V – 000003.8 – Holding Out for A Hero

  Rivers of red poured off me, dripping from holes in my arms and legs that opened and closed with every movement. I stretched, tendons pulling tight, only for fresh tears to rip open again. Sweat ran in sheets, soaking my clothes, pooling in my boots. My grip slipped on the sledgehammer, but I clenched harder and swung anyway, the flat iron head crashing into the monster’s ribs.

  Bone crunched. The hulking, bipedal horror staggered sideways, its foamy, wet screech filling the broken street as shattered ribs tore into its lungs. Still, the bastard refused to die.

  A massive backhand came for me. I barely got the haft of my hammer up in time. The wood snapped like kindling, the impact flinging me end over end into the rubble. A jagged length of rebar speared through my shoulder, pinning me down.

  Pain ripped through me. A scream tore from my throat, hoarse and broken, as I saw the thing drop to one knee. Pink froth bubbled at its mouth as it took one last hateful act—heaving a chunk of building the size of a car straight at the people I came to save. Dust and gravel flew from its wake, a deadly shadow blotting out the sky.

  My scream warped into words, a vow burning out of me:

  “Brutal Reaction!”

  Time stuttered. The tumbling mass of stone jolted frame by frame, like a broken reel of film. My pores writhed, sweat boiling off my skin in steaming bursts. Every muscle fiber screamed as my legs flexed beyond human limits. Steel caps in my boots warped under the stress. My cargo pants stretched to their seams. The ground crumbled beneath me, rebar shrieking as it ripped free.

  Then I was moving.

  I slammed into the airborne debris, tearing straight through. The boulder exploded against me, blasting the street in shards and dust. The price came instantly—my sternum buckling inward, the muscles of my thighs and calves tearing apart, skin ripping in bloody sheets as stone carved furrows into me.

  My vision blurred, tunneling to the only thing that mattered.

  Them.

  An older woman, blonde roots streaked with gray, and her two boys—both about my brother’s age—stood unharmed. Not a single scratch reached them.

  I twisted on what was left of my ankles, just in time to see the monster collapse behind me, choking to death on its own blood. Then the world went white. My body hit the floor hard, rebar crunching halfway out of my shoulder as everything gave way.

  Darkness.

  When sight returned, it came in a haze of pain. My eyelids tore open, lashes stuck with dried blood and crusted salt. I was lying in a makeshift triage tent. The simple act of sitting up sent agony lancing through every nerve—but not the kind it should have been. I should have been dead.

  Instead, I lived.

  My body was a ruin. Bruises painted me black and purple, a tapestry of burst vessels. A dozen new scars littered my skin—jagged white lines, punctures, tears. My shoulder was the worst. It felt hollow, ruined, as though someone had carved out a piece of me and left only two raw burn-marks where the rebar had punched through.

  I opened my mouth, and a hoarse, cracked rasp slipped out, collapsing into a dry, hacking cough. My chest convulsed, and I dragged a crooked finger across my sternum. The bones were no longer caved in—pushed back into place somehow—but every grinding shift in my joints set my teeth on edge. Far from whole.

  Blinking through the haze, I pulled up my Status.

  I rubbed at my hairline, flakes scattering from under my nails, eyes locked on the screen.

  Still just level eight… Fuck. Too low. Too weak. If I stay like this, we’re dead.

  My fingers trembled as I flicked through the rest of the notifications. The name of the thing I’d faced stared back at me. Ogre. A bitter laugh almost escaped me. Should’ve guessed.

  I pushed myself upright, back pressed against the cold steel headboard. The sting was sharp, but the chill was a kind of euphoria against my inflamed skin. Footsteps approached, and I braced.

  The yellow bedsheet curtain with faded white flowers pretending at a privacy veil shifted. A pair of blue eyes peeked through before the whole thing was yanked open. A man in his twenties stepped in, fatigues pressed, features hard with stress. Recognition struck a beat late, but when it hit, it hit hard.

  “Good—you’re finally awake.” His gaze landed on me, cold at first, then softening as memory slotted into place.

  I managed a shallow nod. “Good to see you again, Corporal Steel.”

  His brows lifted. “Bloodstone. That explains it. Not exactly a common name.” He reached out, hand hovering above my shoulder before pulling back, as if the thought of contact burned.

  I drew in a deep breath, grimacing at the fire in my lungs. My voice scraped out low.

  “So—what can I do for you, Corporal Steel? Or should I be asking what I can do for the military?”

  Steel looked me up and down, searching for an excuse not to say what he came here for. Eventually his features hardened, his voice turning cold with conviction.

  “Command’s been keeping an eye on anyone breaking level five. More so on those showing… outstanding civic and patriotic service. Like you, Vladimir Bloodstone. The brass wants a word, and they’d like you to act in a more official capacity on their behalf.”

  I sat stunned, the words sinking in. The head of operations wanted me—me—to act for them.

  “They want me to be part of operations? Officially?” I asked, the words spilling before I could stop them, the weight of responsibility already pressing onto my shoulders.

  Steel drew in a deep breath, hands braced on his hips.

  “In a manner of speaking, yeah.” He wiped the sweat from his brow into his hairline. “But listen—this is the part they won’t tell you. You’re not one of us. You’re under no obligation to follow orders like we are, and they know it. But we don’t have the luxury of being picky anymore. We need more than soldiers to win this war. We need heroes.”

  My eyes dropped as the fight replayed in my head. At first it had seemed easy—the slow, dumb beast couldn’t touch me, and I hammered it without end. But it wouldn’t die. Every strike, it just fought through, until it caught me. A chill ran down my spine as I recalled its filthy claws tightening around my ankle, the terror of being utterly trapped before it hurled me through a column. That had burned up my second wind, triggered Underdog, left me running on fumes. After that, the fight blurred into flickers—movement, instinct, raw will to protect the woman and her boys.

  Something deep inside me had caught fire that moment. My chest had risen easier with that heat, my body moving on pure resolve. I opened my mouth to speak, but pain flared in my shoulder, silencing me before I could give my answer.

  Steel’s hand pressed gently against the wound, pain lancing through me with each touch. His face looked almost pained by the act itself.

  “Remember this, Bloodstone. Heroes die all the goddamn time. Legends don’t.”

  He released his grip, turned on his heel, and marched out of my little recovery corner without another word.

  Leaning back into the thin cushions of my cot, I closed my eyes and let the darkness wash over me. My thoughts wouldn’t stop racing. What kind of future was I about to step into? What did it really mean to be a hero in a world like this? The questions clawed at me even as my unnatural constitution worked its quiet miracle—every hour easing the pain in ways no medicine ever could.

  For once, I had peace. Silence.

  Until the haptic buzz in my mind went from a whisper to a roar—jagged and violent, like a chainsaw against my skull. Notifications slammed into me in a wave, one forcing itself into my vision above all others.

  A world quest.

  My eyes locked on the target’s name, reading it once, then again, then again, as if repetition might change the letters.

  Viktor.

  My chest tightened. “Viktor… just what the hell is going on over there?” I whispered, though the silence swallowed it whole.

  The system wasn’t finished. Another alert cut across my vision.

  Tabs unlocked. New functions blooming like weeds across my vision. None of it mattered. Not now.

  All I could think about was him.

  Viktor. My wayward little brother. The universe had always singled him out for abuse—accidents, bad luck, and worst of all, our father. Wrong place, wrong time, always. But this? This was too much.

  They’d set the entire goddamn world against him.

  I clenched my fists, jaw tight. “I’ll find you, Vikky. I swear. I’ll stop this before it destroys you. We need to stand together—not let the system play us like pieces on a board.”