"Blood loss exceeding twenty-five percent. Thirty-seven fragments still inside him. How the hell did he hold on?"
Click. The brunette nurse snapped her ballpoint pen shut and flipped through the black medical folder.
"That's not the point, Anna."
The gray-bearded professor shook his head, gazing out the window with a trace of melancholy. In the power-rationed metropolis, champagne-colored skyscrapers fractured and warped under the hammering rain.
"The rescue team found him clinging to a pier piling, soaked to the bone. Which means, with a body on the verge of total collapse, he kept absolute clarity and emotional control while swimming upward—at least two hundred feet."
He turned back to the nurse waiting beside him in the corridor.
"That might be why he survived. He was the captain of that task force. The best of the elite."
She bit the pen cap, peering through the ward window at the man asleep on white sheets. Shaving off his beard had been the right call, she thought. That slightly East-Asian mixed face was unexpectedly striking.
"Nuh, Anna."
The professor tapped the file in her hands with a knuckle, frowning through unruly brows.
"Theoretically, no human being could have survived those injuries, no matter how well the military trained him. He should have suffered hypertonic seawater damage, rapid hypothermia, and sepsis within minutes of hitting the water."
He loosened his collar uncomfortably and exhaled toward the fogged glass.
"Yet we found no trace of infection. Just a high fever, then his vitals stabilized—fast. Abnormally fast."
Anna shifted her gaze from the bed, turned another page of medication records, and studied the X-ray littered with pale foreign bodies. All thirty-seven had been removed within five hours of rescue.
"I'm wondering… no. Perhaps that's exactly it. There's something else inside him. Not leukocytes—something that actively protects its host. A hundred times more aggressive than any bacteriophage, yet completely invisible to our instruments. Like a ghost possessing his body."
"Oh, Professor, I thought you didn't believe in that sort of thing."
She spun the pen once and traced the faint outline of musculature on the lightboard. He wasn't gym-rat bulky, she noted, but his body-fat percentage had to be absurdly low—proportions almost perfect.
"Listen, everything I'm saying is fact."
The professor scratched his receding hairline, watching his intern drift into her own thoughts.
"During the first surgery, general anesthesia failed three separate times. His body rejected every foreign substance—by sweating profusely and tensing every muscle—while he was unconscious."
"But the surgery was successful, wasn't it?"
She turned to the next page: the operative nursing record. Far fewer incisions than the wounds should have required.
"No. Not because of us. While we kept him under heavy inhaled anesthesia, we made maybe a dozen cuts and extracted the highest-risk fragments. The rest…"
"They're gone?"
She looked at him in confusion, then back at the man in the window, twirling a lock of hair around her pen.
"The shallower fragments were expelled by his own muscle contractions in the five hours he lay under the lamps. Wounds clotted on their own. Toxin-laden sweat purged the heavy metals. Average heart rate stayed at waking levels. Rapid eye movement—he was dreaming the whole time."
"…Holy. Shit."
Classic Gen-Z staccato.
"Everything that happened to him—Lord, not one thing was normal. Even the dog tag of his fallen comrade… he still hasn't let go. His palm has scabbed over it."
The professor clenched his own wrist, staring at the survivor with a mixture of fear and awe.
"John Hastings. God only knows what he went through."
The IV line trembled as the patient twitched. She closed the folder and whispered, "Hey. He's awake."
By the bedside, the heart monitor spiked, beeped frantically for a few seconds, then settled.
A large, scarred hand gripped the beige bed rail. The man in the low-cut hospital gown pushed himself up, expression dazed.
He forced open his stiff right hand. The silver dog tag stuck to his palm peeled away with a faint tug. He blinked once, slowly.
Sensation returned—sound, pain, light. Footsteps approached. Clutching his aching abdomen, he turned.
"Feeling any better, Captain?"
The brunette nurse spoke first, stepping close, looking up at him through her lashes.
"Anna, let me."
The gray-bearded professor took the folder from her, glanced at the monitors, then addressed the silent patient.
"Your latest labs are stable, Mr. Hastings. That's one piece of good news."
He fished a pair of glasses from his pocket and perched them on his puffy face.
"We ran a full infectious panel—nothing obvious. Another good sign."
He paused, cleared his throat.
The nurse jumped in before he could continue.
"But I'm afraid the brain CT shows severe PTSD. You should expect intense headaches, flashbacks, nightmares… the full package."
She reached to straighten the open collar he'd tugged loose. The professor pretended not to notice the excuse for contact and shuffled the papers awkwardly.
"You won't be going back to the service. On the bright side, between the capital relief fund, public donations, and military pension, you'll be… very comfortable."
She let the last two words hang cheerfully. The professor winced, but it was too late.
"Are you ready to live a quiet civilian life, John?"
Silence. The professor closed the folder with a soft snap, watching the man who had crawled out of hell.
Under the harsh fluorescent tubes, John Hastings sat upright on the bed. He threw back the unfamiliar blanket, saw the IV line taped to his forearm, veins stark against pale skin.
He lowered the hand still holding the dog tag, turned his head. Through sweat-damp strands, he studied the two figures beside him.
"…Can I still fight?"
His voice came out hoarse, broken.
"No, sir," the professor answered sincerely. "You've given enough. It's time to rest."
John lifted the fallen sergeant's tag, threaded it onto the titanium chain beside his own, and let them fall against his collarbone.
His eyes reddened. He faced the professor again—grief and fury twisting his features.
"Can I still run… dodge… shoot?"
The professor hesitated, then nodded gravely.
"You can."
John ripped the tape from his arm and yanked the needle free. Blood beaded; he ignored it.
"Sir, I really think you should—"
The nurse reached with a cotton ball. He didn't take it.
He peeled off the hospital gown, revealing black sutures crisscrossing his torso, then silently dressed: white shirt, midnight-blue dress jacket, polished shoes. No tie.
"…Thank you, Doc."
He stood, took the green beret from the nightstand, and set it on his head with deliberate care.
Shadow half-hid his face. He clenched his jaw, felt the cold metal tags against his chest, and growled low:
"This isn't over."