The silence after the storm is the most terrifying kind.
The roar of Kante, the crack of rifles, the shriek of tearing metal—it had all vanished. Now, there was only the faint groan of cooling steel, the soft crackle of a fire somewhere above, and the steady, rhythmic drip of water from a broken pipe. Each drop landing in a stagnant puddle echoed like the countdown on a bomb.
Kael held his position, his back pressed against the cold concrete wall, his rifle still warm in his hands. Dust and soot hung in the air, dancing in the weak beam of his flashlight. He could taste it in his mouth—the taste of destruction.
"Is he... is he gone?" Rook whispered, his voice a hoarse rasp. He had managed to pull the dented steel door partially shut, loosely blocking the entrance.
"No," Kael answered, his voice low and firm. "He just changed targets. Hunnigan and her people bought us a moment. A moment paid for with their blood."
He glanced at Viper, who was still lying motionless. Her breathing was shallow, but it was there. A fragile existence in the middle of the wreckage. The weight of responsibility settled on Kael's shoulders, heavier than the body of the teammate he had carried. They had survived a direct confrontation, only to be trapped in a rat cage, with a monster prowling just outside.
Kael switched off his flashlight, letting the darkness envelop them. He didn't want any light, no matter how small, to escape. He relied on his other senses. He listened. He heard Rook's breathing, Viper's soft moans, and the beat of his own heart, a frantic drum in the dead silence. He smelled the blood, the ozone from the electrical arcs, and another foul odor, the signature stench of biological transformation.
They were mice, hiding in a hole, while the cat was busy with another mouse. But sooner or later, the cat would remember they existed.
"Wraith, are you still up there?" Kael whispered into the mic clipped to his collar, using the direct, short-range comms channel. "Report."
After a second of static, Wraith's voice came back, a sharp whisper. "Still intact. On the western rafters. Visibility is limited due to smoke. I see Kante... he's in the middle of the warehouse, doing... something to Hunnigan's body. I don't want to describe it." A flicker of disgust broke through her professional tone.
"What about Gryphon?"
"I don't dare use the main channel. If Rook is right, Oracle is listening. We can't let her know we're alive and regrouped."
Kael ground his teeth. A tangled mess. They needed to contact Gryphon to coordinate, but doing so could be suicide. "Can you create a secure channel? One the Nest's systems can't penetrate?"
"To do that, I'd need to hack one of their terminals," Wraith explained. "I'd have to be physically near one. The risk is too high." She paused. "But... there is another way. Archaic, but effective. A short-range, analog radio channel. Frequency hopping. Oracle's system is designed to track complex digital data streams. It might just ignore a simple analog signal, writing it off as background noise."
"Do it," Kael ordered.
He heard the soft clicking as Wraith manipulated her wrist-mounted device. Its small screen cast a blue glow on her face in the darkness. "Alright," she said after a moment. "Frequency 446.200 MHz. Channel hop after every ten seconds of speech. I'll send a ping to Gryphon. Hopefully, he's smart enough to understand."
She began to transmit a series of short radio bursts, no words, just beeps in a specific pattern. Morse code. Classic. Reliable.
After what felt like an eternity, Kael's earpiece gave a short beep in response. Gryphon had received it.
"Gryphon, do you copy?" Kael spoke quickly. "Ten seconds."
"Spectre? Damn it, is that really you? We thought... What the hell is going on?" Gryphon's voice came through, full of relief and confusion.
"We've been betrayed. Oracle gave up Rook and Viper's position. Repeat, Oracle is hostile. Do not trust any orders from the Nest." Kael said it all in one breath.
"What...?" The astonishment in Gryphon's voice was almost palpable.
Just then, Kael heard Kante's scraping from the hallway outside. "He's getting close. New plan: fall back to the sewer entrance. Meet us there. We'll find a way out. Over."
He cut the connection. There was no more time for explanations. Now, they weren't just running from Kante. They were running from their own shadow.
"We have to go," Kael said to Rook, pulling him to his feet. "Now."
They carefully eased the door open. The hallway was dark, illuminated only by the flickering glow of fires from the warehouse. The smell of blood and burnt meat was overwhelming. Kante was gone, but his trail was everywhere.
The bodies of the Delta team were scattered about, their bodies torn and twisted into unrecognizable shapes. Their tactical armor looked like crumpled paper. Kante's black blood mixed with their red on the floor, creating a gruesome tableau of carnage.
"Stay close to the wall," Kael ordered. "Make no sound."
They began their journey in reverse, a walk through a freshly made tomb. Kael went first, carrying Viper on his shoulder. Her weight was a constant reminder of their fragility. Rook followed, his rifle sweeping every dark corner, every dancing shadow making him flinch.
The emergency lights flickered, illuminating horrific scenes in brief flashes. A severed arm. A crushed helmet. And deep gouges in the concrete walls, as if Kante had sharpened his claws after finishing his meal.
As they neared the exit to the warehouse, Kael signaled a halt. He heard a noise. Not Kante. Voices. MLF soldiers. They were beginning to move in to clean up.
Kael looked at the wreckage of the light rig and the pillars of fire. They couldn't go that way.
"Another way," he whispered, pointing to a service corridor they had previously ignored. "It has to lead somewhere."
They slipped into the new corridor, darkness once again enveloping them. This hallway was narrower, and filled with leaking steam pipes that created a hot, hazy fog. Every hiss of steam made them jump.
They were going deeper into the belly of the beast, hoping to find an exit, all while knowing that every step could be leading them closer to its beating heart.
Their path was blocked by a locked chain-link gate. On the other side was a small room, which looked like an old security control post.
"Damn it," Rook cursed. "A dead end."
"Not exactly," Kael said. He pointed to a gap in the wall where a power panel had been removed. "Wraith could get through that. But we can't, not while carrying Viper."
While Rook was trying to break the lock, Kael scanned the area with his flashlight. And then he saw it.
Huddled in a corner, almost hidden by a pipe, was a body. A Delta soldier. But what caught Kael's attention was what lay right next to the soldier's hand.
A tablet. Its screen was cracked, but still faintly glowing.
It was Hunnigan's tablet.
Kael carefully retrieved it. He had to pry it from the soldier's rigor-mortis-clenched fingers. He turned it on. Most of the functions were locked by BSAA passwords. But one application was still running in the background. A voice recorder.
On the screen was a single file, labeled: "FINAL REPORT - FOR DIRECTOR MORGAN'S EYES ONLY".
Kael's heart pounded. He pressed play.
Static. Then Hunnigan's voice, not the cold, commanding tone, but a rushed, frightened whisper. This was a recording she had made just moments before she died.
"...Morgan, if you're receiving this, the plan is a total failure. Subject Kante... he's uncontrollable. The third-gen Plagas integration was successful... too successful. His power exceeds all projections. I repeat, he is a successful failure."
She coughed. Kael could hear distant gunfire.
"I was wrong. I thought we could control it. Use it. The Broker lied. He isn't selling us an army. He's creating gods to replace us."
Her voice broke. "And Oracle... she knew. She knew all along. Sterlitamak wasn't an accident. It was a field test. Just like Raccoon City. Her brother wasn't a victim. He was part of the project. She isn't trying to avenge him. She's trying... to finish his work. Morgan, she's playing both sides! She's monitoring everything! She's—"
A deafening roar. A scream. Then silence.
The recording ended.
Kael stood there, stunned. Oracle's entire story of vengeance was a lie. A perfectly crafted piece of theatre. Her brother wasn't a victim. He was an Umbrella scientist. And Oracle... she was continuing her family's legacy.
"Kael?" Rook called, having finally broken the lock. "The gate's open. Let's go."
Kael didn't move. He stared at the tablet, his mind trying to reassemble a reality that had just been shattered into a million pieces. They weren't soldiers fighting for a greater cause. They were lab rats in a much larger experiment, run by the very person who had promised them a new life.
"Kael, what is it?" Rook asked again, walking over.
Kael handed the tablet to Rook. "Listen."
As Rook was listening to the horrifying recording, Kael's earpiece suddenly gave a soft beep. Not the team channel. Not the short-range channel.
It was the main communications channel. The one he had turned off.
It had activated itself.
A voice spoke in his ear, unnervingly clear and calm, without a trace of static. It was Oracle.
"It seems you've discovered some interesting things, Kaelen."
The voice wasn't coming from a plane thousands of miles away. It was close. Intimate. As if she were standing right behind him, whispering in his ear.
"Don't worry. The game isn't over yet."
The screen on Hunnigan's tablet, which had been replaying the audio, suddenly went black. Then it lit up again, displaying a single image.
A metallic hummingbird, wings in motion. Their symbol.
And below it, a line of text.
PURGE PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.