Part 5: Exit Protocol
The Hive was dying.
Its lights blinked like eyelids struggling not to shut. Every hallway buzzed with dying electricity. Blood covered the floors like sewage. Human parts floated in pools of black water near ruptured coolant lines.
And from the deepest stairwell…
He rose.
Kairo stepped up the corridor in silence, barefoot on shredded steel, muscles twitching, bone visible in places where his flesh had burned off during the heat surge in the Cradle.
Smoke curled from his chest.
The left side of his face had melted into something inhuman—eye socket fused over, jawbone exposed. A streak of skull showed above his brow, glistening with sweat and blood. But his one remaining eye still glowed.
And behind him—
He dragged a man.
Lenn Vel, the last survivor of the Paragon engineers, still breathing, but barely.
His legs had been shattered.
His spine severed just enough to cause paralysis without death.
But he was still awake.
Still screaming.
Still in pain.
Kairo didn't seem to hear it.
He dragged Lenn by the ankle, letting the man's broken body leave a long crimson smear down the hall like a brushstroke across a canvas of meat and ruin.
The bodies they passed didn't twitch anymore.
One was nailed upside down to a ventilation grille by his own femurs.
Another had been peeled—his skin hanging like wet laundry from a shattered light fixture.
The smell?
Apocalyptic.
Piss. Burned fat. Melted teeth. Ozone. Copper.
The Hive had become a cathedral of carnage.
And Kairo was its god.
04:13 – Upper Hive Entrance
Kairo emerged into the first access chamber.
One of the few guards still breathing saw him, half crushed under collapsed debris, coughing blood.
He raised his sidearm with shaking hands.
"P-please…"
Kairo looked at him.
And kept walking.
No killing blow.
No mercy.
Just indifference.
And that broke the man more than a bullet ever could.
With tears streaming down his face, he put the gun in his own mouth before Kairo was ten steps past.
Click.
Outside – Desert Surface
The Hive's surface platform was untouched.
No bodies here.
Just dust, silence, and stars.
And one black surveillance drone, hovering a hundred meters above—silent, unarmed, waiting.
Kairo stepped onto the platform.
Covered in blood.
Dragging Lenn.
He stopped.
Looked up.
And let go.
Lenn collapsed with a wet thud. His hands trembled. His eyes were wide with pure animal fear, blurred by tears.
Kairo crouched.
Placed one hand over Lenn's chest.
And whispered:
"Do you remember me now?"
Then he stood.
Turned.
And walked away.
Just like that.
Drone Feed: BlackSite 03 — Unregistered Surveillance
Aboard the military drone, the onboard scan systems locked onto Kairo.
They tried to analyze him:
SUBJECT: KAIRO-7
STATUS: BIOWEAPON (EXPIRED)
MATCHING BIOMETRICS…
…ERROR…
FACIAL SCAN: FAILED
STRUCTURE: CORRUPTED
NEURAL ID: NON HUMAN
NOTE: SUBJECT DOES NOT MATCH ANY EXISTING HUMAN MODEL
SUGGESTED CLASSIFICATION:
CLASS-X ENTITY
DO NOT PURSUE
DO NOT ENGAGE
Back on the Ground
Lenn Vel twitched.
He blinked, blood filling his lungs.
Then he felt it.
Heat.
Beneath his ribs.
He screamed—only air came out.
He reached down—
and felt something inside his back.
Wires.
A blinking light.
A device.
Kairo hadn't let him live.
He'd let him carry the match.
5
4
3
2
1
The Hive exploded in a pillar of fire.
The ground heaved.
The blast lit up the desert like a second sun. Dust, flame and blood vaporized in a single roar of vengeance.
Metal folded inward.
Bodies turned to steam.
And where the bunker once stood, there was only a crater.
Drone Feed — Final Capture Frame
Kairo walked into the black horizon.
Coated in blood.
Barefoot.
Bones still knitting themselves under the skin.
And over the crater—
Smoke twisted into the sky.
In the center of it:
Two words.
Painted in fire.
REMEMBER ME