Aftermath

12:30 — Old Lipent University Rooftop—

A medical stretcher rolled slowly across the ruined battlefield, kicking up small clouds of dust with each movement.

Seth's body lay on it, motionless and bandaged, entirely covered in dried sweat, blood, and traces of burned energy.

He was being transported to the lowest part of the building.
His face was pale, almost translucent in the midday light now filtering through the clouds.

Clean bandages covered the worst wounds on his head and torso.
He was surrounded by distant voices and cold lights.

It was a team of paramedics moving with silent efficiency.

One of them was checking his vital signs on a portable monitor, another was adjusting the stretcher supports, and a short-haired woman was carefully cleaning a cut on Seth's arm.

Click.

They connected him to a nasal respirator, a thin tube that curved into his nostrils. A soft, rhythmic hiss joined the hum of the stretcher.

"Vital signs stabilizing," said the paramedic at the monitor, his voice calm and clear. "Low blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, but within manageable ranges. Recheck everything before moving him."

Beep... beep... beep...

A heart rate monitor turned on, and as a needle pierced his arm, the stabilizing fluid began to flow slowly into his body.

"Stabilizing fluid administered," she noted on a tablet. "His Rem energy levels... remain irregular. They seem... fluctuating. As if he had a huge spike and then a crash. Nothing like I've seen before."

The paramedic nodded, her eyes scanning Seth's body with professional concern.
"The important thing now is that he's stable. They'll take care of the rest at the hospital."

The ambulance doors closed, and it pulled away.

The interior was small, clean, and lit by cold white LED lights. Seth lay at the center, connected to machines that flashed and whispered in the dim light.

The paramedics settled into their seats. One in front of the screens, the other next to Seth, checking his bandages. The driver, separated by a transparent partition, nodded.

"Ready."

VROOOM.

A low roar, almost a whispered growl, came from the ambulance's engine.

They drove out of the building's parking structure, ascending gently toward the deserted streets of the 118th floor.

The engine's sound echoed between the facades of abandoned buildings, amplified by the ghostly silence of the area.

Empty streets. Broken windows. Faded graffiti on the walls. Here and there, shadows moved in the dark interiors—hybrids, or perhaps just imagination playing with fear.

But the ambulance moved forward without stopping, its medical priority signal projecting a blue halo around it, deterring any curious creatures.

Soon they reached the ascent tunnel—a huge reinforced concrete and metal conduit that ran vertically through several floors of the city, connecting the lower areas with the middle ones. It was the only safe route upward.

The ambulance entered the tunnel's darkness, and the tunnel lights ran across its windows like electrical pulses, each lamp flashing over the interior.

White.
Seth's face was pale and calm.
Black.
Absolute darkness for an instant.
White.
The IV tubes, the bandages, the machines.
Black.
The silence between the beats of the engine.
White.
His eyelashes, motionless.
Black.

It was as if time had broken into fragments of light and shadow, each flash capturing a fraction of his forced sleep. A dream without dreams, only emptiness and profound exhaustion.

And then, suddenly, the ambulance emerged from the tunnel. In its reflection, the landscape instantly transformed, revealing once again the 117th floor, part of the upper city.

The contrast was overwhelming.

While on the 118th floor everything was decay and abandonment, here, on the 117th floor, the city breathed modern life. Huge glass and steel platforms connected gleaming skyscrapers, forming aerial bridges over which fast vehicles circulated.

Giant screens advertised products and news in bright colors. Vertical gardens hung from the facades, and the sky—a sky visible between the buildings—was pale blue, almost clear.

The ambulance took a transparent viaduct that ran along the outer edge of the floor. To the left, the upper city glowed. To the right, far below, the 118th floor and everything below it were lost in a distant gray haze, like a separate, forgotten world.

Above, the midday sun shone at its highest, its golden rays reflecting off every glass surface, creating a liquid-fire effect over the city. It seemed as if the whole world were burning in a cold, artificial beauty.

And inside the ambulance, Seth slept. He didn't dream. He didn't think. He just existed, suspended between life and oblivion, unaware that the person he had been hours earlier no longer existed.

He had crossed a threshold without knowing it. He had faced something that very few of his age had ever encountered and survived.

The scars he would carry—physical and otherwise—were already etched. His story would be different from that day forward.

—7 hours later, 6:22 p.m. Hibüra Floor 63 Medical Center 04 Lipent—

The automatic doors opened with a soft hiss.

Grant entered. He was wearing the same academy uniform, now more wrinkled and with dried dust stains on the elbows and knees.

His eyes had deep circles under them, and his expression was serious, almost grave. The air was cold, and the place exuded exhaustion.

Finally, he found a paramedic on duty—a young man with glasses—checking a tablet in front of the closed door of an observation room.

Grant stopped a few steps away, took a deep breath, and spoke.

“Excuse me... do you know which room I can find Seth Harper in?”

The paramedic looked up slowly, as if emerging from a data trance. His eyes scanned Grant, from his dirty shoes to his tired face.

"Hmm... Harper, Seth," he repeated, sliding a finger across the tablet.

"Yes. Room 504, Intensive Observation Wing. But...”He paused, his tone becoming firmer, more professional.

"They're still stabilizing him. No visitors allowed. Medical personnel only."

Grant took something out of the inside pocket of his jacket. It was a small plastic card, gray with orange edges.

I have to give it to him, Grant thought, squeezing the card between his fingers. Somehow.

A memory struck him, clear and sudden:

—Seven and a half hours ago, at the remote post on the 118th floor—

The drone's transmission showed the orange flare rising on the screen.

"Look, it's the flare! I told you I'd do it!" Wes jumped out of his chair.

Everyone watched the monitor.
The small spiral of orange smoke against the gray sky.

A sign of life.
A promise.

Grant had silently taken the empty card out of his pocket. He had held it in front of him, feeling its weight, insignificant and yet enormous.

Harper... this was my fault, he thought.

And then, Cass's voice, trembling but hopeful: "I hope he really gets out of there alive!"

"...we'll come back for you... I swear..."
He pressed the card, remembering the words he said.

Grant blinked, returning to the present, to the white hospital hallway, to the paramedic who was looking at him curiously.

He held out the card.
"Just... give him this, please. It's important."

The paramedic took the card, turning it between his fingers. He read what it said. His eyebrows rose slightly, understanding.

"All right," he said, his tone a little less cold. "I'll leave it on his bedside table for when he wakes up."

"Thank you," Grant murmured.

He said nothing else.

He turned and began walking back down the hall, his steps firm but his back a little less straight than when he entered.

He didn't know if what he had done was right.

He didn't know if Seth would want it, if he would understand it, if he would see it for what it was: an apology, an acknowledgment, a promise fulfilled.

But he had done it.
And for now, that was enough.

The paramedic went up to the fifth floor, gently opened the door to room 504, and left the orange and gray card on the small white table beside the bed. There, under the dim light of a bedside lamp, Seth Harper lay resting, breathing steadily and deeply, still immersed in a restful sleep.

February 14, 2274.

A day that began like any other and ended up changing everything.
For Seth, for Grant, for everyone.
Nothing after that would ever be normal again.