A soft knock at the door snapped him out of the trance. Not the doctor. Not the agents.
A nurse peeked in, offering a polite smile as she checked the machines. "Everything stable for now. If you need anything—water, food, anything at all—just press the call button."
He nodded, forcing a small smile. She left. The door clicked shut.
Silence returned.
Then a small Ding played in his head. The screen had changed.
{Would You Like To Activate Hallucinatory Fog?}
{Y/N}
His breath froze.
Activate it? Here? In a hospital?
There was no chance he wasn't stupid enough to unleash something he barely understood in a hospital full of vulnerable people. He shut his eyes, willing the screen away—
But before he could even think the word No, the building shuddered.
BWOOM.
The lights flickered rapidly. Then the hallway outside erupted in a shrill, metallic WEEEOO—WEEEOO—WEEEOO. Emergency alarms blared, red lights flashed throughout the entire hospital.
Footsteps. Screams. A crash—something metal hitting the floor hard.
Then—A shriek.
High, wet, and monstrous. He flinched so hard his IV line tugged.
"What the hell was that?"
He pushed himself upright, ignoring the ache in his muscles, and slid off the bed. He barely made it to the door before a shadow darted across the frosted glass window.
Small. Hunched. Fast. Another shriek came from outside. Then a voice down the hall—panicked, trembling: "They're biting people—keep away from them!"
He reached the door, cracked it open—and froze. Three creatures prowled the corridor.
Barely three feet tall. Their skin moss-green and rubbery. Eyes huge, yellow, gleaming like predators caught in headlights. Their limbs were long, ending in crooked claws still dripping with something dark.
They sniffed the air. One of them gnawed on a shattered piece of metal—chewing like it was bone. His stomach twisted.
"…Goblins," he whispered.
Goblins.Straight out of any fantasy novel. But this was a hospital. A city. This world ran on fluorescent lights, it wasn't a monster-infested woodland.
"How… how are goblins here?" he breathed. It made no sense, not unless the lines between the dreamworld and reality were thinning—bleeding into each other.
Down the hall, a nurse stumbled backward, slipping on the polished floor as one of the goblins hissed and lunged toward her.
His chest tightened. He didn't think. The holographic screen snapped back into existence, pulsing as though it sensed the danger.
{Would You Like To Activate Hallucinatory Fog?}
{Y/N}
His hand was already moving.
"Yes."
The word left his mouth and the fog answered instantly.
Heat rushed from his body outwards like steam, rolling across the floor, surging down the hallway like a living tide. It spread faster than he expected filling the corridor with a thick, silvery haze.
The goblins jerked back in surprise, screeching as their vision vanished. Behind him, more doors slammed open—patients peeking out, terrified.
"Get back! Stay behind the doors!" he shouted, his voice echoing strangely through the fog. But something happened then. All he wanted to do was to protect the civilians. The fog reacted to his intention.
Shapes formed within it. Not fully real, not fully illusions—hazy silhouettes of towering figures stood between the goblins and the fleeing nurses. Their eyes glowed bright white, their arms long and jagged, their posture threatening.
The goblins froze. Hissed. Then attacked the illusions.
Claws passed straight through, slashing only vapor, but the creatures didn't know. They shrieked and scrambled in circles, confused, clawing at shapes that dissolved and reformed around them.
He pushed more fog towards the goblins.
The hazy walls thickened around the goblins.
He formed an escape path leading the patients, nurses, and doctors toward the emergency staircase.
"Go!" he yelled at the nurses who'd been frozen in terror. "Take everyone and move!"
This time, they didn't question him.
The doctor who had treated him earlier appeared at the corner of his vision, supporting an elderly patient. She caught his eye—fear and gratitude mixing in her expression—but she didn't pause.
They ran.
One by one, patients, staff, and stragglers moved down towards the emergency staircase, protected by illusions so vivid even he almost believed them.
But the goblins wouldn't keep attacking wildly forever. It was only a matter of time before they caught on to the trick.
Two still swung at illusions.
But the third paused.
Its nostrils flared. Slowly—very slowly—it turned its head towards the source of the fog. Toward him. Its yellow eyes narrowed. A growl, low and guttural, rumbled in its chest.
"Oh… shit."
The creature crouched, tendons tightening. It was about to pounce.
And he had no idea what his fog was really used for other then petty illusions that couldn't actually harm anything—the problem was that he was the only one left in this hallway to stop them.
The goblin lunged a sudden roar of energy cut the air not from him but from behind.
Two silhouettes burst through the fog, their movements confident, practiced, utterly unfazed by the warping illusions. The agents. The same ones who interrogated him earlier—except now, their expressions weren't calculating.
They were alert. Ready. Almost expecting this. The taller one stopped beside him, his eyes sweeping over the fog with a flicker of surprise before settling on the goblins.
"So this is your ability," he muttered.
The tall agent didn't hesitate. He yanked his right sleeve up past the elbow. The skin underneath was… damaged. Darkened. Charred-looking, but not burned. Glowing faintly from beneath, like magma trapped behind human flesh. The air rippled with heat.
He spread his fingers wide—And the heat became flame.
A burst of fire exploded forward in the exact shape of his outstretched hand, a flaming imprint cast into the fog like a giant spectral brand. It slammed into the pouncing goblin with a deafening WHOOM, sending the creature flying backward into the far wall. It hit hard, crumpled, and didn't move again.
The heat washed over him, almost suffocating.
The shorter agent had no such theatrics. He moved with clean, mechanical precision—one fluid step forward, pistol already drawn from inside his coat.
Two goblins screeched and charged, bursting through the illusions—
BANG. BANG. BANG.
The shots echoed down the corridor, sharp and final. The goblins dropped instantly, their momentum carrying them into sliding heaps across the tile floor.
Silence followed. A long, heavy silence broken only by the soft crackle of heat fading from the taller agent's arm and the distant alarms still blaring throughout the building.
The shorter agent holstered his weapon and exhaled. "All hostiles have been neutralized."
The fog swirled around them, shifting and writhing like a living thing. Both agents finally turned to him.
He swallowed.
The taller one nodded toward the fog with a mixture of concern and reluctant respect. "You've got good control for someone who woke up an hour ago."
"Those illusions," the shorter agent added, scanning the hazy corridor, "You created an evac route on instinct?."
He blinked, still breathless. "I—I just tried to protect them."
"You did," the tall agent said. "You saved a lot of lives."
Then his tone sharpened. "Without your help we wouldn't have gotten here as quickly as we did."
The alarms kept screaming. The fog pulsed nervously around him as the taller agent lowered his fiery arm, embers still glowing beneath his skin.
The shorter agent stepped closer, voice low.
"Those goblins aren't the only monsters. Reports come in every hour. The city is in high alert and were stretched thin, way thinner then we'd like."
The tall agent looked at him with a quizzical look. "We are stationed here so we can't leave, but we've already had a ride ready for your arrival at the nearest police station for questioning."
He looked at the both of them. "okay."
A sigh of relief resounded from the both of them. It was obvious that they've had a lot going on this past week and not everyone was as cooperative as him.