"I woke two days later in a hospital inside the Sun Kingdom.
The first thing I felt was weight, not pain exactly, but a crushing heaviness pressing down on my chest and limbs, as if my body no longer quite belonged to me. White stone ceilings hovered above, blurred at the edges. The air smelled of disinfectant and burned herbs. Somewhere nearby, I could hear quiet footsteps, the rustle of cloth, the steady rhythm of another man breathing.
When my eyes finally focused, a healer noticed and rushed to my side. By then, I was told the other trucks had been intercepted. All of them. Every woman had been recovered and safely returned to their home. The words sounded rehearsed, clean, too perfect. I would not have believed them if they had come only from officials in pressed uniforms, men trained to speak.
But the woman who had been with me said the same.
She sat beside my bed and repeated it, slowly, carefully, as if speaking to a frightened child. She described the girls being taken home, described seeing thier families. She thanked me. Over and over. Only then did the tension in my body ease enough for me to breathe properly. Only then did I allow myself to believe it.
And the moment I stopped worrying about them, my thoughts rushed elsewhere.
I began missing Hannah and June so fiercely that it left me breathless. Their faces filled my mind without warning, Hannah's tired eyes when she smiled at me at the end of a long day, June's quiet presence beside her, always watching, always listening. The longing was sharp, almost painful, like a blade pressed beneath my ribs. I needed to see them. Immediately.
The doctors tried to stop me from leaving. They said my injuries were not healed, that my ki was unstable, that my body needed rest. I argued until my throat burned and my head throbbed. In the end, they relented, more out of fear than agreement.
I said farewell to the woman who had stayed with me, promised her she was safe now, and left at once. I did not report to the king. I did not file a single report about the base. All of that could wait. My family could not."
Hercules swallowed. His voice dropped, as though each word now had to be pulled from somewhere deep and reluctant.
"It was night by the time I reached home. The road was quiet, lanterns flickering weakly along the streets. During the entire journey, I rehearsed a story to tell Hannah and June. Something gentle. Something harmless. I did not want fear to touch them, not even through words.
I imagined Hannah's surprised face when I would take her to the park. I imagined June walking slightly behind us, pretending not to care while listening to everything. I imagined small arguments, laughter, ordinary things. More than anything, I imagined telling them my decision to quit the military. I had decided that night, truly decided. I would punish Henry and the others, and then I would walk away forever. I would become nothing more than a husband and a father. That was my future. That was supposed to be my life.
Still lost in those thoughts, I opened the gate.
At that exact moment, the entire street went dark.
Lanterns died all at once. Windows vanished into shadow. A sudden blackout swallowed every house in the neighborhood. My home, too, stood there in complete darkness, silent, waiting.
As I walked toward the door, something inside me tightened. My heart began pounding harder with every step, each beat echoing in my ears. Then, strangely, when I stopped in front of the door, the pounding slowed. Within seconds, it steadied, calm in a way that felt deeply wrong.
I placed my hand on the knob and pushed.
The door opened immediately. It was already unlocked.
Inside, the house was just as dark as the street. I stepped in and searched for their silhouettes, listening for movement, for breath, for anything. I found nothing. My own breathing grew thin, uneven. I reached out with my senses, searching for their ki.
I sensed two ki inside the house.
Neither belonged to Hannah or June.
Both felt wrong. Twisted. Corrupted. As if something rotten had learned how to imitate life.
As I stood there, trying to understand, a faint smell drifted toward me. Decay. Like flesh left too long beneath the sun. So faint it could have been imagined, yet the instant I noticed it, my body began trembling without my permission.
I stepped forward.
The lights switched on.
For a second, I could see nothing. The sudden brightness stabbed into my eyes, white and merciless. Then my vision adjusted.
And the world ended.
Hannah lay on the floor. Naked. A man sat on top of her, his hips moving, his hands groping her body as if she were nothing more than meat.
June laid naked on the sofa. Another man humping her from the back..
I do not remember what happened next in order. Only fragments remain, scattered like shards of broken glass.
One moment, I was standing in the doorway. The next, my hands were around the throat of the beast on Hannah. His body lifted from the floor, his legs kicking uselessly. I remember the sound his neck made.
I remember staring down at Hannah, at the blood between her legs, my mind refusing to understand it. Another beast leapt onto me from behind. I did not mind it.
I tore the first corpse apart because killing him once did not feel sufficient. I ripped him until nothing remained whole.
The second clung to me, screaming. I crushed him. Bones snapped beneath my arms. His body collapsed, lifeless.
Watching the dead, I finally cooled down. I called the polis immediately.
After that, everything became quiet. Not peaceful. Just empty.
I lifted Hannah and June carefully, as though they might still feel pain. I dressed them. I placed them on the sofa. I sat between them.
The three of us watched television together.
The program that played was about Rainbow Park, the same park I had planned to take Hannah to for her birthday. I told them everything I had rehearsed on the road. I laughed once or twice. At some point, tears streamed down my face, but I kept talking, pretending they were listening.
The polis burst in while I was still speaking to them.
After that, everything moved quickly. Arrest. Trial. Judgment. Conviction for brutally murdering two men. Eight years of imprisonment.
And just like that," Hercules said, his voice barely above a whisper, "I was thrown behind bars."