Chapter 2 - The Bleeding Stranger
My hands shook violently as I hovered my finger over the manual override button.
My father explicitly wrote in his survival manifesto that you never open the door once lockdown begins.
You do not open it for friends, you do not open it for family, and you certainly do not open it for ghosts.
But I was staring at my brother's face.
I could see the faint crescent scar on his chin from when he fell off a bicycle at age ten.
I slammed my fist onto the green button.
The massive steel blast door groaned, slowly sliding open to reveal the decontamination airlock.
Elias stumbled inside, but he was not alone.
He was dragging the dead weight of a massive, broad-shouldered man covered in dark blood.
I hit the console again, and the blast door slammed shut, sealing us in.
I grabbed my loaded shotgun from the rack and aimed it directly at my brother's chest.
"Give me one reason why I should not pull this trigger," I demanded, my voice trembling.
Elias dropped the bleeding man onto the steel floor and put his hands in the air.
"Because the people who faked my death are the ones who caused the blackout tonight," Elias gasped.
"They are coming for this house, Maya."
I kept the barrel trained on him, refusing to lower the weapon.
"Who is the man bleeding on my floor?" I asked coldly.
Elias knelt beside the stranger and applied pressure to a massive gunshot wound on his shoulder.
"His name is Cole, and he is the only reason I made it up the mountain alive," my brother explained.
I cautiously stepped forward, keeping my finger on the trigger.
I looked down at the unconscious stranger named Cole.
His tactical jacket had fallen open, revealing a highly specific, intricate tattoo on his chest.
It was a black serpent coiled around a broken crown.
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My father had a locked filing cabinet dedicated to that exact symbol.
It was the emblem of the mercenary group that my father swore would one day kill our entire family.
