The mission came in flagged BLACK PRIORITY.
No details.
No threat estimate.
Just coordinates—and a warning stamped across the briefing screen:
EXPECT CASUALTIES.
They were deployed together without explanation.
Isaac felt it immediately. That wrongness in the air as the transport pierced the cloud layer, the way the sky around the rift twisted like wet flesh.
Rebekah cracked her knuckles. "Feels bad."
Roman adjusted his grip on his weapon. "This isn't a standard Sol nest."
Sergio grinned anyway, teeth sharp. "Good. I was bored."
The building below was half-collapsed—an old residential block swallowed by a rift bloom. Black veins crawled up its walls, pulsing like arteries. Screams echoed from inside, thin and desperate.
A child's scream.
Isaac moved before command finished speaking.
They entered through a shattered stairwell.
The smell hit first—iron, rot, burnt ozone. Then the bodies.
Civilians. Torn open. Some fused into the walls by rift matter, faces frozen mid-scream.
Isaac swallowed hard but didn't stop.
The Sols came fast.
Not beasts—hunters.
Tall, jointed things with elongated skulls and too many limbs, moving like insects that learned how to hate. One dropped from the ceiling and nearly took Isaac's head off.
Rebekah intercepted, smashing its jaw clean off with a gauntleted punch. Black blood sprayed the walls.
Roman burned another apart from the inside, light detonating through its ribcage.
Sergio waded into three at once, laughing as claws raked his arms, tearing flesh. He crushed one's skull with his bare hands and used the corpse as a weapon against the others.
Isaac focused.
Cut. Step. Cut again.
No wasted movement.
Still—there were too many.
Then the scream again.
Closer.
They found her on the twelfth floor.
They found her on the twelfth floor.
A little girl—no older than seven—curled beneath a broken table, clutching a stuffed animal soaked in blood that wasn't hers.
A Sol stood over her.
Different.
Thicker. Smarter. Its body layered in shifting armor, eyes glowing with rift-light intelligence.
Isaac felt something snap inside him.
"MOVE," he shouted.
The Sol lunged.
Isaac met it head-on.
The impact hurled him through a wall. Bone screamed. He hit the floor hard, vision flashing white—but he forced himself up as the creature stalked toward the girl.
Rebekah slammed into its side, cracking armor.
Roman blinded it.
Sergio ripped one arm off—but the Sol didn't die.
It turned.
Straight for the girl.
Isaac moved without thinking.
He put himself between them.
The claw went through him.
Clean through his shoulder.
Pain exploded—but he didn't scream.
He grabbed the Sol's wrist, blade shaking in his other hand, and drove it up into the creature's skull. Once. Twice. Again. And again. And again.
Bone split.
Black blood poured down his face.
The Sol collapsed inches from the child.
Dead.
Isaac dropped to his knees.
The girl stared at him, wide-eyed, silent.
Blood dripped from his fingers.
"…Hey," he said softly, forcing a smile through the pain. "It's okay now."
She didn't move.
Slowly, carefully, he reached out and pushed the table aside.
She flinched.
Isaac froze immediately. "I won't hurt you. I promise."
A long moment passed.
Then she crawled forward and wrapped her arms around him.
Tight.
Like she was afraid he'd disappear.
Isaac's breath hitched.
He gently put one arm around her, careful of his injury.
"You're safe," he whispered. "I've got you."
Behind them, Sergio went quiet.
Rebekah looked away.
Roman clenched his jaw.
Extraction took longer than planned.
More Sols. More blood. More death.
But they got out.
The girl never let go of Isaac's hand.
Even in the transport, she leaned against him, asleep, trusting him with a purity that hurt.
"What's your name?" Isaac asked softly.
"…Kira," she murmured.
He smiled. "I'm Isaac."
She smiled back, small and tired.
That night, mission logs recorded the operation as a success.
Casualties: extreme.
Threat level: underestimated.
But none of that mattered to Isaac.
Because for the first time since the world broke—
He had saved something innocent.
And he would never forget the weight of that small hand holding onto his,
like proof he was still human.