Location: The Richard Estate, Scottish Highlands
Date: December 29, 2017
Time: 14:30 GMT
Peace, Alen found, was a more difficult adjustment than war.
For four months, the Richard Estate had become something he had never truly known: a home. The winter snows had buried the Highlands in white silence, cutting them off from the rest of the world. In that isolation, Alen had put down his gun and picked up a life.
He and Isabella had found a rhythm. The awkwardness of their arranged marriage had melted away, replaced by genuine intimacy. They ate together by the fire. They slept in the same bed, not as strangers, but as partners seeking warmth against the cold. The secrets that had once stood like walls between them had been dismantled by Ruby.
Ruby, the clone, the weapon—E-017—had become simply a child. Isabella brushed her hair. Alen read to her. They were a fractured, cobbled-together family, but they were his.
But the shadow was already there.
Alen had noticed the signs, though he had desperately tried to ignore them. The morning nausea Isabella blamed on bad food. The headaches she hid with a smile and a couple of aspirin. The way her hand sometimes trembled when she lifted a tea cup.
She's just tired, he told himself. We are all tired.
It was a lie.
The day it shattered was bright and crisp. In the courtyard, Isabella was bundled in a thick wool coat, throwing a red ball for Ruby. Their laughter rang out, clear and sharp in the frosty air.
Alen stood on the porch with Father Julian, watching them.
"She looks happy," Julian said, his breath misting. "You have done well by her, Alen."
"We are trying," Alen replied, a small, genuine smile touching his lips.
Then, the laughter stopped.
It didn't fade; it cut out.
Alen looked up. Isabella was standing perfectly still, her hand pressed to her temple. The ball dropped from her fingers. She swayed like a tree cut at the root.
"Mom?" Ruby's voice was small, terrified.
Isabella collapsed. She hit the frozen ground hard, her body seizing violently.
"Isabella!"
Alen didn't run; he sprinted, vaulting the porch railing. He hit the snow and slid to her side.
"Isabella! Look at me!"
Her eyes were rolled back, showing the whites. Foam gathered at the corner of her mouth.
Alen grabbed her wrist. Her pulse was erratic—thready, racing, then stopping.
"Grandmother!" Alen roared toward the house. "Get the car! Now!"
The Diagnosis
Location: Inverness Raigmore Hospital, Emergency Ward
Time: 19:00 GMT
The waiting room was a sterile purgatory. The smell of antiseptic and floor wax made Alen want to vomit.
He sat with his head in his hands. Amalia sat beside him, her hand gripping his knee. Mrs. Xing held a weeping Ruby in her lap. Julian stood by the window, praying silently.
Five hours.
The double doors swung open. A neurosurgeon, Dr. Campbell, walked out. He looked exhausted. He pulled his mask down, and the look in his eyes told Alen everything before a word was spoken.
Alen stood up. "Is she okay?"
Dr. Campbell sighed, the heavy sigh of a man who has to break a heart.
"Mr. Richard," the doctor said softly. "Your wife has a Glioblastoma Multiforme. It's an aggressive, stage-four brain tumor."
The world went silent. The hum of the vending machine, the distant siren—it all vanished.
"Tumor?" Alen whispered.
"It's been growing for years, likely pressing on her frontal lobe," the doctor explained gently. "We stabilized her seizure, but... the tumor is diffuse. It's wrapped around the brainstem. We cannot operate."
Alen felt like he had been shot. "There has to be something. Money is not an issue. I have connections. I can get experimental treatments—"
"Alen," the doctor interrupted, placing a hand on his shoulder. "If we had caught this a year ago... maybe. But now? It's terminal. I am so sorry."
"How long?" Amalia asked, her voice trembling.
"With palliative care... three months. Maybe four."
Alen's legs gave out. He fell to his knees on the cold linoleum. Tears, hot and burning, spilled from his eyes.
Not again. Not her.
He scrambled up and pushed past the doctor, running into the recovery room.
Isabella was lying in the bed, looking small and pale against the white sheets. An IV drip hummed beside her. She turned her head as he burst in.
"Alen," she whispered.
He rushed to her side, grabbing her hand. It was cold.
"Why?" Alen choked out, his voice breaking. "Why did you keep this from me? The day I saved you... all this time... you knew?"
Isabella looked at him with wet, glassy eyes. She reached up and cupped his face, her thumb brushing away a tear.
"I knew something was wrong," she admitted weakly. "But we were finally happy, Alen. For the first time in my life, I had a family. I didn't want to ruin it with doctors and hospitals. I wanted... I wanted just a little more time in the sun."
"I could have saved you," Alen sobbed, burying his face in her palm. "I'm a doctor. I have the best science in the world in my basement. I could have fixed this!"
"Some things can't be fixed, my love," she whispered. "Some things just... end."
The Long Winter
Dates: January – March 2018
Alen Richard, the cold-blooded assassin, ceased to exist. In his place was a husband.
He shut down Project Necrotoxin. He locked the lab. The war against bio-terror could wait.
He moved Isabella back to the estate. He set up a hospital bed in the master bedroom so she could look out at the mountains she loved.
For three months, he was her nurse. He bathed her when she was too weak to move. He fed her broth with a spoon when her hands shook too much to hold a bowl. He read her poetry until his voice went hoarse.
He watched the woman he loved fade by degrees. The fire in her eyes dimmed. Her memories began to fragment.
But he stayed. He held the line against death, not with a gun, but with presence.
One night in March, the breathing changed. The "death rattle"—a sound Alen knew from battlefields—filled the quiet room.
"Alen," she rasped.
"I'm here," he said, holding her hand tightly.
"Ruby," she whispered. "Take care... of our girl."
"I will," Alen lied.
"I love you," she breathed. "My anchor."
And then, the anchor was gone.
The Empty World
Location: St. Columba's Church Cemetery, Glen Sannox
Date: March 15, 2018
Time: 11:00 GMT
The sky was the color of a bruise. A cold drizzle fell, soaking the black coats of the mourners.
Isabella Gionne was lowered into the dark earth of the Highlands, buried in the consecrated ground of Father Julian's church.
The funeral was small. Amalia, leaning heavily on a cane. Mrs. Xing. Ruby, who stood silently, clutching a black umbrella. And Father Julian, who spoke the final rites with a voice thick with grief.
And in the back, standing under the shelter of an ancient yew tree, was a woman in a black trench coat and sunglasses. Ada Wong.
When the earth was thrown onto the coffin, Alen didn't move. He stood like a statue carved from ice. He felt nothing. The grief had burned out his nerve endings. He was hollow.
As the others drifted away to the cars, Alen remained. He stared at the fresh headstone.
Isabella Richard
Beloved Wife and Mother
2018
"I'm sorry for your loss, Alen."
Alen didn't turn. He knew the voice.
Ada stepped up beside him. She took off her sunglasses, revealing eyes that held genuine sympathy—a rare look for the spy.
"She was a good friend," Ada said softly. "She cared for you more than you know. And... I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I knew about the headaches. I suspected. But she made me swear not to tell you until the end."
"Don't worry, Ada," Alen said, his voice monotone. Dead. "I am fine. This world gives me nothing but loss. I lost my mother Jessica. I lost Master Shi. Now my wife."
He looked at his hands.
"It's a curse, Ada. Everyone I touch... dies. I am poison."
"Where will you go?" Ada asked, sensing the shift in him. "You have a daughter to raise. Ruby needs you now more than ever."
Alen shook his head slowly.
"No. I can't raise her. I am a soldier, Ada. I am a creature of war. If I stay, I will only bring death to her door. She has found a home here. Amalia and Julian... they can give her a life. A real life."
"You're leaving her?" Ada asked, surprised.
"I am protecting her," Alen corrected. "I will stay only until my project is finished. Until I kill the Mold. Then... I vanish."
Suddenly, a spasm of pain hit him.
Alen gasped, clutching his chest. His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the wet grass.
"Alen!" Ada caught him, dropping to one knee to support his weight.
She pulled his collar aside. Her eyes widened.
The A-Virus.
The black veins, which had been dormant scars for months, were throbbing. They were alive again, pulsing with a dark, necrotic violet light. The grief, the stress, the crushing psychological trauma—it had weakened his immune system, breaking the stalemate with the virus.
"It's back," Ada whispered. "The stress... it's triggering a relapse."
Alen gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stand. He pushed Ada away gently. He reached into his pocket and dry-swallowed two of the high-grade suppressors Julian had made.
"I'm fine," Alen lied, wiping the mud from his knees. The veins slowly faded back to black scars, but the pain remained.
"You are not fine," Ada warned. "You are breaking, Alen."
"Let me break," Alen said cold ly. He turned his back on the grave. He turned his back on Ada.
He walked away through the rain, a lone figure in black.
He had lost his last an
chor. The ship was adrift. And the only thing left to keep him afloat was the mission.
The war was back on.