The scream didn't make the morning report.
Desto noticed that first.
They lined up at dawn again, sweat-dried uniforms stiff on their backs, eyes forward as the instructor walked the line. A few faces were missing. No explanations. No acknowledgments.
No hesitation.
"Count's short," Tristo murmured under his breath.
Desto didn't respond. He'd already clocked it—two bunks empty, sheets folded too neatly, like no one had slept there at all.
"Training doesn't stop for absence," the instructor said, voice flat. "If you can't keep up, you get left behind. If you can't survive, you don't get remembered."
He tossed a bundle of radios onto the mat.
"Live run today," he continued. "Urban simulation. No instructors inside. You tag out or you get carried out."
A few people swallowed hard.
Desto tightened his gloves.
They were split into squads of five. Randomized. No appeals.
Desto ended up with Tristo, a stocky girl with a shaved head and a scar split through her jaw, a quiet kid with shaking hands, and a tall boy whose confidence outweighed his skill.
The door slammed shut behind them as they entered the mock block—concrete corridors, broken stairwells, false storefronts. Dim lights. Blind corners.
A city built to hurt you.
"Stick close," Desto said immediately.
The tall boy scoffed. "Relax. It's fake."
Tristo glanced at him. "So are coffins. Until you're in one."
They moved.
Desto took point, Glock replaced with a training pistol that still hit hard enough to break fingers if you weren't careful. He checked angles, cleared doorways, marked exits in his head.
Halfway down the first corridor, the lights flickered.
Desto stopped.
The others nearly ran into him.
"You feel that?" the shaved-head girl asked.
"Yeah," Tristo said. "Like a draft where there shouldn't be one."
The radio crackled.
Then went dead.
"Simulation glitch?" the tall boy asked.
Desto didn't answer.
He was staring at the wall.
Someone had added a photo.
It hadn't been there seconds ago.
A family portrait, taped crookedly to bare concrete. A man, a woman, a child between them.
The child's face was missing.
The quiet kid's breathing spiked. "That's not—"
"Don't," Desto said sharply. "Don't finish that."
The lights cut out.
Not a flicker.
Gone.
In the dark, something moved.
Not fast. Not loud.
Close.
The shaved-head girl swung blind. Her fist hit nothing.
A pressure settled into Desto's chest—weight without contact, like the air itself leaning in.
A voice brushed his ear.
Not words.
A reminder.
The quiet kid screamed.
It cut off abruptly.
The lights snapped back on.
The corridor was empty.
One squad member gone.
No blood. No body. No sign he'd ever been there—except for a radio lying on the floor, still warm.
The tall boy stumbled back. "This isn't training. This isn't—"
A buzzer blared overhead.
SIMULATION FAILED.
EXIT AVAILABLE.
Desto didn't move.
Tristo crouched, picked up the radio, turned it over in his hands.
"It followed us in," he said softly.
Desto felt the pressure behind his eyes flare hard enough to make him wince.
"No," he said. "It noticed us again."
The shaved-head girl looked between them. "What the hell are you talking about?"
Desto met her gaze. "You ever lose someone and realize the world already moved on?"
She hesitated. "Yeah."
"Good," he said. "Then don't trust empty space."
They exited the simulation in silence.
Outside, the instructor stood waiting.
He looked at the remaining four.
Then at the empty space where a fifth should have been.
His jaw tightened.
"That," he said slowly, "wasn't part of the course."
Somewhere deep inside the building, something listened.
And it didn't leave when the lights came back on.