“Move!” Ren shouted, shoving past a honking car as another skidded to a stop inches from Hana’s coat.

  They didn’t stop running.

  Rain sprayed across the windshield of a screeching van. A driver screamed out his window. Horns blared like alarms. The city was chaos. And they were the storm inside it.

  Then both their phones lit up—suddenly, violently.

  A sharp, shrieking beep burst from Hana’s pocket.

  Ren's vibrated against his thigh in frantic pulses. They both skidded to a halt, panting, as Hana fumbled it out.

  [EMERGENCY ALERT — FAMILY MONITOR APP]VITALS CRITICAL — SHINRA NISHISEVERE BLOOD LOSS DETECTED — COLLAPSE IMMINENT

  The warning blinked in bright red letters. Shinra’s heart rate graph was a jagged mess, dipping erratically. His oxygen level plummeted like a stone.

  “God…” Hana whispered, her hands trembling so badly the screen nearly slipped from her fingers. “Ren—his vitals are crashing. His blood pressure—he’s going into shock—”

  Ren snatched the phone, eyes scanning the biometric feed he’d helped program just weeks ago.

  He said nothing.

  “Say something!” Hana snapped, panic breaking through her voice. “Ren—do you think he—”

  “He’s not dead,” Ren said quickly. Too quickly. “Not yet.”

  “But—his oxygen level—”

  “I know!” Ren shouted. Then, quieter, “I know…”

  His jaw clenched, eyes narrowing at the map.

  He couldn’t admit what he was thinking. Not to her.

  Not when Shinra’s location dot was starting to flicker.

  Without a word, Ren turned and sprinted again—harder this time. Faster. Hana followed, adrenaline surging.

  They didn’t even care about staying on the roads now.

  They leapt over garden walls. Kicked in back gates. Shoved open alleys and climbed fences, boots crunching on gravel, slick from rain.

  They were breaking into people’s properties now—living rooms, backyards, stairwells. Apologizing didn’t even occur to them.

  Not when Shinra’s life was on the line.

  “I should’ve seen the signs,” Hana whispered as they jumped another railing. “I’m a doctor—I should’ve—”

  “Stop,” Ren snapped. “No guilt. No blame. We get to him first. Then we talk guilt.”

  But still… his fingers gripped his phone tighter.

  Because the vitals were still falling.

  And even Ren, for all his experience in warzones and firefights, couldn’t shake the truth ringing in his skull:

  Shinra might already be bleeding out.

  The blade sunk deeper, smooth and unhurried, until the tip vanished into the thug’s chest.Shinra’s hand didn’t shake. His breathing didn’t falter.

  Only his eyes moved—rising slowly to meet the trembling gaze of the man across from him.

  Mako.

  The leader of the thugs stood frozen, lips parting but no sound coming out. He could only watch as blood began to pour—violently, wetly—from the wound. Pressurized by a panicking heart, the thug’s blood burst forth like a geyser.

  A hot stream splashed against Shinra’s face. His jaw. His cheek. It matted his hair and streaked down his neck like red warpaint. But he didn’t blink. He didn’t flinch.

  He didn’t wipe it away.

  The blood clung to him like it belonged there. Like it had always belonged there.His black hair, slick with crimson. His bandages soaked through.And those eyes—his irises, once dull, now dark crimson.The color of old blood.

  The color of silence before death.

  Mako’s legs gave out. He collapsed backward onto the damp pavement, scraping his palms as he crawled. He didn’t register the pain—only the sound of his own heartbeat hammering in his ears.

  This isn’t real. This can’t be real.

  But Shinra was still there. Still standing. Still staring.

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  And the thug he’d stabbed? His corpse hung limp in Shinra’s grip like a marionette with cut strings.

  He should’ve been dead, Mako thought. The knife had gone into his liver, for god’s sake. No one survived that. No one stayed standing after that.

  Shinra let the body drop with a dull thud. Blood splattered across the sidewalk like a signature.Then, without breaking eye contact, Shinra raised his boot and stepped on the corpse—crunch—and planted his foot firmly on its chest.

  Mako’s jaw clenched. He wanted to move. To scream. To run. But his muscles betrayed him.

  Shinra leaned down, calmly gripped the hilt of the buried knife, and pulled—

  The blade came free with a wet, tearing sound. Blood followed like oil from a ruptured vein.

  And still, Shinra didn’t speak.

  Didn’t blink.

  Didn’t wipe the blood dripping from his chin.

  The alley seemed to darken around him, the world quieting until all Mako could hear was the squelch of blood beneath Shinra’s boots and the hissing whisper of his own breath.

  Lightning cracked above them, illuminating the alley for a second—

  And in that frozen flash, Shinra looked less like a man… and more like a wraith wearing human skin.

  Mako whimpered. His throat was dry. “Wh—what… what are you?”

  Shinra took one slow step forward.

  That was all it took.

  Mako scrambled backward, eyes wide and wild, spine scraping brick. His back hit a trash bin and he curled into it like it could protect him.

  “P-please—don’t—”

  But Shinra didn’t answer.The blood ran down his face like tears.His crimson irises stared at Mako with no hatred.No mercy.Just… emptiness.

  The kind of emptiness that could burn the world down and feel nothing.

  Mako looked at the broken blade still clutched in his own hand—

  the one he had stabbed Shinra with. It was titanium. Bought off the black market. The dealer had sworn on his life it would never break. It was a collectible, a blade made to outlast generations.

  But now…

  He stared at the jagged, splintered metal.

  Snapped in half.

  From a human body.

  From this human body.

  Mako looked up again, and in Shinra’s dark red eyes, he saw hell staring back.

  I stood there in the void, surrounded by the memory. But it wasn’t mine.It was his.

  The Reflection’s.

  The basement was darker now. The glow of the machines pulsed like the heartbeat of something dying. The cries of the tortured still echoed through the walls like haunted sirens, but this time, I wasn’t just observing. I was there. I could feel the grime on the floor. The stench of decay. The blood in the air.

  And in front of me—him—us—stood the girl.

  Her body was split in two.

  Not torn. Not cut.

  Separated.

  Her upper half was mounted on a rig of tubes and steel frames, suspended by a dozen biomechanical arms. Her intestines hung like cables down to the lower half of her body—legs and pelvis barely intact, kept alive by cold wires and a cocktail of chemicals.

  Her arms—gone. Shoulders capped with steel ports. Her skin looked burned in places. One of her eyes was a blank orb. The other tracked the Reflection like a wounded animal trying to play dead.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  I gripped my chest, clawing at the tightness in my lungs. I knew it wasn’t real. I knew I was watching a memory.But I couldn’t stop it.

  I started crying.

  Tears spilled down my cheeks. My mouth opened to scream, but only silence came out.

  The Reflection…

  He didn’t cry.

  He fell to his knees. Hard. Bone meeting concrete with a thud that echoed louder than all the screams around us. His hands trembled, and his jaw clenched so hard I thought it might shatter.

  He didn’t say a word. But I could feel it.

  He saw our mother in that girl.

  The same hollow eyes. The same broken body. The same helplessness.

  He didn’t know what to do.

  Not even he could save her.

  He stayed there, on the floor, as if he was trying to keep from unraveling. And for a second… I didn’t hate him.

  But the moment passed.

  His hand twitched. His fingers curled into a fist.

  And then he snapped.

  He rose without a sound, without a word—like an animal reanimating for the kill. His face was blank. Empty. But his body moved with fury.

  Before the father could blink, the Reflection was on him.

  Shink!

  The scalpel arced like lightning—clean, surgical—and took the man’s hand clean off.

  A splash of red across the wall. Screams tore through the basement again. But the Reflection didn’t flinch.

  “HOW DO I FIX HER?” he bellowed.

  The father writhed, howling, clutching the stump like it could somehow grow back. His words were incoherent sobs, gurgling behind spit and blood.

  The Reflection turned to the wife.

  To the kids.

  “Answer me. Or I take theirs next.”

  They screamed too. Pleaded. But it wasn’t until the wife grabbed her husband’s shoulder, sobbing “Please, tell him, tell him!” that the man finally spoke.

  “You can’t,” he gasped. “You can’t save her.”

  The Reflection’s fingers twitched again.

  “She should be dead. She would be dead… but the machines… the sedatives. They keep her from feeling all of it. They stop her brain from realizing it’s already over.”

  He looked down at the girl.

  “She talks because her nerves are fried. Her mind broke and then came back. But the moment you unplug her… the pain’ll kill her.”

  The Reflection stood still, as if trying to fight the weight of that truth.

  “The most you can do now…” the father croaked, “...is mercy. Just… make it fast. Before the pain wakes up.”

  I gripped my mouth, holding back another sob. My throat burned. My legs gave out.

  I dropped to my knees in the void, clutching my chest, staring at the fractured remains of a child who didn’t even get to live.

  And for the first time… I didn’t know if I wanted to keep watching.

  But the Reflection…

  He took a step forward.

  And I already knew—

  The next memory would break me.