The fire had long since burned to ash, but Jayden remained unmoving, lost in a void darker than the night itself.
Sophia's mask rested in his lap, a cruel reminder of the choice he had been forced to make — a choice no heart could bear without breaking.
The others kept their distance.
Even Wendy, fierce and fearless, only dared a few steps before retreating, her eyes filled with a pain she couldn't voice.
---
Jeff crouched nearby, running a whetstone down the edge of his blade.
He didn't speak.
What words could fix this?
Elias, his side wrapped in bloodstained gauze, leaned against a battered wall, staring blankly into space.
They had survived.
But at what cost?
Sophia wasn't just another casualty.
She was the hope they had clung to in the darkness.
She was the reminder that there was still something pure left in their world.
Now, that purity was gone — shattered by their own hand.
By Jayden's hand.
---
As dawn approached, gray and hollow, Jayden finally stood.
Every movement felt like wading through wet concrete.
Every breath hurt.
He turned to the others, voice like broken glass.
"We move at nightfall. We burn everything they've built."
No one questioned him.
Because they all saw it now —
Jayden was no longer running.
He was no longer hoping.
He was becoming something else.
---
Meanwhile...
Far away, hidden deep within an underground bunker, a man watched the feed of Sophia's death on a cracked monitor.
He chuckled coldly, swirling a glass of red wine.
"Poor boy," he said to the darkness.
"He thinks he's lost everything. He has no idea what real loss feels like... yet."
Behind him, cages rattled.
Inside, shadows moved — new experiments, new horrors.
Sophia had only been the beginning.
---
Her death had been orchestrated.
Not as an end, but as a beginning.
A declaration of war.
The man set down his wine and pressed a button on his console.
"All units," he growled. "Initiate Phase Two."
Outside, black trucks roared to life.
Steel doors slammed open.
A new army was unleashed into the world — faster, stronger, more ruthless.
This time, Jayden would not just lose someone he loved.
He would lose everything.
---