"Well," he said, his tone soaked in sarcasm, "I trust your little excursion to the cemetery and the prison was… delightful?"
No one dared answer. Tyler, Leo, and Eileen bowed their heads like children caught in a storm of their own making. Dust hung between them in the fading light, turning the silence heavy.
Karl—the commander—took a slow step forward, his boots grinding against the gravel. He studied their faces one by one, then turned his gaze toward the car.
"What's that, Tyler?" he asked softly. "What's under the white cloth?"
The question lingered like smoke.
Tyler's throat locked. If Karl knew what was under there—if he even suspected—they were finished. Every possible excuse died before it reached his lips.
"It's… it's my girlfriend," Leo said suddenly, his tone forced, almost cheerful, the lie trembling at its edges.
The commander blinked, and for a heartbeat, amusement flickered in his eyes. "Your girlfriend, hmm?" he murmured, stepping closer. "How touching."
He reached out and, with a sharp flick of his wrist, pulled the sheet away. The world seemed to exhale at once—the pale skin beneath, the stillness, the truth laid bare.
Karl's smirk thinned into something dangerous. "Ah. So this is your sweetheart. An honor to meet my nephew's… beloved." His eyes, now hard as ice, darted from Leo to the others. "Now, my dear family, would you care to explain why there's a dead woman in my car? And please—don't tell me you killed her. Our reputation is already rotting in the gutter."
No one answered. The only sound was the hum of distant engines, the kind that fills silence without softening it.
"Any explanation?" Karl repeated.
"An explanation, sir—" Tyler began with a brittle smile.
"Are you an idiot, or do you just enjoy pretending to be one?" Karl barked.
Tyler froze. Eileen took half a step back, hiding behind Leo's shoulder like a shadow too frightened to exist on its own.
"Let's see," Karl continued, counting on his fingers. "Trespassing on royal grounds. Breaking into a prison. Murder. Bribing the guard captain. Impressive résumé, really. You've outdone yourselves." He clapped his hands once, sharp as a gunshot. "You three are coming with me. Consider yourselves relieved of all duties for a month."
"But—" Tyler began, and Karl cut him short.
"No 'buts.' Obey the order."
Then, with a cold glance at Leo: "And bring your precious girlfriend with you."
Leo obeyed, lifting the woman's body onto his shoulder. Her weight felt unnatural now, heavier with every step, as though she resisted being carried. The scent of earth and something faintly metallic clung to her. By the time they reached the compound, his legs trembled.
The corridor they entered was long, sterile, humming with fluorescent light. At its end waited a room—unfamiliar yet somehow expectant.
Veronica sat inside, a scalpel twirling idly between her fingers, her smile as bright as broken glass.
"So," she said, "the three fugitives have returned."
Her amusement didn't last. In one motion, she reached into her coat, drew a pistol, and fired.
The sound tore through the room like a rip in the world. Veronica's head snapped back; the scalpel clattered to the floor, spinning until it lay still.
For an instant, no one moved. Then Leo staggered, gasping. Blood burst from his mouth as if the shot had found him instead.
"Help me…" he rasped, collapsing to his knees. "Please… help me…"
"Get him on the table! Now!" Veronica's voice—miraculously still alive, fierce, commanding—cut through the panic.
They obeyed without thought, hauling Leo's trembling body onto the steel table. His blood smeared across its surface, dark against the cold metal. Eileen pressed her hands to his wound; Tyler stared, useless and pale.
The girl's corps moved.
At first, it was just a twitch—a faint, unnatural tremor, like a ripple in dead water. Leo blinked, thinking exhaustion was playing tricks on him. But then, the corpse stirred again. This time, it rose.
Slowly. Deliberately.
She stood at a distance, her movements fractured and strange, as though she were remembering how to be human. The light flickered above them.
From across the room, she stared at him.
Leo's breath caught. The room hadn't changed—same cracked walls, same metal table, same faint hum of dying electricity. And yet, the air had shifted. It was heavier now. Denser.
When she spoke, her voice was neither living nor dead—it was something in between.
"You've done something, Leo," she said, her tone almost tender. "Something you were never meant to do."
He straightened, adjusting himself on the table, his pulse hammering in his ears. He tried to meet her gaze, though a part of him wanted to look anywhere else.
"What do you mean?" he asked. "Who are you?"
She stepped closer, soundless, until she was near enough that he could see the faint shimmer of her form, like air distorted by heat. Then she sat beside him, moving with a fluid, eerie calm.
"I am Jericho," she said.
Leo froze. His eyes widened, disbelief hardening into fear.
"J–Jericho? You mean that cursed woman?"
A ghost of a smile curved her lips. "A fair description," she said quietly. "But not quite accurate. Let's say… a part of her. Not all. This—" she gestured to herself, her fingers almost transparent in the dim light— "this isn't my real body."
Leo's throat tightened. "That's impossible. Tyler killed you. I saw you die."
"Tyler?" she repeated, as if tasting the name for the first time. Her gaze sharpened. "Who is Tyler? No, Leo. You killed me. You ate my heart. Don't you remember?"
Her hand rose and pressed against her chest.
Leo's heart skipped. "What? No—no, that's insane. I could never— You're lying."
"Then tell me," she whispered, leaning closer until her voice brushed his ear like cold wind, "why are you the only one who can see me? Why are you the only one who can hear me?"
He swallowed hard, the pounding in his skull like a drum. "Where are we?" he demanded. "And where are the others?"
Her eyes softened. "If I tell you where you are," she said, "I'll disappear."
He glared at her, anger masking his fear. "Then disappear! I don't want to see you! I just want to leave this place!"
He swung his legs over the table, but as soon as his feet touched the ground—he froze.
The floor rippled beneath him. It wasn't solid anymore.
It was water.
Dark, endless water stretching in every direction. The walls dissolved into the void. The room itself fell away, leaving only blackness, deep and suffocating.
Her voice came again, distant but still somehow inside him.
"Don't worry, Leo. You won't see me again. But know this—Jericho was the one who protected them. You killed her, and now many will die because of you."
"What?" he shouted into the dark. "Who? What are you talking about?"
"You shouldn't have killed Jericho," she said.
He turned toward the sound, desperate. "You talk like you aren't her."
She reappeared beside him, sitting close again, her form flickering like a dying flame.
"I am her," she said softly, "and I am not. She was the other side of me—the side that still believed in mercy."
She looked upward, as though something unseen was calling her away. "But my time is almost over."
Leo's voice trembled. "What do you want from me?"
Her gaze met his for the last time. "Find Emily Lubbens. She will give you the answers you need."
A faint smile ghosted across her face. "Thank you, Leo, for freeing me from my chains." Her tone softened to a whisper. "Please… save them before it's too late."
And with that, she was gone.
The darkness swallowed her whole.
In the otherside
Leo's body lay sprawled on the cold operating table, drenched in his own blood. It poured from his chest in waves that refused to stop. Every attempt to seal the wound failed—the flesh rejected their hands, pulsing like it had a will of its own.
The blood darkened to black, thick and glistening like ink. His veins turned the same color. His eyes were open, blank, staring at nothing.
He was gone—his body present, but his mind trapped somewhere far beyond reach.
An hour passed. No one dared to speak.
Then, suddenly, he gasped.
His chest rose violently, and his hand shot out, grabbing Tyler's wrist with startling strength. His voice came out raw and broken, carrying a weight that wasn't entirely his own:
"Remember… Emily Lubbens."
The room froze.
Veronica's scalpel slipped from her fingers and clattered against the floor. She looked to Carl, wide-eyed.
"Did he just say—Emily Lubbens?"
Carl said nothing. His expression hardened, eyes dark as stone.
Leo struggled to sit up, his breathing ragged. "You… know her?" he asked. "Please. I have to find her."
Carl hesitated. His voice, when it came, was low and final. "That's impossible."
"Sir," Leo pleaded, "I know we're under punishment, but I need to see her."
"It's not punishment," Carl said quietly. "You can't see her."
Eileen stepped forward, frowning. "Why not?"
Tyler's voice joined hers, sharp with confusion. "What's stopping him?"
Carl looked at them one by one before saying the words that silenced the room:
"Because she's dead."