Derek moved through the city like a wraith, the static hum of his suit crackling softly in the air around him. The battle with the hydra already felt distant, like it had happened in someone else's dream. He wasn't interested in questions. Not from the Genesis Squad, not from satellites, not from whatever shadowy government mouth-breather had just slapped a codename on him.

He only had one thought.

Lila.

The streets blurred as he sprinted past shattered cars and the burned-out shells of city buses, their frames twisted like they'd screamed before dying. Fires still smouldered in gutter drains and inside broken windows, casting flickering shadows on the ruins. The stench of scorched flesh clung to the air like a living thing—thick, oily, sweet in a way that turned the stomach.

The ground was littered with blood—some dried in jagged, black-edged smears, some fresh and still glistening. In places, it pooled beneath collapsed awnings and slumped corpses, seeping into cracked pavement. Steam rose from where it met the still-warm concrete, curling up like ghosts trying to escape.

Bodies were strewn across the street in unnatural poses—soldiers with their gear torn open, civilians half-buried in rubble, their eyes wide in a horror that hadn't faded. Some were burned beyond recognition, limbs charred into brittle stumps. Others were ripped apart, entrails stretched like ribbons across walls and storefronts.

He vaulted over a police barricade, where the charred remains of officers still clutched useless rifles. Their blue uniforms were soaked in blood and soot, their cruisers overturned and burned to the frame. Nearby, a military checkpoint had been overrun—sandbags blown apart, the mounted turret twisted and blackened. A soldier's helmet lay cracked and bloodstained beside a crushed comms unit, still hissing static.

Yet even in this carnage, signs of order were clawing their way back.

Drones buzzed overhead, broadcasting evacuation instructions on loop in monotone voices. Further out, neon-lit arrows blinked in makeshift corridors, directing survivors toward Safe Zones—old schools, sports arenas, hastily fortified blocks. The military and police had started building bases, rigging up perimeter walls and turret nests from whatever tech hadn't melted.

But none of it mattered.

Not to him.

He barely noticed the flickers of civilisation clawing for survival. His focus tunnelled through fire and ruin, deeper into the belly of the city. The static crackle of his boots melted into the storm of his breathing, the pulse of pain behind his eyes, the singular need driving him forward.

He barely noticed the flickers of civilisation clawing for survival. His focus tunnelled through fire and ruin, deeper into the belly of the city.

She would've gone to college.

That thought looped in his head, louder than the sirens, sharper than the screams that still echoed faintly in the wind. Paleview College had been designated a Safe Zone. The authorities had set it up early—stone buildings, central location, plenty of room to barricade.

If she were anywhere… it would've been there.

The static crackle of his boots melted into the storm of his breathing, the pulse of pain behind his eyes, the singular need driving him forward.

Paleview College loomed ahead, half-lit by firelight and flickering floodlamps hastily rigged to rooftops. The Safe Zone was barely holding. A barricade of cars, sheet metal, and sandbags formed a perimeter just past the campus gates. Soldiers moved along the line—exhausted, wary, adrenaline keeping them upright.

Paleview College was unrecognizable.

What used to be a sprawling campus of dreams and deadlines was now a heavily fortified Safe Zone. Makeshift walls of scrap metal, upturned buses, and razor wire fenced in the survivors. Military personnel moved in tense formations—overworked, under-armed, running on caffeine and fear. Floodlights bathed the perimeter in a harsh white glow, illuminating smoke-stained walls and blood-slick pavement.

Derek moved through the wreckage like a phantom.

His white suit, now streaked with soot and dried monster blood, hummed softly with every step. Firelight danced across its armor. Steam curled from the hydraulics at his joints. Soldiers spotted him approaching—first one, then a dozen—and within seconds, rifles were raised, safeties flicked off.

But no one fired.

They'd seen him.

Back near the city center—cutting down beasts, dragging wounded out of rubble, staring down a hydra like it owed him lunch money. Nobody knew who or what he was, but they weren't eager to find out the hard way.

"Stand by," a squad leader muttered. "He took out three Chimaeras solo. Just... hold your weapons, if he wants to kill us, we have no chance against him and he looks like he is on our side."

As Derek closed in, the tension crackled in the air like static. His steps echoed against the pavement, each one a thunderclap against the hush of fear and disbelief.

He didn't glance at the weapons trained on him. Even energy beams from a beast he had killed could not penetrate his armour, there was no way a bullet would.

He turned his attention to the rows of people, students and professors who had panic and anxiety along with other complex emotions on their face.

"—Hey! Back off!"

A medic shouted, shielding someone behind a half-collapsed tent. Derek's helmet turned slowly.

"No... NO.. No," Derek cried inwardly, if she was not with her, then, Lila....

It was Maya. Lila's best firend.

Her face was pale, her arm in a blood-soaked sling. She was covered in ash and bruises, trembling as she looked up at the white-armored figure bearing down on her.

Terror etched itself into her features.

She backed away.

"Please," she gasped. "Please don't—"

Derek vanished from where he stood—FLASH—and reappeared in front of her in an instant. Medics flinched, hands going to their sidearms. Maya stumbled backwards, nearly falling over.

With a thought, the helmet was unlocked.

It hissed as it unlocked and folded back in seamless plates, revealing a face that hadn't smiled in days. Dirt and blood were smeared across his skin. Eyes raw. Grief ready to burst.

"Maya," he said, voice hoarse. "It's me."

She blinked.

Recognition hit like a slap.

"...Derek?"

She almost didn't believe it. Paleview's quiet kid. The guy who always sat behind Lila in calculus and never said a word. He was the one inside that?

She started crying immediately.

"Oh God... Derek..."

He caught her shoulders gently. "Where is she?"

The words trembled out of him. He already knew, somehow. But hope is cruel that way.

Maya looked away.

"She didn't make it."

Derek closed his eyes.

"She held them off while we escaped the library wing. She saved all of us. But… she didn't come out."

Silence.

A kind of silence that pressed against the eardrums like deep ocean pressure.

Derek didn't scream.

He didn't collapse.

He just stood there, jaw clenched so tight it creaked, as the last tether to the world he knew snapped inside him.

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