"Estimated blood loss over thirty-five percent of circulating volume. Class III hemorrhagic shock. Dozens of high-velocity fragments still in him. How the hell is he still breathing?"
Click. The brunette nurse snapped her ballpoint pen shut and flipped through the black medical folder.
"That's not the point, Anna."
The gray-bearded professor shook his head, staring out the window with faint melancholy. In the power-rationed city, champagne-colored towers warped under sheets of rain.
"The rescue team found him hugging a pier piling, half-drowned. Which means, on the edge of multiple organ failure, he stayed perfectly lucid and swam upward—at least two hundred feet in near-freezing water."
He turned to the nurse waiting beside him in the corridor.
"That kind of control might be why he's still alive. He was the task force commander. The best of the best."
She chewed the pen cap, glancing through the ward window at the man asleep on white sheets. Shaving the beard had been the right call; the faint East-Asian features were sharper than expected.
"Nuh, Anna."
The professor tapped the folder with a knuckle, frowning.
"Theoretically, no human survives that injury pattern. Hypertonic seawater, acute hypothermia, overwhelming sepsis—any one of those kills in minutes."
He loosened his collar and exhaled against the fogged glass.
"Yet we found zero infection. Just spiking fevers for forty-eight hours, then his vitals stabilized—too fast."
Anna turned another page and studied the X-ray riddled with pale shadows. We pulled the life-threatening fragments in the first two surgeries. The rest, some worked their way out on their own over the next days. Shallow wounds clotted without help. He sweated buckets of fever sweat that carried out inflammatory markers and metallic traces.
"I'm wondering… no. Perhaps that's exactly it. There's something else inside him. Not white cells—something that defends its host a hundred times more aggressively than any phage we know. And completely invisible to every test we have."
"Oh, Professor, I thought you didn't believe in that sort of thing."
She spun the pen once, eyes lingering on the silhouette under the lightboard—lean, almost no body fat, proportions too perfect.
"Everything I just said is documented fact."
The professor scratched his thinning hair.
"During the first case we tried general anesthesia. It never took properly—kept fighting the paralytics. So we backed off to heavy sedation and local blocks. He stayed half-aware the whole time, dreaming, pupils darting under the lids, but never lost vitals."
"…Holy. Shit."
"Even the dog tag of his fallen teammate… he never let go. Palm scabbed right over it."
The professor clenched his own wrist, staring at the survivor with equal parts fear and reverence.
"John Hastings. God only knows what he brought back with him."
The IV line trembled as the patient stirred. She closed the folder and whispered, "Hey. He's awake."
Heart monitor spiked for five frantic seconds, then settled.
A scarred hand closed around the bed rail. The man in the low-cut hospital gown pushed himself upright on the fourth morning after surgery, expression still dazed.
He forced open his stiff right hand. The silver dog tag stuck to his palm peeled away with dried blood. He blinked once, slowly.
Sensation returned—sound, pain, light. Footsteps approached. Clutching his bandaged abdomen, he turned.
"Feeling any better, Captain?"
The brunette nurse spoke first, stepping close.
"Anna, let me."
The professor took the folder from her, glanced at the monitors, then addressed the silent patient.
"Latest labs are stable. Infectious panel completely negative. That's the good news."
He fished glasses from his pocket and perched them on his puffy face.
"The brain CT shows severe PTSD—expect headaches, flashbacks, nightmares, the full package."
She reached to adjust the open collar he had tugged loose. The professor pretended not to notice.
"You won't be going back to the service. Between the relief fund, donations, and your pension, you'll be more than comfortable."
"Are you ready to live a quiet civilian life, John?"
Silence. The professor closed the folder with a soft snap.
Under the harsh fluorescents, John Hastings sat on the edge of the bed. He threw back the blanket, eyed the IV in his forearm, then ripped the tape free in one motion. Blood beaded; he ignored it.
"Sir—"
The nurse reached with gauze. He didn't take it.
He peeled off the hospital gown, revealing fresh black sutures and draining wounds beneath transparent dressings, then dressed in the uniform someone had left folded on the chair: white shirt, midnight-blue dress jacket, tie loosened but present, polished shoes. He placed the green beret on his head with deliberate care.
"…Thank you, Doc."
He stood—slowly, swaying once—then steadied. Shadow hid half his face. He clenched his jaw, felt the cold metal tags against his chest, and said, voice raw:
"This isn't over."