Chapter 45: Fractures

The room still smelled of blood laced in iron and panic.

Felix stood in the doorway, his shoulders rising and falling in slow, measured breaths, his eyes scanning what remained of the chaos as Jack’s body lay twisted across the floor, a grotesque reminder of what happens when men mistake power for immunity.

For a moment, the silence held. Then everything broke down.

Guards rushed in first. Boots slammed against steel flooring, weapons raised, voices overlapping in sharp bursts of command. Someone shouted, someone else froze at the scene and a third simply stared at the Jack’s body, trying to process what their world had just become.

Felix moved before thought could catch him.

In the guards eyes he came only as a blur. He striked one then another.

Bodies dropped one after another, not dead, not yet.

A green liquid spread trough their veins just like everyone else.

Paralytic venom was spreading through them like invisible chains. Fingers locked..knees buckled followed by the voices choking into silence. The room collapsed into stillness again, but this time it was forced.

Felix stepped over them like they were nothing.

He didn’t look back once.

The corridor stretched ahead, sterile and endless, lights flickering faintly above him. The alarms hadn’t sounded yet. That would come later as it always did.

At the gate, he slowed down.

His hand rested briefly against the cold metal, his reflection faint in its surface. For a second, something human flickered across his face as some memories forced they’re way out of him.

Recognition painted his face, "Takakura..." he muttered under his breath.

A quiet exhale followed, "Who would’ve thought that man was Yakuza."

The gate slid open and Felix disappeared through it.

Somewhere far away from Felix and the Facility... somewhere in Russia.

Snow pressed endlessly against the glass, the world outside reduced to white silence.

Inside, power lived.

Markus sat across from his father in a vast, dimly lit office. The man before him was still, composed, carved from something harder than flesh.

Viktor Cain...

A name that carried weight even when spoken softly.

"Markus," Viktor said, his voice low but immovable, "power is not given. It is understood, controlled and, when necessary...it is taken."

Markus said nothing. His eyes stayed on the floor for a moment before lifting.

Viktor leaned back slightly, steepling his fingers.

"The Mark VIII we discovered," he continued, "is not merely a material...

It is a future, it will define the legacy of the Cain Foundation for generations to come." His gaze sharpened. "And that future belongs to you my son."

A pause, "You will inherit everything."

Markus swallowed lightly, "If it weren’t for Felix..." he muttered.

The name lingered in the air like something dangerous.

Then came a blast from the past.

The lab hummed with quiet tension...Felix leaned against a steel table, arms folded, watching as Ash adjusted readings on a nearby console. The glow from the screens painted both of them in a pale blue light.

"This is wrong," Felix said, his voice firm. "You’ve seen the reports. People aren’t just getting sick. They’re dying."

Ash didn’t respond immediately. He inhaled slowly, then reached into his pocket, pulling out a small inhaler. He made sharp press with his fingers, took in a breath and breathed out.

"We don’t get to decide that," Ash said finally, his voice uneven but controlled. "Markus gave the order."

Felix frowned. "People are turning into experiments, Ashell..."

"They’ve always been," Ash replied quietly.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. There was history between the two of them there. Trust...the kind that is built over time, now strained under something heavier.

Ash glanced at him. "You know what his father is like....You don’t want to be on that man’s bad side."

Felix didn’t answer he only stared at Ash in silence. But his silence said enough.

The doors slid open, Markus walked in, confidence trailing behind him like a shadow.

"Gentlemen," he said, spreading his arms slightly, "what you’re witnessing is the pinnacle of human achievement."

A few technicians straightened up as others exchanged uneasy glances.

Markus smiled slightly, "The Mark VIII."

Applause broke out, hesitant at first, then louder as time grew. Forced admiration filled the entire room.

Felix didn’t clap he just stood. Ash came up to him and said, "Clap man...you don’t wanna be singled out."

Felix still didn’t clap as he was fixated on it.

"At least I warned you, don’t call me a bad friend later." Ash whispered.

At the centre of the chamber stood a large blue crystal.

It was massive to the point were it went through the ceeling. The crystal was jagged and seemed to be alive as at times pulses are felt from it.

A deep, unnatural glow pulsed within it, faint fumes curling into the air like something breathing. The containment glass surrounding it trembled almost imperceptibly.

And around the lab people were scattered.

Some of them were already crystallized. Frozen mid-motion, their bodies locked in translucent distortion.

Others weren’t so lucky as to get a quick death.

The change was still happening to them at a very slow pace....many of the ones who had the slow crystallisation effect were in a lot of pain as their skin and bones turned into something else.

Felix’s jaw tightened, "This isn’t achievement," he muttered under his breath. "It’s a disaster waiting to happen."

The sound came suddenly...it was a sharp, unnatural whine.

Everyone froze instantly.

The glass that was covering the Mark 8 cracked. It was a thin line at first.

Then another and another.

"Back up!" someone shouted but it was too late.

The containment shattered and the fumes from the Mark VIII erupted.

Light burst outward it was blinding and very violent. The shockwave tore through the lab, sending bodies crashing into walls, equipment exploding into fragments.

Felix reacted instantly. He grabbed two nearby masks, pulling one over his face as the fumes spread like a living thing. His eyes raced around the room. He was looking for Ash.

He noticed Ash getting engulfed by the fumes, "No!" He barked.

He turned around and ran.

"Move!" he shouted, though no one could hear him over the chaos.

He didn’t wait, he ran through smoke, fumes, through screams of many people and through the collapse of everything they thought they controlled.

And then he found himself outside of the lab.

" I’m alive...." He rummaged his hands across his body, " I don’t think I’m infected...but Ash."

Markus and the others were not so lucky.

A ringing filled Markus’s ears, drowning out everything else. High-pitched sounds which were relentless.

He staggered to his feet, his vision blurred, the world tilting around him.

"What... what just happened...?"

The crystal was glowing he could still see it.

It was exposed now, it was uncontained the glass had shattered and freed the fumes.

The crystal started glowing brighter.

Around him, people were changing. Some frozen completely, their bodies overtaken by crystal. Others halfway there, trapped between states, unable to move, unable to scream.

"Ash..."

Markus turned.

Ash lay on the ground, clutching his chest, struggling to breathe. Each inhale was shallow and desperate.

"Breathe..." Ash whispered to himself. "Breathe..."

Markus stepped back then he saw it.

His hand....Tiny shards of crystal were forming along his skin, they were spreading.

"No..." Markus barked. Panic hit him all at once.

He turned and ran away.

Through the lab past bodies of people who were crystallising.

Past the dying.

Past the consequences he never thought would touch him.

He went out through the doors.

Into the cold were snow was collecting in his hair.

Snow hit his face as he stumbled outside, gasping for air that suddenly felt too thin to him.

He looked down again and the crystals had spread even further up his forearm.

Across his fingers, up his hand.

His vision continued to blur even further as a wave of nausea hit him.

Markus threw up as his legs gave out.

He saw a person walking Infront of him...he managed to get up he extended his hand the one which had crystallized.

His voice broke free, "Help me... Find a medical aid kit"

Markus touched the girl and she immediately turned into a medical aid kit box.

In that moment the nausea got worse, "what happened" he said as he fell down.

He collapsed onto the snow with a crystalline medical aid in hand which was beginning to fade away up until there was nothing in his hand..

The world started fading into silence as one thought lingered.

’Am I... becoming this?...am I going to dieeee.’

Darkness took him in that moment.

Most of the people in the lab crystallised in awkward motions but in that place Ash was still in the crouching... His breathing got hastily as with every breath he took blood followed him.

And somewhere far away, in the quiet aftermath of ruin, the truth remained...some things, once awakened, do not go back to sleep.