HIDEO | The mimic

He walks down a long white corridor. He's wearing civilian clothes instead of his usual combat gear, but the outline of a holster is still visible beneath his jacket. His face is deeply worn and bears the scars of their past missions.

He stops in front of the door to Intensive Care Unit #4. The status board reads: "Stable. Quarantine lifted."

Entering, he sees Her. She looks frighteningly fragile amidst a tangle of tubes, IVs, and sensors. Her body is almost completely covered in bandages, through which the outlines of protective runic seals are visible—Sector-9 heals not only physical wounds, but also spiritual contamination. But most importantly, She is alive.

She slowly opens her eyes. There's no longer the same sparkle in them, only an endless, scorched emptiness. He approaches silently, sits on the edge of the chair by her bed, and takes her hand. Her palm is cold as ice.

A few days ago, her squad was ambushed in the "null zone"—a breach site where the concentration of cursed energy was so intense that reality melted. It was a veritable inferno, swarming with hundreds of hungry spirits. Command had written the group off. Survival there was mathematically and physically impossible. But she was found among the ruins—the sole survivor, surrounded by mountains of ash from the destroyed monsters.

He looks at her for a long time, and then quietly, almost in a whisper, asks the question that has been tormenting him all these days:

— How? Even a god wouldn't have survived there. How did you get out of that hell?