Toria suddenly stood up, her metal utensils clattering loudly against the tray as she grabbed it, clearly ready to leave.
"When you calm down, you can talk about it," Duncan said coldly. "Pull yourself together."
His tone was even colder than hers. Victor had rarely seen him like that.
"Dunc, come on. That's not necessary."
"No, Vic," Duncan replied while already walking away. "A mature person talks about their problems instead of snapping at others. I don't like being around people who act like that."
He glanced at Toria.
"And you... try growing up. You're not ten years old."
Then he left.
He placed his tray down near the exit—almost throwing it—making a loud clatter.
Only Toria and Victor remained at the table.
Toria stared silently at her plate, her face hidden behind her hair.
Victor had already finished eating. Feeling awkward, he started to leave as well.
He hadn't planned on saying anything.
But just as he picked up his tray, he glanced at her and forced a small, encouraging smile.
"If you're hurting," he said softly, "then I'm hurting too. So... whenever you want to talk, about anything, I'm here."
He didn't expect a reply.
As soon as he finished speaking, he walked away.
Behind him, barely audible, Toria whispered:
"Sorry."
***
From that evening, five days passed.
It was July 1st, a scorching, radiant day. The sky was a deep blue, completely cloudless. It was barely seven in the morning, and Victor and his companions—except for Nikita and Hansen—were having breakfast in the mess hall: a bitter freeze-dried cappuccino with watery foam full of bubbles and a packaged croissant that was empty, dry, and hard to bite.
This time, the mess hall was lively and crowded, filled with voices and noise.
"Vic, how's Toria doing?" Raiko asked, biting into his croissant with some initial difficulty, even though it had been soaked in the drink.
"I don't know. We haven't spoken in days," Victor replied. He had been slowly turning the croissant around in the lukewarm cup for at least five minutes, looking deeply thoughtful and tired while holding his head with his left hand.
"I didn't sleep well last night either... my head's spinning."
"I'm still pissed," Duncan said, his voice carrying that same cold, irritated tone. "It annoys me that someone can still act like that at twenty-four."
"You're nobody to judge how other people react," Raiko replied.
"Exactly," David added.
"Well, she's nobody to treat other people like shit either," Duncan shot back.
***
Hansen stepped out of his room, which—like all the others—opened onto a dark gray corridor. The metal walls were lined with pipes running along both the ceiling and the upper parts of the walls. At that moment the hallway was lit by sunlight filtering through slightly opaque windows, stained with dried mud, warming the air inside.
Hansen was neatly dressed in his striped black tank top. He wore a relaxed, satisfied expression, stretching his lips into a broad smile as he took a deep breath and exhaled just as strongly. It was the unmistakable sign of a good night's sleep.
As soon as Hansen turned left to head toward the mess hall, he ran into Nikita, who stood motionless beneath the doorway of his room, right next to Hansen's. He stared at Hansen with absolute coldness, an unsettling gaze made even more disturbing by his pale blue eyes—eyes that resembled those of a ruthless killer, or worse, a dormant beast.
Hansen straightened his posture, briefly scraping the soles of his boots against the polished floor, which was patterned with white and black dots over a navy-blue surface, and looked back at him.
"What are you staring at, Obukhov?" Hansen asked, clearly annoyed, returning the stare with equal hostility.
"Relax, Oltmann," Nikita replied. "I'm not doing anything."
"Then look somewhere else," Hansen answered. "You're creepy."
At that exact moment, a regular soldier walked past Hansen. He looked as if he were making a routine patrol through the corridor.
"Good morning, Sergeant Oltmann," he said formally.
"Morning," Hansen replied.
"Is everything alright?"
Hansen cast one last glance at Nikita, who hadn't changed his expression in the slightest.
"No. Everything's fine."
"Understood, Sergeant," the soldier said before continuing toward the end of the corridor, marked by two large gray doors that led to the staircase.
A few seconds later Hansen started heading toward the mess hall, ignoring Nikita's persistent stare.
"Ahggr..."
A dull thud echoed through the corridor.
Seeing the soldier suddenly collapse to the floor, Hansen immediately ran toward him. The young man—who couldn't have been more than twenty—had fallen face-first onto the stairs leading down to the lower level, rolling until he slammed into the wall.
Hansen, followed shortly after by Nikita, found him lying in a twisted position, face down, his head turned toward the wall. His body convulsed in violent spasms as he continued to produce guttural sounds—"ahggr"—as if he were suffocating.
"Hey! What's wrong with you?!" Hansen shouted, rushing down the stairs with Nikita.
Immediately the two men tried to lift him by his right arm, intending to throw him over their shoulders and carry him to the infirmary.
"Easy! I need you to push yourself up a bit—lifting you alone would be difficult. On three!"
Hansen began counting.
"1..."
He tightened his grip on the soldier's arm as much as he could. But something immediately felt wrong. Beneath the skin he could feel the muscles shifting—almost falling apart—like pulling apart pieces of cooked chicken from the bone. His fingers slowly sank deeper and deeper, as if they were penetrating the flesh.
"2..."
Thinking it was just a poor grip, Hansen grabbed the soldier under the armpit as well. But there he felt the same strange slickness. It wasn't sweat. Not at all. It was thick, soft—disturbingly soft.
Nikita, who was holding the soldier by the shoulder and torso, felt the same thing. It was as if the body was tearing apart under his hands, as if his grip was slipping the harder he held, the torso growing lighter by the second.
"3!"
SPLAT.
A sharp, wet sound.
Hansen and Nikita lost their balance and fell backward.
Hansen barely noticed the pain. Terror seized him as he stared at the soldier's arm—now detached and still clutched in his hand. It was slowly dissolving, bubbling, the flesh crackling into a grotesque semi-liquid mass.
Hansen was so horrified that all he could do was stare as the arm melted rapidly, strings of semi-liquid flesh dripping down onto his hand and forearm.
The smell seemed to come straight from hell—so strong it felt like it was burning through his nostrils.
Hansen first looked at Nikita, whose hands were smeared with the same viscous sludge scraped from the soldier's shoulder and chest. It was now slowly seeping through the fabric of his clothes.
Then Hansen looked at his own hands, slick and gelatinous.
Finally he looked at the soldier.
The body was slowly disintegrating before their eyes—splitting apart, bursting open in places, releasing streams of blood, liquefied flesh, and viscera.
"Uom... uom..."
The soldier rose to his feet, trembling like a leaf while clutching the one arm he had left.
The sound of his heartbeat was perfectly audible to the two men—each thud sending sprays of blood from his chest and mouth.
For a moment Hansen felt as though his own heart had stopped, as if he had died even before death could reach him.
The "soldier" turned toward them.
But he had no eyes left to see them—only thick streams of dark red blood pouring from the empty sockets.
He had no mouth left to warn them to run either. The upper part of his jaw had torn away from the rest of his skull, leaving a grotesque cavity between the lower jaw and the skeletal eye sockets.
It was almost like a warning.
One last one.
Before the last trace of his humanity vanished.