n
The smoke didn't drift the way smoke should.
It hung low over the torn ground, gray and heavy, as if it had been told to stay. Bodies lay scattered across the field in unnatural stillness—soldiers frozen mid-motion, weapons dropped, faces locked in expressions that suggested they hadn't even understood what was killing them.
Richard Solace sat at the center of it.
Kneeling. Bare hands pressed into the dirt. Blood—too much of it—soaked his sleeves, his knuckles, his jaw. Some of it was his. Most of it wasn't.
His breathing was uneven. Not panicked. Not calm. Like a machine struggling to find a rhythm after being overworked.
He didn't remember when the mist had lifted.
He didn't remember when the screaming stopped.
He remembered movement.
He remembered resistance.
He remembered the feeling of something inside him opening.
And then—nothing.
A soft mechanical hum cut through the silence.
Vehicles emerged from the treeline without headlights. Matte-black, angular, unmarked. They rolled over bodies without slowing, tires crunching bone with clinical indifference.
Men and women disembarked. Fully masked. No insignias. No ranks. Their movements were precise, rehearsed, almost bored.
One of them raised a device.
"Visual confirmation achieved," the handler said calmly. "Subject located."
Richard flinched at the word subject, though he didn't lift his head.
Another voice responded through the handler's earpiece. Neutral. Genderless. Filtered.
"Vitals?"
"Elevated metabolic activity. Skeletal trauma present. Regeneration ongoing."
A pause.
"Integrity?"
"Approximately sixty-two percent."
"Acceptable."
Something cold snapped shut around Richard's wrists.
Not cuffs—bands. Smooth, dark metal that tightened just enough to remind him he was no longer free. A second set locked around his ankles. They didn't hurt.
That scared him more.
Devon surged forward. "Hey—get away from him!"
Two Phantom operatives moved in front of him instantly. Not aggressive. Just there. Blocking his path like walls that didn't need to threaten.
"He needs help," Luna said sharply, stepping beside Devon. Her eyes burned red for a fraction of a second before she forced them back to normal. "He's barely holding himself together."
The handler finally turned to face them.
"You're mistaken," they said. "He's functioning within projected parameters."
Siara felt it then.
That wrongness.
That quiet certainty.
They hadn't arrived to clean up a massacre.
They'd arrived to collect the result.
Phantom personnel spread out, scanning the area, tagging bodies, lifting weapons, retrieving data cores from shattered military drones. They moved like this wasn't their first time standing in a field of the dead.
Because it wasn't.
Asuka drifted away from the group, eyes narrowed. One of Phantom's portable consoles flickered nearby, unattended for half a second too long.
She glanced at the screen.
And froze.
Lines of data scrolled past faster than she could read—but one identifier stayed fixed in place.
PRIME ANOMALY — LIVE FEED ACTIVE
Heart pounding, Asuka leaned closer.
The data wasn't coming from Richard.
It was synced to him.
Heartbeat. Neural spikes. Regenerative cycles. Aggression thresholds. Stress responses.
They weren't monitoring him.
They were studying him in real time.
Her stomach dropped.
"This wasn't a response," she whispered. "This was scheduled."
Meanwhile, Richard was gently—but firmly—lifted to his feet by two operatives. His legs buckled. The bands tightened, stabilizing him unnaturally, holding his weight for him.
He looked up for the first time.
His eyes were wrong.
Not glowing. Not monstrous.
Empty.
A Phantom handler stepped closer, stopping just outside arm's reach.
"Richard Solace," they said evenly.
He didn't respond.
"Your presence correlates with catastrophic casualty rates," the handler continued. "This is not an accusation. It is an observation."
Siara's jaw clenched.
The handler went on, voice smooth, almost polite.
"You will remain under Phantom supervision effective immediately."
Devon snapped. "You don't get to decide that."
The handler didn't even look at him.
"Refusal will increase fatality projections," they said. "Compliance will reduce them."
Richard's fingers twitched.
Images flashed through his mind—faces, screams, blood. The weight of bodies collapsing under his hands. The sound of bone giving way.
"How?" he asked hoarsely. "How do I make it stop?"
The handler tilted their head slightly.
"You don't," they said. "You let us manage it."
Silence fell.
Siara met the handler's gaze. "And what happens to him?"
A pause. Just long enough to be intentional.
"He will be classified," the handler replied. "Studied. Preserved."
Asuka stepped back from the console, face pale.
This wasn't protection.
This was ownership.
Richard said nothing.
Did nothing.
Phantom logged the moment.
Subject Response: Passive.
Status: Pending Acquisition.
And somewhere deep beneath the earth—far beyond sensors, beyond containment—
Something ancient stirred.
Nekros waited.