His body spasmed, a wet rattle escaping his chest. The black packets, now slick with his own viscera, lay scattered like fallen leaves. He looked up at her, pupils blown wide against the streetlamp glare. “The hospice,” he rasped, voice a tearing sound. “They’ll be there. The equipment. We have to destroy it.” “Lerrin, you’re dying right now,” Savia said, her voice tight. She scanned the plaza, a hand on her concealed comms unit, ignoring the faint, crackling order to disengage. “You can barely stand, much less fight your way into a secure medical facility.” “Fight for them, then,” he coughed, a fresh trickle of crimson-shot blackness at his lips. “Please. I put them in danger. I have to fix it.” His face was pale, skin stretched taut over his bones, and a thin sheen of sweat beaded on his forehead despite the chill. His pathological drive, even now, was a terrible, unyielding force. Savia stared down at his shuddering frame, the Bureau orders in her earpiece grating against the raw insistence in his face. He wasn't trying to save himself; he was trying to save others from the horror he’d unintentionally unleashed. She let out a frustrated sound, then grabbed his arm, hauling him upright. “Fine. But you follow my lead. And if this kills you, I’m kicking your corpse into the Solstice Canal.” The St. Jude’s Charity Hospice was a labyrinth of dim corridors and the faint, antiseptic smell of old hope. It was a place Lerrin knew intimately, every creak in the floorboards, every worn patch of linoleum. But tonight, it was a tomb. The main ward, usually a quiet hum of machines and hushed conversations, was eerily still. Residents, the very people Lerrin had poured his System earnings into protecting, sat upright in their beds, eyes clouded, staring at nothing. Then the chanting began. A low, rhythmic murmur that rippled through the room, growing louder with each passing second. “Witness-Count: Ascending… Viewer-Tier: Sub-Omega… Synchronicity-Pattern: Initiated…” An old woman, Mrs. Kelda, who usually fussed over her prized yarn collection, stood swaying by her bed, arms outstretched, reciting the sterile lexicon. Mr. Faelen, a stoic veteran confined to a wheelchair, rolled slowly down the corridor, his vacant eyes fixed on a point beyond the wall, his lips moving in unison with the others. Their voices were flat, devoid of emotion, a horrifying echo of the System’s robotic tones. They were sleepwalking, their minds already partially tethered. “No,” Lerrin whispered, his voice catching. He pushed past Savia, stumbling towards the nearest bed. A young man, Jaren, lay hooked up to a newly installed bio-stabilizer, his face peaceful in slumber, but his lips were moving. “Latency… minimal… packet… transfer…” “Lerrin, stop! Don’t touch him!” Savia yelled, pulling him back. She’d seen this before, though never so widespread. The ‘equipment’ wasn’t just a conduit; it was an anchor point. He ignored her, his eyes blazing with a desperate resolve. He grabbed a metal IV pole and swung it, the dull clang echoing through the ward as it smashed into the sleek, black bio-stabilizer. Sparks showered, wires snapped, and the rhythmic chanting from Jaren’s lips hitched, then stopped. The young man shuddered, his eyes fluttering open, confusion replacing the vacant stare. “What… what happened?” he mumbled. Lerrin didn’t answer. He dragged himself forward with a lurching stride, black bile crusting at the corners of his mouth. One by one, he sought out the new machines, the ones he’d paid for, the ones that were now turning his friends into conduits. The residents cried out, confused and disoriented, as their life-support machines were violently dismantled. Some groaned as their fragile bodies reacted to the severed feeds, their gasps filling the aisle. Suddenly, the outer doors of the hospice burst inward. Heavily armed figures in deep crimson hazmat suits, emblazoned with the coiled serpent insignia of the Breskad Occult Suppression Bureau, poured in. “Clear the sector!” a metallic voice boomed. “Initiate cleansing protocol. All units, prepare for thermal purge!” Savia swore under her breath. “They’re burning the place! They don’t differentiate between hosts and innocent civilians!” Flames began to lick at the edges of the main lobby as incendiary charges detonated. Smoke billowed, thick and acrid. Lerrin, weakened and reeling from his actions, collapsed against a wall, coughing. He saw the fire closing in, the confused residents trapped. There was no escape through the main entrance, and the windows were reinforced, designed to withstand the city’s constant smog-storms. “The System,” Lerrin gasped, looking at Savia, a wild idea forming in his mind. “Can it… can it make a way out? A local stunt?” Savia squinted through the soot, understanding his desperate gambit. “A localized outburst? It’ll be pure chaos, Lerrin. You’ll rip a hole in the veil just to get out of here.” “Do it,” he croaked. “Tell me what to say.” She hesitated for only a fraction of a second, the inferno roaring closer. “The Old Tongue. Say ‘K’tharr-Nevik-Gha’!” Lerrin stumbled to the center of the ward, ignoring the terrified screams of the residents and the advancing Bureau agents. He drew a ragged, painful lungful of air, the black ichor in his lungs burning. He knew, instinctively, that this wasn’t just a sound; it was a tearing. He screamed the forbidden word, a sound that ripped from his core, raw and utterly inhuman. “K’THARR-NEVIK-GHA!” An invisible wave of force detonated outward from him. The reinforced windows of St. Jude’s exploded in a shower of glass shards and twisted metal, sucking the smoke and the incipient flames out into the toxic night. The concrete walls shuddered, plaster dusting down like snow. Every Bureau agent was thrown back, their specialized suits offering little resistance to the sheer, localized psychic force. The sick, already disoriented, screamed anew. [Warning: Sanity Breach in Sector 4. Viewer Refund Issued.] Savia grabbed Lerrin, who was now barely conscious, and dragged him towards the newly created exit. As they stumbled out onto the fire escape, the city’s omnipresent smog seemed to coalesce directly above them, swirling into an impossible, colossal projection. A robotic voice, not from his head, but from the very air, boomed across the entire district, visible to every citizen, every terrified eye. [Special Event: The 1,000,000 Subathon begins in 12 hours.]

Raid Mechanics