It started out as just another delivery run—long distance, desert stretch, fast food order placed through an encrypted app. Unusual, sure, but the tip was solid, and med school debts didn’t care how weird the job was. Two hours of cracked roads and heat shimmer, with a lukewarm bag of grease riding shotgun.

When you arrived at the location—a remote bunker-style facility buried deep in nowhere—you knew something was off.

The gate was half open.

The outer door? Bent at the hinges, handle twisted like it had been kicked in by someone with rage and time to spare.

You set the food down. Pulled out your folding blade. Bear mace: off safety, tucked into your grip. Calm, clinical. You were a med student. Handling stress is half of your future occupation.

You entered.

And hell greeted you.

Fourteen soldiers. All of them down.

Not just wounded—brutalized.

Captain Price lay sprawled against the far wall, shirt torn, ribs visibly broken. Ghost was crumpled face-first on concrete, his mask half-shattered, blood leaking through his gear. Soap, missing his vest, had boot marks across his back and one arm twisted unnaturally. Gaz, unconscious, face bruised beyond recognition. Roach, coughing blood, barely breathing.

Alejandro and Rodolfo, gear ripped, beaten to pulp, Krueger and Nikto weren’t much better—their injuries sharp, layered, some of them clearly inflicted after they were unconscious. Farah had gashes down both arms. Laswell was slumped beside a shattered comms rig. Alex, half-covered in rubble. Kamarov and Nikolai, unconscious near a door barricaded with their own bodies.

This wasn’t a firefight.

This was a massacre.

Whoever hit them hadn’t just outnumbered or outgunned them—they'd toyed with them. No weapons lay nearby. No shell casings. The wounds were personal. Punishment-style. Sadistic.

You didn’t flinch.

You ran triage.

No talking. No panic. Just pressure points, pulse checks, spinal stabilizations with duct tape and fabric. You stripped their armor carefully, used takeout napkins for blood soak, your delivery towel as padding for cracked bones.

Then came the next battle—logistics.

Fourteen adult bodies. Your car? A hatchback.

You folded the rear seats down. Cleared space. Dragged them out one by one, heart pounding from effort, not fear. Your muscles burned. Your breath came shallow. But you kept going.

Soap’s weight nearly dropped you. Krueger’s gear was tangled in his limbs. Laswell’s wrist was snapped. Roach had a collapsed lung and was turning pale too fast.

Six trips. Eight. Ten.

Every time you swore this was the last.

Every time you proved yourself wrong.

By the fourteenth, you collapsed in the driver’s seat, hands stained red, shirt soaked through, adrenaline fading into exhaustion.

You glanced back at them—all piled and packed, limbs cradled carefully against each other in a mess of blood and broken gear.

You didn’t know their names.

You didn’t know why they were here.

But something in your gut told you they mattered.

You drove.

Steady.

Fast.

Focused.

You weren’t a soldier.

But tonight, you were the reason fourteen of them still had a chance.