“This is 641’s last reported location.”

Li Jiayun zooms with her binoculars. The hail has turned to a drizzle, obscuring their vision past a hundred meters. The fog is a deterrent for travel but it’s not nearly as rough as hiking up and down the Nordak Mountains, trudging through a blizzard and risking falling into a crevasse.

The worn-out signpost indicates they’ve arrived at Huru Village. It looks no different than any other ghost town – destroyed homes, abandoned wagons, toppled greenhouses. Some miles down and they’d reach the village center, population zero. The four soldiers had never gone down here.

“Keep driving,” Yang Rong commands. He too is keeping close watch, though his posture is much more relaxed in comparison to Li Jiayun’s. The latter is too vigilant, perhaps nervous, like she’s trying too hard to compensate for the lack of manpower.

“Which direction?” Yoo Seok asks.

“Any. Closer to the houses.”

“Understood.”

The atmosphere inside the First Unit vehicle is strained. It’s been too quiet since Hannes’ death. The man was always the most talkative – too talkative, in fact, that every boring expedition would be filled with jokes, riddles and stories. No one brings this up.

“Will they still be here?” Jae voices his thoughts. “Colonel Yang, it’s been a week since we’ve informed that we were coming. They might have already left.”

“Then so be it,” Yang Rong replies. He reaches over to grab a med kit and starts patching the abrasion on his right arm. It’s one of the more serious ones among ten other cuts. He wears his batters and bruises like a second skin. No army man hasn’t sustained an injury, but the colonel bears so many and he bears them so handsomely – not showy, not rugged. “Our mission is retrieval, not recovery.”

“You simply dislike Adams,” Yoo Seok speaks up again.

“Vice-versa,” he replies. “He dislikes me. I’ve heard he is jealous of my handsomeness, is that right? I would be, too, if someone were as perfect as I.”

Li Jiayun contributes to boost his self-esteem. “Yes!”

Jae helps him as well. “The colonel is one of the most handsome people I know!”

Yoo Seok completely derails the compliments. “There aren’t very many people you know, Jae.”

“…” Jae droops down. “But the colonel is really good-looking. I think… um, the only competition would be Noah. I was very surprised by his appearance. Colonel Yang, are you still trying to look for him?”

The vehicle turns silent. Li Jiayun busies herself with scouting. Yoo Seok continues driving with his attention on the road. Yang Rong tears off a piece of gauze and absentmindedly sticks it onto his skin. He grimaces – he had forgotten to sanitize it beforehand. He lets out a sigh, tears it off again and applies ointment.

Yang Rong’s eyes narrow. “When was I looking for him?”

Jae is a step late to notice the awkwardness. “Was I wrong? We went around the entire mountain…”

Yoo Seok turns to him and mouths, “Idiot.”

“…” Jae doesn’t know what he did wrong.

“Colonel,” Li Jiayun asks hesitantly, “do you need some rest? Your complexion isn’t looking good.”

“I’ll rest when we head to a base,” he replies.

It’s true he isn’t well-rested. His reflexes, for one, have been sluggish. On a typical day, there’s little chance of him being mobbed by a medium-level anomaly. A close call it was when he dodged a blow to his face, only to get sliced on the arm. He’d certainly been much moodier, too, and as Yoo Seok likes to tell him, “obviously agitated.”

“Colonel Yang, is your fatigue a sign of infection?” Yoo Seok asks.

“There is an infinitesimal chance.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask about your injuries—”

“There is nothing wrong.” Yang Rong waves him off dismissively. “I’m just too pent up and need to jack myself off, alright?”

“Ahh! Seok-hyung, there is an anomaly!” Jae yells out. “Big bird, big bird!”

The vehicle brakes abruptly, sending Li Jiayun and Yang Rong lurching over their seats. If not for the safety harness, they’d collide with the aluminum board and subsequently get a concussion. Both of them brace their hands on the inner roof.

“Fuck,” Yang Rong curses aloud. “Don’t stop. We’re not engaging it.”

“No,” Yoo Seok replies. “It is dead.”

The young man turns on the windshield wiper. The four soldiers study the anomaly through the veil of glass. A large bird is dead against a fence, its body limp and its wings extended out. Bullet holes scatter along the mid-plexus up to its neck and head.

Li Jiayun scrunches up her face. “641? What a brutal scene. There must be at least two whole clips fired into it.”

Yang Rong examines it critically. “Messy job. Over forty rounds scattered and only two on the wing and one on its left eye. If 641’s not trying to make a statement, then they are rather disappointing.”

“They aren’t exactly known for their… combat skills. I believe only Sergeant Adams has had any kind of formal training and even then, the time he spends on the field is negligible.”

“Which is why, frankly, I am surprised a group of three blockheads managed to pull it off.”

“—There is another possibility,” Yoo Seok ponders. “It wasn’t them.”

Yang Rong nods knowingly. “However, it is highly likely they were involved. I recognize the shell casings. There is no other unit assigned to this area.”

Incendiary bullets are for military-use only. Since the radiation, the bulk of funding has gone to developing weapons and ammo specially to combat the anomalies beyond the walls. A few have certain components added on – namely, poisons or inhibitors. Yang Rong recognizes the dark-colored, green tinted shells. Those were issued recently, though they don’t look to be of use against hard-shelled creatures.

He is the first to leave the vehicle and approach the corpse. Minus the green bullets embedded inside it, there is another, less conspicuous one deflected onto the ground. Silver shell, black tip. Yang Rong lifts the creature’s wing upward. The base of it is so wrecked it could snap apart. Yoo Seok’s suspicions were correct – it really wasn’t 641 who had taken the kill.

“Still warm,” he mutters. “Thirty minutes.”

And those silver bullets… they were the first prototypes disposed only to Unit 1 for guinea pig testing. Yang Rong scours the surroundings, feeling an indescribably wave of… something akin to relief. Then uneasiness takes over when he sees a small patch of blood a few feet over. It’s made pink and faded from the rain, trailing from the fence and condensing into small, hardly visible droplets past the house over.

The petrichor dulls his scent but Yang Rong recognizes it: a little sweet, but so faint. Outside the tundra, his nose has regained its sensitivity. He vaguely attributes the pheromones to a certain silver-haired person, though this time, it’s not covered by antiseptic nor the coconut shower gel the previous shelter carried.

Sue him if he smears the blood with his fingertips, brings it a tad closer to his face and gives a tentative sniff. Light vanilla, crystal mint, edelweiss and a note of snowdrop. Certainly, it fits Noah’s temperament. However, there is another scent in the vicinity – musky, thick, definitely an alpha’s.

Yang Rong gets up from where he’s crouched by the ground with a heavy expression. Around him, the three other soldiers are staring at him oddly.

He raises an eyebrow. “Is there something on my face?”

A few seconds later, Yoo Seok is the first to tell him. “Are you a pervert?”

“…Why?”

“You were sniffing blood with a strange contorted expression on your face.” Yoo Seok looks him up and down. “That in itself is a cause for concern, Colonel Yang.”

Jae looks nervous. “I-Is it a stage of mutation?”

Li Jiayun is also concerned. “Experimental trials have conclusive evidence that victims who are subjected to heavy radiation see increased aggression, agitation and bloodthirst. In section 4.7 of the ‘Soldier’s Task Manual,’ a common trait is—"

“Can we not have this conversation right now?” Yang Rong wipes the blood on his pants and walks away. He’d be damned if these fools ruin his mood. “Li Jiayun and Jae, split up to the right. Yoo Seok and Hann—” A pause, and he corrects himself immediately. “Yoo Seok, follow me left.”

The two smaller soldiers scurry away after an affirmation. Yang Rong examines the soil-covered ground. The blood stops here, right at the backyard of a small, brown shack.

“Yoo Seok, how far can a person go in thirty minutes?”

“Two miles.”

“What if he’s injured?”

“Half a mile if alone, but much further if in a vehicle or with 641.”

Yang Rong runs the possibilities through his mind. He filters out a vehicle because there are no wheel tracks here and if there were, the blood wouldn’t be so dispersed on the ground. He also really dislikes the thought of Noah being with 641, the bunch of sex-crazed animals who put even Hannes’ dirty mind to shame.

“Colonel Yang,” Yoo Seok interrupts his thoughts. “Your bag.”

In the time Yoo Seok had wandered off a little southward, he had pulled a black backpack out of a pile of hay. The colonel takes it. Heavier than when he first had it. He’ll check the contents later, but for now… The scent of blood is so strong. It’s not just the bag flecked in red. The direction it comes from is a small manhole.

Yang Rong brushes away the pile of wheat in front of him, kicks apart the chains holding the door – they’re brittle, easily detached – and heads in immediately.

The inside is suffocating and the sight is… even worse.

Yang Rong didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t the corpses of children. It’s so dark in here but he can still make out deformed shapes, ripped out bones and then by the walls, pieces of glass and furniture. The children’s faces are ghastly and desperate, like they’d been trying to escape before they were slaughtered.

The colonel’s expression is unfazed as he walks further. It’s the professionalism and, dare say, cold-heartedness that’s merited him his status. He’d seen numerous gruesome battles and suffered through thousands more, and so he doesn’t remain paralyzed from shock nor does he so much as bats an eye.

It is the low murmurs that hold his attention.

“You have turned back,” a boyish voice says from the room inside. Chinese. Unfamiliar voice. Sepia-toned room. “I wonder if…”

No response from the person he’s speaking to, and the boy speaks again. “Are you…conscious? Noah, your—”

Yang Rong enters.

His footsteps are so quiet, but he’s been noticed – Yang Rong is positive – and it’s only the apprehension that doesn’t allow either side to say a word. A young teenage boy is sitting against the wall, one leg propped up and the other extended outward. He turns to Yang Rong, his gaze sharp and hostile. A peculiar way to look at him – those of the slums, after all, normally hold reverence to the black-clad soldiers who protect the globe.

Noah sits next to him, his body turned to the side and his posture not indicating anything off. The young man focuses his attention on stitching. Calmly, methodically, the needle enters and exits and then his fingers, slender and white, make short work of the wound on the teenager’s leg.

There’s certain allure in his performance and how carefully, gracefully, he plays it, as if he weren’t sitting in a bloodbath, a contender for one of the most gory crime scenes the colonel had ever witnessed.

Piles of corpses. An infected human completely mutilated from ankle up. The insides of him pouring out of his bulged stomach. His face, if it can still be considered, smashed to unrecognition. Mutated bird, Yang Rong figures from the torn beak and feathers grown out of his skin. There are claw marks that rip out his neck and torso. Noah’s hands… are too clean. They’ve been washed.

Colonel Yang walks closer, takes out his rifle and points it at his head.

“Noah.”

Noah turns to him.

And then Yang Rong is paralyzed.

The young man’s eyes are glowing gold and blue. His pupils are sharply vertical – so it wasn’t his imagination, Yang Rong thinks, the few times he’d seen them shrink and contract in the nighttime. He’d always known Noah was different, but not different like this – beastlike, bloodthirsty, devoid. Noah is also dowsed in blood and Yang Rong is too aware that the young man is a clean freak.

How unfamiliar it is to see him deranged and gone. His soft, silver hair is drenched.

How uncomfortable.

Noah doesn’t reply.

The young boy next to him gets up from the ground and limps forward to the colonel, blocking Noah’s body with his own. He says coldly, “Don’t point your gun at Noah.”

Yang Rong stares at him and he stares back, unwavering. There are footsteps arriving inside now – probably Yoo Seok, who had opted to remain by the hallway earlier. The man pauses at the scene, examines the backdrop, then sets his gaze to the colonel, and then to the young man he intends to point his muzzle at.

“Your second impression’s gone as terribly as the first,” Yoo Seok says. “Colonel Yang, as per usual, you are bad with words.”

Yang Rong throws his weapon away. It clatters onto the wooden planks.

“I won’t hurt you.” The colonel softens his voice. “Noah, will you come with me?”