The mercenaries moved like shadows. Their footsteps echoed like the whispers of condemned souls.
But just as they began to cross the lobby, the ground trembled. A low rumble shook the air. It was like the belly of the building had growled.
Then came the blast.
Both elevators exploded. A deafening, hell-born roar shattered the world. Metal shrieked like tortured spirits.
Shrapnel screamed through the air. Silence tore apart.
Agonized wails erupted. Men were thrown like rag dolls. The concussive wave struck with the fury of a wrathful god.
It hurled bodies. It scattered formation utterly..
Medic!" A raw scream ripped through the chaos.
But it was already too late.
Five were down.
Two were just… gone. Reduced to corpses.
Three others gasped, critically wounded. Their moans faded. Trailing into silence.
Vega's heart clenched. A vice of ice.
No time. The thought was a bullet.
No time to mourn.
"Move, move, MOVE!"
Vega's bark was pure battlefield instinct. Commanding. Terrifying. "We can't stay here!"
The survivors scrambled. Panicked. Desperate.
They regrouped at the stairwell entrance – hunted prey cornered.
But the stairs offered no haven.
They stretched upwards. A suffocating darkness.
A narrow vertical coffin.
A death funnel choked in shadow.
They climbed.
And then… The traps come to life.
Tripwires. Delicate as cursed spider silk.
They snared boots. Twisted ankles.
Snap.
Hidden grenades answered.
Triggered with cold, mechanical precision.
KA-BOOM!
Another explosion roared.
Thunder trapped in a tomb.
The stairwell shook.
Four more went down.
Two simply… vanished. Blown apart.
Two others fell. Left behind on the blood-slick steps.
Their screams trailed after the climbing survivors.
By the tenth floor…
Only thirty-seven remained.
The hallway door stood before them.
Slightly ajar.
Like a dark mouth waiting to devour them whole.
They pushed forward.
Into the gaping maw.
The second they crossed the threshold…
Hell unleashed.
Turrets descended.
Silent predators of cold steel and ghostly code.
Sliding from the ceiling's shadowed veins.
Their barrels spun.
A whine of mechanical hunger.
Igniting with lethal light.
A torrent of bullets erupted.
Ripping through air.
Shredding walls.
Tearing flesh alike..
"Take cover!"
Vega's roar tore through the gunfire. He dove. Behind a concrete pillar.
The hallway became a meat grinder.
Screams collided with gunfire. A brutal symphony.
Blood painted the walls. Fresh. Oily.
"Grenades!"
Chen's voice—cutting. Sara Chen. Vega's Second-in-command. His second. One of the few still standing firm.
She moved.
Pulled the pin. Launched a fragmentation grenade with practiced fury.
KA-BOOM!
The explosion hammered the corridor. One turret shattered.
Silenced.
Along with five more lives.
Still, they pressed on.
Bloodied. Bruised. But breathing.
Each floor ascended was a crucible. Scorching.
Each step forward, offers a new trial to conquer.
Fifteenth floor.
They stumbled into a nightmare.
The cafeteria...Transformed. A slaughterhouse. A nest of the infected.
Once human.
Now…twisted horrors. Limbs bent at unnatural angles.
Eyes—rabid voids. Mouths stretched into ravenous maws.
They came.
A wave of rotting hunger. Crawling from the dark corners.
The air erupted.
Shrieks—inhuman, tearing. Gunfire—desperate, staccato. The wet thud of steel biting flesh.
Knives flashed. Cold and quick.
Rounds burst. Hot and final.
Blood mixed.
The acrid sting of cordite. The thick reek of decay. The floor—a slick morass of rot and gore.
Then… silence.
The echoes faded.
Six more… claimed.
Ripped apart. Shredded. Nothing recognizable left.
Now…
Only six remained. Vega. Chen. Four others.
Exhausted. Bodies pushed beyond limits.
Bleeding. Wounds weeping crimson.
Ammunition nearly gone. Magazines frighteningly light.
But they couldn't stop.
Couldn't falter.
Ghost—He was too close.
"We're almost there," Vega growled. His voice scraped like gravel over stone.
Every breath dragged fire through his lungs.
"Stay focused."
They reached the twentieth floor.
The door to the next stairwell loomed ahead.
Locked tight.
Barricaded by cold steel.
Guarded by a glowing digital keypad.
Private Ramirez stepped forward.
The team's tech specialist.
His fingers danced across his hacking kit—a blur of practiced motion.
"I can bypass this," he muttered.
Sweat beaded at his brow. A nervous sheen.
But then—
Hissssssssssss.
A whisper. Cold. Sinister.
Like a snake slithering from the very walls.
Gas. Colorless. Creeping. Venomous.
It flooded from unseen vents.
Coiling through the air like smoke with deadly purpose.
"GAS MASKS!"
Vega's shout ripped through the hissing fog.
Too late for some.
Two collapsed.
Choking. Gasping.
Limbs convulsing violently.
Eyes bulging—silent screams tearing at their throats.
Their bodies writhed. Twisted.
Then… stilled.
Another cruel subtraction.
Only Vega, Chen, and Ramirez remained.
No hesitation.
No choice.
They rigged a charge.
Primitive.
Desperate.
Effective.
The door shattered.Obliterated into screaming shrapnel.
And they climbed.
Limbs heavy as lead.
Hearts burning coals in their chests.
Into the final stairwell.
Into the mouth of the Ghost.
---
They reached the place.
The summit fought for with blood and screams.
What they saw…
Left them cold.
A clear space.
Empty.
Silent.
Utterly barren.
Nothing was here at all.
Confusion tightened like a vice in their chests.
Was the Ghost not here?
Had they been fed false information?
Or worse…Had they just been played?
They stood...Baffled.
Stripped of understanding.
They searched.
Moving through dust-thick air and debris.
Broken remnants lay scattered—like ancient bones.
Shattered consoles.
Scorched furniture.
Rusted scaffolding.
This was the highest point.
The end of the ascent.
And yet… nothing.
They scrutinized every corner.
Every shadow.
Maybe it was a trick.
Maybe they'd missed something.
Maybe…
"SO WE LOST SO MANY MEN…"
Vega roared. His voice a thunderclap of anguish and fury.
"JUST TO GET SOMEONE WHO WASN'T EVEN HERE?!"
He couldn't take it—the silence, the loss, the emptiness mocking them.
"CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING HERE?!"
Chen and Ramirez exhaled.
Slow. Ragged.
The weight of grief collapsed onto their shoulders.Crushing.
They had sacrificed everything.
For this mission.
For a lie.
The very air seemed to mourn with them.
They sank down.
Onto the broken ground.
Surrounded by rubble.
Silence.
Utterly lost.
Everything they fought for… led to this hollow end.
"Going back to the outside world…"
Ramirez muttered. His voice was heavy with despair.
Frustration etched deep.
"…we'd be devoured by other mercenaries."
His face spelled it out—rage, exhaustion, humiliation.
"We'd be the talk of the town… failures."
ROOOOOAAAAAAR!
Vega's response. Loud. Guttural. Furious.
A sound torn from a man pushed beyond his limits.
His fists POUNDED into the walls.
THUD! CRACK!
Ancient concrete trembled.Dust rained like tears.
The worn structure groaned under his monstrous strength.
"BOSS! YOU WANT TO KILL US TOO?!"
Chen's shout was sharp as shattered glass.
Eyes wide with alarm.
They knew Vega's power—inhuman.
This fragile building wouldn't withstand it.
Vega clenched his fist.
Pulled back—Stopped.
Chen's words anchored him.
He held the fury in. Barely.
Sat back down. Breath ragged.Heart thundering.
He looked at them.
Ramirez. Chen.
Bleeding. Exhausted. Broken.
And then…
He saw something.
Something that made his blood run cold.
Something utterly shocking.
Vega's gaze snapped through the grime-streaked window.
Outside the Columbia Center, veiled in rain and distance haze…
A figure stood watching.
An elderly man...Cloaked in full black.
His hood deepened the darkness where a face should be.
For one fractured second…Their eyes met.
Across the screaming wind and crumbling city.
Vegaswore he saw it— A smirk.
Cold. Amused.
As if their suffering was…Funny.
Vega burst into laughter.
A raw, scraping sound devoid of joy.
Bitter. Hollow. Filled with awful understanding.
"I screwed up big this time..."The admission tore from him.
A laugh still rattling his ribs.
"Well played, Ghost."
Then…
The booms answered.
Deep within the building's guts—Hidden charges detonated.
Activated by the Ghost's final, mocking command.
KKKRRR-BOOOOOM!
The world erupted.
The floor beneath them buckled—screaming steel.
Concrete vomited upwards in a storm of shrapnel and dust.
Walls peeled away like burning paper.
The sky rushed in—a chaotic maw of smoke, fire, and falling debris.
The Columbia Center groaned…and began to die around them.