The gate opened like a mouth that didn't want to.
Metal groaned. Mechanisms shuddered.
Pale light spilled across the ground in a clean, clinical strip that felt too gentle for people who had just walked out of violence.
We crossed anyway.
The air inside the perimeter smelled different — filtered, scrubbed, carrying faint antiseptic and ozone. The kind of air that told your lungs they were safe even when your mind wasn't ready to believe it.
Behind us, the wall sealed with a finality that made something inside my chest loosen and tighten at the same time.
Jalen walked beside me, silent, shoulder bruised where he'd taken a hard fall during the ambush. He hadn't complained. He barely looked at it. He moved like someone who didn't trust stillness anymore.
Kerris didn't slow until we were well past the first checkpoint. Only then did she lift her hand and stop us beneath a shadowed overhang where cameras could see but the wind couldn't reach.
Mateo let his pack slide to the ground. It landed with a heavier sound than it should have.
Anya checked her rifle — a habit, not necessity.
Elias stared at his tablet, eyes red-rimmed, jaw locked.
Kerris looked at each of us once.
"Report injuries."
"Bruising," Jalen muttered.
"Minor cuts," Anya said.
Mateo lifted his fingers — stained dark, mostly not his own blood. "Superficial."
Then Kerris looked at me.
I hesitated. My forearms stung faintly, where debris had scraped my skin. My ribs ached from the way I'd twisted to avoid falling when Tomas went down.
"Scratches," I said. "Nothing deep."
Kerris nodded once.
"Acceptable."
Not good. Not fine.
Acceptable.
Then she turned and walked again.
Inside the processing corridor, the light was too bright, the floors too clean, the air too quiet. The contrast pressed in — sterile calm replacing chaos so abruptly that it made my stomach churn.
They took our weapons.
Then our packs.
Then our names.
Not introductions. Entries.
A Warden guided us into separate lanes. The separation was smooth, efficient, practiced — like they'd done this a thousand times.
Jalen's lane split from mine at a glass divider. His eyes flicked to me once, quick and instinctive.
Not comfort.
Confirmation.
Still here.
The decontamination chamber hissed closed behind me. Warm air blasted over my skin, drying the dust and ash clinging to my cuffs and collar. A sensor beam scanned from my boots to my scalp, pausing at my throat, my wrists, the base of my spine.
I wondered what it saw.
And what it didn't.
When the door opened, I stepped into the medical chamber — white benches, cold light, no windows.
A medic in gray approached, tablet in hand.
"Name."
"Imara Vale."
Her eyes flicked. "Anchor. Unit Seventeen.
First deployment."
The phrasing felt wrong — like the experience had been flattened into something procedural.
She gestured. "Sit."
I did.
She cleaned the scrapes on my arms with swift, impersonal motions. The antiseptic burned sharply.
"You experienced loss," she said.
Not a question.
"Yes."
"State the name."
The request landed harder than the sting.
I closed my eyes for a second.
"Tomas," I said.
"Surname?"
My breath stalled.
I searched my memory — not gently, but desperately — replaying his grin, the way his eyebrow scar lifted when he joked, the sound of his voice when he introduced himself.
Rourke.
I was almost certain that had been it.
Almost.
But certainty refused to come.
I could picture the shape of his mouth better than the syllables of his name.
I shook my head.
"I know he told me," I said quietly. "But I can't—"
The harder I tried, the further it slipped.
Like my mind had closed that door on purpose.
The medic paused.
Just briefly.
Then she tapped her tablet. "Time of death?"
"After the fog," I said.
She nodded, as if that answered everything.
A silence stretched.
Then she said, without looking up, "You will be redeployed."
The words settled into my chest like something heavy and unavoidable.
"Today?" I asked.
Her expression didn't change. "Soon."
Soon wasn't time.
Soon was intent.
When she finished, she stood and moved on like I wasn't still sitting there with Tomas's almost-name echoing in my head.
I found the unit again in the debrief hall.
Kerris stood at the front, arms folded, scarred jaw tight. Anya leaned against a pillar, gaze alert despite exhaustion. Mateo sat with his elbows on his knees, staring at his hands like he didn't trust them anymore.
Elias waited near a wall display, posture rigid.
Jalen paced.
Not erratically.
Contained.
Like he was holding something inside himself that wanted out.
When he saw me, his steps slowed.
"You good?" he asked.
"I'm upright."
He nodded. That seemed to satisfy him.
Mateo looked up. "They asked his surname."
Not a question.
I swallowed. "Yes."
"Me too," he said. "Blood type. Next of kin.
Genetic markers."
Anya's jaw tightened.
Elias didn't look up. "Debrief in one minute."
Kerris remained still. "We're not late."
"No," Elias replied quietly. "They are."
The doors opened without warning.
Two Wardens entered. Behind them walked a man in black — no insignia, no visible rank, but authority clung to him like shadow.
His eyes swept across us the way procurement officers scanned stock: fast, detached, evaluating.
"Unit Seventeen," he said. "You lost one."
No name.
Just subtraction.
"Yes," Kerris replied.
"Report."
Elias straightened. "Fog-based ambush.
Hostiles neutralized. One fatality post-engagement. Unit withdrew intact."
The man considered him. "Post-engagement."
"Yes."
The emphasis hurt.
Then his gaze settled on me.
"Anchor," he said.
"Yes."
"Did your presence increase unit cohesion?"
The question felt like a test.
I chose the smallest truth.
"They listened to each other."
He studied me for a moment, then nodded once.
"Unit Seventeen will be reinforced," he said.
"Immediately."
Mateo's head lifted. "Immediately?"
"Your excursion cycle continues."
Jalen's hands clenched. "With who?"
The doors opened again.
The young man from the southern district stepped inside.
Recognition struck before thought.
Same sharp cheekbones. Same faint scar near the corner of his mouth. Same way of standing that suggested restraint, not submission.
Our eyes met.
Just for a heartbeat.
Then the distance returned.
"This is your replacement," the Warden said.
"Name," the man in black ordered.
"Cael," the young man replied.
Only one name.
No surname.
Kerris studied him. "Where's your unit?"
Cael's gaze flicked to the empty space beside us.
"I lost them."
"How?" Jalen demanded.
"Surrounded," Cael said. "Two survived.
They split us."
Mateo's voice softened. "Why split survivors?"
Cael looked at him steadily. "Because survivors are assets. Assets get redistributed."
The man in black didn't correct him.
Kerris turned away. "We eat. We rearm. We redeploy."
As we walked, I felt Cael's presence beside me — steady, contained, alert.
"You remember me," he said quietly.
"Yes."
"Southern districts."
"Yes."
He nodded once. "That day was worse than this."
I glanced at him. "How?"
"Because no one knew what they were walking into."
Ahead, Jalen's shoulders tightened, like he'd heard.
And I realized something unsettling:
We were already learning how to accept this.
And that frightened me more than the creatures ever could.