The alley behind Hollow Creek Medical was a dead vein of the city—quiet, narrow, and smelling of rust and rotting rain. Ethan stood in the shadows, soaked to the bone. His hood clung to his face like a second skin, but his eyes remained sharp—scanning, calculating.
He wasn't the man who once stood behind a desk and filed insurance claims. That man died the day he found out the system wasn't just broken—it was designed to crush those like him.
Tonight, it was Ethan Ward who returned. Not as a pawn. As something far worse.
Footsteps echoed.
Two men emerged from the side entrance of the clinic, speaking in hushed tones. They wore scrubs, but the bulge under their coats betrayed them—security. Not real doctors. Not with the way they scanned the darkness like predators.
Ethan exhaled, then moved.
He struck like lightning. The first guard was down before his partner could blink. The second reached for his holster, but Ethan's elbow shattered his wrist before the gun cleared the coat.
Both men crumpled.
Ethan slipped inside, dragging their bodies into the dumpster enclosure with calculated precision. He wasn't here to leave a message. He was here to uncover the root of a conspiracy that spanned more than just politics or medicine. This was about control—over fear, life, and power.
The corridor inside was dimly lit. Faint humming of machines vibrated under the tile floors. Ethan moved like a ghost, each step as silent as the truth they tried to bury. Floor after floor, he passed closed rooms—some containing rows of sedated individuals hooked to machines. Neurological feedback. Sedative drips. Monitoring trauma levels.
Halcyon signatures. Again.
They weren't just suppressing emotion—they were feeding on it.
A whisper in his earpiece crackled to life.
"East wing is clear. You're two halls away from the core lab," said Vale, her voice taut with urgency.
Ethan's pulse quickened. Vale—his only ally in this, once a psychologist who lost everything to Halcyon's testing facilities. She'd seen what they did to people—how they twisted minds for obedience, pacified the masses under the illusion of therapy.
"Security cams?" Ethan whispered.
"Looped. You've got seven minutes before backup patrols swing in."
He moved.
At the heart of the building, reinforced doors sealed off the central lab. Ethan planted his hand on the scanner he'd ripped from a guard earlier and waited.
A hiss. A click. Entry.
What he saw made his breath hitch.
Tanks lined the room, filled with fluid. Inside, bodies floated—still, suspended. Each one wired. Some adults. Most were younger—children, even. Faces etched in silent horror.
A screen blinked to life as he stepped closer.
Subject 41B – Emotional Extraction StabilizedPrototype 3: Synaptic Fear Catalyst Testing Initiated
Ethan's stomach turned.
"This is... this is a farm," he whispered.
"They're draining their minds," Vale said in his ear, voice trembling. "Creating emotional drugs—weaponizing pain and obedience."
Rage boiled inside him.
Then, behind him, came the hum of machinery shifting.
He turned.
From the far end of the lab, a door opened.
And from the dark stepped a figure draped in a coat that shimmered like mercury. A mask covered their face—sleek, segmented. Their voice buzzed, distorted.
"You made it farther than I thought. Ethan Ward, the ghost of Bridgewell."
Ethan's fists clenched. "And you are?"
"They call me Echo. I'm one of the engineers behind Halcyon's true purpose."
"Then you know what comes next."
"I do. Pain."
Echo raised a device—and the tanks around them pulsed. Suddenly, Ethan was flooded with a psychic screech—thousands of emotions compressed into one unbearable moment. It felt like dying.
He dropped to his knees. Screaming.
But this wasn't the first time he'd suffered. And it wouldn't be the last.
He reached into his coat, pulled a mini-flash disruptor, and slammed it into the floor. The explosion of light shattered the illusion. The feedback loop faltered. Echo stumbled.
Ethan leapt forward, landing a strike square into the chest. Echo fell back, stunned—but not down.
The two collided again, fists and weapons clashing in a brutal, savage ballet. Echo was faster, but Ethan had something else—purpose. Fury.
A final blow shattered Echo's mask—revealing a woman's face beneath. Scarred. Cold. Familiar.
Vale's voice gasped through the comm. "That's Dr. Keene. She was one of the Halcyon developers who went missing two years ago."
She sneered at him, blood trickling from her lip. "You're too late. The city is already dreaming."
Then she pressed a button on her wrist—and the entire lab ignited in red.
Containment Breach Imminent. Purge in 60 seconds.
She vanished through an emergency exit as Ethan raced back to the tanks.
He couldn't save them all. Not yet.
But he wasn't leaving empty-handed.
He cracked the console, ripped a hard drive free, and sprinted.
Explosions rocked the lab behind him as he tore through hallways, smoke clawing at his lungs, fire kissing his heels.
Bursting out through the emergency exit, he collapsed behind a dumpster as the building behind him imploded inward, swallowing the evidence with it.
But the drive was in his hand.
The truth wasn't gone.
He just needed to survive long enough to show it to the world.