Raina’s sobs finally slowed to quiet hiccups.
Kai kept his arm wrapped around her shoulders.
He didn’t try to speak.
Words wouldn’t fix anything right now.
His little sister just kept trembling against his chest, her fingers twisting the thin fabric of his hospital gown like letting go would make him vanish.
The room smelled of sharp antiseptic and old copper.
He stared out the window.
Smoke still drifted up from the ruins of Sector 135.
From the fifth floor of the medical ward, he had a perfect view of the devastation.
Entire city blocks had been leveled into jagged concrete teeth.
Emergency strobes painted the surviving buildings in harsh flashes of red and blue.
Transport ships buzzed through the hazy sky like angry metal wasps, ferrying the wounded and the dead.
The city was already trying to tape itself back together.
But a piece was missing.
Lucen.
His younger brother had spent most of his life tucked safely away beneath a flower shop.
The kid always looked like the world was too loud, too bright.
He didn’t belong near the Mawbacks.
And now he was gone.
Swallowed up in the middle of a disaster that had cracked the sector in half.
Raina pulled back.
She wiped her swollen eyes with her sleeve, leaving a smudge of dirt across her cheek.
“You’re really all right, right?” Kai managed a weak, exhausted smile.
He tried to flex his bandaged hand.
“Better than ever.” She sniffled, burying her face back into his hospital gown.
“I thought you were gone.” She squeezed him tighter, refusing to let go.
Kai flinched, biting back a hiss.
“Ow.” The brief moment of comfort vanished, as his gaze drifted to the empty plastic chair beside the bed.
Kai let out a slow breath.
He stared at his ruined hand.
The bandages were thick, but he could still feel the phantom heat of his own energy burning beneath the gauze.
“Grandpa said he is missing,” she pressed.
Kai couldn’t meet her eyes.
“Yeah.” “Missing isn’t gone,” she whispered, her grip tightening on his blanket.
“Missing means he can be found.
Right?” Kai looked out at the smoke again.
A heavy, suffocating weight settled on his chest.
“Don’t worry, I’ll find him.” His fingers curled into a loose fist, fighting the pain.
“I promise.” ⋙ ──── ✦ ──── ⋘ Hours bled by.
The hospital corridor outside fell silent, save for the occasional squeak of a nurse’s rubber shoes.
Sleep wouldn’t come.
Every time Kai closed his eyes, the battlefield rushed back in.
The sheer size of the Mawbacks.
The way the ground shook when they charged.
The metallic tang of blood filling the air as the defensive line broke.
Lucen.
Kai squeezed his eyes shut.
The memory played anyway.
Jaws snapping shut.
A wet, heavy crunch.
The beast jerking its massive head upward.
Lucen dangling between the rows of jagged teeth.
His arms swaying loosely with the monster’s movement.
No struggling.
No sound.
A tear slipped down Kai’s temple and soaked into the stiff hospital pillow.
He didn’t move to wipe it away.
His chest locked up.
He opened his mouth, trying to drag a breath into his lungs, but his throat seized tight.
Only a ragged, broken wheeze scraped past his lips.
The only other sound in the room was the slow, rhythmic drip of his IV line.
He had been five steps away.
Kai’s fingers curled inward.
His nails dug through the medical tape, grinding directly into his stitched skin.
He squeezed.
He kept squeezing until warm, fresh crimson blossomed across the pristine white gauze.
Then came the light.
That blinding, impossible white light.
He had been hovering on the edge of bleeding out when it happened.
But the memory stuck.
The roar of the monsters had cut off abruptly.
A suffocating pressure.
A figure hovering above the carnage.
Completely bathed in pure white energy.
No face.
No armor.
Just a shape that felt weirdly, terrifyingly familiar.
Footsteps stopped outside his room.
Kai immediately shoved his bleeding hand under the blanket.
Turning his face toward the window, he dragged the back of his wrist hard across his eyes.
He swallowed, forcing a sharp breath into his lungs to steady his chest.
When he looked back, Lucy stood in the doorway.
She didn’t step inside right away, just lingered at the threshold.
Her armor was gone, replaced by standard-issue hospital scrubs, but she still carried herself like she was waiting for an ambush.
A jagged purple bruise covered the left side of her jaw.
“You can come in,” Kai offered, shifting against the pillows.
She crossed the room and dragged a chair to the bedside.
The metal legs scraped loudly against the tile.
“I thought the medics sedated you.” “They tried.” Kai nodded toward her face.
“You should get some ice for that.” Lucy instinctively touched the purple bruise on her jaw.
“It’s fine.” Silence stretched between them.
Only the steady beep of the heart monitor filled the gap.
Kai noticed she wouldn’t meet his eyes.
She just stared at the foot of his bed, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.
“How bad is it?” Kai finally asked.
“Your injuries?” “The city.” Lucy followed his previous gaze out the window.
The smoke had thickened, blotting out the stars.
“Bad.
The quarantine wall is completely breached.
Engineering says it’ll take months to rebuild the southern barricades.
Right now, they’re just patching the holes with whatever scrap steel they can find.” “And the others?” She just looked down at her hands.
Her knuckles were white.
That told him everything.
Kai swallowed the lump forming in his throat.
They had lost too many people.
Lucy kept staring at her hands.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Kai swallowed.
The massive jaws.
The blood.
He forced the images back down into the dark.
“The barricade breaking.
The Mawback charging.” “After that.” Her voice dropped.
“Right before you blacked out.” He frowned.
He studied her face.
The heavy exhaustion.
The way her eyes kept darting toward the closed door.
“Why?” Kai asked.
Lucy hesitated.
A muscle in her jaw twitched.
“Did you see the white ghost?” A cold jolt hit his chest.
“The what?” “A figure,” she said quietly.
“Hovering above the sector.
Glowing.” The memory flashed through Kai’s head.
The roar of the monsters cutting off.
The sudden, suffocating pressure pressing him into the dirt.
“I didn’t see a ghost,” Kai said slowly.
“I saw a light.
Just…
blinding white.
It lit up the whole grid.
The pressure knocked me out before I could see anything else.” Lucy rubbed the back of her neck.
She finally looked up, meeting his eyes.
“That’s all I have, too.
Just the light.
The heat.
And then waking up in the dirt.” Kai adjusted his grip on the blanket, keeping his bleeding hand hidden.
“You were awake longer than I was.
You really didn’t see a face?” “No.” “Armor?
A weapon?” “Nothing.” Lucy dragged a hand down her face.
“Whatever it was, it didn’t belong on that battlefield.” Kai adjusted his grip on the blanket.
“Did it feel human?” Lucy frowned.
The question seemed to catch her off guard.
Her gaze drifted past him, locking onto the hazy sky outside the window.
Willow Street.
The blinding flash.
That pure, impossible white energy.
She looked back at Kai, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
“What if it was him?” “Who?” “Lucen.” Kai rejected it instantly.
A hard, sharp shake of his head.
“No.” “Kai, the energy—” “I know my brother.” The words came out dangerously quiet.
“Lucen is just a kid.
That thing in the sky?
The pressure it gave off didn’t feel human.
It didn’t feel like a monster, either.
It was something else entirely.
It wasn’t him.” Lucy shifted her weight, crossing her arms defensively.
“Either way, the whole world is talking about the white ghost right now.
Honestly?
I hope Lucen is far away from all of this.” Kai pushed himself up against the pillows, ignoring the sharp pull in his ribs.
“What do you mean, the whole world?” Standing up, Lucy pushed the plastic chair back against the wall.
“For now, just play dumb.
If anybody comes in here asking if you know anything about the white ghost, you refuse.
You tell them absolutely nothing.” “Lucy, wait.
Who is going to ask?” “Just do it, Kai.” “But—” “I said drop it!” Her voice cracked.
The sudden shout bounced off the sterile hospital walls.
Kai froze.
Lucy gripped the edge of the metal bedframe.
The frame actually rattled against the floorboards under her shaking hands.
For a split second, her entire composure completely shattered.
Her chest heaved with uneven, panicked breaths.
The usual cheerful, confident spark in her eyes was dead.
Only a hollow, haunted stare remained.
Taking a jagged breath, she forcibly relaxed her grip.
She stepped back, smoothing the front of her hospital scrubs.
The invisible mask went back on.
Kai watched the shift.
His frustration dissolved into unease.
“Lucy.” She refused to meet his eyes.
“If you have something you need to talk about,” he said softly.
“You can tell me.” Turning her head toward the door, she wrapped her arms around herself.
“I have to go.” She walked out.
The door clicked shut behind her.
The hospital room felt too large.
Too quiet.
He looked down at his ruined hand again.
The impossible pressure from the battlefield echoed in his bones.
“Where are you, Lucen?” ⋙ ──── ✦ ──── ⋘ Miles away, deep within the secure sectors of the upper city, a holographic projection cast a pale blue glow across a long steel table.
Seven Federation officials sat in silence.
They wore immaculate suits, a stark contrast to the dirt and blood of Sector 135.
At the head of the table stood Director Sterling, his arms crossed over his chest.
They were watching a piece of shaky, distorted footage.
Smoke choked the recorded battlefield.
The camera shook violently, struggling to lock onto anything in the ruined street.
Then, the thick gray smog simply vanished.
Pushed outward by a massive, invisible wave of pressure.
An anomaly stepped into the center of the frame.
It was completely wrapped in a blinding white light, bending the digital feed around it through sheer heat.
Then, the camera violently pitched upward as the figure shot into the sky.
“Pause it,” Sterling ordered.
The feed froze.
A humanoid silhouette hung in the air, radiating blinding white light.
It didn’t have wings.
It wasn’t using a jetpack.
It was simply suspended above the carnage, bending the air around it through sheer thermal output.
“Zoom in.” The image swelled, pixelating at the edges.
No facial features.
Just raw, unfiltered energy tearing through the atmosphere.
“Can you enhance it?” “We tried,” the chief technician replied from his console.
“It is what it is.
The light output fried the optical sensors on a dozen drones.
This is the only surviving footage.” “Species?” “Unknown.” “Energy signature?” The technician shifted uncomfortably, tapping a few keys on his datapad.
“That’s the problem.” A heavy silence dropped over the room.
“What problem?” Sterling asked, his voice deadpan.
“It doesn’t match.” The tech swiped a graph onto the main display.
“We ran it against every known biological and elemental profile.
Not human.
Not a monster.
It doesn’t use internal resonance circuits.
It doesn’t draw from the environment.” An official leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.
“Then what the hell is it?” “We don’t know.
It’s like a completely closed loop.
A self-sustaining reactor.” Another suit checked his watch, scowling at the frozen image.
“We have a quarantined sector ripped wide open, hundreds of casualties, and an unidentified walking nuke that vanished into thin air.
Who was operating in that grid?” “Apex Sentinel Alexander Voss,”Sterling said.
“Along with his squad.
Voss is currently off the grid.
As for the hunters, the survivors made it to a civilian medical ward.” “Bring them in.” Sterling shook his head.
“They’re in a public hospital.
The entire block is swarming with news drones broadcasting the relief efforts.” The councilwoman sneered.
“So?
The Federation is above the press.
We don’t need warrants or permission.
Just send the military in and take them.” “We don’t need warrants,” Sterling agreed smoothly.
“But we do need discretion.
Dragging injured survivors out in front of live cameras creates a spectacle.
If we act in the open, the public panics.
They start asking questions about what really happened in Sector 135.” Sterling stared at the glowing figure on the screen.
His eyes narrowed.
He didn’t care about public image.
He cared about control.
And right now, something completely outside their control had just rewritten the rules of the sector.
“Call ARC,” Sterling finally said.
The room went dead silent.
“Diractor,” the tech started, his hands freezing over his console.
“ARC doesn’t do quiet extraction.
Their methods—” “I know their methods.” Sterling turned his back on the screen.
“Send them anyway.” ⋙ ──── ✦ ──── ⋘ The evening sun dipped behind the city skyline.
Pale, dying light slipped through the blinds, casting long shadows across the tiles.
Kai stared at the ceiling tiles.
Raina had finally fallen asleep in the uncomfortable metal chair, her head resting on the edge of his mattress.
Grandfather stood by the window, his hands clasped behind his back, watching the military transports patrol the street below.
The old man hadn’t spoken much since he arrived.
He just watched.
Nobody heard the heavy, synchronized footsteps approaching in the hallway.
The hospital staff had gone completely quiet.
The door swung open without a knock.
A man in a crisp black uniform stepped into the room.
Four more operatives stacked up behind him in the corridor, their faces hidden behind dark visors.
Their armor was matte black, designed to absorb light rather than reflect it.
Their insignia was a sleek, silver crest.
Administrative Regulation Command.
ARC.
The Federation’s attack dogs.
“Kai Mercer,” the operative stated.
His voice was flat, completely bored.
“You’re coming with us.” Kai slowly turned his head, careful not to wake Raina.
“Why?” Grandpa immediately moved.
He didn’t rush, but his positioning was flawless.
He stepped exactly between the hospital bed and the operative, blocking the path.
“Who the hell are you?” Grandpa asked.
His voice was low, gravelly, and completely devoid of fear.
A silver badge flashed in the fading light.
“ARC.” Grandfather didn’t flinch.
He didn’t even blink.
“What do you want?” “We’re investigating the disappearance of a feral hunter in Sector 135.” The operative’s gaze drifted past the old man, locking onto Kai.
“And a specific anomalous event.” Kai narrowed his eyes.
The white light.
They knew about it.
“What does that have to do with us?” Kai asked.
A cold, practiced smile touched the agent’s lips.
He pulled a pair of heavy null-stone cuffs from his belt.
“We believe you know exactly where he is.
And what he is.” A short, dry laugh scraped its way out of Kai’s throat.
“You’ve got the wrong family.” The operative took another step forward.
Grandpaa didn’t move.
He simply shifted his weight, his posture subtly changing.
The relaxed old man vanished, replaced by someone who looked like he knew exactly how to break a man’s neck.
The operative noticed.
He stopped, his hand dropping to the stun baton on his hip.
“Step aside, old man.
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
The Federation pays for this hospital.” “I pay my own bills,” Grandfather said softly.
“Now get out of my grandson’s room.” “We have authorization to use force.” The operative unclipped the baton.
It hummed to life with a crackle of blue electricity.
“We’re going to find out what happened in that sector.
With or without your cooperation.” Kai gripped the bedsheets.
His resonance energy was still empty, but he looked at the black uniforms.
He looked at the weapons.
A chill ran down his spine.
Lucen wasn’t the only one being hunted anymore.