The warehouse was dim, boxes piled like coffins awaiting burial.Ethan pressed his gun to his friend's chest. One squeeze, and the heart would become a red invitation card.
The friend didn't flinch. He even smiled, twisted humor: "Go on. Isn't this your chance to repay all my shadows with a single bullet?"
The tension was clinical, textbook-worthy. Two men. One aiming, one waiting. Dust drifted down like God sprinkling pepper.
Ethan's hand trembled—not from hesitation, but from absurdity. All the chaos, betrayals, moles, files, faction games—every thread ended here, in this man. The same man he once shared bad coffee and baldness jokes with.
"Why?" Ethan's voice rasped.
"Because I learned early—truth is a joke." His friend spread his hands like a stand-up comic. "Killing you was an order. Betraying them was inevitable. Surviving this long? Pure accident."
Ethan pressed the muzzle harder: "You realize one centimeter, and you're quiet forever?"
"Then pull it," his friend taunted. "But you won't. You've never been that ruthless."
Memories flooded Ethan: training together, drunken nights collapsing on sidewalks, even the time they got punished for slipping jokes into case reports. Could he really shoot?
"You once said you'd protect the truth," his friend goaded. "But look around—what truth? Our 'justice' is just budget paperwork."
"Shut up," Ethan growled, eyes bloodshot.
"Afraid to hear it? Or afraid to admit you're just another puppet in this farce?"
The gun trembled. Silence pressed like an audience waiting for the bloody finale.
Seconds dragged like centuries. Then Ethan laughed—harsh, brittle, wire scraping glass."Kill you, and I'd feel peace. For three seconds. By the fourth, I'd just be another joke. Too cheap an ending."
He lowered the gun. His voice was chillingly calm: "Living is worse punishment."
Air grew lighter, but deadlier. His friend clapped, laughing: "Bravo, Ethan. Truly the Bureau's master of dark humor."
But then—gunfire.
Not Ethan's.From the shadows, a bullet smashed a barrel behind his friend, sparks flying. A hidden hunter had joined the act.
Ethan and his friend locked eyes—murder and survival tangled. They both understood: the play wasn't theirs anymore.
Ethan steadied his aim at the dark, muttering: "So this isn't our death rehearsal. Someone else wrote a new script."
His friend wiped iron dust off his cheek, grinning like a corpse: "Now it's fun. You spared me, but we might die together."
The warehouse lights flickered, a torn stage curtain. The play stretched on, the finale still far away.
And Ethan realized: the real choice wasn't pulling the trigger. It was deciding whether to keep watching this absurd comedy.
He chose to watch.