THE RAVEN | avengers

[85]

ACT 1
Chapter 85
The End

Raven's eyes shot open, her chest heaving with desperate, gasping breaths. Air flooded her lungs, but it felt foreign, like her body wasn't meant to be breathing anymore. She shouldn't be here. She knew that. She should be dead.

She struggled to sit up, her limbs shaking. The pain from the dagger wounds still lingered, but it was muted, like a dull echo of the torment she had endured. The alarms blared through Kronos, the red lights flashing, casting eerie shadows across the blood-stained cement where she had lain. She looked down at the pool of her own blood, her mind racing, struggling to make sense of it all.

Her hands trembled as she reached up, unzipping her jacket and lifting her shirt. Her skin, once smooth, now bore the angry scars of Dimitri's blade. They were closed, but they hadn't healed like so many other injuries she had endured over the years. No rapid recovery, no fading marks. Just scars. Permanent reminders of what had happened.

How was she still alive?

The thought pounded through her head, but there was no time to dwell. The facility was in chaos. The alarms made her head spin, the sound bouncing off the walls, relentless and blaring. She scrambled to her feet, ignoring the weakness in her legs as she began to run, her boots pounding against the floor, her breath ragged.

Bodies littered the hallways, soldiers lying in pools of blood, their lifeless eyes staring at nothing. She couldn't stop to think about them, couldn't even process how many were dead. Her only thought was to get to her room, to figure out what had happened. But as she neared her door, something made her freeze.

Caelan's door was open.

Her breath caught in her throat. A cold wave of dread swept over her as she stared at the cracked door, the flashing lights casting shifting shadows inside. Slowly, she stepped towards it, her heart pounding louder than the alarms.

"No..." she whispered, her voice barely audible.

She pushed the door open fully, and her world stopped.

There, on the floor, Caelan lay unmoving. His body was twisted, blood pooling beneath him. His skin was pale, lifeless. The sight of him hit her like a punch to the gut, knocking the air from her lungs. Her knees buckled as she stumbled forward, falling to her knees beside him.

"Caelan..." her voice cracked, her hands hovering over his body, trembling. She didn't know what to do. She couldn't breathe. Her mind screamed at her to fix it, to wake him up, but all she could do was sit there, paralyzed by the sight of him. She reached out, her fingers brushing against his cold skin. Tears blurred her vision, burning her eyes as she shook him gently.
"Cae... please..." she whispered, her voice barely holding together.

But there was no response. No flutter of his eyelids. Nothing.

Her heart clenched painfully in her chest, her throat tightening as the tears spilled over, falling onto his blood-soaked clothes.

For a moment, the world around her faded. The alarms, the flashing lights, the chaos — it all disappeared. All that remained was the crushing weight of loss, the realization that Caelan was gone, and there was nothing she could do to change it.

She had survived the impossible, but he hadn't.

"I'm sorry," she whispered shakily, her voice barely above a breath as she stood up from Caelan's lifeless body. Her tears blurred her vision, but she wiped them away, clenching her jaw. There was no time for weakness now. She had to focus.

Raven sprinted into her room, her mind whirling as she hastily dressed in her gear. Every movement was automatic, instinctual. Her hands flew to her weapons — guns, knives, daggers. Everything she could strap to herself. She was armed to the teeth, her heart pounding in her chest as she tightened her gear.