THE STORY CONTINUES.
CHAPTER — Sector One, Root Three
Armin woke to screaming.(with recap)
Not his own.
The mountain base—once a place of whispered routines, hidden paths, and quiet survival—had been torn open like a wound. Blood slicked the stone floor, pooling in unnatural stillness, thick enough to reflect the cold moonlight leaking through fractured vents above. The smell hit him next: iron, smoke, and something older—fear soaked so deeply into the walls it felt alive.
He scrambled upright, breath ragged, hands searching for a weapon that wasn't there.
Bodies lay everywhere.
Not whole.
Never whole.
Arms twisted at impossible angles. A torso half-submerged in blood, ribs torn open as if pried apart by bare hands. One of the training youths—Daniel—was slumped against a pillar, eyes open, throat missing. Another floated face-down in a basin meant for clean water, hair drifting gently as if asleep.
Armin staggered backward.
"No… no no no—"
Movement.
The remaining youngsters emerged from the shadows, weapons raised. Knives, pipes, sharpened steel scraps—hands shaking, eyes red, faces streaked with blood that wasn't all theirs.
They weren't relieved to see him.
They were terrified.
And furious.
Armin stepped toward them instinctively, arms open. "I'm here—listen to me—"
A blade pressed against his throat.
"Don't come closer," John hissed, voice cracking. "Don't you dare."
Another shouted, "Why did you do this?!"
"I didn't," Armin said hoarsely. "I swear—I wasn't here. I—"
"Liar!"
Someone shoved him. He fell hard onto blood-slick stone, breath knocked from his lungs. When he looked up, he saw it clearly now.
They believed it was him.
The timing. His collapse. His arrival.
The massacre.
George's hands were shaking so badly his weapon clattered to the ground. "Everyone was alive," he whispered. "You collapsed—and then it came."
Armin's heart slammed. "It?"
Before he could ask more, the air behind him shifted.
Cold.
Heavy.
Someone spoke.
"Enough."
The voice carried exhaustion deeper than anger.
Armin turned slowly.
The masked singer stood behind him.
Or what remained of him.
His demon mask was cracked, split through one eye. The guitar was shattered, strings hanging loose like veins. One arm was gone at the shoulder, the wound crudely burned shut. Blood soaked his dark cloak, dripping steadily onto the stone.
He should not have been standing.
Yet he was.
"Leave him," the singer said calmly. "This one is not your executioner."
The youngsters hesitated.
John snarled, "Then why did everyone die after he came?!"
The singer laughed—once. Broken. Hollow. "Because you are not the center of this nightmare."
He stepped forward, looming despite his injuries. "You think this sector is alone?"
Silence.
He raised his remaining hand, fingers trembling. "There were two hundred and eighty-one sectors like this. Mountains.
Bases. Sanctuaries."
His voice dropped.
"Only twenty-three remain."
The words crushed the room.
"These weren't accidents," he continued.
"They were hunts."
He grabbed Armin by the collar and yanked him upright. "If you care about the dead," he spat at the youths, "then let him go where the living are still screaming."
He leaned close to Armin's ear.
"My child is alive," he whispered. "Taken."
Armin froze.
"There is a mountain like this one," the singer said louder now, addressing everyone. "But it does not hide. It dominates."
He pointed into the dark. "Sector One-Five-Three. No moon temple. No sanctuary."
A wet cough wracked his body. Blood streamed from beneath the mask.
"A black castle," he rasped. "Its roots dig into monster lairs. Its halls drink screams."
He shoved Armin forward. "Go. Save them. Save her."
Then something changed.
The singer's body stiffened.
The blood stopped dripping—and began flowing upward.
His remaining eye darkened, swallowing the white. Black liquid streamed from his mouth and eyes as his grin widened unnaturally.
"But hurry," he whispered, voice no longer his own.
"He is already watching you."
The lights died.
Armin gasped—
—
—and woke choking on air.
TO BE CONTINUED.