WebNovels

Chapter 4 - Chapter 2

"In the year 2069, silence wasn't just the absence of sound — it was the weight of death pressing against every breath. In Citadel 4, they trained soldiers to fight monsters. But no one trained them to survive grief."

Somewhere in the Wastelands — Outside Citadel 4 Rail Zone

The sky was bleeding ash.

Kyle Nickson woke up choking on smoke and pain. The world was sideways. Fire flickered in broken glass. Metal screamed as it bent under weight it wasn't built to bear. He could taste copper in his mouth and feel shattered glass biting into his palms.

For a moment, he couldn't remember where he was.

Then the memories surged like a flood.

The railway…

The laughter…

The hum of the Solaris-powered tracks beneath their feet…

Then the sudden roar.

The impossible roar.

A Hulk Flare.

Towering. Hulking. A godless thing that tore the sky apart as it charged.

They hadn't even had time to scream before it flipped the transport like it was nothing but a child's toy.

Now, there was only blood. And fire. And silence.

Kyle sat up with a grunt, pain lancing through his ribs. His left arm was limp. Dislocated, maybe broken. Something inside his leg felt twisted, wrong. He crawled from the shattered wreck of the transport, dragging his body through ash and steel.

 "Hello…?"

"Is anyone—?"

No one answered.

Just wind and ruin.

Until he saw a shape moving in the smoke.

Someone limping. Then another, running toward the sounds of life.

"Kyle!" a voice cried.

"It's me—Aron!"

Kyle turned just in time to see Aron stagger forward, bleeding from his forehead but alive. Behind him came Rose, coughing violently, and Theo, his shirt torn and face bruised but mobile. Emma was dragging herself with her arms, one leg clearly broken.

They made it.

But not all did.

Kyle's gaze darted around the wreckage. His voice trembled.

"Wayne… Georgia… Jordan…?"

No answer.

 "They were in the back," Emma whispered, eyes hollow.

"It… it caved in. I couldn't reach them. I tried."

Kyle looked toward the back segment of the transport. It was crushed entirely beneath the hulking weight of the overturned front, burning like a funeral pyre. No one could have survived.

He felt something break inside him.

He clenched his fists and looked away from the flames.

They began walking. There was no plan, no destination. Just one instinct:

Survive.

The wasteland stretched in every direction like a corpse's skin. The sun was smothered behind clouds of radioactive dust, and the ground was littered with debris and bones — some old, some disturbingly fresh.

Aron took point. Emma limped between Theo and Kyle, supported by their arms. Rose kept looking over her shoulder.

They walked for hours. Maybe days.

Kyle couldn't tell anymore.

 "How far to Citadel 2?" Theo asked quietly.

 "Too far," Rose replied. "Not on foot. Not like this."

They came across a broken drone from the old patrol lines. Its solar core was shattered. No backup power. No distress signal. No help.

 "They'll send scouts," Aron murmured.

But Kyle wasn't so sure.

Something in his gut told him no one was coming.

It started with a sound.

A click.

Then a snarl.

Then dozens of snarls.

From behind a fallen radio tower, a shadow lunged — pale, twitching, covered in veins like black lightning. A Normal Flare — the base kind. The kind that swarmed like insects.

Kyle barely had time to react before Theo tackled it, screaming, driving a broken pipe into its jaw.

Another came from the side. Then another. Then three.

Rose pulled her knife. Aron swung a crowbar. Kyle reached for the emergency flare from his survival belt and lit it, tossing it toward the biggest group.

The light flared bright. The Flares recoiled, shrieking.

But it only bought seconds.

They fought like hell. Raw. Brutal. Messy.

Theo was bitten. Emma nearly dragged. Kyle took a hit to the ribs again and coughed blood.

But they survived.

Barely.

Breathing hard, Kyle leaned against a rusted beam, his face smeared with ash and blood.

 "This isn't just scavengers," he muttered.

"They're… they're tracking us."

 "Then we keep moving," Rose snapped.

"We don't stop. Ever."

Later that night, while the others slept in shifts, Kyle sat alone by a cold firepit, watching the distant horizon.

There was a glow in the sky.

Not sunlight.

Not fire.

It was green — the same strange, flickering green he saw in the veins of the Black Flares.

He'd seen it before… in himself.

That day in the ruins, before Citadel 4 took him in.

His veins had pulsed green when he was frightened. His blood had shimmered when he touched the bones of an old Flare.

And sometimes…

Sometimes when he was angry… the ground would tremble just a little.

He clenched his fists.

 "What am I?" he whispered.

He didn't have answers.

Only questions. And a fear growing in his chest that he might not be so different from what they were fighting.

The next morning came with screams.

 "They found us!"

Kyle jerked awake to Theo's voice. Dust exploded behind them as a swarm of Normal Flares rushed over the hills like a tidal wave. Dozens. Maybe hundreds.

They'd been tracked.

They ran.

Kyle grabbed Emma. Aron took Theo's arm. Rose led the way, sprinting toward a crumbled bridge they'd seen yesterday. But it was too far.

The Flares were fast.

Too fast.

One tackled Theo — Aron screamed. Another lunged at Emma — Kyle turned, swinging a rusted pipe, smashing its skull in, but more were coming.

They were surrounded.

Kyle backed into a broken wall, eyes wild.

His friends were falling.

Aron bleeding.

Rose limping.

Theo screaming.

Emma crying out his name.

 "KYLE!"

And then — just as the Flares lunged —

A pulse erupted from Kyle's chest.

Green. Bright. Burning.

His eyes widened as a shockwave blasted out from his body, sending a dozen creatures flying.

Silence.

Then his hands… started to glow.

His skin cracked with green light. His veins pulsed with something not human.

He fell to his knees, trembling, staring at his own hands.

The Flares regrouped.

More were coming.

And his friends — the ones still alive — were crawling, bleeding, screaming for help.

Kyle stood up.

For the first time,

the monster inside him opened its eyes.

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