I walked toward the racks marked Phase 3. My heart wasn't ready for what was inside. How could it be after what I'd just read? I forgot about my heart and focused on my mind.

  What were these phases even for? To kill more? To enslave more in their lie? To make more suffer?

  Only one way to find out. A way I dreaded. But beggars can't be choosers.

  My hand hovered over the first thick binder, the paper edges yellowed and brittle. For a moment, I couldn't bring myself to touch it. The air itself felt heavy here, as if the words trapped in these files were poison, seeping through their covers and into my skin.

  I forced my fingers to close around it, and slid it free.

  Opening the first page, I froze.

  It wasn't paragraphs of text like I expected. It was a flow chart.

  At the top: Phase 1. Marked with a clean green tick. No expansion. No notes.

  Below it: Phase 2. Another neat tick. Again, nothing more.

  But Phase 3… that one sprawled outward like a tree, branches etched in thick black ink.

  "Combine".

  That was the first word, the title of Phase 3.

  I scanned the description beneath, my throat tightening with every line.

  They planned to gather every resource they deemed useful. Materials, knowledge, even people, and hoard it all to feed their growing machines. Then, with that technology, they'd tighten their grip on power, use it to search for something.

  The "Land of the Truth".

  My stomach sank.

  Land of the truth?

  That was a story whispered by children. A bedtime myth, a rumor to comfort the hopeless. A land untouched by lies, a place where nothing could be hidden.

  The government believed in it?

  The words swam before my eyes. It wasn't a bedtime story. It was a mission, an objective.

  I stagger back from the rack, the papers nearly slipping from my fingers.

  I can't believe this.

  "WHAT CRAP IS THIS???" The words hiss out of me, low but burning.

  First they kill my parents…

  My fists clenched so tight the documents crumpled in my hand.

  Now they joke around with a myth!?!

  The words echoed in my skull, louder than any guard's footsteps could ever be. A legend turned into policy. A bedtime story turned into another excuse for blood.

  I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear the whole place apart. But all I could do was grind my teeth until my jaw ached, choking on a rage that had nowhere to go.

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  A loud crashing sound erupted from outside.

  I froze, pulse racing.

  What was that? The screech of twisted metal, the crunch of something collapsing. Like a car crash, though I'd never truly heard one before.

  Shouts followed. Guards' voices overlapped, barking questions.

  "What the hell was that noise?"

  "Check outside!"

  "Move, move!"

  Their boots thundered across the floor, leaving the corridor almost empty.

  My chest heaved. This was it.

  A thought stabbed through the haze of grief and rage. This is the perfect chance. If I don't go now, I'll never leave. Never know the truth. Never live to fight back.

  My legs moved before doubt could stop me. I clutched the stolen documents tight against my chest, the last trace of my parents, the last proof of the government's crimes.

  Every step felt like walking a blade's edge. One wrong move, and I'd be discovered. One second too slow, and I'd join my parents in the sea.

  But I pushed forward.

  I bolted down the hallway, shoving the dead guard's body aside with a kick. My feet thundered against the floor. Loud, reckless, but it didn't matter anymore. Stealth was over. Speed was survival.

  The stairwell loomed ahead. I flew down the steps two at a time, until a voice ripped through the air.

  "Stop or I'll shoot!"

  I froze.

  My chest heaved, sweat dripping down my face. Hands slowly raised above my head as ordered. The guard's boots pounded closer, gun leveled steady.

  "What's in your hands?!" he barked.

  I said nothing.

  "Answer me!"

  No reply. My silence only sharpened his suspicion. He crept nearer, circling around until the cold muzzle pressed against the back of my head. My life balanced on a finger's twitch.

  The papers were ripped from my hands, shuffled roughly as he squinted at them.

  A chance.

  My body moved before thought. My heel drove into the back of his knee. His leg buckled, his balance shattered. In the same heartbeat, I twisted and lashed a kick at his wrist. The gun spun free, clattering against the concrete.

  His eyes went wide, too late. My hands gripped his jaw and skull, snapping his neck with one sharp motion. His body dropped lifeless beside the stairs.

  I staggered back, breathing hard. The papers torn fluttered to the floor, ruined because of the struggling. Useless now.

  But the gun, oh, the gun! I scooped it up and clutched it tight. This… this I'll need.

  I bolted the way he had come from, but this time the guards were alert, not slacking. Their rifles jerked toward me the instant I moved into view.

  My grip tightened on the stolen gun. I snapped the magazine out just enough to check. Seven. That's all I had. Seven lives... or seven mistakes.

  My arms were stiff, my hands trembling. I had never fired a gun in my life. But I had watched, observed, studied. My body tried to remember what my mind had pieced together.

  I raised the weapon, copied their stance, and pulled the trigger.

  The blast deafened me, kicking back against my hand. The shot punched through one guard's throat. Not where I aimed, but enough. His body crumpled with a gurgling gasp.

  "CONTACT!" one shouted, and four rifles swung my way.

  I ducked behind a military truck, heart hammering in my ears. Boots thundered closer. Their shouts overlapped, calling for reinforcements.

  The truck's armor had small maintenance peepholes along the side. I pressed my eye to one, breath ragged, and lined up my next shot. My hands weren't steady, but luck, or instinct, was on my side.

  One fell with a hole punched through his eye. Another jerked back, his skull snapping with the impact. The third stumbled, clutching at his chest as blood spread across his uniform. The fourth tried to shout, but my bullet cut him off mid-word.

  Smoke curled from the pistol. My heartbeat pounded in time with the ringing in my ears.

  No time to think. No time to breathe.

  I darted from behind the truck, sprinting through the chaos, past the sprawled bodies and the widening pool of blood. Shouts echoed from deeper in the compound, boots pounding as more guards converged.

  I ran harder. Faster. My lungs burned, my legs screamed, but I didn't stop until the floodlights faded behind me and the cold night swallowed me whole.

  I was out.

  For now.