Chapter 54
Questions (3)
IAM stared at the ceiling.
Blank.
Still.
The sterile white of the infirmary light above him blurred into one long smear of nothingness. His eyes didn't blink. His lungs rose and fell slowly, as though even breathing required conscious thought now. Every part of his body ached—but it wasn't pain in the usual sense. It was distant, ghostlike. Like he wasn't fully in his body anymore. Just visiting.
His thoughts drifted and crashed against one another, forming misshapen shadows. They had no meaning, just fragments—Kon's heart, Mia's scream, the sound of bone crunching. Jas's sacrifice. Bryan's inhuman form. Black liquid.
He swallowed, and even that felt wrong. His throat was too dry. His chest too tight. Nothing in him was working properly.
He blinked slowly.
Then again.
And again.
That moment—when Hise had looked at him, eyes unreadable but firm—it played on a loop in his mind. He remembered what came before that.
IAM was frozen in shock.
He remembered Hise giving him a slow nod before turning back to his unit. "Team 456789, take him back to the Hold. Tend to his injuries. Get a detailed report. We will investigate the sites of incident. "
IAM had grabbed Hise's collar in a panic, face pale, voice shaking. "You can't… There… was a Devil! It—"
He could still feel how desperately he'd clung to that man's coat. As if by holding on, he could stop him from vanishing like the rest.
But Hise had remained calm. He simply eased IAM's hands off, slow and careful, like one might disarm a frightened child.
"Yes indeed," Hise had said, voice low and steady. "Forgive me for saying this… but we are different. I have killed many, many Devils in my time. You can trust your revenge to me."
Then, casually, as if IAM hadn't just unraveled in front of him, Hise dusted off the ruffled part of his uniform where IAM's fingers had clutched.
IAM had forgotten.
Of course. Hise wasn't like him. Hise was a Master.
A force of nature.
A storm wrapped in flesh.
IAM was nothing but a bug that had stumbled into a war of giants.
The rest was a blur. Being lifted, guided, placed gently into another truck. Someone else drove the one IAM had arrived in. He couldn't even tell who. Everything passed like a dream—no, a hallucination. A fevered delirium made of metal and silence and the lingering, unbearable stench of blood.
As the truck rumbled across the dead land, IAM barely noticed Hise watching from behind, his expression unreadable. The man's eyes stared off into the fog, toward the place IAM had fled. His words, though soft, carried weight.
"Tough times… are ahead."
Now, back at the Hold, IAM could still feel the echo of those words inside his chest.
He'd been taken straight to the health ward. The bright lights made his eyes sting, and everything smelled too clean. False. Wrong.
Althea had seen him first—her face had frozen for a moment, lips slightly parted, disbelief etched into her features. Then, in a heartbeat, she'd buried it under professionalism. Her sharp demeanor snapped back into place. The look in her eyes said everything else.
Pity. Sadness. Resignation.
She worked in silence, treating his wounds. The cuts, the bruises, the fractured rib. She didn't ask questions, didn't say much at all.
And that was worse.
Finally IAM was asked to speak, it was to ask if he felt ready to give a report. IAM had mumbled it out, disjointed, fragmented—more emotion than detail. He didn't even know if he'd made sense. His mouth moved, but his mind was still in that cave. Still hearing the wet crunch of death.
Kepa came to see him.
Ryan too.
Hen… was nowhere to be found.
IAM was told the Hold was under lockdown. All squads on missions had been recalled. No one knew why.
They asked IAM if he knew anything.
He had been instructed not to speak. To avoid spreading panic.
So he just shook his head.
Ryan's eyes narrowed. The tension in his jaw said more than his silence ever could.
Time passed slowly.
The only way to track it was the analog clock bolted to the wall. It looked exactly like the ones on Earth. A cruel reminder. Of the hell he was in now.
Eventually, Hise returned.
So did the rest of his squad.
All alive.
No new names for the death logs.
But what they brought with them wasn't hope.
It was the "leftovers."
Bodies. Or pieces of them. Collected from the various sites. Whatever remained.
They had slayed the devil.
IAM had overheard the brief summary. Other teams had been decimated by sheer numbers of devilborns, there was far less spawnlings that expected and far more devilborns. But 241723? They had faced a Devil.
IAM quickly realised, that this was a planned attack... On purpose... With a purpose...maybe it was by Claw.
There was no anger in him.
Just fear. And disgust.
Anyone capable of orchestrating something like that… was terrifying. To drag a Devil through the Deadline alive and position it for ambush?
That was no accident.
But the purpose was completely unknown to IAM.
He remembered standing in front of the furnace. The roaring flame devouring what remained.
In his hand was an arm. Cold. Stiff.
It had been Mia's.
He held it for too long.
His fingers clenched so tightly the bones in his knuckles hurt. The skin of her hand still wore the marks of that final struggle, clawed and bloodied and desperate.
If only…
If only he had reached back.
If only he had moved.
But he hadn't.
Because if he had, he wouldn't be standing here holding her arm.
He'd be burning beside it.
And that truth was carved into his bones.
IAM tossed the limb into the fire. The flames flared as it caught, crackling hungrily.
The light danced wildly—but none of it reached his face.
There was no mourning.
No tears.
Just the solemn act of burial by fire.
In this world, burying the dead in the Deadline was considered deeply offensive. It was the last resort for anyone to bury someone under the brown sand.
He stayed in the infirmary afterward, not because he needed to—but because Althea allowed it.
She let him sit in that void.
Hours passed. Maybe days.
He sat upright in his bed, staring blankly at the window. There wasn't much to see—just the faint grey fog.
But he wasn't looking at that.
He was somewhere else. Inward. Drowning.
The door slid open behind him.
A presence entered the room.
IAM didn't turn.
He felt the weight of someone's gaze. Calm. Familiar. Steady.
Raj.
He stepped forward, finally having a moment free from repairs and emergencies.
"Hey, IAM," he said softly.
There was a pause.
A stillness.
"Have you ever questioned it?"
But from how dry his throat had become. How long it had been since he'd spoken with any emotion at all.
Raj blinked.
"…What?"
His voice confused .