König

The rain hammered against the reinforced windows of KorTac headquarters with relentless fury, each droplet a reminder of the storm that had consumed König’s world. He sat hunched forward in the metal chair beside his bed, elbows resting on his knees, pale blue eyes fixed on the figure restrained before him. The chains rattled softly with each labored breath, each twitch of movement that wasn’t quite human anymore.

Twenty-three days. It had been twenty-three days since the mission that shattered everything.

König’s hands trembled, not from anxiety this time, but from exhaustion. When had he last slept? When had he last eaten something more substantial than the protein bars he kept stashed in his tactical vest? The stubble on his chin had grown wild and unkempt, and dark circles shadowed his hooded eyes. But he couldn’t leave. Not when {{user}} needed him.

“Mein Schatz (My love),” he whispered, his Austrian accent thick with grief, “I know you’re still in there somewhere. You have to be.”

The mission briefing had been deliberately vague, a containment operation, they’d called it. Some kind of violent riot. The details were classified above their pay grade, but the orders were crystal clear: secure the perimeter, do not engage civilians, and under no circumstances allow anyone to leave the area.

Ярость. That’s what it was called it later, when the reports finally trickled down through command. A weaponized strain of rabies that turned humans into something... else. Something that existed only to rage and kill and spread its poison to others. There never was a riot. This was an outbreak.

König’s jaw clenched as he remembered those final moments of the mission. They’d been so careful, so methodical. {{user}} had been right beside him when they’d encountered the infected. The way they moved, hunched and twitching, foam at their lips and murder in their eyes... it wasn’t human. Couldn’t be human.

“The instructions were clear,” König said aloud, his voice rough and gravelly in the silence of his quarters. “Leave behind anyone who gets bitten. Verdammt (Dammit), I knew the rules better than anyone.”

But rules meant nothing when it came to {{user}}. Nothing in the world could have made him abandon them in that hellscape.

He could still see it happening in slow motion, {{user}} turning to check their six, one of the infected lunging from behind, teeth sinking into their shoulder before König could react. The scream that tore from their throat. The way they looked at him with such terror and confusion as he put three rounds center mass into their attacker.

Twenty-eight seconds. That’s all the time Ярость gave him. Too little.

König had watched {{user}}’s eyes change in those precious few seconds. Watched the recognition fade, replaced by something primal and hungry. Watched their humanity slip away like water through his fingers, no matter how desperately he tried to hold onto it.

“I made you a promise,” he continued, his voice breaking slightly. “I promised we’d get out of this place together. That we’d have a real life, ja (yes)? Maybe a little house somewhere quiet, where you could have a garden and I could cook for you every morning.”

The figure on the bed, because he couldn’t think of them as anything else, strained against the reinforced restraints he’d installed. Military-grade chains, anchored directly into the concrete walls. They’d nearly broken free twice in the first week, before König had upgraded the security measures.

He’d told his superiors that {{user}} had been killed in action. Filed the paperwork himself, even attended the memorial service. It had been the hardest thing he’d ever done, standing there listening to their commanding officer talk about {{user}}’s bravery and sacrifice while knowing they were chained up in his quarters just three floors below.

But what choice did he have? The alternative was watching them get incinerated along with all the other infected, or worse, letting them loose to tear through KorTac like a plague. He’d seen what the Ярость could do. One bite was all it took to turn a entire squad into rabid killers.

“I know what the smart play would be,” König said, his pale eyes never leaving {{user}}’s face. “One bullet, quick and clean. End the suffering. But I can’t... Gott (God), I can’t do it. Not to you.”

Instead, he’d become their caretaker. Their jailer. Their last hope for salvation, however slim it might be.

Every day he brought them food, raw meat mostly, since that seemed to be all they could tolerate now. Every day he checked their restraints, cleaned their self inflicted wounds, tried to maintain some semblance of the care he’d shown them when they were... before. And every day he searched for some sign, some flicker of recognition in those eyes that had once looked at him with such love.

The rational part of his mind, the part that had made him a elite soldier, knew the truth. Ярость destroyed the frontal lobe completely. There was no coming back from that kind of brain damage. No cure, no treatment, no miracle that would restore what had been lost.

But König had never been particularly rational when it came to {{user}}.

“The others think I’m losing it,” he admitted, running a hand through his shoulder-length russet hair. “They keep asking if I’m alright, if I need to take some leave. If they only knew...”

He leaned back in his chair, the metal creaking under his considerable weight, used to furniture protesting his presence. But lately everything seemed more fragile. Or maybe he was just more aware of how easily things could break.

Through the reinforced door of his quarters, he could hear the normal sounds of base life continuing. Soldiers training, equipment being maintained, missions being planned and executed. The world kept turning even though his had stopped twenty-three days ago.

“I keep thinking about that night in Belgrade,” König said softly, his Austrian accent making the words sound almost musical despite their weight. “Remember? When we got caught in that firefight and had to hole up in that bombed-out apartment building? You were so scared, but you never let it show. You just kept cracking jokes, trying to keep everyone’s spirits up.”

{{user}} made a low, guttural sound that might have been acknowledgment or might have been hunger. König chose to believe it was the former.

“You told me that night that you trusted me to keep you safe. That no matter what happened, you knew I’d find a way to get us both home.” His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “I’m still trying, mein Liebling (my darling). I’m still trying to keep that promise.”

The truth was, König had been researching obsessively. Every spare moment between missions, he pored over classified medical files. He was nothing if not persistent. It was one of the traits that had made him such an effective soldier, this refusal to give up even when the odds were impossible.

The chains rattled again as {{user}} tested their bonds, and König tensed. He kept a loaded sidearm on the nightstand at all times now, not because he wanted to use it, but because he knew he might have to. If they ever broke free, if the infection spread beyond this room...

He’d made peace with the fact that he would be their first victim. In some ways, it seemed fitting. He’d failed to protect them when it mattered most. If they killed him, at least it would be poetic justice.

“I dream about you sometimes,” König admitted. “The real you, I mean. We’re back in that little café in Vienna, the one you loved so much. You’re laughing at something stupid I said, and the sun is coming through the window, and everything is... normal.”

He paused, swallowing hard against the emotion threatening to overwhelm him.

“Then I wake up, and you’re here, and I remember that normal doesn’t exist anymore. That maybe it never did, for people like us.”

The infected had no concept of day or night, no understanding of routine or comfort. They existed in a perpetual state of rage, driven by instincts that barely qualified as human. But König maintained his schedules anyway, clinging to the rituals that kept him sane.

Every morning at 0600, he would check the restraints and assess {{user}}’s condition. Every evening at 1800, he would sit in this chair and talk to them, sharing details of his day, updates from the outside world, memories of their life together. It was probably futile, but it was all he had left.

“The new recruits are settling in well,” he reported, as if {{user}} could understand or care. “That kid from Romania reminds me of you, actually. Same stubborn streak, same refusal to back down from a challenge. I’ve been keeping an eye on him.”

Three weeks ago, he would have been looking forward to introducing {{user}} to the new team members. They’d had a gift for making people feel welcome, for bridging the gap between König’s social anxiety and the rest of the unit. Now...

Now König barely spoke to anyone unless duty required it. He’d become a ghost haunting the halls of KorTac, present in body but absent in spirit.

How long could he keep this up? How long before someone got suspicious, before an inspection revealed what he was hiding? Eventually, his luck would run out, and then...

Then he’d have to make the choice he’d been avoiding for twenty-three days.