Chapter Text
THE THOUSAND-YARD STARE
【Kreon/Metaltango】
Chapter 01.
Shell Shock
When Leon picked up the syringe, a foolish, ill-timed thought flickered through his mind—this year, he had finally gotten the chance to spend Christmas with Krauser again, but never in his wildest imagination had he expected their second time to be under circumstances so far beyond the bounds of ordinary comprehension.
∞
Their first Christmas had been three months after the Raccoon City incident. After Sherry was taken away by the government, he was sent to Fort Jackson. Three days of grueling interrogations and a series of medical examinations later, he was finally given a set of decent clothes—two plain green T-shirts and a pair of cotton-blend sweatpants. He took a shower in hurry, as he stepped out to find that the bloodstained Raccoon City police tactical uniform he had arrived in had been stuffed into a plastic bag and sealed by the same special agent who had accompanied him to the military base. A label, densely packed with tiny printed text, was affixed to the bag’s opening. Then, without a word, the sunglasses-wearing man turned and left.
He thought of Sherry’s small hand clasping his thumb, shaking it playfully. He thought of Claire’s red leather jacket, its elbow seams worn thin. His stomach, already unsettled, twisted further with a dull ache.
Leon sat on a wooden crate outside the dormitory. It wasn’t as if anyone had explicitly permitted him to step beyond the barracks, but even if he were free to leave, where was he supposed to go now? No one had asked for his name, where he came from, or what had happened. No one had told him if he was supposed to start training with the fresh recruits running laps around the field. No one had spoken to him at all. It was as if some invisible rule had rendered the entire world deaf to his presence. The realization left him strangely disoriented, almost as if the drooling, putrid corpses that had chased him through that hellish city had been more welcoming than the chow hall staff here.
Then, on the morning of Christmas Eve, he washed his face and stepped into the mess hall, his nose red from the cold. A soldier, not much taller than he was, hurried over to relay an order: he was to be transferred immediately to Fort Bragg.
Even with only basic police training, Leon had heard of that place, the cradle of those who fought and died in foreign lands, the birthplace of the enigmatic D-Boys.[1]
The trip wouldn’t take more than three hours. Leon scratched his head, maybe he could still make it in time for Christmas dinner, though he had no idea who he’d be eating with or if there’d even be anything for him at all.
As soon as he finished packing his barely-there belongings, his other set of green shirts and brown pants, a casual jacket provided by the White House for warmth, and a phone with an empty contact list stuffed into his pocket, the roar of an incoming helicopter filled his ears.
As they neared Fort Bragg, a needling anxiety burrowed into his skull from his temples. Arriving by special transport wasn’t exactly the first impression he wanted to make on one of the world’s most elite military units. He was just… an ordinary guy from a Midwestern town, a community college and police academy graduate. Aside from being the most astronomically unlucky rookie cop in history, a title he had barely held for twenty-four hours, there was nothing remarkable about him. Hell, he hadn’t even gotten the chance to touch a single report sheet before the universe threw him into a nightmare.
Leon hopped off the helicopter with decent agility, quickly falling in step with the officer beside him as they headed toward a nearby building. A sharp 45-degree gust bit at his skin, making him instinctively tighten his grip on his jacket collar.
It was 10:30. The vast base was eerily empty, no one running drills, no one in sight. Looked like most of the soldiers had been granted leave to go home for the holidays. Once again, there was no chance to introduce himself or make idle small talk. The officer instructed him to wait outside the command office, then disappeared inside. When he finally returned, he only gave Leon a brief nod before walking off without another word.
Leon sat on a bench in the hallway, feeling like a forgotten package. His gaze drifted toward the commendation wall at the far end, and, without thinking, he raised his hand in the shape of a gun. He squinted his right eye, lining up an imaginary sight—index finger aiming at an old general’s portrait, a zombie’s gaping maw, a golden medal, a mutant human bio-weapon Tyrant’s chest, a silver medal, a brass doorknob. Deep breath. A slow, deliberate squeeze of the trigger—
Bang.
The door at the end of the hallway swung open with force.
A man—practically a mountain—filled the doorway. He wore a maroon beret, revealing a sliver of pale golden hair at his forehead and temples. His piercing gaze was like an eagle surveying the peaks.
Leon cursed under his breath and hastily lowered his finger-gun, suddenly feeling absurdly self-conscious. He straightened in his seat, trying to compose himself.
The mountain of a man strode toward him. Leon knew basic manners, so he stood up, thinking he’d be able to meet the man at eye level, but even after squaring his shoulders, he realized he still had to tip his chin up slightly just to make proper eye contact.
“Hi, I’m—”
“Not going home for Christmas?” the man cut him off coldly, his collected gaze flicking down to Leon’s outstretched right arm.
Leon swallowed and let his hand drop, trying to make the movement look natural.
“Uh, I—”
“‘Die Hard’ is playing tonight. Seven sharp.”
Then he turned and walked away, leaving the young man frozen in place, hair practically standing on end, mouth slightly open in stunned silence.
What the hell was that?
Leon frowned, his mind working rapidly. If he had to guess, that man was probably referring to the base’s customary Christmas movie screening. He glanced at the man’s straight-backed figure and that commanding beret, quickly reaching a hasty conclusion: a military officer had acknowledged him and even mentioned a movie schedule! That was… pretty friendly, wasn’t it? He had half-expected every GI here to be mute. Maybe this Christmas Eve wouldn’t be as lonely as he had imagined.
What he didn’t know was that the same man, who would sit in the regular chow hall, sharing Christmas turkey and apple pie with the soldiers stuck on base, shaking his head with a faint smile while watching Die Hard, casually lighting a cigarette indoors—would, a week later on the very first training day, send a group of fresh-faced recruits on a three-mile run through the rain before making them do 200 push-ups. Which, for those aspiring to join the special forces, wasn’t exactly unreasonable. After lunch then came the obstacle course. Leon had lost track of how many trenches he had vaulted over when a brutal cramp seized his calf. His balance wavered, he slipped and tumbled to the bottom of the pit.
Gritting his teeth, he latched onto the trench’s edge, fingers digging into the packed dirt. He found something firmer, sandbags, maybe wooden planks, just as the shrill blast of a whistle and the pounding of boots rushed past overhead. With a deep breath, he pushed himself up and flipped over the edge. The moment his feet hit solid ground, a wave of dizziness crashed over him, his vision tunneling for a brief second.
Steadying himself, he barely had time to process before the massive man—still wearing that beret—approached him. And he wasn’t here to share next week’s movie schedule.
The officer took one glance at the sweat dripping from Leon’s face, said nothing, then placed a broad palm against his heaving chest—
And shoved.
Leon tumbled backward into the trench, the morning rain having turned the bottom into a pit of thick mud.
He didn’t even know the man’s name yet.
“Major Krauser’s unit, huh?”
The on-duty medic chuckled, no malice in his voice. He capped the iodine, pressed anti-inflammatory patches onto Leon’s aching ribs and wrists, then tucked a tube of bruise ointment into a folded medical note before handing it to him.
Now he knew. Jack Krauser.
A real son of bitch, Leon thought grimly as he limped out of the infirmary.
-
Jack Krauser was badly injured.
Leon could barely detect his breathing. The former officer’s grotesquely mutated arms lay limp on the wooden platform, reminiscent of the blood-drenched fjords of the Faroe Islands after a whaling season—silent, steeped in gore and torn flesh, the only movement a slow, suffocating tide of dying breath. His body was riddled with freshly healed bullet wounds and knife gashes, each one a battlefield fissure haphazardly stitched together, edges still seeping dark blood, with new tissue stirring faintly beneath. The parasite’s accelerated regeneration made the injuries look disturbingly unnatural, as if a shattered corpse had been forcibly reassembled.
And in the dead center of his chest, a narrow, deep laceration plunged straight into his core. The wound trembled, not yet fully sealed, like a curse still lingering. If Leon looked closely, he could see the struggling heart within, scarred, its rhythm sluggish. A dying beast, convulsing in the abyss, drowning in blood.
The moment he struck, his wrist wavered—an imperceptible shift in his arc, as if the choreography was written in the stars. And the blade, glinting menacingly, found its mark between Krauser's ribs, yet paused a hair's breadth from its lethal destination.
It was as if time itself was mocking his hesitation.
He felt himself falling, unsure if this would finally cast him out of this dream’s grasp. The twisted, impossible reality seeped through like spilled paint, bleeding across the canvas of his mind, tainting the fabric of his nightmare with relentless misfortune. And when the canvas tipped, when the world tilted beneath his feet—would he be thrown free at last?
This absurd, goddamn, endless nightmare.
He tried to recall, to pinpoint the moment where it all went wrong, to figure out when everything had begun to fall apart—but what did it matter? If he really had to trace it back, his life had already veered off course six years ago, in that early autumn storm. No—earlier than that. It wasn’t the collapse of the city, nor the massacre that followed.
It had started long before.
Fifteen, the first time he gripped the stock of a Remington. Five, caught between a toy fire truck and a water gun.
Maybe the path had been sealed long before he became him. Before he fell into this flesh-and-blood existence. Maybe, somewhere on the far shore of time, in an unreachable cycle of fate, he had already taken the wrong step. And from that moment on, no matter how much he struggled, he had only ever been moving along a path of ruin, step by step into destruction, like a traveler lost in the desert winds, unable to turn back. Like a broken river, its course already severed, stumbling forward into the same desolate wasteland.
He shouldn’t have crawled out of the burning wreckage that took his parents. He shouldn’t have walked through the eye of the storm, sheltered for a fleeting moment in a glasshouse untouched by the coming cyclone, grinning foolishly in the sunlight under the illusion that the worst had passed.
Beep—
A soft electronic vibration from his PDA yanked him out of his thoughts.
Hunnigan’s message was brief and to the point:
Baby Eagle successfully recovered.
Currently secured at R-11[2].
No immediate threats.
Will proceed with transfer to the next safe zone per protocol.
Further details to follow.
Leon inhaled slowly and shut off the screen.
He could almost picture it—Mike bringing the helicopter down onto the deck of the aircraft carrier under the smoke-darkened sky, the Navy crew in their white uniforms waiting in formation to receive them, draping a thermal blanket over Ashley’s shoulders, handing her a bottle of water, taking them away from this nameless battlefield.
He could almost hear it—the steady hum of the turbines, blending into the crashing waves and the crackle of radio chatter in the cold ocean wind.
The mission was complete. She was safe.
He had made it.
He had saved the hatchling. He should leave. He should walk away, leave this godforsaken island and everything that had spiraled out of control here behind.
But still—
He felt like he could save just one more person.
Just one more.
The thought burned in his chest, faint but stubborn, the last lingering star before dawn.
One more. One step, one moment, one life at a time.
Leon knew how naïve it sounded, how foolish it was, but he didn’t care. If a single ember could tear through the last remnants of the night, then so be it.
This was what he could do. This was what he was willing to give himself to. It was no different from when he had chosen to become a cop all those years ago.
He closed his eyes, held his breath for a brief second, then exhaled slowly.
His gaze shifted back to Krauser.
The former officer turned mercenary, consumed by rage and parasitic corruption, still lay there, his body exuding an eerie heat. Blood pooled beneath him like the reflection of a moonlit underworld river, and on its far shore, the black poplars of Tartarus stretched their limbs in silent vigil. Once, this man had been a proud soldier, a warrior of unwavering faith and conviction. Now, he was no more than a dying beast, trapped in a cage woven from fate and choices, waiting in silence for the final judgment. His rage stemmed from the betrayal of his government, but also from something deeper, something unseen, something far more insidious. A force that had driven him to turn his blade against someone, a force even harder to exorcise than the curse running through his veins.
Leon knelt beside him without a word, sheathing the snake-engraved dagger before retrieving a small syringe and a box of vials from the pouch on his tactical belt. Carefully, he extracted a single ampoule, a delicate tube filled with stratified red and blue liquid, thick enough that it seemed almost unsuitable for injection. At the boundary between the two colors, a deep gloom shimmers unearthly.
Leon racked his memory, recalling the instructions left behind by the now-dead Spanish scientist. He shook the vial, watching as the two conflicting fluids churned—a movement both devouring and repelling, locked in paradoxical tension. Then, after several seconds, they merged, transforming into a crystalline violet swirl, its transparency akin to freshly mined quartz. He stared at the luminescent, almost cult-like color with suspicion.
This was not a cure. It would not purge the Plaga from Krauser’s body. But it would keep him alive.
And that was enough.
When Leon picked up the syringe, a foolish, ill-timed thought flickered through his mind—this year, he had finally gotten the chance to spend Christmas with Krauser again, but never in his wildest imagination had he expected their second time to be under circumstances so far beyond the bounds of ordinary comprehension.
He took a slow, steadying breath, firmed his grip, and pressed the needle against a vein. The liquid seeped into Krauser’s bloodstream. Leon waited. No reaction.
The mercenary’s massive, wrecked body reminded him of the torn-apart turkey carcass from that Christmas dinner years ago—except now, the scent was far more putrid than any roasted poultry.
Leon had faced monsters head-on without hesitation. He had even raised a blade against his own mentor. But now—now, as he awaited the unknown effects of an untested drug, as he braced for the uncertain fate that lay ahead—this was what truly made his heart pound with fear.
Then, at last, the silence shattered.
Krauser’s body convulsed, starting at the spine and rippling outward. His veins bulged like ruptured cables struck by high-voltage currents. Beneath his skin, something twisted and writhed, an entire nest of horrors roiling in frenzy. The injection site on his neck darkened, inky bruises spreading as the drug surged through his circulatory system.
A savage, unnatural reversal had begun.
Krauser’s right hand was the first to change. From his pores, a thick, transparent mucus seeped out, coating the grotesquely twisted muscles as they rippled like an ebbing tide. The warped, overlapping layers of bone and sinew began to realign, folding back into place. The deep fissures in his skin sealed shut, and the monstrous claws—once long enough to scrape the ground—began to shrink. In an instant, his knuckles snapped back into position, fingers retracting until, at last, a hand distinctly human emerged, as if some invisible force had painstakingly glued the pieces back together.
However, the changes in the left hand are noticeably delayed.
The grotesquely overgrown flesh on that side only partially regressed, leaving behind a charred, crusted surface, rough and uneven, like cooled magma or melted wax hardened once more. A few orange, swollen cysts still clung to the disfigured mass. Some of the bones remained subtly misaligned, his joints producing the faintest grinding noise with each involuntary twitch, like a failing machine forced to operate. The once-terrifying bone blade had retracted, but not entirely, it had shrunk to the size of a hatchet, protruding awkwardly from his forearm like a misplaced dorsal fin.
Leon’s gaze traced this incomplete path of recovery, finally settling on Krauser’s chest, on the deep, still-bleeding wound he himself had inflicted.
The gash, deep enough to expose bone, continued to seep blood, pulsing in rhythm with Krauser’s ragged breaths. It mixed with the dried stains beneath him, forming a fresh layer atop the old. No matter how strong he was, his body was not indestructible. The drug Luis had developed had only partially restored the Plaga-mutated tissue—and perhaps, by suppressing the parasite’s regenerative abilities, it had also dulled Krauser’s capacity to heal. The nearly fatal injury still required real medical treatment.
Leon clenched the empty vial in his hand, his eyes flicking between Krauser’s half-healed left arm and the open wound on his chest. He had won only half the gamble. The other half still remained.
He took the last of his hemostatic gel and spread it over the wound. There had to be more supplies in Luis’ lab, but that was all the way across the island. Carrying a hundred-kilo Krauser past the remaining cultists? Not happening.
There had to be another medical station. And to find that, he needed a map. But where could it be?
The answer was right in front of him—Krauser’s campsite.
Leon glanced once more at Krauser’s unconscious form, ensuring the gel was doing its job, though he knew it wouldn’t last long, then turned sharply, gripping the ladder’s rails and sliding down. His boots hit the stone platform with a dull thud, and without hesitation, he broke into a sprint.
He dashed through the maze of crumbling low walls and half-destroyed passageways. After passing under a rust-stained archway, he followed the faded red markings on the ground, his strides carrying him forward until he reached the lone tent still illuminated from within. It looked exactly as he had left it just hours ago. His sharp gaze scanned the space. The table was still cluttered with scattered documents. A half-torn tactical blueprint was pinned to the wall. Several military crates stood open, revealing an assortment of weapons and mechanical components in disarray.
Somewhere in this chaos, there had to be what he was looking for.
“Come on… it has to be here,” Leon muttered under his breath, frantically shuffling through the clutter in front of him. Mission reports, weapon inventories, personnel rosters—not a single complete map of the island.
Time was slipping away. Every passing second pushed Krauser’s life closer to the edge. Leon’s hands started to shake. He forced himself to slow down, to think.
Military crates? He dropped to his knees, upended one, and sent its contents clattering across the ground. Metal rattled against metal, nothing but weapons and tools. File folders? He flipped through them so fast that sweat from his brow soaked into the paper edges.
Where the hell is it?!
A gust of wind lifted the tent flap, and as Leon looked up, his eyes landed on something, a partially open storage box under the cot.
He lunged for it, yanked it open. A crumpled stack of papers.
Found it!
He snatched up the repeatedly folded island map and spread it flat on the ground. His eyes scanned the terrain markers: ruins, villages, the sanctuary, the docks, the factory… Wait. His fingertip stopped at a specific label—Cargo Depot, marked with a small red cross.
Leon’s pulse quickened.
That’s a medical station. It’s not exactly close, but it’s the nearest one.
He shot to his feet and immediately started scavenging for supplies. A large pack of military-grade chitosan gauze[4] and sterile bandages—perfect. Krauser’s still up on that goddamn arena platform. I need a way to get him down safely. His gaze swept the corner of the tent, landing on a coil of climbing rope.
That’ll do.
Time was running out. Peering outside to confirm the coast was clear, Leon sprinted back into the night. Distant monstrous screeches rode the wind, sending a chill up his spine.
Gotta move fast—before more trouble shows up.
Leon leaped. He reached Krauser’s side in minutes, barely winded despite the sprint. He took a steadying breath and crouched down.
First things first—get him upright.
Leon wrapped his arms around the unconscious man’s upper body, careful to avoid the remnants of his bone blade. With a sharp inhale, he heaved. His spine screamed in protest, but he grit his teeth and forced Krauser into a sitting position against a wooden post.
The hemostatic gel had already been absorbed, too fast to fully work. Leon ripped open the bandage packaging. No time to hesitate. He grabbed a wad of chitin gauze and shoved it directly into the wound. The warmth of fresh blood pulsed against his fingertips, leaking between them even as he applied firm pressure.
Still bleeding too much.
He pressed harder, ensuring the gauze was properly packed in, and after a few agonizing minutes, he quickly unraveled a roll of bandages, wrapping them tightly around Krauser’s chest and back in overlapping layers.
The entire time, Krauser’s head remained slumped forward. He didn’t make a sound.
Next—getting him down from the arena’s highest platform.
Leon scoured the area for an anchor point. The railing was mostly destroyed from their fight, but the main support beams remained intact. He looped one end of the climbing rope around a beam, securing it with a tight figure-eight knot. To prevent the rope from snagging, he unsheathed his bayonet and used the serrated edge to carve a small groove into the wooden planks, creating a smooth channel for the rope to glide through.
“Hope this works,” he muttered.
He worked quickly, threading the rope around Krauser’s torso and securing a makeshift rescue harness. Every knot had to hold. No mistakes.
Avoiding Krauser’s mutated arm was another challenge. Even unconscious, those abnormal muscles and cystic growths continued to move, radiating a disturbing heat.
Leon gave every knot a final, forceful tug.
Secure.
Now came the hardest part—lowering a hundred-kilo man down a twelve-meter drop without killing them both.
He tightened his grip, cinching the Prusik knot for stability. Slowly, he began to push Krauser toward the edge. As the full weight shifted onto the rope, the tension pulled hard against Leon’s body. The fibers creaked under the strain.
“Shit—!”
For a second, Leon nearly lost his footing. The sudden force almost yanked him straight over the ledge. He dug his boots into the ground, hands locked tight around the rope, legs braced to absorb the pull. Even through his tactical gloves, the rough nylon bit into his palms, burning like a thousand needles stabbing into his skin.
Not letting go. Not a goddamn chance.
Inch by inch, he fed the rope through his grip, carefully lowering Krauser’s motionless body. The moonlight cast jagged shadows over him—mutated protrusions glinting in the dark like serrated blades. This wasn't a grand, formal colosseum like those of ancient Rome, but the descent felt agonizingly slow, especially long under these circumstances, each second a test of Leon's endurance.
Then, a strong gust of wind.
Krauser’s suspended body swung.
Leon’s grip faltered. The rope slipped, scorching his palms.
“Fuck, fuck!” he cursed under his breath, trying to regain control. His knuckles had turned white from the strain. A searing pain flared in his palms, and when he glanced down, he saw blood seeping through the reinforced fabric of his gloves, staining the rope. Exhaling sharply, he forced himself to refocus.
The last five meters were the most dangerous. If he lost control here, the impact would be enough to snap the officer’s neck. Leon’s arms were already numb, but he forced himself to push through. Finally, Krauser’s legs touched the ground first, sinking down slowly. Leon fed out the last bit of rope carefully, ensuring the landing was stable before he finally let go of his death grip. The blood inside his gloves felt thick and sticky, mingling with sweat into a mess.
Leon collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath, his palms burning in protest. But there was no time to rest—there was still a harder road ahead. He swiftly untied the rope from the platform, stuffing it into his pack before glancing at the motionless figure below. Then, he climbed down the ladder smoothly on the other side of the platform.
Kneeling beside Krauser, he pressed two fingers against his carotid artery. Thump, thump, thump. The Plaga’s regenerative ability seemed to have kicked in, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Taking a deep breath, he braced himself for the next challenge, getting this badly injured officer to the medical station.
Leon unfastened the ropes around Krauser’s torso, checking that the bandages were still secure. Then came the hardest part of a one-man evac—hoisting the other person onto his shoulders in a single motion.
“One, two—” he muttered, and on three, he surged upward. A hundred kilos of dead weight nearly drove him straight into the ground. Leon staggered forward, barely keeping his knees from buckling. The wound on his back flared up, feeling like it had been ripped open all over again. But he had no choice.
The night wind howled past, carrying the distant crash of waves. He had to move, now. Step by step, he advanced, using every technique he had drilled in the field. But the terrain was nothing like a training ground, it was a treacherous mix of potholes, loose stones, and thick mud. Sweat quickly soaked through his shirt.
The map indicated he needed to cross an abandoned construction site to reach the storage warehouse. As he approached the edge, he realized the terrain dropped off sharply, a mess of rubble and exposed steel bars lay ahead, uneven and perilous. He carefully stepped forward.
“The hell—”
The ground gave way. Leon’s foot slipped on loose gravel, and he pitched forward. Instinctively, he twisted to shield Krauser, but that only worsened their momentum. They tumbled down the slope, rolling over jagged debris. Leon curled around Krauser’s body, trying to absorb the worst of the impact. They crashed to a halt against a slanted steel pipe.
“Fuck!”
Leon groaned, his entire body aching. He pushed himself up, checking on Krauser. The bandages were still in place, but fresh scrapes covered his arms and already scarred face, leaving him looking even worse. Gritting his teeth, Leon bent down, lifting Krauser onto his shoulders again, only to feel a sharp, searing pain in his left ankle. He had twisted it.
Every step sent jolts of agony shooting up his leg, the weight on his shoulders making it almost unbearable. The adrenaline was wearing off, leaving behind exhaustion, hunger, and pain so intense his vision blurred. His ears rang, the world swaying around him. His rational mind screamed at him, this was too risky. Krauser wasn’t his comrade anymore. He had kidnapped Ashley. He had murdered Luis without a shred of remorse. He had become something inhuman, a biological weapon destined for destruction. He had even wanted Leon to kill him, had orchestrated his own downfall with a satisfied, final gaze.
And yet, something deep inside—something long since numbed—kept screaming in defiance of that fate.
The warehouse loomed ahead, but Leon’s heart sank. The complex was far larger than the map had indicated, and worse, it looked recently renovated. Shit. That meant the map was outdated. The medical station could be anywhere.
He limped forward, navigating through the maze of shipping containers, scanning desperately for any kind of signage. At least there were no mercenaries in sight. Krauser’s body was growing colder against his back, his pulse against Leon’s shoulder weakening with every second. Leon forced himself to move faster, every turn feeling like a gamble.
Then, he saw it—a faded red cross painted on a distant metal door.
“Goddamn it, Krauser… you’re—” he gritted out, panting, his throat raw and dry. “You’re fucking heavy.”
“…No matter what,” he mumbled under his breath, unaware of the exhaustion creeping into his voice, “you’re not dying here.”
Summoning the last dregs of his strength, he stumbled to the door, sweat blurring his vision. His trembling fingers fumbled for the handle.
Locked.
Leon nearly blacked out from sheer frustration, but then he noticed the warped doorframe—maybe, just maybe—he took a deep breath and threw his weight against it.
The metal groaned.
He rammed it again, and again.
BANG—!
On the third impact, the lock snapped. Krauser’s body slid from his shoulders, Leon barely controlled the fall, keeping him from hitting the ground too hard.
Gasping for breath, he knelt on the cold floor, scanning the dimly lit room. Crates and clutter were everywhere, but in the corner, there it was—medical equipment. A surprisingly advanced-looking hospital bed, a flashing green light indicating emergency power was still active.
He propped himself up and unsteadily walked to the medical cabinet. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small knife, inserted it into the lock, and twisted hard, a sharp snap as the latch broke. He yanked open the drawer and frantically searched: antiseptic, sutures, IV bags… There, everything he needed, everything still usable.
Leon swallowed hard, trying to steady his chaotic heartbeat. He looked up and glanced at Krauser’s body on the floor. The man’s chest was still rising and falling slowly.
Still alive. They were both still alive.
-TBC-