The four soldiers stepped cautiously into the room, their flashlights cutting through the gloom. Dust motes swirled in the stale air, and the oppressive hum of strange machinery filled their ears. Samantha Moore led the way, her shotgun raised and her sharp eyes scanning for threats.

"Clear," she announced firmly, her voice low but steady. The others followed, spreading out to examine their surroundings.

Helena, red hair tucked into her helmet, grinned mischievously as she drifted toward a nearby table cluttered with bizarre instruments. “Feels like home,” she muttered, poking at a jar of something suspiciously organic.

Kate chuckled as she moved toward the shelves, tugging at her gloves. “Yeah, I’m sure your med school professors would love to know what you’ve been up to.”

“Dropped out, remember?” Helena shot back with a smirk. “Can’t disappoint people when they don’t expect anything.”

“Focus,” Samantha interjected, though her voice carried an undertone of affection for her squad’s banter.

Helena’s flashlight stopped on a journal laying open, its pages filled with scrawled handwriting. "Oh, what’s this?" she said, a grin tugging at the corners of her lips as she moved to pick it up.

“Well, well,” she said, her tone dripping with amusement. “Looks like ol’ Frankenstein kept himself a diary. Let’s see what our friendly neighborhood necromancer was up to.”

Kate leaned in over Helena’s shoulder, grinning. “Read it out loud! Bet it’s juicy.”

Helena held it in her hands, skimming through pages filled with jagged handwriting and cryptic diagrams. “This guy—Dr. Crowley—was summoning undead armies and catching souls. You know, just casual Tuesday stuff.”

Diana stepped closer, her brow furrowing as she glanced at the journal. “Soulcatcher?” she muttered, pointing at a diagram. “That’s... disturbingly well-designed. The guy might’ve been nuts, but he knew his way around machinery.”

Samantha, meanwhile, scanned the walls, her brow furrowed. “Enough jokes. What else does it say? Anything about why we’re here?”

Helena read aloud from one of the entries: “‘Harold Bundewick has turned against me. The coward who once championed my work now seeks to destroy it...’ She paused, looking up at the group with a wicked smile. "So, apparently, ol' Harold pissed this guy off big time."

"Wait, Bundewick?" Kate said, her voice rising slightly. "Like the Harold Bundewick? Leader of the—what is it—‘Restoration Front Party’? That Bundewick?"

"Same guy," Diana confirmed, her voice calm but her expression tense. "Look at this—he’s the one who sponsored the experiments."

Samantha frowned deeply. "That can’t be right. Bundewick’s the reason we’re here, isn’t he? Cleaning up this mess? Why would he fund something like this in the first place?"

"Maybe he thought it’d work," Kate said, now pacing as she gestured wildly. "You know, bringing people back to life. Instead, he got a lab full of Frankenstein rejects, and now he’s covering his tracks."

Helena chuckled darkly, “Guess the restoration part of the Restoration Front isn’t just a clever name. He’s restoring bodies now, too.”

Kate snorted, but Samantha shot them both a sharp look. “Focus. We need to figure out what to do about this. If Bundewick’s involved, this could blow up way beyond our mission.”

A heavy silence fell over the group as the implications sank in. The journal in Helena’s hands suddenly felt heavier, its mad scrawls a testament to the horrors that had taken place here.

Diana tapped her fingers on the desk, her eyes distant as she thought it through. “Still, we have a duty to the truth, don’t we? If we destroy this without a second thought, aren’t we just as complicit?”

The group fell into uneasy silence, the weight of the decision pressing down on them.

Samantha hesitated. "If we bring this up we’ll need to be damn sure it won’t backfire. Bundewick’s not just some ordinary guy. He’s powerful. Exposing him could put a target on all our backs."

"But if we don’t," Kate argued, "we’re just sweeping it under the rug for him, letting him get away with this."

"Do you really think our commander Greene doesn’t already know?" Helena asked, her voice low and conspiratorial. "This whole mission stinks of damage control. They send us in, mop up the mess, and bury the evidence—literally, if they have to."

Samantha sighed, rubbing her temple as she considered their options. Finally, she looked up, her gaze steady. "We take the journal. But we don’t say a word until we’re out of here and have a clear plan. Agreed?"

The others nodded, though Kate muttered, "This is gonna get messy," under her breath.

"It already is," Samantha replied grimly.

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Helena gave the journal to Diana for safe-keeping. "Well, at least it’s not boring."

“Take this seriously. Let’s go and finish checking out the floor.”

“Yes, Mom.” Helena gave a mock salute.

“Helena,” Samantha said, her tone warning but fond.

The squad began to move toward the door, Samantha leading the way with her shotgun raised. The atmosphere was tense, the weight of their discovery hanging over them like a storm cloud. Helena lingered near the desk, still grinning faintly at her own irreverence, when suddenly a sound made them all freeze.

The distinct creak of hinges. The closet door in the corner of the room cracked open, and a figure stumbled out into the light.

“Wait, don’t shoot!” the person exclaimed, throwing his hands into the air.

Samantha whipped around, weapon trained on him in an instant. The others followed suit, flashlights and firearms pointed directly at the unexpected intruder.

“Max?” Samantha blurted, her voice laced with disbelief. “Max Silver? From the church?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s me!” Max said hurriedly, his hands still raised. “Please, just lower the guns. I’m unarmed!”

Samantha kept her weapon leveled at him, her sharp gaze cutting through him like a blade. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I don’t know!” he said quickly, his voice shaking. “One minute, I was—look, you wouldn’t believe the night I had if I told you. Long story short I got teleported here like twenty minutes ago for some reason.”

“Convenient,” Helena muttered, her flashlight trained on him. “Just teleported into a room full of creepy machines and soldiers with guns. Happens all the time.”

“Helena,” Samantha snapped, her tone sharp. “Enough.” She turned back to Max. “You’re saying you have no idea why you’re here?”

“No clue,” Max insisted, his hands still in the air. “I swear! I don’t even know where ‘here’ is!” He glanced nervously at the bizarre equipment around him.

Kate crossed her arms, her expression skeptical. “So you’re just some random guy who got zapped into the middle of a military operation? That’s a pretty wild coincidence.”

“Hey, look, I got this bag with me here. I spent the whole night in this place called Bonetown, there is a badge, brochure, map and everything in there.”

Helena raised an eyebrow, stepping forward to grab Max’s bag and rifle through it. "Bonetown, huh? Sounds like a lovely vacation spot." She pulled out the badge and brochure, holding them up. Sure enough, the materials bore the name and logo of a tourist attraction—something about ghost tours and supernatural experiences.

Diana frowned, her sharp mind already piecing together the implications. "That doesn’t explain why you were teleported into this specific room. And you were eavesdropping on us, weren’t you?"

Max hesitated, his eyes darting nervously. "Look, I didn’t mean to listen in. I heard you guys talking about Bundewick and your commander, and I just... I recognized the name."

Samantha’s eyes narrowed. "Recognized it how?"

Max took a deep breath, then spoke quickly, as if worried he’d lose his nerve. "Because I’ve had a run-in with your commander before. Commander Greene."

The room went silent. Even Helena stopped her sarcastic commentary, her attention now fully on Max.

"What do you mean, ‘a run-in’?" Samantha asked cautiously.

Max licked his lips, clearly debating how much to share. Finally, he sighed. "It was this night. I had to go to the toilet and when I came outside he was there, talking about how he wanted to taste my blood, then his fangs grew out. He’s a bloody vampire."

The squad exchanged stunned looks, disbelief written on their faces. Helena was the first to break the silence. "Okay, now that’s a hell of a claim. You’re telling me our commander is Dracula? Bullshit."

"I know how it sounds," Max said quickly. "But it’s true. Maybe not Dracula exactly, but definitely a vampire.”

“I’ve seen him walking in sunlight and nothing happened, what about that?”

“Actually, in Bram Stokers Dracula, the vampires could move around in daylight, but they were significantly weaker.”

Samantha’s grip on her shotgun tightened. Her mind raced, not believing him but willing to entertain the tale. "Why didn’t you report this before?"

"To who?" Max shot back. "Anyway, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. As he was about to grab me, I teleported to bonetown using a ticket. After that adventure, here I am.”

Helena tilted her head, grinning despite the tension. "Oh, this is getting good. Can we confront Greene about this wild claim? Please say we’re talking to him about it."

Samantha glared at her, but her expression softened as she looked at Max. "If what you’re saying is true, we can’t just sit on this.” Samantha’s jaw tightened as she made her decision. "We’re taking you back to the church. If nothing else, we can regroup and figure out our next move. And we’re talking to Greene about all this vampire business.”

Samantha motioned for the squad to form up, keeping her shotgun at the ready as she pointed toward the doorway. “Alright, Max. Stick with us, stay quiet, and don’t touch anything else. We’re getting out of here.”

Max nodded vigorously, clutching his bag. “Believe me, I’m not exactly thrilled to stick around.”

The group began to make their way out of the room, the oppressive hum of the machinery fading behind them. The hallway was eerily silent, their boots echoing against the stone floor, when in the distance several gunshots could be heard. A moment later, Samantha’s radio crackled to life, breaking the tension.

“Samantha, this is Stephen. Do you copy?”

Samantha stopped in her tracks, pressing a hand to the earpiece. “I read you, Stephen. What’s your status?”

“Frankenstein’s down. Took care of him and his last batch of rejects. What’s your situation?”

Samantha’s expression didn’t flicker as she responded, her voice crisp and professional. “We’re clear on this end. Just wrapping up. Heading back to the vehicle now.”

“Copy that.”

The radio cut out, leaving a heavy silence in its wake. Kate glanced at Samantha, her brow furrowed. “You didn’t tell him about the journal.”

“I didn’t need to,” Samantha replied curtly. “Not until we know what we’re dealing with.”

“Or who we can trust,” Diana added, her voice low.

The group continued down the corridor, their pace quickening as they neared the exit. The stale air of the manor gave way to the crisp chill of the day outside, a welcome change after the suffocating atmosphere of the lab.

As they approached the vehicle, Samantha turned to the squad. “Helena, keep an eye on Max. Kate, you’re driving.”

The squad climbed into the vehicle, Max squeezed between Helena and Diana in the back seat. Helena gave him a lopsided grin. “So, Max, any other supernatural encounters you’d like to share? Maybe a werewolf next?”

Max groaned, rubbing his face. “I wish I was making this up. Really.”

Diana didn’t join in the banter, her attention focused on the journal in her lap. “This thing is a goldmine,” she muttered. “But it’s also a powder keg. If anyone else gets their hands on it…”

Samantha glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “That’s why we’re holding onto it. No one says a word about this until we’re absolutely sure we know who we’re dealing with.”

The vehicle roared to life, and Kate pulled out onto the dirt road leading away from the manor. The squad fell into a tense silence, each of them lost in their thoughts.