The portal deposited me back in the same corridor where everything had started. The familiar white walls and harsh fluorescent lighting felt almost surreal after the stone chambers of the dungeon.
Five guards were positioned throughout the hallway, all armed and clearly on high alert. The moment I stepped through the portal, their weapons swung toward me.
"FREEZE! DON'T MOVE!"
"Subject 247 has returned! How the hell—"
I moved before they could finish their sentences.
My new agility made their reactions look sluggish. I closed the distance to the nearest guard in a blur, catching his rifle before he could bring it to bear and driving my knee into his solar plexus. He folded like a house of cards, unconscious before he hit the floor.
The second guard managed to squeeze off a shot, but I was already gone from where he'd aimed. I appeared behind him, chopped down on his neck with precise force, and he crumpled.
The remaining three tried to coordinate their fire, but it was useless. I moved between them like smoke, using their own positions against them. A palm strike to one's temple. An elbow to another's jaw. The last one I simply grabbed by the back of his tactical vest and slammed into the wall hard enough to rattle his teeth.
Within thirty seconds, all five were unconscious on the floor. None of them had even managed to scratch me.
That was almost too easy.
I sprinted toward Anna's cell, my heart racing with anticipation. After everything I'd been through, all I wanted was to see her safe and get us both out of this nightmare.
But when I reached her cell, it was empty.
Panic started to creep in, but I forced it down. They'd moved her, probably as a precaution after my escape. I needed to search the facility systematically.
I began moving through the corridors, my perception letting me track the movements and positions of every person in the building. Guards appeared around corners and from doorways, but none of them posed a real threat anymore. I knocked them out with clinical efficiency—strikes to pressure points, chokes that induced unconsciousness, impacts that scrambled their nervous systems without causing permanent damage.
Some tried to call for backup. I destroyed their radios before they could speak. Others attempted to seal blast doors to slow me down. I simply waited for them to open the doors themselves when they thought the coast was clear, then incapacitated them as they emerged.
It was like being a ghost stalking through their own facility, invisible until the moment I chose to strike.
After clearing two entire floors, I finally heard voices coming from what looked like an observation room. Through the reinforced glass windows, I could see Anna.
She was surrounded by ten guards, all with weapons drawn. A man in a lab coat—one of the researchers I recognized from my own evaluation sessions—stood behind her with a pistol pressed against the back of her head.
Dr. Morrison. The one who always took extra blood samples. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ novel[f]ire.net
"I know you're out there!" the researcher called out, his voice echoing through the facility's PA system. "Subject 247! I know you can hear me!"
I stepped into the doorway where they could see me, my damaged dagger held loosely in my right hand.
"There you are," Morrison said, his voice shaking slightly despite his attempt at control. "Drop the weapon and get on your knees. Now. Or the girl dies."
Anna's eyes met mine through the glass. She looked terrified but unharmed. I could see her mouth moving slightly—she was trying to tell me something, but I couldn't make out the words.
"You have five seconds," Morrison continued. "Five... four... three..."
I raised my hands in apparent surrender, letting the dagger fall from my grip. As I started to kneel, I caught the weapon in my left hand in one smooth motion and hurled it with everything I had.
The blade punched through the reinforced glass like it was paper and buried itself in Morrison's forehead. He dropped instantly, his finger never reaching the trigger.
I activated Dash and burst through the shattered window before the guards could react. Two of them were already swinging their weapons toward Anna. I reached them first, my hands closing around their throats before they could fire. A quick twist, and they dropped.
The remaining guards opened fire, but I was already among them. In close quarters, their rifles were more liability than asset. I moved through them like a whirlwind—strikes to necks, impacts to temples, pressure points that shut down their nervous systems. Most of them I knocked unconscious, but two more who kept trying to shoot at Anna despite the chaos joined their dead colleagues.
The room fell silent except for the sound of my own breathing and Anna's quiet sobs.
That's when the Sentinels arrived.
Four of them burst through the walls like they were made of paper, their massive forms filling the room. I remembered their stats from my earlier reconnaissance—strength around fifty, but surprisingly low durability. They were glass cannons, built to hit hard but not take punishment.
"Get behind me," I told Anna, positioning myself between her and the robots.
The first Sentinel launched itself at me with surprising speed, its massive fist aimed at my head. I caught it with both hands, my enhanced strength barely enough to stop the impact. But stopping it was enough—I pivoted and used its own momentum to send it crashing into the wall.
The second one tried to flank me while I was occupied. I spun around and drove my fist into its torso, the metal crumpling under the force of the blow. Sparks flew as I ripped through its internal systems.
The third and fourth attacked together, one high and one low. I leaped over the low attack and brought my foot down on the high attacker's head, crushing it like an empty can. The last one I grabbed by the leg and swung into the ceiling hard enough to leave a crater in the concrete.
Metal and wires. Not people. That makes it easier.
The facility fell silent again. Emergency lighting cast everything in red, and alarms wailed in the distance, but the immediate threats were neutralized.
I looked around at the bodies—the researcher, the guards who'd threatened Anna, the destroyed Sentinels. Part of me expected to feel sick, horrified at what I'd done. Instead, I felt... nothing. Empty.
Is it really this easy to kill people?
The thought should have disturbed me more than it did. But then I looked at Anna, still wearing that collar, still trembling from fear and months of captivity, and something cold settled in my chest.
They were experimenting on kids. On us. They didn't see us as people, so why should I return the favor?
I walked over to Anna and placed my hands on her suppression collar. The metal crumpled under my grip like aluminum foil.
"Let's go," I said, helping her to her feet.
She looked at me with an expression I couldn't quite read—relief, fear, gratitude, and something else all mixed together.
"Lucien... what happened to you? You're..." she trailed off, staring at the destruction around us.
"Stronger," I finished. "I'm stronger now. And today, I'm taking us out of this prison."
I started to break some walls to create an exit, leaving the facility's nightmares behind us forever.
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