The ruins were silent again.
For the first time in an hour, no shrieks tore through the night, no claws scraped against stone, no twisted monsters hurled themselves into the desperate circle of fighters. The ground was littered with corpses — broken spines, mangled limbs, ichor soaking into cracked pavement. The stench of it clung to their lungs, sickly-sweet, heavy as smoke.
But silence wasn't relief.
It was only emptiness, and emptiness could hide worse things.
They were all still reeling from the last wave. Frieda had led the charge, every strike of her fists cracking with borrowed force, her body glowing faintly as she absorbed momentum and flung it back in devastating bursts. A creature had lunged for Leon's throat, but Frieda met it midair with a strike so sharp the shockwave splintered its ribcage. Now, her arms trembled faintly from overuse, skin mottled with bruises she didn't let anyone see.
Maya had been their anchor in the chaos, darting between allies, her hands sinking into torn flesh — not to heal, but to hijack. She reached into the monsters' biology, sending jolts of panic through nerves, freezing their limbs mid-swing, twisting blood flow until they staggered just long enough for Leon's hammer to find purchase. Even now her fingers twitched as if still remembering the texture of alien organs, slick and unwilling beneath her control.
Jarad had fought despite the wound that dragged at him, manipulating gravity to hurl beasts aside like ragdolls. He had crushed one under its own collapsing weight, bones snapping like brittle twigs. But his Aether had sputtered out midway, leaving him pale, coughing blood — and that was when Leon had caught him, dragging him from the melee.
Leon himself had been the wall. Enhanced strength turned him into a battering ram, his hammer pulping skulls, his body shouldering through claws that would have gutted anyone else. His breaths still came ragged, his shirt plastered with sweat and gore, but his grip on Jarad hadn't faltered.
Evie had been the scalpel to Leon's sledgehammer. She leeched heat from one creature, freezing its flesh solid before shattering it with a precise strike. Another, she burned from the inside, her palms glowing as she reversed the flow, cooking it alive in seconds. The stench of scorched meat still lingered on her hands.
And Halie — her light had been the one constant, refracting across shards of broken glass and bent steel to blind their enemies. She had turned the ruins themselves into a prism of survival, dazzling flashes creating openings for every counterstrike. Even now, faint orbs drifted lazily around her, like weary fireflies, a reminder of how close they had come to breaking.
Yet all that effort had only bought silence. And silence was the cruelest enemy of all.
Leon had Jarad slung across his shoulder, the smaller man's weight dragging on his arm. Jarad's breath came shallow, a wet rattle in his chest. His wound had darkened to an ugly, spreading stain, seeping past the rough bandages Evie had tried to tie. His health might have been bolstered by the System, his stats elevated through leveling, but reality bled through all that: too much loss, too much strain, too little time.
"Still with us?" Leon muttered, his voice low.
Jarad coughed, his lips curling in something halfway between defiance and weakness. "I'll… outlive you yet."
The joke fell flat. Evie flinched at the sound, biting down on her lip to keep from snapping. Maya walked just ahead of them, hands slick with dried blood from trying to stabilize his pulse earlier. Frieda lagged behind, shoulders tense, eyes darting at every shifting shadow as if another wave might lunge from the dark. Halie kept close, her light spheres dim, conserving what little Aether she still had.
They were walking corpses — drained, bruised, battered in body and spirit. And still, the Dome around them felt alive, creaking, groaning, the distant echoes of things that didn't sleep.
Then they saw it.
Half-hidden beneath a crumbled overpass, a rusted stairwell descended into shadow. The faded sign above it read: SUBWAY ENTRANCE B-14.
Leon's eyes narrowed. "Down there?"
"Do we have another choice?" Maya shot back, sharp. "It's cover. Maybe safe. Maybe stocked. Up here, we bleed out or we get torn apart. Down there, at least we get to gamble."
"Or get boxed in," Frieda muttered, kicking rubble with more force than needed.
"Enough," Evie snapped, sharper than she intended. She looked at each of them, exhaustion lining her face, the dried blood smearing her cheek. "We go in. If there's something waiting, we run. But we can't keep dragging him like this." Her gaze flicked to Jarad, who had slumped further against Leon, barely conscious now.
Leon grunted, jaw tight. "…Alright. But if this goes bad, you'd better be ready to run fast."
They descended into the dark.
---
The stairwell groaned under their weight. Dust fell in lazy drifts, the deeper they went, the colder it became, until their breaths misted faintly in the stale air.
At the bottom, the tunnels stretched out like veins into the earth. Broken rails. Broken signs. A few scattered bones gnawed to splinters. The silence pressed in heavy, broken only by the distant drip of water echoing somewhere unseen.
Halie whispered, "Light," and a sphere bloomed in her palm, glowing faintly. She sent it floating forward, its pale shimmer reflecting against tile walls slick with grime. The shadows retreated reluctantly, unwilling to give up their hold.
Every instinct screamed danger. Yet deeper they walked.
And then — voices.
The faintest murmur carried from further down the tunnel. Human voices.
The gang froze. Leon's fist clenched. Frieda's gun rose halfway before she realized she'd discarded her magazine. Evie tightened her grip on the blade Jarad gave her.
They crept closer, boots silent against the old stone.
And there it was — a makeshift camp. Lanterns hung from wires strung across the station's ceiling. Blankets, crates, and scavenged supplies lay scattered. At least thirty people clustered here, their clothes torn but their eyes alive. Survivors.
For a heartbeat, relief surged through the gang.
But then the stares came.
Dozens of eyes turned toward them — some wary, some desperate, some gleaming with something else. Envy. Calculation. Hunger.
A man stepped forward from the cluster, tall, broad-shouldered, a scar running down the side of his face. He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"Well now," he said, his voice slick. "What do we have here?"
---
They were welcomed, in a fashion. Food was shared sparingly. A corner of the subway was cleared for them, where Jarad could be laid down. For two days, they rested, rotating watch, their bodies slowly stitching themselves back together under the System's unseen rules. Jarad's wound closed enough that he could sit upright, though his face remained pale, his movements strained.
But the looks never stopped.
The survivors whispered when they thought the gang wasn't listening. Their eyes lingered too long on Leon's reinforced hammer, on Jarad's katana now in Evie's hands, on Maya's strange relics, on the gun Frieda kept close even empty. Tools, weapons, resources — in this broken world, value was survival, and survival bred greed.
One night, when the gang pretended to sleep, they overheard it.
"…if we took their gear, we'd be set for weeks."
"…the wounded one won't last. Better to strip him now."
"…they're strong, but not invincible. Hit them in their sleep. Quick and clean."
Frieda's eyes opened in the dark, her hand tightening around her now chipping blade. Evie's jaw clenched, heat prickling faintly against her skin. Leon's chest rose slow and steady, but his fists curled. They didn't speak. Not yet.
But they knew.
The subway wasn't a haven.
It was a trap waiting to spring.
And when it did, the survivors would learn what true monsters looked like.
---
Subject 001 crouched still, perched now on the ruined overpass above the subway. His head tilted, nostrils flaring faintly.
The scent of prey lingered. The trail had not grown cold.
He closed his eyes. Listened. Waited.
Patient. Always patient.
The hunt was not done. It was only just the beginning.
And he was going to savor every moment of it.