance naturally.”
Raven’s mind raced.
These eagles… they were infected. Their behavior completely abnormal.
A tense silence fell over the dome. Beneath the auroras and starlight, the beauty of the night sky now felt laced with an invisible danger, a hidden warning.
