The night hung like a torn curtain, ripped by a blood-red moon. Ethan, Gray Fox, and Karin moved through an abandoned industrial zone, footsteps echoing hollow against rusted steel.
"Don't you feel," Ethan panted, "like we're the disposable characters in a cheap horror flick? Usually by now, the audience starts betting who dies first."
"Shut up and keep moving," Karin snapped.
"It's psychological prep. If I'm going to die, might as well add a joke to the tombstone: 'Here lies a man who ran out of breath.'"
Gray Fox froze, eyes on the sky. Light flickered in the clouds like hounds sniffing blood. A low vibration pulsed through the air, like chains tightening.
"They're here," he muttered.
Three figures emerged from the alley, cloaked in gray, faces hidden by blank masks with a single jagged crack—the smile of a nightmare.
"Bureau elites," Ethan clapped slowly. "Let me guess: job description says 'beat up coworkers, occasionally catch traitors.'"
One spoke, voice like gravel. "Ethan Vail. You are classified as a potential threat. Hand over the fugitive."
"Potential?" Ethan scoffed. "How conservative. I've already graduated to full-time menace."
"Take this seriously," Karin hissed.
"Serious? This scene's terrifying enough. If I don't crack jokes, my heart'll quit first."
The cloaked figures advanced. Shadows writhed beneath their robes, alive and hungry. The ground trembled, metal walls groaned.
Gray Fox's tone was grim. "Not ordinary agents. They're puppets fused with nightmare energy."
"In other words—henchmen with built-in horror filters." Ethan drew his blade, grinning like he was heading to a disastrous wedding. "Alright then. Let's dance."
The first agent lunged, body blurring like smoke. Ethan dodged, kicking a barrel into its face—only to watch it pass through harmlessly.
"Ha! Ghost package, just as I thought. I miss enemies that actually bleed."
Gray Fox slashed with his nightmare-charged blade, tearing a rip through the air. The agent shrieked and burst into black smoke.
Karin fired her psychic pistol, bullets glowing like falling stars, forcing the second agent back.
The third raised a mirror-like device. Ethan's reflection appeared, and suddenly his body locked up.
"Great. I've been stunned by my own good looks," he croaked.
The reflection raised a blade, moving toward him.
"Kill the mirror!" Ethan shouted. "Before I die admiring myself!"
Gray Fox darted forward, smashing the mirror to shards. Ethan stumbled free, panting. "Turns out I'm lethal to myself. Learned something new."
The fight dragged on, but finally the three agents disintegrated into smoke. The air stank of cold dread.
Karin wiped sweat and glared. "You nearly died to your own reflection. And you're still joking?"
"Of course." Ethan dusted off his coat. "If I can kill myself, enemies don't scare me. That's called psychological advantage."
Gray Fox said nothing, eyes scanning the shadows.
Ethan sighed. "The Director's done playing nice. Sending nightmare agents is their polite way of saying: 'Come back, or die outside.'"
Karin growled: "Then we keep moving. If they want us dead, it means we've got hold of the truth's tail."
Ethan smirked. "Then I can't wait to see the ugly face attached."
The wind whistled through the dead factories, like a beast's corpse groaning in sleep. The three fugitives kept moving, stalked by unseen eyes.
The chase had no end in sight—but Ethan thought: As long as I can keep making jokes, I'm lucky.