Squad 256

Night fell like a guillotine.

There was no sunset, no gradual dimming of the ship's fractured lights—just an abrupt, suffocating darkness as the emergency power flickered into its rest cycle. The survivors worked fast, piling debris against the gaping hole where the Goblin King had shattered the chamber wall. Tables, cryopod casings, even the mangled remains of the dead creatures were lashed together with torn wiring and strips of cloth.

Priya stood guard, her pulse rifle humming in the gloom. *"Two-hour shifts,"* she ordered. *"Nobody sleeps alone."*

Mark didn't argue. His body ached from the day's battles, his muscles still humming with the unnatural energy of his mutated blood. He slumped against a dented storage crate, Lena's crumpled sunflower pressed between his palms like a prayer.

Sleep took him fast.

---

**The dream was too sweet to be real.**

Lena stood in a sunlit field, her dark hair tied back with a strip of cloth from his old work bshirt. She grinned as she tugged him forward—*"Come on, farmer boy, they're waiting!"*

His parents sat at a wooden table under an oak tree, their faces unlined, their hands free of calluses. The kind of versions of them he hadn't seen since before the famine.

*"Took you long enough,"* his father chuckled, sliding a mug of homebrew cider toward him.

Lena squeezed his mother's shoulder. *"Your mom's teaching me how to make those dumplings you like."*

His mother winked. *"She's terrible at it."*

Lena swatted her arm, laughing—

Then the sky **split**.

Blood rained down. The oak tree's branches twisted into gnarled talons. His parents' faces melted like wax, their mouths stretching into silent screams as **something** rose from behind them.

A reflection.

*Him.*

But wrong.

His skin was the color of raw meat, his teeth needle-thin, his eyes pits of swirling crimson. The Blood Demon version of him lunged, tearing into Lena's throat with a wet **crunch**. His father's spine snapped like kindling. His mother—

Mark woke up **screaming**.

---

**Dawn came without mercy.**

His body was drenched in sweat, his fingers clawed into the floor plating hard enough to bend metal. Around him, the survivors were already moving—checking weapons, rationing scraps of food, murmuring in hushed tones.

No one mentioned his nightmare.

*Good.*

He stood, rolling his shoulders, testing his body. The **27 HP** made a difference—his wounds had closed, his muscles no longer burned. But the dream clung to him like a stain.

Then—**movement**.

A figure sprinted through the half-sealed breach in the wall, stumbling into the chamber like a ghost. A **skinny kid**, no older than nineteen, with wild orange hair and a face streaked with soot and blood. He gasped, doubling over, hands on his knees.

Maya was the first to react. She stepped forward, her pendant glinting. *"Who are you?"*

The boy flinched, his eyes darting to the weapons pointed at him. *"S-Squad 256,"* he panted. *"We—we woke up 1 day ago. They're all **dead**."*

A murmur rippled through the survivors.

Maya's voice sharpened. *"What happened?"*

The boy shuddered. *"We ate the monsters. Like—like you did. But…"* He tapped his temple. *"The system said their bodies already **adapted**. No new race. No powers. Just… poison."*

Mark's blood ran cold.

Alex, who had been lurking near the back, went **very still**.

The boy's next words were a whisper: *"They melted from the inside out."*