"What?"
"Didn't you decide this yourself? Sacrificing yourself so your friend could escape."
"That's wrong." There was something cracking in Zenon's voice.
"Fine. And your friend was wrong too, when he said he wanted to sacrifice himself?"
Silence.
"Haïssi?" Very quietly. "I told you before. There's no peace in Aristia... or in this world. We're not in paradise."
"We gave him the choice — his escape, or yours. He chose himself."
"And then?" Then, before an answer could come: "I won't believe you anyway."
"You're right. But for the wrong reason. We got him out. Just like we promised."
Zenon swallowed.
"And?"
"We killed him."
The laugh came out of Zenon before he could think about it. Broken, fractured, like something snapping in a place no one could see.
"You killed him." He repeated it, and it tasted like emptiness. "There's no point talking to you."
"I was just waiting for the right moment." Cypher opened his bag. "Special Case 101."
Zenon saw the needle and didn't move. There was a strange peace in his eyes, despite everything.
"Don't worry. I'm not violent like Virüs. And I hate screaming. I'll sedate you first."
He pushed the needle in.
Within seconds, everything dimmed — the movement, the resistance. His eyes stayed open, staring at Cypher with a hatred his body could no longer hide.
"I forgot my bag. I'll go get it, check on Sarah. By the time I'm back, you'll be fully under."
The corridors were lit with a flat, unbroken white light. Workers in white uniforms and black masks moved without speaking, papers in hand. One of them stood in front of a locked door.
Cypher stopped.
"Silvestri, Cypher. Open it."
"Yes, sir."
Behind the door was a different world. Warm colors, a made bed, air with no trace of disinfectant. Sarah sat with her knees to her chest, staring at a point on the wall only she could see.
He sat beside her.
"It's alright, sister. We didn't do anything."
"The boy they took." She didn't turn to look at him. "I know him."
"Forget about him. The real chosen one was decided before the journey even began. Whoever was with him — just pawns." He paused. "I know it's hard, watching everyone die in front of you. But know that I did all of this for you." Then, without transition: "Where's my bag?"
"Under the bed." She went quiet. "Are you lying to me? Am I innocent in all of this?"
He looked at her. Didn't answer.
"Don't think about that now. Rest."
He leaned down, pulled out the black bag. A note was pinned to it. He took it.
*"If you want to help your sister, wash her mind. Alpha shot's in your bag."*
He crushed the paper in his fist until it crumpled.
"Damn you, Virüs."
He opened the bag, found the shot, sat back down beside Sarah.
"This will ease your thoughts. Help you sleep."
He took her hand carefully, injected her. Her eyes closed slowly. He covered her. Turned off the light, stood for a moment in the dark before he left.
Then went back to finish what he'd started.
In the lab, he set his bag on the table, pulled out a needle attached to a thin tube, and slid it into the vein of Zenon's left hand.
He turned on the television mounted on the wall. Lines rose and fell, unsteady.
"Still early days." He stared at the screen. "A capitalist system, built to serve the aristocracy. Young people live chasing dreams they think are theirs, but the chasing itself just serves the class above them. It's unfair. But I'm not the one who chose it."
He looked at Zenon.
*This kid isn't different. He just tried to be. Like a piece that doesn't belong here. And if I let him go? He dies in Amazon anyway. But it's not mine to decide.*
He pulled on his gloves. Took out two syringes. Held the first up to the light. Clear white.
"Looks peaceful, doesn't it?" More to himself than to Zenon. "White, like emptiness. They made it that way because nothing dark looks dark at first." Then: "You can't hear me anyway."
He injected him. Waited.
Nothing visible.
But under the skin, something was already eating through Zenon from the inside, slowly, an emptiness spreading. His fingers twitched in short, broken jerks. The veins in his neck began to bulge, but darker than they should be, as if something were pushing outward from within.
On the screen, the lines began to steady.
"It's time."
He picked up the second syringe. Written in small letters on the black glass: *Gargantcho.*
He set it against the vein.
And before he pressed it down, he heard something.
Words. Faint, barely formed.
*I won't die—*
*You?*
*From me?*
*Yes!*
He stopped.
A drop fell along the side of his face.
He looked at Zenon. Eyes closed. No movement.
"I'm imagining things." Calmly. "Haven't slept in five days. I need rest."
He injected him.
The lines on the screen steadied. Then stopped.
He counted in silence.
Waited.
And...
Stood.
"Failed. As usual."
He walked toward the door. Reached for the handle.
And heard, behind him, the sound of restraints breaking.
He turned.
Zenon was standing.
Zenon's body — but not Zenon. Both eyes solid black. Black veins splitting across his face and neck. Something dark dripping silently from the corner of his mouth.
Before Cypher could move, the corpse grabbed him by the throat, lifted him off the ground, slammed his back into the wall. Instruments scattered off the table.
*How? This was a failure — a total failure!*
The air was leaving his lungs. His right hand snatched a small knife off the table. In one motion, he severed Zenon's left hand at the wrist. The kick came in the same instant, throwing him back.
Then, before he hit the ground, Cypher drove his bare hand into his heart and tore it out.
Pulled it free.
Something came out with it, covered in blood and a black substance.
Maybe that was blood too.
Zenon fell.
Red spread across the silent white floor.
Cypher pulled out his phone. His voice carried instantly through every corner of the facility.
"Confirm Sarah's secure. Get the helicopter ready. I'm activating self-destruct."
The hangar was drowning in red. Alarms filled the air. The helicopter stood ready, Sarah unconscious beside it.
Cypher climbed aboard.
"Put her in the back. I'll fly."
Before takeoff, one of the workers asked him, trying and failing to hide the shake in his voice:
"What's going to happen to this place?"
"Open the exit first."
"And after? What about us?"
"You'll probably die. But it's not certain."
They went down in silence toward the exit. They started prying it open, when one of them suddenly stopped and screamed:
"I won't do this. Don't our lives mean anything to you? You mons—"
Blood sprayed before the word could finish. The head was gone. The body dropped slowly.
The rest kept moving in silence. Their hands worked the exit open, fast, needing no orders.
"Whoever gets out is lucky. If I come down there, no one survives. Move."
The exit opened onto dense forest, trees stretching until they were swallowed by the horizon.
The helicopter lifted off.
"Like I give a damn about you people." Cypher said it while climbing altitude, watching the forest shrink beneath him. "All I care about is that Sarah's safe. As for the rest of you — your lives are the only thing you own, even if you were nothing but slaves. Goodbye, Amazon. Goodbye... Case 101."
He pressed the button.
The first explosion came from the lower level. Then the second. The third. Fire climbed the walls, smoke rose above the treeline. The workers who'd stayed behind ran in every direction, but no direction led anywhere.
Lethal blasts. They recognized them — they'd built them.
They died one after another. Some burned. Some crushed under the collapse.
But in one room, deep in the lowest level, the fire hadn't reached yet.
Zenon lay on the floor. Dead.
And the black thing that had come out of his heart moved slowly, following a line with no logic to it — from the heart, to the shoulder, to the wrist, until it reached the edge of the severed left hand.
It stopped.
Then—
pulsed.
To be continued…