LOCATION: Sector C.

  TIME: Continuous.

  "Please... I beg you..." a man whispered. He barely had any air left. He remained standing purely out of survival instinct, blood running down his face in thick threads. "Don't kill me."

  "Why don't you entertain me...?" Zarbac said. His tone was flat, genuinely disappointed, like someone looking at a broken toy. "Scream."

  The man's body spasmed. A violent heave doubled him over, and he vomited blood onto the floor.

  "Please... for whatever you hold dear..." He dropped to his knees. He had no strength left. "Please..."

  Zarbac watched him with heavy eyelids. His irises were still, dead. The man continued to plead. One plea after another. Rushed words mixing with his own red saliva. No one was listening.

  "What a drag." Zarbac clicked his tongue.

  He took a step toward him.

  The man, kneeling, saw Zarbac's black boots approaching. They shone under the emergency light. Without stopping his trembling, he tried to straighten up, looking for a last shred of dignity or mercy. The strobe light of the hallway blinded him for an instant.

  Focusing, he saw Zarbac's eyes. There was no hatred in them. Only a bored emptiness.

  The man, terrified, extended his right arm. He wanted to touch his leg, cling to something physical, begging with touch what his voice couldn't achieve.

  "I beg y..."

  His voice cut off. There was no pain. Just a strange sensation of lightness on his right side.

  A liquid sound, like a water balloon bursting, stained the silence.

  The man felt something warm wetting his cheek. He looked slowly toward his shoulder.

  The brain took a second to process the image: his arm was gone.

  Where the elbow should have been, there was only a ragged stump pumping blood under pressure, staining the walls.

  The man turned his head, stunned, toward Zarbac.

  The madman had the palm of his right hand open. There, held delicately, was the forearm. The fingers of the severed hand had one last nervous spasm, closing in the air.

  "Scream," Zarbac said, almost in a whisper.

  The man opened his mouth. The pain arrived all at once, a silent shriek rising in his throat. He obeyed out of pure agony.

  "Scream," Zarbac repeated, this time with a clear, demanding voice.

  The man fell backward, kicking, writhing in the puddle he was creating himself.

  "SCREAM!" Zarbac exclaimed.

  He dropped the severed arm, which fell with a soft thud to the floor, and lifted his foot.

  He brought the heel of his boot down onto the man's left leg.

  It wasn't a dry hit. It was a wet crunch of splintering bones and flesh crushed against metal.

  The man went silent instantly. Shock closed his throat. He lifted his head, trembling, to see his leg.

  It was flat. Turned to dust.

  He looked up at Zarbac.

  The madman's eyes were no longer dead.

  Now they shone. They had life.

  The man screamed again. A broken, animal sound. Zarbac wouldn't stop repeating "scream," over and over, stimulating the sound every time the man fell silent from lack of air. And between the orders, a soft, intimate laugh that seemed to caress his ear, telling him without words that this was just beginning.

  Zarbac's trail through Sector C was not silent. For the few who managed to hide in time, the horror wasn't what they saw, but what they heard: heavy footsteps, wet thuds, and a laugh that didn't fit the setting. Unilateral amusement.

  The hunt stopped in front of a door marked LABORATORY 04.

  There, Zarbac cornered a woman.

  There was no speech. Just the fluid movement of his arm. He drove the knife into her belly. The steel entered with a sucking sound.

  The woman let out an agonizing wail that bounced off the metal walls, mixing with the man's soft, broken laughter.

  The screams filtered through the laboratory door like toxic smoke.

  Inside, the atmosphere was frigid. The air smelled of chemicals and stale fear.

  A group of scientists crouched in the dark, holding their breath.

  In a corner, a girl of about nine years old was shaking, her knees pressed to her chest. Her skin was so pale it looked translucent under the dim light of the monitors.

  "Everything will be fine..." a scientist whispered, hugging her so tightly his knuckles were white. "Daddy is going to protect you."

  The girl buried her face in her father's chest, trying to stifle her own sobs.

  "I'm scared, Daddy," she whimpered, clutching the fabric of his lab coat with her small fingers. "I'm so scared."

  The father tensed his body. He didn't answer. He just let silent tears fall onto his daughter's hair.

  Outside, another scream was heard, this time weaker, gurgling. Then, silence. A silence worse than the screams.

  Under the laboratory door, a dark stain began to spread. A thread of thick blood advancing slowly across the floor, seeking entry.

  "It's a shame we can't have fun together anymore..." Zarbac said on the other side, with a calm voice.

  He shook his knife with a sharp flick of his wrist, splattering the walls.

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  "Yes... it is a shame."

  The shine in his eyes died out. His face fell into an expression of absolute boredom. The woman at his feet was no longer a toy; she was trash.

  Bzzzt.

  The transmitter in his ear vibrated.

  "Zarbac..." the General's voice sounded distorted. "Do you have the files yet?"

  The shine in Zarbac's eyes returned instantly, as if injected with adrenaline.

  "Oh, my Lord..." He bowed to nothing, stained with blood. "I am still on it."

  There was a small silence on the other end of the line.

  "Don't waste time," the masked man said, with a tone of reluctance. "The three branches raised by the Black Cradle are on board."

  "Oh..." Zarbac smiled under the mask. "It would be regrettable to face them."

  Sarcasm dripped from every syllable.

  "Hurry up and don't get overconfident."

  Zarbac clicked his tongue, annoyed by the warning.

  "Received," he replied dryly.

  The communication cut off.

  Zarbac straightened up, stretching his neck until it cracked. He closed his eyes for a moment, inhaling the iron scent of fresh blood.

  Don't get overconfident... he thought, clenching his jaw until his teeth hurt. Who does he take me for?

  A murmur filtered from inside the laboratory. It was a minimal sound, barely the rustle of clothes or a stifled moan. Inaudible to anyone, except him.

  Zarbac's ears caught the vibration. He twisted his neck sharply toward the source of the noise.

  "Ooh..." he whispered, his temperament changing instantly. "Now, who wants to play?"

  He walked toward the door.

  His steps were slow, deliberate.

  Inside, the sound of approaching boots unleashed panic. The first step made the air turn heavy; the second provoked silent prayers; the third, the animal instinct to make oneself small.

  When the door slid open, no one screamed. Everyone shrank behind desks and equipment, trying to merge with the shadows. Except one.

  Zarbac entered. His eyes swept the room with disinterest.

  "J'ai gagné à cache-cache," he said.

  The words left his mouth with a strange, liquid fluency. No one understood the meaning, but the mocking tone was universal.

  The laboratory was a chaos of chemical tables and glass boards full of half-erased formulas. Data servers hummed in the corners, indifferent to the terror.

  "Daddy..." the girl clutched her father's lab coat, her fists white with tension. "I want my mommy."

  The childish voice cut through the silence.

  Zarbac turned his whole body toward the sound. He didn't look at the equipment, nor the hiding adults. His eyes locked on the corner.

  "Ooh... it would be unfair of me not to allow a rematch," he said, taking a step toward them. "Especially for you, little one..."

  It was an instinctive movement, without thought.

  The girl's father interposed himself.

  He placed himself in front of her, blocking the monster's view. The man was terrified; his legs were trembling visibly and sweat ran down his temple, but his gaze was fixed on Zarbac. Firm. Angry.

  Zarbac clicked his tongue with genuine annoyance, as if someone had stained a work of art.

  His right hand closed over the handle of the knife. With his left, he unsheathed the second blade with a smooth movement.

  "What a horrifying face you just put in my path..." he murmured with disgust, lowering his voice instead of shouting. "How dare you?"

  He didn't wait for an answer. He walked toward him with terrifying speed until he stopped in front of the father.

  The scientist didn't stop shaking, but he didn't look away either. They held each other in a silent duel. Zarbac's eyes were still shining, but now there was something different in them: they were wet, glassy, as if he were containing an uncontainable emotion.

  "Let's play a game..." Zarbac said, relaxing his shoulders. "If you win, everyone gets out of here."

  The man frowned and exhaled a shaky breath.

  "Good..." Zarbac took that as a yes, reached into his coat, and pulled out a small square artifact. "I'm glad you want to play. But if I win... that girl comes with me."

  The scientist snapped his mouth shut. His posture hardened.

  "What do you want to play?" he replied bluntly.

  "First, stand up. You can't play like that."

  The man tried to stand. His legs were jelly, but fear gave him borrowed strength. Halfway up, he felt a tug on his lab coat. His head turned back by instinct. There was his daughter, clinging to the white fabric with pale knuckles.

  "Daddy, no..." the girl sobbed. "Stay with me."

  The scientist turned completely and crouched down. There was no time for speeches.

  "Close your eyes, Sam," he ordered, grabbing her shoulders. "Close them and cover your ears."

  "Daddy, I'm scared..."

  "Don't open them for anything in the world. Understand?" His voice was firm, urgent. "If you open them, I lose the game."

  The girl nodded, crying, and squeezed her eyelids shut tight.

  The scientist looked up at his colleagues. They were livid, glued to the walls. Only one woman reacted. She crawled quickly on all fours and wrapped Sam in her arms, covering her.

  She nodded slightly to the father. A silent promise.

  "Thank you," he let out, with a broken smile and a sigh that sounded like a goodbye.

  He took a breath, stood up, and turned back to Zarbac.

  Silence fell again, only broken by the stifled crying of the girl behind him.

  "Now what?"

  "Extend your arm."

  Zarbac tossed the square artifact into the air as if it were a coin. It landed in the hands of another scientist standing near a server. The man flinched as he caught it, trembling violently.

  "Plug that into the database and extract the PDM files."

  The man at the server stood paralyzed, looking at the device as if it were a grenade.

  The girl's father, for his part, extended his right arm toward Zarbac, steady.

  "DID YOU NOT HEAR ME?!" Zarbac roared without taking his eyes off his opponent.

  The scream broke the paralysis. The man at the server turned clumsily and began connecting the device with fumbling fingers. The sound of keys and the hum of extraction filled the void.

  What does he want with the project? the father thought, watching Zarbac unsheathe the knife.

  "Let's begin..." Zarbac said. The shine in his eyes returned with intensity, feverish.

  "And what are we going to pl...?"

  The sentence died in his throat.

  There was no warning. There was no preparatory movement.

  A gut-wrenching scream exploded in the laboratory. A jet of blood erupted from the scientist's wrist, spraying Zarbac's face and clothes with hot, red rain.

  A second later, a wet, heavy sound: the severed hand hit the wall and fell to the floor.

  "AH...! DADDY!" Sam's scream was shrill, terrifying.

  The woman buried the girl's face in her chest, covering her ears and eyes tightly.

  "I think I didn't tell you..." Zarbac let out a soft giggle, wiping a drop of blood from his cheek with his tongue. "The game is: how many parts can I cut off before you bleed out?"

  The man extracting the files sobbed, and a dark stain spread across the crotch of his pants. The smell of urine mixed with that of iron.

  "That's one..." Zarbac counted.

  Wasting no time, he crossed his right arm toward the opposite shoulder, preparing the next backhand slash. Sam's father, blind with pain and agony, uselessly tried to stop the hemorrhage from the stump with his own lab coat.

  One... two... three, Zarbac counted in his mind.

  He let the knife fall.

  "YOU DAMN BASTARD!" a voice screamed from the entrance.

  A figure burst into the room with the speed of a projectile.

  Before Zarbac's arm could come down, a black blur impacted against his jaw. The sound was dry, brutal: metal breaking bone.

  Zarbac's mask shattered. His feet lifted off the ground, and his body was launched backward, falling several meters onto his back until he stopped.

  Even so, his hands didn't let go of the knives.

  "Easy..." another soft voice said, entering the room and approaching the scientist.

  He knelt, pressing the stump with hemostatic gauze before the man could process what had happened.

  "Sorry for being late," the first voice said.

  She shook her short hair and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. She held her weapon firmly: a piece of engineering made of black borophene and nanotechnology, a brutal hybrid between a hammer and a war pick.

  "That idiot Krzytof will give you aid."

  Krzytof didn't answer. He was too busy trying to keep the scientist from bleeding to death.

  Zarbac leaned on his elbows, half-rising.

  "Marvelous..." he pronounced with difficulty. His voice sounded pasty, wet from the blood filling his mouth.

  Lunaria gripped the handle of her weapon, tensing her knuckles.

  "Ah...? Damn cockroach," she spat with disgust. "You survived?"

  Zarbac stood up slowly, took off the coat, which was now in his way, and let it fall to the floor, stumbling a bit. He spat a red clot onto the ground and ran his tongue over his teeth.

  "How fun this will be..." he muttered, his gaze lost and feverish. "It will be."

  Lunaria clicked her tongue, frustrated.

  "Everyone get out of here!" she exclaimed without turning around.

  No one moved. Terror had them pinned to the floor like statues.

  "I SAID GET OUT!" she roared, never ceasing to watch Zarbac, who was starting to stretch his neck.

  Krzytof finished adjusting the compression bandage.

  "Done..." He looked at Sam's father in the eyes, with urgency. "Get out of here. Now."

  "Thank you..." the man nodded, pale and in shock. He carried his daughter with the only arm he had left and stood up.

  The rest of the scientists stampeded out after him, running down the hall without looking back, tripping over each other.

  Krzytof leaned on one knee and stood up. His hands went to his belt and unsheathed two black daggers. He positioned himself a few meters behind Lunaria, focusing his gaze on the enemy.

  Zarbac brought his hand to his face. He tore off the remains of the metallic mask hanging from his skin and threw them to the floor with contempt, revealing his face completely.

  "My turn..." he said.

  CHAPTER 6 IS OUT NOW!