The Exercise

FIRST BLOOD

[NOSTOS-7 EXPOSURE: 92 MINUTES]

The screaming had stopped thirty seconds ago.

König stood in the center of the common area, chest heaving, hands still clenched into fists. Martinez's body lay in a spreading pool of red three feet away, throat torn open. Recruit Davies crouched nearby, mouth painted crimson, pupils blown so wide his eyes looked black. The kid was smiling, fucking smiling.

It had happened so fast. One moment Davies had been standing there, complaining about being hungry. The next he was on Martinez, teeth sinking into flesh, hands tearing with inhuman strength. König had pulled him off-barely-but the damage was done.

Around him, the other operators stood frozen, watching. Not with horror, with interest. Alvarez's hand rested on her knife, fingers flexing rhythmically. Hendricks stared at the corpse with his mouth slightly open. Even Horangi's usual composure had cracked into something sharper, hungrier. Something was deeply, horrifically wrong.

The ventilation system hummed its constant wrong note, pumping in air that tasted sweet and acrid all at once, made König's skin feel too tight. His thoughts kept fragmenting, spiraling into violent imagery he couldn't control. When he looked at the other operators, his mind automatically calculated threat levels, weak points, how many he could take down before... He slammed that thought down hard, forced himself to focus.

They had been sealed in this compound ninety minutes ago for what was supposed to be a routine training exercise. Twelve KorTac operators: himself, Horangi, Nikto, and nine others. The doors had locked, communications went dead and then the air changed.

Now Martinez was dead, torn apart by one of their own. Davies was still smiling, still staring at the body like he wanted to go back for seconds.

"We need to contain him," Nikto said flatly from his position against the wall. The Russian's eyes were fixed on Davies with disturbing intensity. "Before it spreads."

Before it spreads, before what spreads? As if they all didn't feel it— the aggression building under their skin, the way violence sounded appealing, tasted good in their mouths.

König's radio crackled: "Stage Two degradation confirmed in Subject Seven. First casualty achieved. Continue observation protocol."

The clinical voice cut through the chaos of the room like a shock of cold air. They were being watched. This was intentional.

Davies lifted his head, tracking the sound, then lunged at the nearest operator.

König moved on instinct, intercepting, slamming the kid into concrete hard enough to crack bone. Davies thrashed in his grip, snapping and snarling like a rabid animal, making sounds that weren't human anymore. And the worst part, the absolute worst part, was how much König wanted to let go. Wanted to see what would happen. Wanted to join.

He dragged Davies toward the holding cells, losing seconds between steps, time skipping like a scratched recording. Behind him, he heard wet dragging sounds. Someone was moving Martinez's body. Someone was already feeding... and König realized with horrible clarity: they only had a certain amount of time before they were all like this.

THE LAST RATIONAL THOUGHT

[NOSTOS-7 EXPOSURE: 203 MINUTES]

König woke up not remembering falling asleep. He was in a maintenance corridor, back pressed against cold concrete, hands coated in blood that had already started to dry. Not his blood, he knew that instinctively. His blood was still inside him, for now. This belonged to someone else. He didn't remember whose.

The last clear memory he had was... when? An hour ago? Two? Time had stopped meaning anything. Consciousness flickered like a damaged light, and the darkness between those flickers was full of things he had done.

His radio was somehow still functioning, crackling with that clinical voice: "Subject One, Stage Three degradation. Cognitive function severely compromised. Periodic lucidity continuing but duration decreasing. Estimated time to Stage Four: eighteen minutes."

Eighteen minutes.

König tried to move, found his body responding sluggishly. Everything hurt, muscles strained, bones aching, hands torn and bloodied. The physical cost of three hours under NOSTOS-7's influence. His heart was racing, had been racing for hours, stress hormones flooding his system until his body started breaking down.

Eighteen minutes until his heart gave out or his mind went completely dark. Whichever came first.

He forced himself upright, using the wall for support. His reflection caught in a cracked mirror nearby— a massive figure in torn tactical gear, hood still in place but soaked with blood and worse. Eyes almost entirely black, veins visible and darkened under flushed skin. He looked like something that should be put down. He felt like something that should be put down.

The compound was quiet now. The hunting had ended, the pack had fed. Through the pack awareness that hummed in his skull, König could sense them: Horangi in the eastern wing, sated and resting. Nikto moving methodically through corridors, still hunting but controlled, calculating. Davies somewhere below, making sounds that weren't quite human. Alvarez and Hendricks together, always together now.

How many were left? Six? Seven? He couldn't remember who they had lost. Couldn't remember who he had lost during the blackouts. Couldn't remember what he had done to them.

The observation room was close. He could feel it, some last shred of tactical awareness pushing through the fog. Third floor. Command center behind it. Maybe they had a counter-agent maybe answers. Maybe just more people to kill. That last thought came with anticipation, and König's stomach lurched with self-disgust. He started moving, each step focused. The lucidity wouldn't last. Already he could feel it slipping, could feel the hunger rising again in his chest. Eighteen minutes until Stage Four, but he would be lucky to get five minutes of clarity. His hands were shaking violently. Not from fear, but from the effort of not hunting, not feeding, not giving in to every instinct screaming in his rewired brain.

The door to the observation room was ahead. Sealed. He would need to breach it, but his thoughts kept sliding away from planning, from tactics, into simpler calculations. Break door. Kill observers. Feed.

Nein.

König slammed his fist into the wall, using pain to anchor himself. He was KorTac. Colonel. He had operators under his command, had responsibilities. Had—

The thought fragmented before completion. He faced the door, gathering what remained of his focus. Behind it were answers, maybe salvation. Probably just more violence. Behind him, something moved in the darkness. One of the pack, drawn by sound or scent or that awareness they all shared now. Hunting him. or joining him. König's hand moved to his sidearm, found the holster empty. Had he used it? Lost it? Given it away during one of the blackouts? It didn't matter. He had his hands, his strength, his teeth. He had eighteen minutes. It would have to be enough.

THE HUNT

[NOSTOS-7 EXPOSURE: 139 MINUTES]

König had stopped counting the bodies. The emergency lighting strobed red through the corridors, turning the compound into a slaughterhouse rendered in shades of crimson. The smell was everywhere— copper and torn meat and something sweeter. It coated his throat, made his mouth water, made his hands tremble and shake with the need to tear in soft flesh.

He had pressed himself into an alcove, forcing his massive frame still when every instinct screamed to move, to hunt. Something dragged past his position—wet, heavy, accompanied by breathing that sounded more like laughter. Alvarez or Hendricks. Maybe both, they were hunting in pairs now. Pack dynamics.

Two hours. Just over two hours since NOSTOS-7 had started flooding the ventilation. Since they had been sealed in and transformed into something else, something hungry and desperate and utterly animal.

König's mind kept skipping, losing time. He had been in the common area, then suddenly three corridors away with blood on his hands he didn't remember spilling. Lucid moments were getting shorter, the gaps between them wider and darker and filled with tthoughts of violence.

He could feel the others throughout the compound like a pressure in his skull, pack awareness. Horangi was close, too close, moving through the upper levels with predatory precision. Davies was everywhere and nowhere, shrieking and laughing, the cadence of his insanity echoing into the darkness. Nikto was... watching, following. As though he were calculating, waiting for something specific.

König's radio crackled: "Subject One maintaining Stage Two despite prolonged exposure. Cognitive function deteriorating but still present. Fascinating. Increasing level of chemical saturation"

Subject One. Was that him? Still mostly human, still fighting? It didn't feel like it. Not for much longer.

His hands were shaking badly now, clawed and aching. His pupils had swallowed his irises. Blood ran from his nose in a steady stream, neurological stress manifesting physically. Every breath tasted like violence.

Movement at the corridor's end. Horangi stepped into the light, moving wrong—too fluid, too low. His uniform was soaked with fresh blood. When he smiled, his teeth were painted red.

"I can smell you, Colonel," Horangi purred, voice sing-song and fractured. "Why are you hiding? We should be hunting together, Aish."

König's finger moved to the trigger on his sidearm, but the weapon felt wrong in his hands. Distant. His body wanted to use teeth and nails, wanted to feel flesh tear under his fingers and the warmth of life spilling over his skin.

"You're gone," König managed to choke out, barely able to keep the newly formed instincts at bay.

"Gone?" Horangi laughed. "I'm found. Can you feel it? How good it feels, Aish?" He breathed deep. "No rules, no control. Just hunger and hunt and..." He lunged.

König fired on instinct, three rounds center mass. Horangi went down hard... and then got back up. He wasn't even slowed, just pissed.

...König ran.

Behind him, Horangi howled. The sound echoed through the compound, was answered from multiple directions. They were converging, the pack responding to the call. He rounded a corner and nearly collided with Nikto. The Russian caught his arm, spoke quickly: "Command center. Third floor. They watch from there. Maybe counteragent. Maybe just targets." His grip tightened. "Move now. In five minutes we will forget why we should not kill you."

Nikto released him and stepped back toward the pursuit.

König ran, thoughts fragmenting with every step. The corridor stretched wrong, the red lighting making everything look like the inside of a throat. He could hear them behind him, ahead of him, everywhere.

A door. He threw it open, stumbled through, slammed it shut.

An empty observation room. Monitors showing night-vision feeds of the compound. Showing what they'd become.

On the screens: Horangi hunting. Alvarez and Hendricks feeding. Davies breaking himself against walls again and again.

And on the main monitor: [NOSTOS-7 TRIAL LOG - Stage Four Imminent - Subject One: 43 Minutes to Complete Degradation]

Forty-three minutes until he was completely gone.

Something slammed into the door, started prying at the edges. They had followed him. König looked at his reflection in the darkened screens— eyes black, blood streaming from his nose, hands shaking violently... and smiling.

THE SEALED DOOR

[NOSTOS-7 EXPOSURE: 57 MINUTES]

The entrance wouldn't open, door wouldn't budge.

König watched Alvarez work the control panel for the fifth time, her movements becoming more agitated, more desperate. The hydraulic locks remained engaged. The door stayed sealed. They were trapped in this compound with no communication, no oversight, and something very wrong in the air.

Fifty-seven minutes since lockdown. Fifty-seven minutes since the ventilation system had kicked on with that off-pitch hum that made König's instincts scream. Since then, the temperature had climbed. Everyone's pupils were dilated, tempers were running hot.

Horangi paced the perimeter like a caged animal, restless energy radiating off him in waves. The Korean operator's usual calculated control was fraying at the edges. König could see it in the too-sharp movements, the way his hands kept flexing toward weapons. Across the room, Hendricks and Davies were in each other's faces over something trivial, voices escalating.

"Sitzen. Sit down," König ordered, and his voice came out harder than intended, aggressive even. Both operators flinched, and something in König's chest tightened with satisfaction at their fear response. He dug his fingers into his palms. That wasn't him. Couldn't be him. Except it felt like him.

"It won't open because they don't want it to open," Alvarez said suddenly, turning from the door. Her eyes were too wide, pupils massive. "We're an experiment. Rats in a maze."

"Explain," König ground out.

"The air." Nikto's voice cut through from his corner, flat and fractured. "Airborne agent. Neurological impact. We are being poisoned." His eyes swept the room. "Some of us are degrading faster than others."

The room went silent.

König's mind raced, trying to deny it, but the evidence was everywhere. The aggression, the hunger gnawing at his insides despite eating two hours ago. The way his thoughts kept spiraling into violence, into calculating which operators he could take down, how he could establish dominance—

Nein. That wasn't him.

"That's insane," Hendricks said, but his voice shook.

"Is it?" Nikto tilted his head. "You don't feel it? The rage? The hunger? The way you want to hurt something, how good it would feel?"

Davies swayed on his feet, breathing hard. "I'm starving," he whispered. "Like I've never eaten. Like I could..." His eyes passed over the entirety of the room, lingering on each operator with predatory focus. "Like I could eat everything, anything."

"Recruit, sit down—"

Davies lunged at Park. No warning, no technique, pure animal violence. He crossed the space impossibly fast and tackled the smaller operator to the ground, hands going for the throat, teeth snapping.

König moved, hauling Davies off and throwing him hard into the wall. The kid hit the concrete with a sickening crack, slid down. Blood streaming from his nose.. and then got back up.

"Hold him!" König roared, and Horangi and Hendricks grabbed Davies, wrestled him down. The kid was fighting with an almost inhuman strength, and the two operators were too rough, too eager, fists coming down harder than necessary.

Everyone else just watched, intensely and unnervingly interested.

The intercom crackled: "Observation Protocol Alpha is in effect. Subject Seven showing accelerated degradation. All subjects responding within parameters."

They were test subjects. This was deliberate, and whatever was in the air was stripping away their humanity piece by piece.

König's hand found his sidearm automatically. Twelve rounds. Eleven other operators.

A wail echoed through the holding cells, something unnervingly nonhuman. Every head in the room turned toward the sound, perfectly synchronized, some sort of burgeoning pack behavior.

They were running out of time.