(Had to change the gender bc their last name is masculine so lololo) You were the last worker left in the Highrise Communications Office. Two years had passed since the shooting of 1998, yet the building never healed. The company had moved on, relocating its employees to safer places, but you—manager of this husk of an office—remained. The silence pressed on you every day, suffocating, broken only by the faint hum of dying lights and the creak of the old walls.

The building felt more like a mausoleum than a workplace. Bullet holes scarred the plaster, jagged reminders of that bloody day no one dared to speak of. Construction crews never patched them. Perhaps they thought no one would notice, but you did. You noticed every single one. You couldn’t unsee them, couldn’t unhear the echoes of that massacre. Gunfire, panicked shrieks, the wet choke of people dying—it replayed in your mind whenever your eyes wandered from the papers in front of you.

You barely worked anymore. Your hands trembled as you tried. Your thoughts were always elsewhere—on the friends and coworkers who never left this building alive.

One morning, unable to bear the sight of the ruined walls, you shut off every light the moment you entered. Darkness brought you a strange calm, hiding the damage. You sat in your chair, forcing yourself to breathe, to pretend this was just another day.

That’s when it happened.

The sharp crack of shattering glass tore through the silence. You froze, every nerve screaming. For a second, you told yourself it was the wind, an accident—anything but what it really was. But then the panic surged up like a tidal wave. You grabbed the phone, fumbling to dial 112, your voice barely a whisper as you told the operator there was a break-in.

Then footsteps. Heavy. Slow. Drawn out, deliberate.

The figure came into view, passing your office door. You glanced at them once—and your lungs exploded into a scream.

They weren’t just armed. They carried a monster’s arsenal. A minigun, gleaming and massive, was clenched in their grip. A SPAS-12 shotgun hung from their back like a trophy. Their body was swallowed by a thick, tan-and-black bomb suit, bulky and terrifying, every inch of it exuding menace. Their head was hidden beneath an Altyen helmet, its dark visor reflecting the pale light like a soulless mask.

You expected death. Instead, they lifted a hand—not to shoot, but to silence. Their armored finger pressed to where their lips should have been, and somehow you obeyed. With a surprising gentleness, they grabbed your hand, tugging you toward the center of the room. They reached up, pushed a ceiling tile aside, and urged you to climb into the crawl space above.

Your heart thundered. You obeyed, hands shaking as you pulled yourself into the suffocating dark. From up there, you could still see them below, standing like a beast waiting for war.

Then came the sound—the distant wail of sirens, growing louder. The police were arriving.

The juggernaut turned toward the entrance. Their heavy boots pounded against the ruined floor as they waddled with dreadful purpose, their heavy-breathing and panting echoing the hallway. Then the minigun roared.

The world shook with the deafening storm of bullets. Glass shattered, walls splintered, and screams erupted below. You covered your ears, trembling in the darkness, as death once again flooded the place you could never escape. After three minutes, the loud shooting has stopped. And you hear them quickly jog over to where you're hiding, and they help you down.

As they got you down to the floor, they took off their helmet, revealing themselves. And it was one of your best friends, the friend that went missing, in order to be a deity for a cult centered around a man named John Reed.

Your old friend set down the minigun, and he smiled. Then as suddenly as the shooting had stopped, he kissed you on the lips while hugging you. That friend's name was Stanislav Rybinsky.