Solflare: The Painter's Secret-Chapter 99: Perimeter Breach

Lieutenant Prince stood a few meters from the bunker’s entrance, rigidly. The cold predawn light etched sharp lines across his face as he fixed his gaze on something in the distance where the creature’s shrieks had erupted from.

Amidst the terror hanging in the air, Leon’s attention snagged on the half-eaten nutrient bar still clutched in the lieutenant’s arm when his vision finally cleared.

His tongue darted out and wet his cracked lips. Transfixed, he watched as the arm holding the bar shifted slightly, the wrapper crinkling.

As suddenly as the chaos had come, the heavy flapping and roaring vanished, leaving a ringing silence that felt more threatening than the noise.

Prince turned his head and locked eyes with Leon in the dim light. He extended the bar held between his fingers. "Come for it," he said in a low voice. "You look like hunger."

In a blur, Leon dashed forward in a clumsy movement and snatched the bar. His trembling fingers brought the bar to his mouth and tore the plastic with his teeth.

A deep growl erupted from his stomach, causing him to devour the bar in three bites.

A steadying warmth began to push back the emptiness coiled in his gut as he swallowed the first knob.

His limbs felt like stone tied to his body, his eyelids gritty with dust as he swayed on his feet.

After two minutes of standing and calming his breath, he slid down the wall beside the bunker’s entrance, then tried forcing himself to sleep.

But in that instant, a piercing shriek screamed from his wristband, jolting him awake. His heart hammered hard against his ribs as he scrambled upright.

[PERIMETER BREACH]

[BIOSIGNATURE: UNKNOWN]

[PROXIMITY: 3 METERS]

The glowing red text burned into his vision as his head snapped up. He followed the direction indicated and landed on the lieutenant, whose body was now coiled into a ready stance.

Slam! Bam! Crush!

The sounds of impact came from outside, indicating something was trying to get in.

"Don’t move," Prince said. He didn’t glance back.

"Since the door is locked, nothing can enter, right?" Leon asked, his voice thin and full of hopeful confusion.

Prince’s head turned slowly and glanced sharply at Leon. "Don’t ask silly questions."

The noises from outside the bunker intensified. Loud, grinding crunches mixed with the sound of stone pulverizing and falling heavily.

The air flowing about in the bunker thickened with tension and pressed down on Leon’s lungs.

Dust swirled down from the ceiling in a fine, relentless rain. It stung Leon’s eyes and clung to the sweat now beading on his brow, then matted his messy hair.

Above them, the bunker’s single lightbulb stuttered and flared, throwing the room into a disorienting rhythm of shadows.

BOOM!

A cracking sound vibrated through the floor and snaked through Leon’s bones.

His gaze snapped to the door and froze in an instant. Beside him, the lieutenant had also frozen.

A hairline split appeared in the center of the reinforced metal surface. Then another branched and spread with terrifying speed, crawling across the door like branching veins of lightning.

A strange, sickly green light began to seep through the growing cracks, illuminating the dust motes like a leaking wound.

The light widened, followed by a roar that shook the bunker.

GRRRRRRRR!

The atmosphere grew dense; every intake of breath for Leon was now a labor. Other high-pitched sounds stormed into the room the moment the roar faded.

CRACK!

A gap appeared in the ceiling directly above where Lieutenant Prince stood. In a blink, chunks of stone and jagged parts of the bunker dropped straight down.

"Watch out!" Leon screamed, his arms stretching out in an instinctive gesture.

Prince didn’t look up. He moved. His body darted to the left with impossible speed. The spear-like tip of the metal whistled through the space where his head had been, then embedded itself in the floor.

THUNK!

"How?" Leon’s eyes widened, his mind reeling with all possibilities as he stared at the lieutenant, who had already regained his balance.

Prince stood there with a relieved expression, then locked his gaze back to the door, which was now bulging inward.

As he turned, the stuttering light caught his eyes. For a second, Leon saw it too, the faint glistening glow that was deep within the lieutenant’s irises.

Leon’s blood ran cold as a realization struck him like lightning.

Without paying attention, the door gave up, blasting inward. At that moment, the space ahead of them remained like a ragged tear in the world.

First, smoke and poisonous gases flew inward.

Whooooosh!

Then hordes of lesser beasts, and creatures with many legs and clicking mandibles, scrambled over each other.

"Move!" Prince’s voice cracked through the chitinous horde like a whip.

Before Leon could flinch, Prince spun and lunged toward the wall of the bunker. He drove the heel of his boot into a stone layer with brutal force.

Slam! Slam! Slam!

On the third impact, the wall crumbled, revealing the dark, gaping maw of a narrow drainage pipe.

"Go! Now!" Prince turned and barked in a raw voice, then raised a hand toward the oncoming horde.

The air around his fingers split and warped, followed by a chaotic blast that sent chaotic energy radiating toward the creatures.

Survival instincts stirred in Leon, causing his mind to remain dull to his actions. He shoved himself forward toward the pipe and dove his head into the opening.

The pipe was tight and smelled of decay and stagnant water, but Leon squeezed through, the damp lining snaking against his skin as he forced himself to move on elbows and knees.

Behind him, the sound of the bunker got swallowed as he pushed deeper into the absolute blackness of the pipe.

The roar of the creatures also faded when he crawled out and tumbled onto loose gravel.

Thick darkness engulfed him as he tried to figure out where he stood. "Did I just escape death?" he thought, his heart beating in a relentless sequence against his ribs.

The bones in his legs trembled violently as he tried to stand after failing to see through the darkness.

When his foot met solid and uneven ground, a thin pale light caught his attention from far in the distance.

"Where is Lieutenant Prince?" thoughts screamed in his mind when the silence clumped heavily at his skull.

A wet grinding sound like bones being pulverized blasted from the direction of the bunker, just at the left side of the hole.

Through smoke and dust, Leon saw Lieutenant Prince standing in the main chamber, which was now a charnel house. Around him, in a rough ring, were twisted dark shapes of the creatures, unmoving.

Black ichor clung to him like a second skin, dripping from his hair and soaking his black suit.