Thud! Thud!

James stormed into Edwin's room, his heavy boots striking the tile with sharp, deliberate force. His gaze swept over the pristine bed - neatly tucked, untouched, as if the boy had never been there at all. His stomach tightened.

"What the hell..."

His hand shot out, snatching the clipboard from the foot of the bed. His eyes scanned the note scrawled in Doctor Cenilera's hurried handwriting.

X-ray room.

James' lips curled in a snarl. "Robert, you bastard. You could've updated me." He exhaled sharply, gripping the clipboard until his knuckles turned white. "Maybe I shouldn't have said I was going to Albert. Should've stayed and sent Robert."

Spinning on his heel, he stalked toward the X-ray room, his frustration mounting— behind him, a pager buzzed under Edwin’s bed.

“I’m here at the X-Ray room, where are you Doctor?”

Halfway to the X-Ray room, the alarms ripped through the third level without warning.

A metallic wail, piercing and deafening. Red emergency lights flared to life, flashing along the corridor in a sinister, pulsing rhythm. The sterile white walls were suddenly bathed in blood-red.

James cursed under his breath. “Damn it, this better not have anything to do with Edwin.”

Around the corner, a blur of movement-Nurse Judy, her face pale, hands trembling. He grabbed her by the arm, yanking her to a halt.

"What's the emergency?" His voice was sharp, commanding.

Her wide eyes darted to his. "He's gone," she gasped.

James' fingers tightened around her wrist.

"Who's gone?"

"Councilor Albert ordered me to bring him up," she stammered, "but he's gone! I-I tried paging Doctor Cenilera, but she wouldn't answer. I checked the X-ray room—it was empty! I think something happened to her!"

James' jaw clenched. This was spiraling fast.

"Set off all the alarms for every level," he barked.

"Call Albert. Lock this place down-no one moves between levels except me. Got it?"

She nodded frantically and took off down the corridor. James watched her go, his gut twisting.

"Damn it, Robert," he muttered. "You had one job. Don't tell me that kid overpowered you."

He turned on his heel, striding toward the elevator. The moment he reached it, he slammed his palm against the button to descend.

Nothing happened.

James' eye twitched.

"Goddamnit!" he growled, his voice low but furious. "Why the hell is this stupid elevator not working!?"

"Are you fucking kidding me!?" His fist collided with the cold steel doors, sending a metallic clang echoing through the hall. A passing doctor flinched at the sound, his gaze flicking toward James, then quickly away as if burned.

For a second, their eyes met. James' glare was ice-cold, daring him to say something. The doctor swallowed, tugging at his ID card in a nervous tic before scurrying down the corridor, head lowered like a chastised child.

James huffed, glancing down at his own ID, strapped securely to his belt. He cursed under his breath.

"Now I look like a dumbass." His jaw tightened, the frustration boiling in his veins. Grinding his teeth, he swiped his card against the reader. The soft beep was almost mocking. With a groan, the elevator doors finally slid open, revealing the dimly lit chamber inside.

"Aaahh!"

He stepped in, jabbing the button for the Fourth Level.

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The doors sealed shut. The hum of descent filled the cramped space, the scent of metal and stagnant air thick around him.

James exhaled slowly, his fingers drumming against the elevator's steel panel.

If Robert had helped Edwin... everything was about to fall apart.

Above, the alarms shrieked louder. Red lights flashed in rhythmic panic.

———///////———

Albert stood alone in the dim glow of his office, his gaze drifting over the walls lined with charts, notes, and schematics. Each one was a fragment of his legacy, a testament to his relentless pursuit of control. The space around him was more than an office—it was a monument to his ambition, to the quiet madness that had driven him forward. The first rays of morning seeped through the window, casting the room in an ethereal glow, momentarily breathing life into a place that had long since been devoid of it.

"So much has changed," he murmured, his voice barely audible over the hum of the machinery that pulsed softly around him. His mind churned through the past, tracing the precise steps that had led him here. "I built the Council… raised the first wall… turned Nora Corp into something far greater than it was ever meant to be." His fingers ghosted over the edge of his desk, his touch lingering as if the wood itself held the weight of his accomplishments. "All in the span of a decade."

He moved then, pacing behind his desk with the slow, measured steps of a man who knew that every detail of his world had been crafted by his own hands. There was confidence in the way he carried himself—assurance in the knowledge that he alone held the reins of power.

But his thoughts turned inward, twisting into something darker.

"Edwin." The name fell from his lips, heavy with a mixture of possession and something almost akin to nostalgia. His grip tightened on the back of his chair. "Almost sixteen now. You think you can escape, don’t you?"

A slow, humorless smile curled his lips, though there was no warmth in it—only certainty.

"You won’t."

His voice was low, edged with the steel of a man who had foreseen every move, every desperate attempt at freedom. "I’ve been preparing for this. For you. Every step you take, I will anticipate. Every breath you draw, I will know. You are not beyond my reach. You never have been."

The air in the room thickened, as though the walls themselves absorbed his quiet promise. And then, the alarms began.

A distant wail at first, growing louder, sharper, until it clawed through the silence like a siren of war. He barely flinched. The game had begun. But in Albert’s mind, the outcome had already been decided.

The office door burst open, slamming against the wall with a force that sent a tremor through the floor. A squad of guards stormed inside, weapons drawn, eyes scanning the room with razor-sharp focus. They moved swiftly, positioning themselves at doors and windows, bodies coiled with tension.

Albert remained still, though his fingers twitched, betraying the first stirrings of unease. His voice, when it came, was sharp, edged with something that could have been anger—or the faintest trace of fear.

"What the fuck is going on?" The words cracked like a whip through the room. "Who authorized this?"

No one spoke. His heartbeat quickened, a discordant rhythm against the wail of the alarms. The guards were trained to follow protocol, to act only under his direct command unless—

Unless there was something beyond his control.

A possibility he had never accounted for.

"Someone give me a report!" His voice rose, authority laced with something dangerously close to panic. "Now!"

One of the guards, Sanchez, stepped forward, his stance rigid, his expression grim. "We aren’t sure, sir. No radio calls. No breach confirmed. We’re following emergency protocol in case this is… the special threat."

Albert's blood ran cold.

The words sank deep, twisting in his chest like a blade. The special threat. The only force he had ever truly feared.

Ramiro.

For the first time in years, a bead of sweat slipped down his temple. His breath came slow and deliberate as he reached for the phone on his desk, but before he could lift it—

It rang.

A sharp, shrill chime that cut through the room like a gunshot.

Sanchez stiffened. The other guards shifted uneasily, their hands gripping their weapons just a little tighter. The alarms wailed, the phone continued its relentless ringing, and for the first time in a decade, Albert hesitated. He didn’t want to answer it.

But he had no choice.

For the first time in years, a thin sheen of sweat clung to Albert's skin. It glistened under the sterile office lights, a quiet testament to something he would never admit aloud. The phone's shrill, relentless ringing sliced through the air-each tone a death knell, tolling for something he could not yet name.

Sanchez stole a glance at him, his expression tense. "Sir... shouldn't you answer that?"

But he couldn't move.

His hand hovered above the receiver, fingers rigid, as if held in place by an unseen force. The sound was unbearable now, reverberating through his skull, filling every crevice of his mind with a gnawing sense of inevitability. He had always prided himself on control-on knowing the shape of things before they happened. And yet, something about this moment felt... wrong.

Sanchez shifted beside him. The hesitation was brief, but Albert caught it. The younger man took a step forward, his stance straightening, voice steady despite the tension in his jaw.

"Would you like me to answer it, sir?"

Albert exhaled slowly. He nodded once. "Yes... go ahead. Tell me what they say."

Sanchez reached for the phone, his fingers brushing against the receiver with the kind of caution reserved for something volatile.

Something that could detonate. He lifted it to his ear, his posture rigid, disciplined-until it wasn't.

The room fell deathly silent, the shrill wail of the alarms seeming distant now, overtaken by the pounding in Albert's ears.

Albert watched, unblinking, as the transformation unfolded before him.

The color drained from Sanchez's face, bleeding out inch by inch, leaving behind only stark, frozen dread. His grip on the phone slackened, his knuckles paling as though the very words spoken to him carried a weight too heavy to bear. His eyes-once sharp, once unwavering-flickered with something else now.

Finally, Sanchez lowered the phone. His hand hovered for a moment, as if reluctant to let go, as if by holding it, he could somehow change the truth of what had just been relayed to him. His once steely gaze, sharp with discipline, had now dulled-widened with fear.

Albert's breath slowed. His entire being coiled, taut with expectation, with a silent demand. Say it.

But Sanchez didn't speak. Not at first. He just stood there, caught between the moment before the world changed and the moment after.

Then, finally-

"Sir." The word barely left his lips, a whisper of something fragile. "It's your son..." A pause.

Then, quieter, almost reverent in its horror, “He's escaped the infirmary."

For a moment, the words did not register. They hung in the air, thick and cloying, like smoke curling through a collapsing building. A slow, creeping sensation slithered through Albert's chest, wrapping around his ribs, pressing in.

Albert let out a sound-low, humorless. A chuckle. But there was nothing warm in it, nothing human. It was the kind of laugh that teetered at the edge of something else. Something jagged. Something unraveling. It was the kind of laugh that was on the edge of hysteria. He stopped himself, the sound dying abruptly as he straightened, smoothing his coat with a deliberate calm.

He straightened. Smoothed the front of his coat.

When he finally looked up, his gaze was nothing but cold calculation-razor-sharp, stripped of hesitation, of doubt, of anything other than certainty. His eyes, cold and calculating, shifted toward the guards who stood frozen, waiting.

"Men," Albert murmured, his voice light, almost casual, as if the world hadn't just begun to fracture around him. "I'm heading out for a stroll."

No one spoke. No one dared to.

Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode toward the door. The guards hesitated-only for a breath-before moving in step behind him, their boots striking the floor in rhythmic unison. The alarms still howled in the distance, a frenzied symphony of disorder, but Albert walked with purpose, his pace steady.

Controlled.

Inside, however, something dark coiled in the pit of his stomach.

Now it was only a matter of how far the boy thought he could go-before Albert brought him back.