𝕌𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕥𝕝𝕖𝕕 [𝕂. ℍ𝕖𝕚𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕓𝕖𝕣𝕘]

Chapter 11

After the day grey smoke lifted into the sky from the village, it never seemed to disappear. The smell of burning lingered in the air like a heavy fog. The screams echoing out in the distance had finally stopped days ago. Y/n noticed more Lycans were stalking around outside the factory than ever before.

Her fingers ran along the chain-link fence as she walked from one end to the other. The reservoir contrasted the farms. The houses lining the lake appeared completely intact aside from some mild flooding. No smoke and no screams, only an eerie stillness like time had frozen still.

Once again, y/n had failed to protect anyone before she lifted a finger to try. She pressed her forehead against the fence and looked out into the horizon. Y/n wondered if anyone had survived. If they did, she hoped they'd find a way out.

Y/n hadn't taken a step beyond the factory's outer gates in weeks. The Lycans approached close enough to touch and refused to back down. They all snarled at y/n with an animalistic hunger in their eyes. Had there not been a fence standing between them, she was certain they would have lunged at her.

The sound of grass shuffling alerted y/n to someone walking behind her. The voice gave it away immediately. "It's too fucking cold out here."

Y/n agreed with him. The frigid late autumn wind made her face numb, and it was only going to get over from here. She turned to Heisenberg, pressing her back against the fence. "Do you think it's going to snow soon?"

Heisenberg lit up a cigar. "Probably."

"Are you leaving again?" Y/n asked.

Heisenberg had forbidden her from accompanying him to the stone church. He seemed serious when he said Miranda would kill her if she acted up again. It was a scary thought. Heisenberg was the toughest person she knew. She wondered how anyone could be strong enough to make him back down.

Ever since then, she had begun working in the factory without Heisenberg. She didn't like being alone. Sometimes a Soldat or two would escape their restraints. Sometimes machinery broke down and she never knew how to fix them. It was also terribly lonely. Y/n wondered how Heisenberg managed to do it for decades. Each time he returned, she wanted nothing more than to listen to him talk. Of course, she'd never make it too obvious.

Sometimes, she'd think to ask about the baby, hoping something in Miranda's plan went wrong. She couldn't find it or her sources were wrong—anything. Instead, Y/n swallowed her questions. She worried about getting too invested in the child. She has failed so many lives so far, one more would shatter her.

"I'm out here to get you, actually." Heisenberg held onto her hand and pulled her to him. He placed his palm on the center of her back and nudged her towards the factory. "Get inside. I'm going to wrangle a few Lycans for today's tests."

As he requested, Y/n made her way down to the workshops. She headed down a corridor, headed towards an intersection, and paused. Ahead of her, she heard lazy slow steps paired with inhuman groans. Y/n reached for her utility belt and held onto her pistol's grip, keeping it concealed. A shadow crawled along the wall. Her eyes followed the stray Soldat as it walked from the hall to the left and passed through the intersection to the right hall.

Heisenberg had only so much control over his undead soldiers. He couldn't stop any stray Soldats from attacking her while she worked alone. In case of emergency, he permitted y/n to execute on sight. To this day, she never fired her gun. It wasn't necessary in most cases, she learned.

The basic Soldat was slow and unintelligible. She grew numb to the fear of seeing them walk toward her. Y/n learned that she could easily lead them out of the room so long as she kept her distance and avoid their drills.