Chapter 34 - Project Reborn

The boy kept his gaze fixed on the man on the stage, that guy with the fedora hat and a grating voice who spoke of the "United Nations Organization" as if it were some kind of redemption. The cave was filled with shadows, the air heavy with fear and the constant clinking of chains. This doesn't look good, he thought, clenching his teeth as he felt the chains chafe against his skin. He'd been in tough situations before, but this was different: hundreds of people chained around him, their faces pale and eyes hollow, and that speech sounding more like a threat than a promise. Terrorists? Kidnappers? Whatever they are, I'm in deep.

Suddenly, the man beside him—the one who hadn't stopped fidgeting nervously since they were chained—muttered under his breath, "Damn it, I've fallen into the hands of real lunatics." Before the boy could process his words, the man twisted sharply and, with a desperate lunge, bolted toward the darkness of the cave. The frantic clinking of his chains echoed like a cry of panic.

The boy froze, his eyes wide open. What is he doing? The other captives turned their heads, some holding their breath, others letting out whispers of shock. From the stage, the man in the fedora barely tilted his head to glance at the fugitive. With a nearly imperceptible flick of his hand, as if shooing a fly, he signaled the black-clad guards stationed at the exits.

In a matter of seconds, two dark figures pounced on the man. They slammed him to the dusty ground with brutal precision, and then came the scream—a piercing, desperate wail that cut through the air like a blade. A shiver ran down the boy's spine; the sound was unbearable, raw terror turned into voice.

Around him, unease rippled like a wave. Some captives lowered their heads, others covered their ears with trembling hands, and a few let out muffled sobs. The man on the stage, unruffled, adjusted his hat and said in that voice that seemed to scrape the walls, "Keep watching. This is what happens when you don't understand your place."

The boy swallowed hard, his heart pounding. The echo of the scream still lingered in the air, and for the first time in a long while, he felt fear seeping under his skin. This isn't a game, he thought. There's no way out of here.The man on the stage straightened with a disturbing calm, as if the fugitive's scream and the dull thud of his body hitting the ground were a minor inconvenience he'd already dismissed. He adjusted his fedora with an elegant, almost delicate motion, and as he did, the boy noticed something subtle: a faint glint of light revealing a black mask fitted tightly to his face, so well concealed beneath the hat and the dimness that it was nearly undetectable, leaving only his eyes visible—a cruel gleam shining with chilling sharpness. The boy, his heart still racing, watched from his place among the chains, feeling the air grow thicker under that gaze that seemed to relish the fear saturating the cave. Then the man spoke, his raspy voice scraping like rusted metal, his tone light yet laced with subtle sadism: "Have any of you, my dear guests, heard of the Montauk Project? Come now, don't be shy… After all, I'd love to know how much you understand before things get… interesting." Sarcasm dripped from his words like venom wrapped in velvet, and the boy clenched his fists, sensing every syllable as a threat veiled in courtesy.

The man on the stage began walking slowly toward where all the captives were, his footsteps resounding with a deep echo across the dusty cave floor. Two masked figures, likely his bodyguards, followed close behind—tall and silent, moving with an almost inhuman precision, as if they were shadows cast by his will. As he advanced, he adjusted his fedora with a deliberate motion, and his grating voice sliced through the air with an eerie calm:

"Before the Great War, when the world was divided into countries like the one they called the United States—that era of borders and broken dreams we so dearly miss," he said, his tone tinged with a sharp melancholy that clashed with the terror filling the cave. The captives, some trembling with fear, others searching with their eyes for an impossible escape, could barely follow his words; the boy, his wrists chafed raw by the chains, felt a knot of confusion tighten in his chest. "In an even more distant era, that of the Cold War, rumors swirled about something called the Montauk Project—a conspiracy theory some saw as a faint echo of the supposed Philadelphia Experiment, a fantasy buried with the old world. But we… we unearthed it. In the ruins of Camp Hero, amid the rubble and secrets the Confederation left behind, we found the blueprints, the proof it wasn't just a myth." He paused, stopping a few steps from the captives, a cold glint flashing across his eyes behind the mask. "And now, we're bringing it back to life." The boy swallowed hard, his mind caught between fear and disbelief; he didn't fully grasp what it meant, but the weight of those words struck him like a silent sentence.