Chapter 80: Ashes and Echoes
They ran.
Through shattered corridors bleeding sparks.
Past fallen bodies, faces frozen in terror.
The facility around them—Selene's empire of pain—was collapsing.
Sirens howled like dying animals, drowning out thought, breathing, fear.
Fred staggered after the boy—after Subject 0—barely able to keep his feet under him.
Mira clutched his hand tightly, her other arm cradling her ribs.
She was hurt.
Badly.
But no one said it aloud.
Not here.
Not yet.
---
Behind them, soldiers regrouped.
Chasing.
Fred could hear their boots pounding like war drums.
Could taste the chemical stink of blood and burnt circuitry.
Subject 0 didn't slow.
Didn't look back.
He moved with a terrifying, almost unnatural precision—an echo of the weapon Selene had tried to carve into him.
But Fred could also see something else:
Hesitation.
A boy beneath the monster.
Was that enough?
He didn't know.
He didn't care.
All that mattered was surviving the next ten seconds.
Then the next.
And the next.
---
Ahead—a service tunnel.
Sealed.
A thick metal bulkhead.
"No code!" Mira gasped, coughing blood.
Fred spun toward the boy.
"Can you open it?"
Subject 0 stared blankly at the door, then at his own trembling hands.
He didn't understand.
He wasn't a soldier.
Not anymore.
Fred cursed under his breath.
The soldiers were closing in.
They had seconds.
"Move!" Fred barked.
He slammed his injured shoulder into the panel.
Once.
Twice.
Nothing.
Despair clawed at him.
Until—
The boy stepped forward.
And screamed.
It wasn't a human sound.
It was the sound of every chain he had ever worn shattering.
And the door—tore itself apart.
Twisted like foil under invisible hands.
An opening, jagged and raw.
Beyond it—cold night air.
Freedom.
If they could reach it.
---
Fred pulled Mira through first.
The boy stumbled after them.
Bullets ricocheted off the torn door behind them.
One grazed Fred's arm—a flash of agony.
But he didn't stop.
Not until they were tumbling down a muddy slope, into a forgotten ravine choked with weeds and rusted machinery.
Safe.
For now.
Fred lay there, gasping.
Staring up at the empty sky.
And wondered what kind of world they had just unleashed a weapon into.
And whether mercy was ever truly free.
Beside him, Mira wept silently.
And the boy—Subject 0—sat perfectly still.
Staring at his bloodied hands.
Lost.
Alone.
Human.
---