ARC 3 — THE CHILD
Chapter 7 — Einar Winter
The elevator descended too slowly.
Every second felt stretched thin inside the narrow steel chamber while old cables groaned somewhere above Lucien and Milo like the facility itself regretted still functioning.
The emergency lights inside flickered weakly.
Red.
Dark.
Red again.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
The silence wasn’t comfortable.
It was listening.
Lucien sat against the corner wall of the elevator, knees slightly drawn inward, pale fingers clenched together. He still looked shaken from the encounter with Wraith.
Or maybe from the entire facility.
Milo leaned beside the control panel with his arms crossed.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
Lucien nodded automatically.
Then paused.
“…No.”
“Fair.”
The elevator trembled violently.
Both men immediately looked upward.
A scratching sound dragged slowly across the roof above them.
Milo sighed.
“Everything in this place crawls on ceilings.”
Lucien glanced toward the emergency floor indicator.
SUB-LEVEL 12.
Nearly there.
Somewhere below them, the facility groaned again.
Then
The scratching stopped.
Silence returned instantly.
Milo narrowed his eyes.
“That’s worse.”
DING.
The elevator doors slowly opened.
Cold air spilled inside.
The lower levels looked different from the upper sectors.
Cleaner.
Older.
The walls were white instead of steel gray, though age and blood had stained them unevenly. Dim overhead lights illuminated a quiet medical wing lined with sealed observation rooms and darkened laboratories.
Unlike the chaos above
This place looked preserved.
Protected.
Lucien stepped out first.
“…There’s nobody here.”
Milo looked down the hallway.
“No,” he said softly.
“There’s someone.”
At the far end of the corridor sat a child.
Small.
Still.
Waiting.
A pale boy dressed in white clothing sat calmly atop a laboratory counter beneath flickering lights.
Silver-white hair.
Blue eyes.
Almost unnaturally pale skin.
He looked no older than ten.
And unlike every survivor they’d encountered
He wasn’t scared.
The boy looked directly at Lucien.
Then smiled warmly.
“Oh,” he said softly.
“There you are.”
Lucien stopped.
“…You know me?”
The child tilted his head slightly.
“Not yet.”
Milo immediately felt something wrong.
Not danger exactly.
Something older.
The boy hopped down from the counter slowly.
His movements were graceful in a way children usually weren’t.
Almost practiced.
“You took a very long time,” the boy continued calmly. “I was beginning to think the upper levels had eaten you.”
Lucien blinked.
“…What?”
The child ignored the question entirely and walked closer.
His eyes remained fixed on Lucien with strange fascination.
“You shine,” he said quietly.
Milo subtly moved half a step forward.
Protective.
The child noticed instantly.
“Oh,” he said politely. “You’re one of the wolves.”
Lucien frowned slightly.
“We’re here to rescue you.”
The boy considered that.
“…Rescue,” he repeated softly, as though testing the word.
Then he smiled again.
“That’s sweet.”
Milo’s instincts screamed now.
The child spoke too carefully.
Too clearly.
Not like a frightened kid trapped inside a nightmare facility.
Lucien crouched slightly to meet the boy’s eye level.
“Are you Einar Winter?”
The child nodded once.
“Yes.”
A pause.
Then:
“And you’re Ghostlight.”
Lucien froze.
Milo’s expression sharpened instantly.
“We never told you that.”
Einar looked genuinely confused.
“You didn’t have to.”
Silence filled the corridor.
Far away, metal groaned somewhere deep in the structure.
Lucien studied the boy more carefully now.
His skin was almost translucent beneath the emergency lighting.
And his eyes
Too old.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
Like someone pretending to be younger than they really were.
Einar suddenly stepped closer to Lucien without hesitation.
“You’re prettier than I expected,” he said casually.
Milo choked slightly.
Lucien blinked in confusion.
“…What?”
Einar smiled faintly.
“I like you.”
Milo stared at the child.
“…That sentence somehow became threatening.”
Einar ignored him completely.
Instead, he reached toward Lucien’s hand gently.
Lucien hesitated
Then allowed it.
The instant Einar touched him
Lucien felt freezing cold.
Not physically.
Something deeper.
Like touching moonlight reflected on deep water.
Einar’s expression softened immediately.
“Oh,” he whispered.
“You really are warm.”
Lucien quietly pulled his hand back.
“…You’re freezing.”
“I know.”
The way he said it made Milo deeply uncomfortable.
A distant crash echoed through the medical wing.
All three turned instantly.
Something had entered the sector.
Fast.
Milo immediately drew his blade.
“Movement.”
Einar sighed softly.
“They found us.”
Lucien looked at him.
“Who?”
The lights flickered violently.
Then came the screams.
Not human screams.
Mutants.
Dozens of them.
The corridor ahead exploded inward as grotesque shapes burst through reinforced doors in showers of steel and broken concrete.
But these mutants looked different.
Thinner.
Paler.
More human.
Their eyes were gone entirely.
Their mouths split open vertically as they shrieked.
Milo stepped forward instantly.
“Stay behind me.”
Einar tilted his head slightly.
“That probably won’t help.”
The first mutant charged.
Lucien instinctively raised his hands
But Milo moved first.
The awkward quiet man vanished forward with shocking speed.
His blade flashed once.
The mutant’s legs disappeared.
The creature collapsed screaming before Milo planted a second knife through its skull.
Lucien stared.
“…You’re not weak.”
“Never said I was.”
More mutants flooded the hallway.
Too many.
Milo’s expression darkened.
“Okay,” he muttered. “Now we have a problem.”
The creatures attacked in coordinated waves, climbing walls and ceilings while shrieking loud enough to shake the lights overhead.
Lucien stepped protectively in front of Einar.
The child blinked once.
“…You’re protecting me?”
“Of course,” Lucien answered immediately.
Einar looked genuinely surprised.
Then oddly pleased.
Another mutant lunged from above.
Lucien fired a burst of radiant energy instinctively.
WHITE LIGHT exploded across the hallway.
The creature disintegrated midair.
The rest hesitated.
Even the mutants reacted strangely to Lucien’s power.
Fear.
Einar noticed too.
His pale blue eyes widened slightly.
“…Beautiful,” he whispered.
Then the floor beneath them shook violently.
A massive impact echoed nearby.
The wall at the end of the corridor bulged inward.
Once.
Twice.
Then exploded.
An Alpha Mutant forced itself into the medical wing.
Larger than the others.
Smarter.
Its distorted skull slowly turned toward them.
Then toward Einar.
And for the first time
The creature looked afraid.
Not aggressive.
Afraid.
Einar sighed softly.
“…That’s unfortunate.”
The Alpha backed away one step instinctively.
Lucien noticed immediately.
“It’s scared of you.”
Einar looked at him calmly.
“No,” the child answered.
“It remembers me.”
Silence.
Then the Alpha screamed.
And charged.
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