[Oliver's PoV]

  A few years earlier

  He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

  Someone he didn’t know had both of his legs in hand, hauling him backward through mud and dirt. Each pull sent a jolt of pain through his body. Sometimes his head struck the ground, bouncing lightly against a rock or root. The world tilted and spun in disjointed rhythm, and still, his rescuer didn’t stop.

  The rain was merciless, stinging his skin and blinding his sight. Every time he tried to speak, to ask where they were going, his chest seized in agony. His ribs burned, his lungs protested, and the attempt dissolved into shallow, ragged breaths.

  After what felt like an eternity, the ground beneath him changed. Through the haze of exhaustion, Oliver caught glimpses of a small, white-walled building.

  The stranger didn’t slow. He dragged Oliver across a polished floor, the sound of boots echoing through the narrow space.

  “He needs treatment,” the stranger’s deep voice said, firm and unshaken despite the storm still raging outside.

  Other sounds filled the room: coughing, footsteps, the steady rhythm of machines beeping.

  “Is it urgent?” someone asked, their tone clinical, detached.

  “He doesn’t need to be perfect,” the stranger replied. “Just enough to keep him alive.”

  “Got it. Put him on that bed; someone will check him.”

  Hands gripped Oliver’s shoulders and legs, lifting him carefully from the floor. The contact sent fire through his nerves, but then he felt the softness of a bed beneath him, the faint warmth of a blanket. His consciousness wavered. The edges of the world blurred and folded into darkness.

  “Put him under,” another voice said, calm but firm. “If we don’t anesthetize him, the pain might trigger a fever.”

  “Right.”

  Oliver barely registered the prick of a needle slipping into his arm. His vision dimmed, colors fading into shadow.

  And then, at last, the pain receded, swallowed by the heavy pull of sleep.

  At first, there was only sound.

  A steady rhythm of beeps. Each one echoed faintly in the void, pulling Oliver slowly back from the depths of unconsciousness. Then came the smell: metal, disinfectant, and something else beneath it.

  He tried to open his eyes.

  The attempt sent a spear of light straight through his skull. The brightness was blinding, white and merciless, forcing him to squint and blink until the shapes around him began to take form.

  A ceiling. Smooth, pale, and sterile.

  'A medical bay?'

  He became aware of the weight on his body. The tug of cables attached to his chest and arms, the faint pulse of machines syncing with his heartbeat. A monitor beside him beeped in perfect rhythm, its holographic display flickering with his vitals.

  His mind was sluggish, thoughts crawling through fog. But through the haze, he began to see movement. Figures passed in front of his bed; medics in crisp uniforms, their voices blending into a low murmur of orders and diagnostics.

  'Uniforms…?' he thought weakly. 'From which House? Who found me?'

  He turned his head slowly, the motion sending a dull ache through his neck. His gaze drifted to the right and froze.

  Someone was standing beside his bed, watching him.

  Tall. Motionless. Eyes fixed on him with an intensity that made his pulse spike.

  Oliver’s heart lurched, his breath catching painfully in his chest. The sudden motion sent a sharp bolt of agony through his ribs.

  “Shit,” he hissed through clenched teeth, pressing a hand against his side.

  “Damn it, Thalos!” a woman’s voice snapped from somewhere nearby. “I told you to stop staring at my patients!”

  The figure blinked, stepping back slightly. “Apologies, Doctor,” came the reply.

  Oliver caught his breath, blinking away the pain. His vision cleared in time to see the speaker. Tall, with mechanical arms and part of the legs, but worse of all, wearing a front-opened orange shirt.

  The doctor approached, her white coat flaring slightly as she moved. Her expression was brisk, efficient, the kind of calm that came from dealing with too many emergencies and not enough time. She scanned Oliver with a handheld device, its blue light sweeping across his body in a narrow arc.

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  “Alright,” she said after a moment, her tone clipped. “He’s conscious. Good. Get him dressed and move him out. I need this bed for someone else.”

  Oliver blinked, trying to process her words. “Wait. What?”

  The doctor was already turning away, her voice fading as she issued more orders. “He’ll be fine, but his treatment needs to continue elsewhere. We’re full here.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Thalos replied, his tone steady but deferential.

  The moment the doctor gave the order, the medics moved with machine-like precision. Hands descended on Oliver, unclipping cables and detaching sensors from his arms and chest. The hiss of suction tubes and the faint click of disengaging locks filled the air. The machines monitoring his vitals went silent one by one.

  A wheelchair was brought forward. Oliver barely had time to protest before Thalos lifted him effortlessly, setting him into the seat as if he weighed nothing.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Thalos said, his voice even, his tone almost too calm.

  But as they turned and began to move down the corridor, Oliver’s breath caught.

  The room he’d been in was a small part of something much larger.

  Before him stretched an endless corridor lined with beds, every one occupied.

  The air was heavy with the sound of suffering.

  People lay beneath sheets that clung to their sweat-soaked skin, their faces pale and blistered. Some coughed violently, the sound raw and wet, their bodies trembling with every breath. Others lay motionless, their eyes half-open, staring at nothing. The stench of antiseptic mixed with something far worse.

  In one bed, a man convulsed as a nurse pressed a mask over his face, trying to stabilize him while another adjusted the infusion tubes snaking into his veins.

  In another, a woman screamed, clutching her stomach as her skin began to peel in thin layers. Her cries were hoarse, desperate, until a medic injected something into her arm, and the sound dwindled into a broken whimper.

  Children, too. Oliver saw them out of the corner of his eye, their small bodies wrapped in thermal blankets, their hair falling out in uneven clumps. One of them tried to reach for a nurse’s hand, but his arm trembled so violently that it barely lifted an inch.

  Oliver’s stomach twisted. The smell, the sounds, the sheer density of pain. It broke something inside him. He didn't know what.

  “What's happening?” he muttered under his breath.

  Thalos didn’t answer. He just kept pushing the wheelchair forward.

  They passed through the entrance, and the noise of the ward cut off abruptly as the door sealed behind them. The sudden quiet was almost jarring.

  The wind howled through the narrow streets, carrying with it the scent of rain. The small settlement stretched out before Oliver—rows of weathered wooden houses, their paint stripped away by time and storms. Between them, a few steel buildings rose like relics, their surfaces scarred by laser.

  Thalos pushed the wheelchair forward through puddles. His movements were precise, mechanical, yet strangely careful.

  “The next step is to take you to the Chief,” Thalos said quietly, almost to himself.

  Oliver leaned back in the chair, his breath shallow and uneven. “You can finally tell me who the hell this Chief is?”

  The android’s shirt flared open in the gusting wind. His head tilted slightly, as though processing whether to answer. “He will present himself to you soon.”

  Oliver exhaled through his teeth, watching the desolate town roll past. The buildings looked like they’d been built in a hurry, patched together from salvaged parts. There were no hovercars, no drones, no signs of modern infrastructure. The only technology visible was the gun turrets and heavy plasma cannons mounted on rooftops and street corners.

  “Then at least tell me where we are. Or were,” Oliver pressed.

  “You are in Aquarius,” Thalos replied. “Welcome.”

  Oliver blinked, unimpressed. “That doesn’t help at all.”

  The android didn’t react. His glowing eyes remained fixed ahead, scanning the horizon as they approached the largest structure in the settlement. A white building, its once-polished surface now pitted and blackened. Scorch marks clawed across the walls, and the faint outlines of bullet and plasma impacts marked its facade.

  “As for where you were,” Thalos continued, “that was our emergency hospital.”

  Oliver frowned. “Emergency? This appears to be a colony located on the borderlands. You need a hospital that big for how many people?”

  “Many,” Thalos said flatly. “We have too many patients afflicted with the Curse.”

  “The Curse?” Oliver repeated, confused.

  “Symptoms manifest in the Nameless following the onset of expiration. The Curse spreads over six months to one year, culminating in complete multi-organ failure.”

  Oliver twisted slightly in his chair to look up at him. The android’s face was expressionless, his voice clinical, devoid of empathy.

  “Wonderful,” Oliver muttered, the sarcasm barely masking the dread curling in his chest.

  Thalos said nothing as he guided Oliver across the hall to a bank of elevator doors. The android’s metallic fingers pressed a button marked with worn symbols, and the doors slid open with a groan that echoed deep into the empty structure.

  They entered, the air inside stale and cold. The elevator shuddered as it descended, the sound of grinding gears filling the silence. Oliver gripped the armrests of his chair, feeling each vibration travel up through his spine.

  After a long moment, the elevator lurched to a stop with a heavy clang. The lights flickered once, then died. The doors stayed shut.

  Thalos tilted his head slightly, then sighed. “Mechanism jammed,” he muttered.

  Without hesitation, he wedged his fingers into the seam between the doors and forced them apart. Metal shrieked in protest before giving way.

  The android stepped forward, pulling the wheelchair after him.

  The corridor beyond was dark. Power cables hung from the ceiling like tangled vines. The walls were lined with old conduits and flickering panels.

  In the center of the room stood a figure crouched over a mess of wires and computers.

  Oliver blinked, his eyes straining to focus. For an instant, he thought the darkness was playing tricks on him. The silhouette was familiar. Too familiar.

  The figure shifted, the light catching on a rifle slung casually over one shoulder. A narrow face turned toward him. He had asian features, sharp eyes, and long black hair tied back in a loose ponytail.

  Oliver’s breath caught in his throat.

  “Lian?” he whispered.

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