Somewhere in Mexico...
Miles away from the city...
Far from the highways now crawling with cartel convoys and military checkpoints...
An abandoned military hospital stood in complete silence.
Built during the Second World War, the hospital had once treated thousands of wounded soldiers. The walls had witnessed screams of pain, desperate farewells, and the final breaths of men who never returned home. Time had slowly reclaimed the building. Windows were shattered. Ivy crawled over the cracked concrete walls. Rusted ambulances lay half-buried beneath years of dust and overgrown weeds.
Local people believed the hospital was haunted.
No one came here anymore.
That was exactly why it had become the perfect hiding place.
A lone figure emerged from the surrounding forest.
His face remained hidden beneath a dark mask.
His long coat fluttered gently in the cold evening wind.
Without looking around, he stepped through the broken entrance.
His footsteps echoed softly through the empty corridors.
The reception desk had collapsed years ago.
Broken wheelchairs lay overturned.
Medical files, now yellow with age, were scattered across the floor.
Every room carried the lingering smell of rust and decay.
The masked man walked as though he knew the building better than anyone.
He never hesitated.
Never looked for directions.
Eventually, he entered what had once been the emergency ward.
The ceiling had partially collapsed.
Old operating lights hung crookedly above rusted hospital beds.
Several large wooden crates rested on a trolley near the entrance.
Each one carried the same shipment that every cartel in Mexico had been searching for over the past several days.
The shipment that had left hundreds dead.
The shipment that powerful organizations had nearly started a war over.
To him...
They were merely cargo.
One by one, he lifted the heavy crates as though their weight meant nothing.
He carried them toward the far corner of the room.
An old operating table stood there, covered by decades of dust.
He brushed the dust aside with one hand.
Beneath it...
A circular steel plate became visible.
The man crouched.
His fingers pressed against several hidden grooves around its edge.
Click.
A faint mechanical sound echoed beneath the floor.
The steel plate slowly slid aside.
Darkness greeted him.
A narrow staircase descended deep underground.
The masked man picked up another crate and disappeared below.
Several minutes later...
He reached the bottom.
The underground chamber was enormous.
Modern lights illuminated reinforced concrete walls.
Rows upon rows of sealed crates stretched into the distance.
Weapons.
Medical supplies.
Food.
Communication equipment.
And now...
The newly recovered drug shipment joined them.
He carefully stacked the crates beside the others.
Only after checking each one did he finally step back.
A slow breath escaped his lips.
"...Done."
For the first time that day...
His shoulders relaxed.
The mission had succeeded.
The cartels had failed.
The authorities remained clueless.
Everything had gone according to plan.
Or so he believed.
His hand instinctively moved to the wound across his back.
The blade had cut through his coat before he eliminated the last surviving gangster.
He gently pressed against the injury.
A faint line of blood stained his glove.
"...I underestimated them."
His voice echoed through the empty chamber.
"I shouldn't have taken them so lightly."
The wound itself didn't concern him.
He had endured far worse.
What irritated him was something else.
He had allowed someone to get close enough to strike.
That single mistake replayed in his mind.
He removed his gloves and reached into the back pocket of his coat.
Nothing.
His hand paused.
He searched again.
Still nothing.
A slight crease appeared on his forehead.
He checked another pocket.
Then another.
His movements became quicker.
The calmness that had accompanied him since the warehouse slowly disappeared.
"...No..."
He emptied every pocket.
Nothing.
His breathing slowed.
His eyes widened ever so slightly.
For the first time...
The masked man looked genuinely unsettled.
"...Impossible."
He searched the underground chamber again.
The staircase.
The operating room.
Even the path leading through the hospital.
Nothing.
He slowly grabbed his head.
"...I dropped it."
The words escaped his mouth almost as a whisper.
A single memory flashed through his mind.
The warehouse.
The bodies.
The fight.
The wound on his back.
His grip tightened.
"It must have fallen there..."
Without wasting another second, he hurried upstairs.
Hidden beneath the remains of a collapsed communications desk rested a compact radio transmitter.
Unlike an ordinary radio, it operated on encrypted frequencies known only to a select few.
He activated the device.
Static filled the room.
His fingers adjusted the frequency with practiced precision.
One channel.
Another.
Then...
The static disappeared.
A calm female voice emerged from the speaker.
"Report."
The masked man remained silent for several seconds.
Finally...
"I lost something."
The woman answered immediately.
"The shipment?"
"...No."
A brief pause.
"The Dragon Card."
Silence.
Not even static could be heard.
When she finally spoke again...
Her voice had changed.
"What... did you say?"
"I believe..."
"...I dropped the Dragon Card at the warehouse."
Another long silence followed.
The masked man closed his eyes.
He already knew what that silence meant.
At last, the woman spoke.
"...Did anyone notice it?"
"I don't know."
"...Did anyone see you carrying it?"
"I don't know."
Her breathing became heavier.
For the first time, uncertainty entered her voice.
"...Recover it."
He nodded instinctively, even though she couldn't see him.
"I will."
Her next words were slow...
Cold...
And filled with an urgency unlike anything he had heard before.
"Recover it..."
"...before it's too late."
The transmission ended.
The room fell silent once more.
The masked man lowered the communicator.
Outside, the wind howled through the shattered windows of the forgotten hospital.
His eyes stared into the darkness.
The drugs no longer mattered.
The cartels no longer mattered.
Only one thought echoed in his mind.
Someone... might have found the Dragon Card.
TO BE CONTINUED.....