Three dry coughs burst out. With each one, Victor spat dust. His throat parched and clogged, he turned to the right, trying to push himself up with his arm. His movements were unsteady. The boy was still trembling, letting out small, muffled sounds. "Em… eh."
Once upright, with his hands barely managing to brace against the hot, jagged rubble, he gagged, trying to rid himself of the sensation. He stuck two fingers from his right hand into his mouth as far as he could.
He vomited. Twice in a row.
For a few seconds, Victor stared in horror at the liquid mass on the ground, which smelled exactly like what it contained: chunks of concrete, blood, and gastric fluids.
He was shaking.
All around him, everything was dark. Above, the sun's rays striking the mountains were the only source of light. Down here, in the depths, there were only wreckage and debris, swallowed by darkness, rooted into the environment—deep and hollow. So hollow that just looking at it made Victor feel even more suffocated.
"Shit…"
Victor tried to stand. However, his legs were still badly numb. He attempted to rise slowly, even though they trembled violently, making it especially difficult; with every extra effort, he felt himself locking up.
"Fuck!"
Victor turned as quickly as he could, but sliced his left hand on sharp metal objects when he braced himself. Despite the pain, he stayed silent, exhaling sharply and grimacing.
He sat down carefully, rubbing his hands along his thighs and legs, trying to relax the muscles and get the blood flowing.
Then a scream—male. Horrifying. As if someone were being attacked.
It came from the darkness, straight ahead.
Victor froze for a few seconds, perhaps waiting for another scream.
"Hey… is anyone there?" Only a metallic echo answered him. The silence returned.
He tried one last time to get up. He could feel the blood moving in his legs now, but he was still far from fully recovered. He pushed himself up, using his left leg—the more responsive one, the less fractured one. No good. Then a second push, harder. Debris dug into his hands, even into the earlier wound. The pain was excruciating.
That shove got him upright. For a brief moment, he nearly lost his balance, partly because of the slight slope pulling him downward. His right leg was fractured. Not too badly. Still, his mobility was severely reduced. As he moved toward the screams, he limped, carefully watching his steps to avoid as many obstacles as possible.
He had no flashlight. Nothing to illuminate his path. He could only rely on his sense of direction and on his eyes, which were slowly adjusting to the dark, allowing him to see just a little better.
"Hey, can you hear me?!" Victor kept searching. The hope that he hadn't been the only survivor pushed him forward. Seeing that man trampled by the crowd—emitting electronic groans, straining to speak, reaching toward him with a scarred hand, his trembling arm slowly lowering as the mass crushed him—was yet another time Victor had watched someone die before his eyes. Seeing people killed in front of him had become almost daily. His emotional detachment came also from that. On Earth, for many, it was normal to remain indifferent to death. But Victor couldn't tolerate it. He couldn't accept it, and it made him feel twisted. For him, it was a matter of ethics, of respect for life and justice. An inner battle he fought alongside the one in this collapsing world.
"Hey!" he shouted, stretching out the words. "I'm coming to save you!"
"Go away…"
There was the voice. Still from the darkness. This time, directly in front of him.
He didn't understand that "go away." Why would he say that? he thought.
"What do you mean with "go away"…? Can you hear me?"
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a hand—but its shape looked wrong. The middle fingers were longer, warped. The forearm was thin and frail, covered in strange, indistinct filaments.
"What the…?"
He was already stepping backward, slow and cautious, trying not to make a sound. His breathing grew shallow and rapid, his heart climbing into his throat, choking him. The person's groans became harsher, more pained. And the voice—it shifted. Lower. The groans turned into grunts, guttural sounds. "Uom… uom."
Victor's heel struck something light and plastic. Without taking his eyes off the source of the sounds, he picked it up. A flashlight.
"It's still charged…"
He wanted to run. He didn't want to turn it on. He didn't want to know. But the fear of abandoning another dying life forced him to stay, to risk it anyway. The flashlight trembled in his sweaty hand. He gripped it tighter and tighter, rigid as stone.
He slowly extended his arm, not aiming directly at the "man." He pointed it slightly lower. As he approached, the beam stabbed into his eyes like needles, burning for a moment from the sudden brightness.
When his vision adjusted, he advanced again. Each step was measured. Each breath carefully controlled. His eyes fixed on the beam illuminating the ground, revealing scattered metal scrap and settled dust.
Finally, Victor illuminated the body.
It was still alive—but the skin was almost entirely liquefied, bubbling over the prone body, releasing a nauseating odor. The face was gone. The eyes, bursted, dangled outside the skull, which had partially disintegrated at the right temple. The jaw, soaked in bloody tears flowing from the empty sockets, had detached on the right side and hung by a few strands of flesh. "A…ha…"
The voice was broken. The vocal cords, partly visible through the torn neck, were rotting, dissolving.
Then, just before collapsing, under Victor's petrified gaze, the carcass began to spasm—at first faint, then increasingly violent. The back cracked lengthwise, as if something were pushing out. A series of macabre sounds followed, bones snapping, wet gelatinous flesh tearing faster and faster.
Victor was already moving in the opposite direction. Running was generous—he limped quickly, half-hopping to propel himself, shining the flashlight at the ground to avoid falling. But despite the light, he was completely disoriented.
"Where the fuck do I go?!" he thought, sweating cold, not daring to look back.
Behind him, the beast panted in the shadows, grunting and roaring violently, uncontrollably—like something driving it. Almost a lament, the kind born from unbearable pain.
Victor stumbled. The impact was brutal. When he got up, his face and hands were scraped raw. The wounded hand suffered again as a large shard of metal drove into the open cut. He pulled it out with difficulty, more blood spilling.
He wanted to scream.
As he rose to flee again, the flashlight beam fell on something familiar.
His armor.
Perfectly intact beneath dust and debris.
He also glimpsed the Hertz-Type transport unit, split open and destroyed, with what looked like the corpse of its previous pilot inside, the cockpit flooded with blood.
Victor immediately cleared debris off the armor. Fortunately, the Kariudo opened from the front in its current position. At first, he panicked, unable to find the release.
"Where is it…?" he whispered, panting from the stress.
"There."
He pressed the small lever just beneath the helmet of the armor. It clicked, unlocking the chest plate, helmet, and the four limbs, which opened almost immediately, releasing a faint metallic screech that sounded worn, almost damaged.
Victor didn't hesitate to climb inside. At first, he felt uncomfortable—the soft inner lining was slightly dented. Even as he stepped in, he felt like he was suffocating, despite the armor still being open.
Once positioned, he quickly pressed the second lever located near the lower section of the helmet, around the height of his right cheek. He pressed it with the corresponding hand, then slid that hand into the appendage just before it, along with the rest of the suit, sealed shut.
Now the air truly disappeared.
The armor allowed nothing to pass through. No light. No air. Total darkness. Total silence. Not calm. Not peaceful. Nothing. Not even static.
And yet, he felt himself rising to his feet—with little effort.
He felt that the armor was not merely soft.
It was embracing him.
He felt cradled by the cold metal.
But he wasn't at peace.
Those embraces felt like they were driving him toward madness.
He resisted.
Suddenly, the air no longer seemed to be lacking. The filtration mechanism had activated, channeling air through the tube embedded just beneath the helmet, roughly between the mouth and the chin.
And it was scented. An aroma unknown to him. He did not remember that smell. He did not even know it existed. I don't remember any of this, he would have wanted to think, if the armor hadn't been sterilizing him of every thought, forcing him to remain impassive as he moved through the darkness.
Suddenly, he stopped. The footsteps resumed, echoing over the metal floor. Macabre sounds. Diabolical laughter. That's what they seemed like. Victor couldn't hear them, yet he knew they were there. He turned slowly, scanning every direction in front of him. He was searching for something that, in turn, was searching for him.
And it was closer than he thought.
Then, a voice in his head—dry, robotic:
IJO DETECTED: K76-65.
ESTIMATED LEVEL: BETA.
CODENAME: TOMBFACE.