Cold.

The darkness dominated everything and it was cold as death's embrace. Desmond was halfway between the two. Between reality and dream. Between life and death.

His vision was blurred. His head was spinning. His heartbeat, faint and slow, was nothing compared to the infernal rattling that shook his whole body and crept into his ears.

That must have been the sound of an engine.

That thought did not incite fear or urgency, did not take on the importance it really had. For in the haze that was his consciousness there was nothing, and nothing mattered.

He was still under the effects of the gas and it would take time for him to really wake up. So what he heard in that state was also meaningless. He wouldn't be able to remember it or use it once he finally woke up. But he heard it.

"This wasn't part of the plan."

"Well, it fucking is now! I had to improvise. No, don't give me that shit now. I did everything they asked me to do. I accomplished my mission. What happened wasn't my fault, I had to do something and I did it. That's what matters."

Silence.

"What?"

"That it's not me you have to defend yourself against, but our superiors. When they find out about this... and if we screw up...!"

"We're not going to screw anything up, crybaby.Concentrate the effort you're using to whine on helping me."

Then the conversation ended. Or what happened was that Desmond's consciousness jumped, switching off and on again.

For a while there was only the sound of the engine and the sound of his own breathing.

Then nothing, again.

Nothing but a darkness that seemed to have no end.

But, like all things, it came to an end. In more ways than one. Not only did he regain consciousness, but he was not longer drowning in darkness. He couldn't see his surroundings well, partly because of his blurred vision, partly because the lights were too bright.

Still, it was clear that he had been pulled from that place...and now he was being dragged.

Not that he had been rescued.

Between two men, they were pulling him and dragging him, standing upright, into a cell.

"The bastard is awake," one of the men said. He had a rifle on his back, a pistol at his waist.

Empire men with Empire weaponry.

He didn't know where he was, but he knew what he had to do.

The other soldier drew his pistol from his holster.

Desmond planted his feet firmly on the ground, corrected his posture and took action.

He freed his arms. He snatched the knife from the soldier on his left and stabbed the one on his right three times, once just above the waist, once in the chest and once in the throat, leaving it stuck there.

Before the dead soldier's gun hit the ground, he had the other one against the wall.

And he snapped his neck like a dry branch, grabbing the head and twisting. The corpse fell against the wall and then slid to the floor, mouth open and expression frozen in a mask of terror.

Desmond stood there, standing in the middle of the hallway, watching the blood crawl and puddle under his feet.

Breathing heavily.

But he had no time to waste. He snatched the dead man's rifle and the magazines, of course.

Desmond considered taking the grenade belt as well, but then thought better of it.

A stray bullet would be enough for him to be hit by a short-range explosion, which would leave him badly wounded, even if he were in perfect condition and with his defenses up. And he wasn't in perfect condition, far from it, he didn't even have a way of knowing whether or not the gas had left him with any side effects.

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Desmond hadn't made any noise while killing the soldiers, but this would not go unnoticed. Not for long.

Soon those sons of bitches would be all over him. Who knew how many he would have to kill to earn his freedom, how far he would have to run to get to safety.

No, why was he talking as if he had to run?

Desmond advanced quickly but carefully down the hallway, rifle raised, ready to fire. After all, wherever he was, the only thing he could find in this place, even civilians, was the enemy.

And the only thing they deserved was to be slaughtered by him. But not with intense, burning hatred, but in the same way anyone would squash insects in their house for making life inconvenient for them.

Then he would find the assassin and end that threat to his purpose forever and ever. Forever and ever.

And he wouldn't run away. No, what for, what reason would he have to run? All the assassin had done was to put everything he wanted on a silver platter.

He just had to have the courage to step forward and take it. No, rip it out of his hands.

He grabbed the doorknob at the end of the hallway, turned it, and nothing. Locked.

But there was a glass panel above the door. He slammed it with the butt of the rifle, shattering it into a thousand pieces, and clambered over it, passing through to the other side.

He hurried to hide, crouching, behind some boxes.

"What was that?" A woman's voice. But not that woman's, unfortunately.

Or maybe fortunately. Perhaps it would be best to save the best for last.

"Don't you think you're exaggerating? This place is full of people. It could have been anything."

"I'll check it out."

"Okay. Suit yourself, if it makes you happy."

Desmond heard a door opening, footsteps approaching him. He didn't dare peek in, relying only on his memory of the glimpse he'd taken of the next hallway before he hid. But he didn't need to either.

He had good ears, more than enough to distinguish that those were the footsteps of a single person, not several.

Estimating, that woman still had a few more steps to go to get within his reach.

But she would realize that something was wrong a little earlier, seeing the broken glass scattered on the floor. So he had to pick the right moment to act.

Stealth wasn't his specialty, and he didn't count on this being so easy that he could kill them all from the shadows, without taking any risk. But the longer he stayed hidden, the easier the inevitable head-on confrontation would be for him.

So now his heart was in his throat, galloping.

He stepped out from behind the cages, rising to his feet. He knew he had made a bad judgment from the first glimpse. That he could have let her give a few more steps and he still would have been safe.

But of course, it was too late to regret, to back out.

He threw the woman against the wall. With one hand he covered her mouth, with the other he slit her throat.

Then he used both hands to stifle her moans of pain and fear, staring into her eyes. Watching as her light faded.

It didn't take long for her to die, but it seemed like an eternity.

He let her fall to the ground slowly, carefully, so she wouldn't make a sound. Then he glanced around. The woman had come from what looked like a control room. To the right was a large glass window, three people inside, chairs and computers. Electronic devices.

He could walk out that door without raising an alarm. Just crawl across the floor, passing under the window.

But the three people would soon discover the body of the woman he had just killed.

Desmond had nowhere to hide it and, in any case, seeing that she had disappeared they would assume the worst immediately. They were his enemies, but they weren't fools.

Desmond took a deep breath.

He wiped the blood on his knife on his pants absentmindedly. It wasn't the blood of a mage, so it wasn't useful.

When he heard the voice of one of them from inside, probably wondering where the hell the woman had gone or asking if she had found anything, he went inside.

Desmond moved one of the chairs with his foot and kicked it, throwing it against one of the people inside the control room, slamming both of them the wall. The impact robbed the air from his lungs.

As a second opened his mouth, he threw the knife.

It hit the enemy in the forehead, killing him almost instantly.

Desmond lunged at the first one before he could get up and kicked him in the chest, smashing him.

But it went a little too far. He opened a hole in the person's chest and his foot got stuck inside. He removed it from there with ease, of course, and lunged for the third of the shoulders to punch him in the throat.

However, the seconds he had lost were enough to mess it all up.

Desmond managed to punch him in the throat, anyway, but he couldn't stop him from firing his gun, he just wasn't fast enough. He couldn't have been, even if he had tried his best, even if he had charged enough magical energy into his legs to turn them to jelly when he was done. So he paid the consequences.

The bullet hit him in the chest and ricocheted off without doing anything to him. He was still in top form. But what mattered was the sound.

Fuck the element of surprise.

Desmond grabbed the lone survivor by the hair behind his head and slammed him again and again into the console.

Smashing the controls...

He pulled the corpse back and saw that the corpse's face was also mangled. Completely unrecognizable.

He dropped the corpse, put the knife away and picked up the rifle again. He would have to do things the way he was best at, as he had always thought. But sooner than expected.

Anyway, I could use....

He couldn't finish the thought. For lack not of time, but of the remaining piece. He left the control room by jumping out the window, ignoring the rain of glass that fell all around him, above and below him.

Desmond went to the end of the hallway. He planted himself in front of the door. He closed his eyes for a moment, conjuring up the image of his savior.

If I do this, if I succeed, I will know her name at last.

I will finally live with her.

It was important to remember what one fought for. What one would kill whoever it was, whenever it was.

Desmond kicked open the door.