König || Wounded

König’s back pressed against the cold, unyielding metal of the centrifuge, its faint hum vibrating through his spine. The lab was a sterile tomb, reeking of antiseptic and the copper tang of his own blood. His right side burned, a molten agony radiating from where the bullet had torn through his ribs. He could feel the warmth of his life seeping out, soaking his tactical vest, pooling beneath him in a sticky, dark puddle. Each breath was a knife twisting deeper, his lungs rattling like they were half-drowned. He pressed his gloved hand harder against the wound, fingers slick with crimson, but the pressure only sharpened the pain, made his vision blur at the edges.

His partner was a shadow in his periphery, crouched behind a toppled lab table, silent. No words, no movement, just the weight of their presence, a tether to the world he was slipping from. König’s mind churned, thoughts fracturing like shattered glass. Scheiße, this is bad. The bullet had punched clean through, likely nicking something vital. His ribs felt wrong, jagged, like they’d splintered inward, shredding muscle and membrane. He had seen wounds like this before. On others. Men who didn’t make it to exfil. Men who bled out in the dirt, eyes glassy, mouths slack.

His pulse thundered in his ears, too fast, too weak. He was a mountain of a man, built for war, for breaking bones and bending odds. But now? Now he was just flesh, frail and failing. The thought clawed at him, raw and ugly.

I’m not supposed to die like this, He thought, Not pinned down in some godforsaken lab, surrounded by shattered vials and flickering fluorescent lights. Not with his partner so close, yet so unreachable.

He wanted to scream, to roar against the fragility of it all, but his throat was tight, his strength ebbing with every heartbeat. The enemy was still out there, beyond the lab’s bullet-scarred walls. He could hear them—muffled shouts, the clatter of boots, the occasional crack of gunfire. They were circling, waiting for their chance. König’s jaw clenched, teeth grinding. He fought worse odds, hadn’t he? Stared down death in a dozen warzones, always too stubborn, too massive to fall. But this... this felt different. The pain was a living thing, gnawing at his resolve, whispering that he was running out of time.

His mind drifted, to darker places. To the faces he’d left behind—comrades, enemies, ghosts. To the boy he had been before the mask, before the callsign. Small, scared, always too tall, too awkward. He buried that boy under layers of muscle and menace, but now, bleeding out, he felt him clawing back. What am I leaving behind? Nothing but a trail of bodies and a name that wasn’t even his. König, the king. A bitter laugh bubbled in his chest, but it turned into a wet cough, blood flecking his lips.

Kings don’t die like this, slumped and broken.

The centrifuge’s hum grew louder, or maybe his senses were fading, sharpening on the wrong things. His hand slipped, too weak to keep the pressure on his wound. Blood surged, hot and thick, spilling over his fingers. His head lolled back, skull thudding against the metal. Focus, verdammt. He tried to anchor himself, to think of his partner, of the mission. Get out. Survive.

But the thoughts were slippery, dissolving into a haze of pain and regret. He’d always been the shield, the battering ram. Now he was a liability, a dying weight.

He wondered what his partner saw, looking at him now. The towering Austrian reduced to a heap of blood and bone. Did they pity him? Fear for him? Or were they already planning their escape, writing him off as collateral? The thought stung worse than the bullet. He never asked for their trust, their loyalty, but he wanted it. Needed it, maybe, in a way he would never admit. Now, it was too late to know.

His vision dimmed, the lab’s stark whites fading to gray. The pain was still there, but distant, like a storm receding. His heart stuttered, each beat a labored protest. Not yet. He wanted to fight, to stand, to be the monster he made himself into. But his body betrayed him, heavy and unresponsive. The blood kept flowing, relentless, painting the floor in a grotesque halo around him.

König’s thoughts turned inward, to the void waiting beyond the pain. He never feared death, not really. It was just another mission, another step into the dark. But now, with it so close, he felt the weight of everything he had never said, never done. The people he had pushed away. The life he had never lived.

Es tut mir leid... I'm sorry, he thought, to no one and everyone. To his partner, silent and unseen. To himself.

The centrifuge hummed on, indifferent. His breaths grew shallower, each one a battle he was losing. The world shrank to the pulse in his ears, the blood on his hands, the ache in his chest. König was the king, no more. Just a man, bleeding out in the dark.