Tick… tick…
Time moved.
The tension was palpable, sweat dripping down foreheads, and then…
The horn wailed, and the wall exhaled fire.
"Move!" Ethan said, and they were up and running, boots hammering the cracked asphalt as the Kill Road unfurled before them like a scar.
The run began; the 20 minute countdown started.
The first fifty meters were the kind of sprint that felt like falling. Floodlights carved white corridors through the smoke, while turrets drummed a brutal rhythm that rattled teeth and turned the air to grit.
The wall had scythed the front ranks moments earlier, cutting through razorbacks and splitting them open like crushed tin, ash-crows sizzling on hot pavement, but the Kill Road never stayed clean.
It crawled with what slipped the net, twitching things with too many joints, slick bodies like spilled oil, and beaks that clicked like metronomes set too fast.
