The corridor filled with pressure—thick, suffocating, like the air before a thunderstorm.
Agent Z's body convulsed as energy erupted from his core, waves of power rippling outward and cracking the concrete walls. The creature beneath the skin no longer bothered with pretense. Its cultivation flooded the hallway, crushing down on everything in its path.
Vanessa gasped, stumbling backward. Reo cried out, small hands clutching at his mother's coat.
Luther stood perfectly still.
The pressure washed over him like water against stone—present, acknowledged, but ultimately meaningless. His breathing remained steady. His stance didn't shift. Something in his bones remembered this feeling, even after fifteen years of deliberate forgetting.
Agent Z's crimson eyes narrowed. "You... you don't feel it?"
Luther said nothing. His shoulders settled into an old configuration, muscle memory surfacing from beneath years of slouching over desks. His father had beaten this posture into him—literally, sometimes—until it became as natural as breathing.
"Impossible." The creature's voice layered and split, multiple tones speaking as one. "You're just a clerk. A deserter. A failure who abandoned his path. The reports said—"
Luther moved.
One step forward, closing half the distance between them in a single fluid motion. His knee protested—just a flicker of resistance from joints that had grown accustomed to walking, not fighting. He pushed through it. No wasted movement. No hesitation.
Agent Z snarled and lunged, fingers elongating into razor-sharp claws that gleamed black in the emergency lighting. The attack came fast—faster than human reflexes should handle—aimed directly at Luther's throat.
Luther's hand rose and caught the creature's wrist mid-strike.
The impact jarred up his arm, but his grip held. Firm. Absolute. He felt the alien texture of the thing's skin—too smooth, too cold, like touching a corpse that hadn't quite realized it was dead.
Agent Z's eyes widened. It tried to pull back, to retreat, but Luther's grip was iron.
"You talk too much," Luther said quietly.
He twisted.
The bones in the creature's wrist ground together before snapping—a sensation that traveled up Luther's arm like a message written in violence. Agent Z screamed—a layered, inhuman sound that rattled the walls. Before it could recover, Luther's other hand shot forward, palm strike to the solar plexus.
The impact reverberated through his palm, up his forearm. His shoulder socket protested—fifteen years of atrophy demanding acknowledgment. Luther ignored it.
The creature flew backward, smashing into the concrete wall hard enough to leave cracks spiderwebbing across the surface. It collapsed to the floor, wheezing, black ichor leaking from its mouth.
Three seconds. The entire exchange had taken three seconds, and Luther's body was already reminding him of every year he'd spent pretending to be ordinary.
He walked forward slowly, each footstep deliberate. His breath came steady, but his muscles sang with the old familiar burn. The pressure in the hallway had changed—no longer the creature's oppressive energy, but something else. Something colder. Sharper. Something that had been sleeping inside Luther's chest, waiting.
Agent Z tried to stand, claws scraping against the floor. Luther kicked its leg out from under it. The knee bent backward with another wet crack, and Luther felt the resistance of bone and cartilage give way beneath his boot.
Another scream.
"Stay down," Luther said.
The creature thrashed, trying to regenerate, trying to fight. Luther stomped down on its shoulder, pinning it. The act felt strange—distant, like watching someone else's hands do the work. When had violence become so easy again?
"How?" Agent Z gasped, ichor bubbling from its lips. "The intelligence... you were supposed to be... ordinary..."
"Intelligence can be wrong."
Luther crouched, maintaining pressure on the creature's shoulder. Behind him, he could hear Vanessa's ragged breathing, could sense Reo's terrified silence. He kept his body positioned between them and the threat. That part, at least, required no old training. That part was pure instinct.
"Who sent you?" Luther asked. "How many more are there?"
Agent Z laughed—a broken, gurgling sound. "You think... it matters? You think... knowing changes anything?"
"Answer the question."
"Even if you kill me..." The creature's grin was a rictus of torn flesh and too many teeth. "Your death... your family's death... nothing changes that. It was your sin, you see. Your sin to be born as his son. Your destiny was sealed the moment you took your first breath."
Luther's jaw tightened. His hand clenched into a fist, knuckles whitening.
For years, he'd run from his father's shadow. For years, he'd told himself he hated the man—hated the coldness, the distance, the way duty always came before family. How many nights had his mother cried alone? How many birthdays had his father missed? How many times had young Luther waited by the window, watching for a figure that never came?
He'd left. Abandoned his training. Changed his name. Moved to the furthest edge of the Southern Region where no one would know him as anything other than Luther the clerk, Luther the ordinary man, Luther who was emphatically not his father's son.
But hearing those words—hearing this thing call his birth a sin—something in Luther's chest blazed hot and fierce.
"You're wrong," he said softly.
Agent Z's laughter continued, wet and broken.
"It was never a sin to be born as his son." Luther's voice grew stronger, clearer. The words came from somewhere deep, somewhere he'd buried years ago. "I am proud to be his son. I understand his upbringing. I understand his thoughts. His love for people. His sacrifice."
His hand moved to the creature's throat. The skin there pulsed with residual energy, warm and wrong beneath his fingers.
"I know why he chose duty over comfort. Why he placed the needs of thousands above the needs of one family. I understand it."
Behind him, Vanessa had gone completely still. Reo had stopped crying, his wide eyes fixed on his father's back.
"But understanding doesn't make it hurt less," Luther continued, and his voice cracked just slightly on the last word. "If he had just... if he could have shown us. Been expressive. Let us see the man behind the commander, even for a moment. If he had prioritized us—just once, just once—I wouldn't have left him."
The pressure in the hallway intensified. Not oppressive now, but sorrowful. Heavy with old grief finally spoken aloud.
"But that doesn't change who I am," Luther said. "Or who he is. We are what we are."
His hand tightened. The creature's pulse beat against his palm—irregular, fading.
"And I am his son."
The snap was quick. Clean. Final.
Luther felt the exact moment life left the body—a subtle shift, like tension releasing from a drawn bow. Agent Z's borrowed flesh went slack beneath his hands. The crimson glow faded from its eyes, leaving only the empty, borrowed shell of what had once been a man.
For a heartbeat, Luther remained crouched there, hand still on the corpse's throat. He'd just killed something. Someone. The weight of it settled into his bones alongside the muscle memory and the old training. This was what his father's path had always led to. This was what Luther had run from.
And now it had found him anyway.
He stood slowly, wiping his hands on his pants. The gesture was automatic, useless—the wrongness wouldn't come off that easily. He turned to face his family.
Vanessa's face was pale, eyes glistening with unshed tears. She'd heard every word. Witnessed the truth he'd never spoken aloud, not even to her. Her hand was pressed to her mouth, and Luther couldn't tell if she was holding back a sob or a scream.
Reo stared at his father like he was seeing him for the first time. Like the man who'd bought him cotton candy an hour ago had been replaced by someone else entirely.
Maybe he had been.
Luther crossed the distance and knelt before them. "Vanessa," he said quietly. "This was a trap. Specifically designed for us. There will be more out there—stronger ones, probably. Experts who've been waiting for exactly this."
Her breath hitched. "Luther—"
"I need to draw them away. Use myself as bait." His voice was calm, matter-of-fact, like he was discussing work schedules. "You take Reo and find somewhere to hide. My father—" He paused, the words strange in his mouth. "My father was paranoid. When I was young, he made me memorize emergency routes in every town we visited. There are old maintenance tunnels beneath the western quarter, from before the Sealing Formation was installed. Most people don't know they exist. They'll take you outside the barrier."
"No." The word came out sharp, desperate. "No, we stay together. We—"
"Vanessa." He reached up, cupping her face with both hands. His palms were still warm from the kill. "You know I'm right."
Tears spilled down her cheeks. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again. She wanted to argue that they could all hide, that the tunnels could save all of them, that splitting up was stupid and suicidal and exactly what the enemy would want. But she could see it in his eyes. Could see the calculation, the cold tactical assessment that was pure his father's son.
If Luther stayed with them, the cult would follow. Would hunt them through the tunnels. Would kill all three.
If Luther led them away—bought time—maybe, maybe Vanessa and Reo could escape.
She thought of Reo. Of her son's future. Of the terrible mathematics of survival that reduced love to numbers and outcomes.
She was the wife. She wanted to stay and die beside her husband.
But she was also the mother. And that meant making the choice that would break her heart but save her child.
Slowly, hating herself, hating the world, hating everything that had led to this moment, she nodded.
Luther's face crumpled for just a fraction of a second before smoothing back into controlled calm. He pulled them both into his arms. The hug was tight, desperate, trying to compress years of unspoken love into a single moment. His face pressed into Vanessa's hair, breathing in the familiar scent of her—jasmine and antiseptic from the clinic. Then he turned to Reo, memorizing every detail of his son's face—the wide eyes, the trembling lip, the constellation of freckles across his nose, the way his hair stuck up funny on one side no matter how much they combed it.
"If you meet my father," Luther whispered, "let him know I forgive him."
He stood. Stepped back. Created distance before he could change his mind.
Vanessa's hand shot out, grabbing his sleeve. For one heartbeat, they stood frozen—connected by that single point of contact and everything it represented. Fifteen years of marriage. A lifetime of small moments. All of it compressed into the feeling of fabric between her fingers.
Then she let go.
The material slipped from her grasp like water, like sand, like everything she'd ever tried to hold onto.
Luther turned and walked away. Each step felt like tearing something vital from his chest, but he didn't stop. Couldn't stop. His boots echoed in the corridor—steady, measured, carrying him away from everything that mattered.
"Dad!"
Reo's voice shattered the silence. The boy lunged forward, small hand reaching out, fingers grasping at empty air. "Dad! DAD!"
Luther's steps faltered for just a moment. His shoulders tensed, spine going rigid. Every instinct screamed at him to turn around, to scoop his son into his arms one more time, to find another way, any other way.
But he didn't turn around. Didn't respond. Didn't even slow.
He couldn't. If he looked back—if he saw Reo's face, saw his son's tears—he'd never leave. And then they'd all die here in this hallway, together, and his father's paranoid emergency routes would mean nothing.
His footsteps echoed down the corridor, each one carrying him further away. Then he turned a corner and was gone.
The hallway fell silent except for Reo's ragged breathing.
The boy stood frozen, arm still outstretched toward the empty corridor, tears streaming down his face. He didn't understand. Didn't understand why his father wouldn't answer. Didn't understand why Christmas had turned into this nightmare of blood and monsters and his dad walking away. Didn't understand anything except that something terrible and final had just happened, and no one had explained it to him, and his dad was leaving.
Vanessa's hand settled on his shoulder—gentle at first, then firmer. When Reo looked up through his tears, his mother's face had transformed. No longer soft with grief but hard as steel, jaw set, eyes dry. She'd made her decision. She'd chosen. And now she would carry them both through this, or die trying.
"Come on, baby," she said, voice steady despite everything. "We need to go."
She took his hand—small and trusting and trembling in hers—and turned in the opposite direction.
Reo's feet moved automatically, following his mother because that was what he always did. But his head kept turning back, looking over his shoulder at the empty hallway, waiting for his father to reappear, to call out that it was a mistake, that he was coming back.
The hallway remained empty.
Behind them, the body of Agent Z lay crumpled and broken, blood pooling slowly across the concrete floor. The emergency lights continued their steady red pulse, painting everything in the color of warning.
In the distance, new sounds emerged—footsteps, multiple sets, moving with purpose through the building. Voices calling to each other in a language that wasn't quite human.
The hunt had begun.
Luther emerged from a side exit into the frozen night. The Christmas lights were still dark. The square was empty except for overturned stalls and scattered decorations—the debris of interrupted celebration. Someone's shoe lay abandoned in the snow. A child's toy, half-buried. The remnants of joy.
Snow fell in thick, lazy flakes, already beginning to cover the bloodstains that painted the cobblestones.
He could feel them out there. Presences in the dark, circling like wolves who'd caught a scent. The cult hadn't sent Agent Z alone. They'd sent a whole team, and now that their infiltrator was dead, they'd stop pretending.
Luther rolled his shoulders, feeling the old training settle back into his bones. His muscles protested—fifteen years of paperwork had left him softer than he'd been—but the knowledge remained. The patterns. The breathing. The way to move when death was close.
It had been fifteen years since he'd fought seriously. Fifteen years of normalcy and pretending to be someone he wasn't.
Time to stop pretending.
A figure appeared at the far end of the square. Then another. Then three more.
They wore the robes of the Dawn of Light—white trimmed with gold, now stained with the blood of Southern Town's defenders. They moved with confidence, with certainty, spreading out to cut off any escape.
Luther's expression went flat and cold. Not a smile. Not anger. Just the empty calm of someone who'd already accepted what came next.
"Alright," he said quietly, to himself, to his father's ghost, to the son he'd just abandoned. "Let's make this count."
He stepped forward into the square, boots crunching through fresh snow.
The cultists began to close in, hands crackling with energy, weapons drawn.
The snow continued to fall, soft and silent and indifferent.
Behind him, in the depths of the safe house, Vanessa and Reo disappeared into the emergency tunnels—mother and child, running through the dark, carrying the weight of everything Luther had given them.
The red dome of the Sealing Formation pulsed overhead, separating the town from the world beyond.
Somewhere in the distance, a building collapsed with a sound like thunder.
Christmas night wore on, and Southern Town burned.