The soldier’s vision was blurred and his ears rang like a banshee had fucked them. It took a moment for him to even realize that he was on his back. The thick gray smoke made it almost impossible to breathe in the destroyed hallway. As his vision came back to him he saw pieces of ceiling crumbling, raining down on a mound of blackened corpses. It looked like he was the only one still alive. All that was left of the squad was pieces of men, slowly being eaten by dying flames.

“What happened?”

There was an explosion of some sort, that was all that he remembered. He forced himself to recall more.

“Avaes… they sent us to get him… to get...their demon.”

The job they were sent to do. They had to capture the silver-eyed demon. But something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

For the first time since the explosion, he looked down at his own body. For a second he didn’t even recognize it. His right leg had been ripped completely off from the knee down, the flesh was torn away to expose a bit of bone. His right arm too was unrecognizable. It was twisted like a wrung-out rag and with bits of debris peeling back the discolored skin. The soldier tried to slow his sharp breaths, hoping to get a reign on his overwhelming panic. Adrenaline took the place of pain at least for the moment.

The deformed door at the end of the hall began to make noises. The door pounded, the metal shrieking as the monster behind it tried to force its way out. Terror consumed the man. It wouldn’t hold much longer, that much he knew. He needed to hide, and he needed to do it quickly. With his working arm, the soldier turned himself over, lying face down on his comrade’s leg. Playing dead was his only option, but if that fucking monster saw his face it would be all over.

Just as he finished positioning himself, the metal door slammed open. The soldier caught his breath, trying to hold as still as he could. The demon’s footsteps echoed throughout the hallway and then it happened. All the pain the soldier was owed hit him in a single moment. It was like molten metal had been shoved down his veins as he felt every single tear in his flesh and every single snapped bone in his body. The soldier bit the leg of the corpse he was laying on just to prevent himself from screaming. His teeth sunk into his fallen squadmate, tearing through sinew, the taste of blood overwhelming his mouth. The demon stepped in between the decimated bodies. The soldier kept thinking the same word over and over again as he filled his mind with anything to distract him from the crushing agony.

“QUIET, QUIET, QUIET, QUIET”

He repeated the word over and over and over, hundreds if not thousands of times. All the while he thought of his wife. He thought of her supple breasts, the smell of her sweat when he fucked her and the way she bit him when he did it just right. The thoughts were like holding a leaf over-head in a hailstorm but it was enough. It gave him something to hold onto at the very least.

The footsteps were so close now he swore he could hear the demon’s breathing. A step fell not an inch from his ear. The monster’s very aura felt like a ten-pound weight, like the evil around it was taunting him. Just a few more moments and the thing would be past him. The soldier felt new pain shoot through him. The demon had stepped on his leg. This time his thoughts were no match for the sheer torment. The soldier bit down even harder, so hard that he thought his teeth might snap against the leg bone. So much in his body just wanted to give up. Surely death was preferable to this. Finally, the demon lifted his foot and continued walking down the hall. In just a few more moments this nightmare would be over. The soldier’s lungs had begun to burn, the smoke had ripped them to shreds. Just a few more seconds, that is all he needed.

The monster stopped. Fear shot through the soldier and his heart began to beat fast.

“You’d better stop that bleeding or you won’t live much longer.”

Sinclair’s deep voice made the soldiers skin chill like ice. After uttering that single sentence, the monster walked out of the hallway, a heavy metal door shutting behind him.

Hot tears ran down the soldier’s face. The next thing he remembered was opening his eyes to a set of two men looking down at him. One was thin with black hair, pale skin, and cold eyes. The other had much softer eyes and was of a darker complexion. He had a closely trimmed beard that shaped his tight jaw.

Caliban put his fingers through his black hair and squatted down next to the deformed man. “Looks like he is alive after all Grey.”

Grey looked towards the soldier, “Hey man, hang in there for just a bit longer, help is on the way.”

The soldier groaned in response. Caliban ran his dark eyes over the soldier’s injuries until he saw something that peaked his interest. “Pretty impressive, you cauterized the wound,” said Caliban looking down at the knife in the soldier’s left hand. “Heated the knife with the fires from the incendiary explosives and burned your wound closed. Most people would’ve passed out well before the job was done.”

Grey looked away, this kind of stuff was hard for him to look at.

“Alright stumpy,” said Caliban, “before your help arrives I need you to tell me who did this.”

“Cal..” said Grey disapprovingly.

The soldier coughed out a bit of blood, “W-w-wife..” he stuttered.

“A wife, wonderful. Now please tell me what I want to know.”

“W-wife, nee-eed her.”

Grey decided to step in, “Is there something you want us to tell her, your wife?”

“W-want her ok,” sputtered the soldier.

Caliban was starting to get ticked off, “I can’t promise anything, not even your wife’s safety if you don’t tell us what we need to know.”

The soldier seemed to be thinking over Caliban’s words.

Caliban grabbed the knife from the man’s weak grasp. “Now either you can tell your wife whatever you damn well want yourself,” Caliban pointed the knife at the man’s cauterized leg, “or we tell your wife that you sadly died of blood loss.”

Grey stepped away with a heavy sigh, rubbing the back of his head.

The soldier paused for a second before speaking. “Avaes… to kill their demon…”

-------------------------------------------

Detectives Grey and Caliban got into their car and shut the doors behind them. The flashing lights of the ambulance reflected off the car’s windshield.

“That was fucked up,” said Grey.

“All those men are pawns of Avaes. They’d crack a baby’s skull without a second thought. Don’t give the guy too much sympathy.”

“Avaes?” said Grey.

“They market themselves as a Corporate Advising company but in reality, they are the rich man’s swiss army knife. They will provide anything from top-notch security detail to psychological help.”

“Alright,” said Grey, “so what were they doing here at the She-Wolf’s little den?”

“My guess, is that they weren’t here for the She-Wolf at all,” said Caliban, “Do you remember what stumpy said?”

“They were sent to kill the demon,” said Grey. “If Avaes is half as messed up as you think they are, then what would be so scary to them that they’d refer to it like that?”

“Only one name comes to my mind,” said Caliban, “His name is Samuel Sinclair.”

-------------------------------------------

The hospital room was completely empty except for her and the man if he could even be called as such anymore. The only sounds were the beep of the heart monitor and the inflating of the breathing machine. Special Forces Squad Leader, codename: HAVOK, was a shadow of the man he once was. What that explosion did to him and all of his men was haunting. This game of chase between Sinclair and Cicero had gone too far. The CEO’s jaw tightened, her eyes lined with determination. Something had to be done.

“Thank you Havok, for your service to Avaes,” said the woman as she turned to leave the hospital room.

A harsh voice came from the bed, “Not…done…Not….done.”

The CEO turned back to the man. The heart monitor started to beep faster and faster.

“I’M NOT DONE,” said Havok, his bloodshot eyes locking with hers.

Havok ripped off the breathing machine so she could hear him loud and clear.

                                           “SINCLAIR. IS. MINE.”