Nana's motorcycle roared through the chaos-filled streets of Linkon City.
She'd stopped counting the survivors an hour ago. Stopped counting the creatures she'd killed. Stopped counting anything except the next person who needed saving and the next monster that needed to die.
Her aether core was running low—she could feel it, that hollow sensation in her chest that came from sustained combat without rest. But she couldn't stop. Every time she slowed down, she saw another shimmer point opening. Another creature emerging. Another survivor stumbling through a portal, skeletal and terrified.
A hybrid lunged from an alley to her left. Nana didn't even slow down—just extended her leg in a perfectly timed kick that connected with the creature's skull as she passed. It crumpled. She was already accelerating before it hit the ground.
Behind her, a group of skeletal survivors huddled in the doorway of a collapsed building. She'd cleared the creatures from that area five minutes ago. It would buy them maybe an hour before something else found them.
It would have to be enough.
Her hunter watch beeped. Emergency broadcast. She didn't need to check it—could already hear the message being repeated on loudspeakers throughout the city.
**ALL CIVILIANS PROCEED TO DESIGNATED SAFE ZONES. LINKON GENERAL HOSPITAL IS ACCEPTING WOUNDED. MILITARY CHECKPOINT GAMMA IS OPERATIONAL.**
Linkon General. The biggest hospital in the city. The place where—
Zayne.
Zayne had said he was going there. Had taken an abandoned car from the residential district and driven toward the hospital because they'd been getting emergency calls for medical personnel and he was still a doctor, still trained to save lives, even if his body was now a weapon built to end them.
Nana changed direction, gunning the motorcycle toward the hospital district.
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Zayne's borrowed car slammed into concrete.
One moment he'd been navigating around abandoned vehicles and debris on the highway. The next, something massive had dropped from above—no warning, no shimmer point, just a demon materializing directly in his path.
He'd jerked the wheel hard. The car had gone sideways, skidded, and crashed into a highway barrier with enough force to deploy the airbags and crack the windshield.
Zayne sat there for a stunned second, ears ringing, frost spreading unconsciously from his hands across the deflating airbag. Through the cracked windshield, he could see the demon recovering from its own landing, turning toward the car with predatory interest.
He kicked the door open and rolled out just as the demon's claws tore through the roof.
Ice formed in his hands without conscious thought. Not a weapon this time—a barrier. A wall of crystallized cold that erupted between him and the creature, buying him seconds to get distance.
The demon smashed through it. Of course it did. Zayne was already running, already forming his next attack. An ice spear. A arrow. Anything that could—
Gunfire erupted from the highway overpass above. Military snipers, positioned at what remained of the checkpoint. Armor-piercing rounds that punched through the demon's dark energy and disrupted its form long enough for Zayne's ice spear to finish the job.
The creature dissolved.
Zayne looked up at the snipers. Raised his hand in acknowledgment. They didn't wave back—just stared at the frost still spreading from his body, at the very obvious evol manifestation that marked him as either hunter or specimen.
He understood their uncertainty. In the current chaos, it was getting harder to tell the difference.
Zayne turned and ran the remaining distance to the hospital on foot. The car was totaled anyway. And he was faster now than he used to be—the enhancement had done that much. His body could sustain speeds and exertion that would have exhausted his old self in minutes.
Linkon General came into view around the next bend. And Zayne's heart sank.
The hospital was under siege.
Not metaphorically. Literally under siege. Military units had established a perimeter around the entire complex—sandbag barriers, heavy weapons emplacements, Hunter teams deployed at every entrance. They were holding the line against a constant stream of creatures trying to breach the defenses.
Trying and, in some cases, succeeding.
A vampire had made it past the north checkpoint. Zayne could see it from here—moving through the hospital parking structure, hunting for a way inside. The military was repositioning to contain it but there were too many other threats demanding attention.
Zayne formed an ice arrow and let it fly.
The shot crossed two hundred meters and struck the vampire center mass. It froze, shattered, dissolved. The soldiers who had been moving to engage it stopped. Turned. Stared at Zayne standing on the highway with frost spreading from his boots and ice manifesting in his hands.
One of them—a captain, judging by the insignia—raised a radio to his lips. Zayne couldn't hear what was said, but he could guess.
*Unknown enhanced individual approaching from the north. Possibly hostile. Possibly specimen. Advise.*
Zayne raised his hands in a non-threatening gesture and kept walking. Slowly. Carefully. Giving them time to make a decision that didn't involve shooting him.
A hunter stepped forward as Zayne reached the perimeter. Young, maybe mid-twenties, wearing the same tactical gear Nana used. He looked Zayne up and down—taking in the frost, the ice evol, the obvious enhancement modifications.
"You're him," the hunter said. "The doctor. The one who was with Specimen 21 when you escaped the facility."
"Dr. Zayne Li," Zayne confirmed. "Cardiologist. Linkon General. And yes, I was enhanced against my will by the same program that created Nana. But I'm here to help."
The hunter studied him for a long moment. Then nodded and stepped aside. "They need you inside. Triage is overwhelmed. We've got hundreds of wounded and not enough medical staff to handle them."
Zayne moved through the checkpoint without further challenge. The military let him pass—not because they trusted him, but because they were desperate enough to accept any help they could get.
The hospital's interior was a nightmare.
Every bed was occupied. Every examination room. Every available space had been converted into treatment areas. And it still wasn't enough.
People lay on the floors. In hallways. In waiting rooms that had been repurposed as emergency triage zones. Blood pooled on tile floors that the custodial staff couldn't clean fast enough. The air reeked of disinfectant and fear and the coppery smell of mass casualties.
Medical staff moved through the chaos with exhausted efficiency. Nurses triaging wounds. Doctors performing emergency procedures in spaces that weren't designed for them. Orderlies running supplies between departments that were rapidly running out of everything.
Zayne stopped at the first nurse he saw—a woman he vaguely recognized from his cardiology rotations. Her scrubs were soaked with blood. Her hands were shaking from exhaustion.
"Where do you need me?" he asked.
She looked at him. At the frost still clinging to his clothes. At the enhanced physiology that was obvious in the way he moved. For a second, Zayne saw fear flicker in her eyes.
Then professional necessity overrode it. "Trauma bay three. We've got a chest wound we can't stabilize. If you're still a surgeon, we need your hands."
"I'm still a surgeon," Zayne confirmed.
He ran.
Trauma bay three was a converted conference room. Someone had wheeled in an examination table and as much medical equipment as they could fit in the space. A patient lay on the table—middle-aged man, chest torn open by what looked like hybrid claws. Two residents were working on him, their movements frantic, their faces pale.
"We can't get the bleeding under control," one of them said the moment Zayne entered. "The claw went through the right ventricle. Every time we try to repair it, the sutures tear. His blood pressure is dropping. We're losing him."
Zayne moved to the table. Looked at the wound with the practiced eye of someone who had spent years studying the human heart, who knew its structure better than almost anyone alive.
The damage was extensive. The hybrid's claw had torn through muscle and vessel, leaving devastation that would be difficult to repair under ideal circumstances. In a converted conference room with limited equipment and no proper surgical support—
Zayne's ice evol pulsed.
An idea formed. Risky. Probably insane. But the patient was dying anyway and conventional approaches weren't working.
"Get me a vascular clamp," Zayne said. "And step back. I'm going to try something."
The residents exchanged glances but complied. Zayne placed his hand directly over the wound—felt the warmth of blood, the irregular flutter of a damaged heart trying desperately to keep pumping.
Then he activated his ice evol. Deliberately. Carefully. With more precision than he'd ever attempted before.
Frost formed inside the wound. Not on the surface—inside. Crystallizing the blood, creating a temporary scaffold that held the torn tissue together. Not healing it. Not replacing the damaged muscle. Just stabilizing it. Creating a bridge that would hold long enough for proper surgical repair.
The bleeding slowed. Then stopped.
The patient's blood pressure stabilized.
The residents stared at Zayne like he'd performed a miracle.
"That won't last," Zayne said, already moving. "You need to get him to a proper surgical suite and repair the damage correctly within the next two hours. The ice will hold until then but not longer. Can you do that?"
They nodded, still stunned.
Zayne moved to the next patient. And the next. And the next.
He lost track of time. Lost track of how many people he treated. Chest wounds, abdominal trauma, limb injuries, burns, infections from partially-transformed bites that were showing signs of contamination.
He used his medical training for what it was designed for. Used his ice evol as a tool—creating sutures from frozen blood, stopping hemorrhages with precisely placed frost, cooling fevered bodies that were fighting infections they couldn't beat on their own.
Used the enhancements that had been forced on him to save lives instead of take them.
Hours passed. The sun set. Emergency lighting kicked in as the power grid struggled under the load.
And still the wounded kept coming.
A nurse found him between patients. "Dr. Li. There's a situation at the north entrance. Military is requesting all available enhanced personnel."
Zayne didn't ask questions. Just ran.
The north entrance had been breached. Not by one creature—by several. A coordinated attack that had overwhelmed the checkpoint and pushed into the hospital's ground floor.
Military personnel were fighting a desperate defensive action, trying to keep the creatures away from the upper floors where the wounded lay helpless. Hunters engaged with weapons and evols that were powerful but not enough against the sheer numbers.
Zayne raised his hands and let the ice flow.
Not controlled strikes this time. Not careful, surgical precision. Just raw power—the kind of area-effect detonation he'd first manifested in the facility's arena when Nana had been threatened.
The temperature dropped forty degrees in five seconds. Every creature within twenty meters froze solid. Then shattered.
The soldiers and hunters stared at him. At what he'd just done. At the power he'd just demonstrated.
Zayne lowered his hands, breathing hard. "The north entrance is clear. Reinforce the perimeter. Don't let anything else get through."
They scrambled to comply.
Zayne turned to head back to triage—and stopped.
Through the hospital's front windows, he could see the street outside. Could see the chaos still raging across the city. The shimmer points still opening. The creatures still emerging. The desperate battle that was being fought on every block, in every district, by people who were exhausted and terrified and running out of time.
Could see a motorcycle approaching at high speed, weaving through abandoned vehicles and debris.
Nana.
He'd recognize that riding style anywhere. Aggressive, efficient, taking risks that would terrify anyone else but that she executed with perfect precision.
She skidded to a stop at the hospital perimeter, already off the bike before it had fully stopped moving. Her backpack was bulging—weapons, he realized. She'd been to the Hunter Association. Had raided their armory for supplies.
The military let her through immediately. Everyone recognized Specimen 21 by now. Recognized the woman who had been fighting nonstop for three days, who had saved hundreds of civilians, who had become a symbol of resistance against the nightmare consuming their city.
She ran through the perimeter and into the hospital. Found Zayne in the lobby. Their eyes met.
She looked exhausted. Covered in blood and dirt and ash. Her aether core was dim—barely glowing, running on fumes. She'd been pushing herself past every limit, had been fighting for hours without rest.
But she was alive. Still standing. Still fighting.
"You made it," Zayne said.
"You made it," she echoed.
They didn't embrace. Didn't have time. Outside, the battle was still raging. Inside, people were still dying. The work wasn't done—wouldn't be done for a long time.
But at least they were together. At least they were still alive.
At least they were still fighting.
Nana pulled weapons from her backpack. "I brought supplies. Hunter-grade ammunition. Evol-dampening rounds. Everything I could carry."
"The military will appreciate that," Zayne said. "How bad is it out there?"
"Bad. The Hunter Association building is half-collapsed. A lot of hunters are dead. The ones who are still alive are scattered across the city, trying to hold defensive positions." She paused. "I saw Tara. She's alive. Injured but alive. She and a few others are defending the eastern evacuation corridor."
Zayne felt something unclench slightly in his chest. At least some of their friends had survived.
"What do we do now?" Nana asked quietly.
Zayne looked around the hospital. At the wounded filling every space. At the medical staff working past exhaustion. At the soldiers and hunters holding the perimeter against endless waves of creatures.
"We do what we can," he said. "I keep people alive in here. You keep the creatures out there from getting in. We hold this position because if the hospital falls, a lot of people die who don't have to."
Nana nodded. "Okay. I can work with that."
She turned to head back outside—to rejoin the defensive perimeter, to keep fighting, to do what she'd been built to do.
Zayne caught her hand. "Nana."
She looked back.
"Don't die," he said simply.
"You too," she replied.
Then she was gone. Running back to the perimeter. Back to the battle. Back to the endless fight that had become their lives.
Zayne watched her go. Then turned and headed back to triage.
There were more patients waiting. More lives that needed saving. More impossible situations that required impossible solutions.
He was an enhanced specimen. A weapon built by the government. A doctor whose body had been modified against his will.
But he was still a doctor. Still someone who had sworn an oath to save lives. Still someone who believed that even in hell, even in the middle of chaos and death and nightmare, there was value in fighting for the people who couldn't fight for themselves.
So he fought. With ice and precision and medical knowledge that had taken years to acquire. Fought to keep people alive long enough for proper treatment. Fought to give hope to those who had every reason to give up.
Outside, Nana fought too. With enhanced strength and weapons and the desperate determination of someone who had survived one nightmare and refused to let another one consume the people she loved.
They fought separately. Together. Two halves of the same desperate battle.
And in the hospital's trauma bays and hallways and converted treatment areas, lives were saved.
Not all of them. Not even most of them. But some.
And in the middle of hell, that had to be enough.
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To be continued.