9:57... 9:56...
The numbers tick down in the corner of Alex's vision, a merciless, silent executioner.
'No. Not now. Not like this.'
His mind is a strom of panic. He can't leave her. The Scrappers are still out there, regrouping for the main assault. Leaving her now is a death sentence. It would be his fault.
"What's wrong with you?" Maya's voice cuts through his terror, sharp as a shard of glass. Her rifle is up, not aimed at him, but not at rest either.
The brief trust they had built has evaporated, replaced by the familiar, hard-edged suspicion of a cornered survivor. "Talk to me, Alex! Are you hit? Are you losing your nerve?"
"It's not that," he chokes out, his own voice sounding distant. "It's... complicated."
8:45... 8:44...
He doesn't have time for complicated. He needs a solution. He can't stop the translocation, the System's warning was absolute.
Mandatory.
But he can't leave her defenseless.
His eyes dart around the bunker, his mind racing, analyzing everything. His gaze falls on the second Claymore mine, sitting on the workbench. It's her last trump card.
His last chance to give her an edge.
"Maya, your other mine," he says, his voice suddenly clear and urgent.
He turns to her, his eyes blazing with a desperate intensity. "The one you haven't set. I need it. Now."
She stares at him, her expression hardening. "I don't think so, boy. That's my last resort."
"There's no time to explain!" he pleads, stumbling towards the workbench. "Please. Trust me. Just one more time."
6:32... 6:31...
The drums start again outside. A low, rhythmic, menacing beat. The main attack is coming.
Maya looks from Alex's frantic, desperate face to the closed bunker door. She doesn't understand, but his terror is genuine.
"Dammit, man!"
With a curse, she grabs the mine and shoves it into his hands. "This had better be good."
It has to be.
Alex places his hands on the cool, olive-drab casing of the mine.
'Analyze.'
[Object: M-18 Claymore Mine. Properties: Explosive Force (High), Shrapnel (Active), Command Detonation (Signal-Based).]
'Command detonation. I can't be here to press the button. But what if the button presses itself?'
His mind races. He has concepts stored. He doesn't have time to build something new, but he can modify.
He grabs a discarded plastic casing from the radio parts.
'Extract [Brittleness].'
He then turns to the mine's trigger mechanism, a simple, durable pressure-plate detonator. He carefully touches a small, non-essential retaining clip inside the trigger.
'Integrate [Brittleness].'
[Successfully Integrated!]
Next, he grabs the super-charged capacitor he built, wires glowing with contained energy. With frantic, practiced movements, he connects it to the mine's firing circuit, creating a crude but powerful proximity sensor.
3:15... 3:14...
"It's not a clacker anymore," he explains, his hands a blur as he works. "It's a trap. A dead man's switch. I've turned the capacitor into a proximity sensor. When they get close, the energy will build to a critical point. This clip here," he points to the now-brittle piece of plastic, "is designed to shatter under the energy spike. It'll complete the circuit."
He places the modified mine by the main door, facing outward. "It'll cover the main entrance after I'm..." He trails off.
Gone.
1:00... 0:59...
The howling outside rises to a fever pitch. The main assault has begun.
He turns to Maya, his heart aching with a guilt he couldn't possibly explain. "I'll be back," he says, his voice raw with a desperate sincerity. "I promise…"
"What? Why are promising! Wait, where could even go or disappear right now!" She shouts at his face with urgency.
"No, no! Maya, listen to me…I will be back!"
She just stares at him, her face a mask of utter bewilderment. He looks like a madman. A ghost.
0:03... 0:02... 0:01...
[Mandatory Translocation Initiated.]
From Maya's perspective, the world breaks.
Alex flickers. His form dissolves into a swirling vortex of impossible blue light.
For a single, silent instant, the bunker is filled with the image of a thousand distant stars. Then, with a sound like tearing silk, he is gone.
"What…"
She is alone again.
"What just happened…"
She stares at the empty space where he stood, her mind refusing to process what she just saw.
Her gaze falls to the modified Claymore humming ominously by the door.
A heavy, brutal THUD shakes the door, followed by the splintering of their outer barricades.
They are here.
Maya grits her teeth, the shock giving way to pure, cold fury. She raises her rifle, her eye finding the firing slit.
"Fringing hell, I am so damned!"
Her world narrows to the approaching shadows and the impossible promise of a ghost.
She prepares for the fight of her life.
The world shatters and reassembles.
"I…I am back!!"
Bam!
Alex slams back into reality, collapsing onto the soft, familiar carpet of his own apartment. The silence is deafening.
The smell of gunpowder and blood is gone, replaced by the faint, cloying scent of lemon air freshener.
The rhythmic hum of his refrigerator has replaced the drums of war.
He looks down at himself. He is still wearing the tattered, grime-covered clothes from the wasteland. His ankle is expertly splinted.
The deep, aching pain is real. It wasn't a dream.
His phone buzzes on the coffee table.
The screen lights up with a message from Sarah, sent hours ago.
[Are you okay? You're scaring me.]
'What only 7 hours have passed??...The system definitely 7 days!'
Alex wanted to summon the system but the thought being sent back to that horrendous prevented him from doing so.
"What about maya…will she be fine?"
He stares at his own reflection in the dark screen of his TV. A stranger looks back—a man with haunted, terrified eyes, a fresh scar on his cheek, and the ghost of a dead world clinging to him like a shroud.
He has survived.
He is home.