The Man They Flayed Alive

Three years. Ive spent three long, stifling years inside this fallout shelterThe Citadel.

I havent seen a single Xeno-beast, and I wouldn't know what radiation looked like if it hit me in the face. My life is a repetitive cycle of eating, sleeping, and existing in a state of enforced luxury that feels more like a high-end nursing home than a survival bunker.

Its not that I havent tried to do my part. Ive begged to join the surface scavengers, to actually earn my keep. But every time I opened my mouth, the Director shut me down. His refusal was always the same: absolute, immovable, and shrouded in that creepy, paternalistic concern.

He told me that my only job was to stay happy. He claimed that as long as I was "joyful," the monsters within a hundred-mile radius wouldn't dare approach. That was my "great contribution." He even warned me that if I so much as scraped a knee, the entire Citadel would pay the price.

So, I became a golden prisoner. I stayed in my climate-controlled suite, killing time with the only thing they allowed me: video games.

Until the day the Strike Team came back.

A manBriggs, the Directors sonburst into my room, his face a mask of gore and fury. He didnt say a word before he grabbed my console and slammed it into the floor. The screen shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.

His eyes were bloodshot, screaming at me through a throat raw from howling. He told me they were out there bleeding, that AJs insides had been torn out in front of him. That "Six" was gonehalf his head bitten off by a Ravager. Fifteen men died on that run.

He pointed a shaking, grease-stained finger at me and demanded to know why I got to sit in the AC, eating steak and playing games, while his brothers were being fed to the meat grinder.

"GAME OVER" flashed across the screen in a mocking, jagged red.

I groaned, tossing the controller onto the velvet sofa. That was the seventh time tonight. This new expansion boss was tuned to be impossible; it wasn't even fun anymore, just punishing.

"Stress levels are up 3.7%. Heart rate at 105. I strongly suggest you terminate high-intensity entertainment immediately."

The voice was cool and clinical. Dr. Naomi Foster stood in the doorway, tapping a stylus against a tablet that displayed my biometrics in real-time. Even in the middle of a literal apocalypse, she kept her white lab coat pressed and her expression perfectly neutral.

"Im fine, Naomi. I was one hit away from clearing it," I muttered, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice.

She ignored me, walking over to scan my wrist with a handheld sensor. "Director Killians orders are explicit. Your mood must remain within the 'Optimal Joy' bracket. Any factor contributing to negative emotional variance must be eliminated."

She reached for the power cable of the console.

"Wait! Don't!" I shielded the machine like it was a living thing. "I promise, the next run is the one. When I win, my mood will skyrocket. Dopamine hit, right?"

Naomi paused, her eyes narrowing behind her glasses as she weighed my desperation against her protocols.

Just then, a rich, savory aroma wafted through the door.

"Hey there, kiddo. Hungry? Look what Saul managed to whip up for you."

Old Man Saul, the head of the mess hall, shuffled in with a silver thermal container. He was all smiles, his face a roadmap of deep-set wrinkles. When he popped the lid, the room was suddenly filled with the scent of slow-roasted brisket and fresh herbsreal food.

In a world where most people killed for a sleeve of stale crackers, this meal was a king's ransom.

"Saul, youre spoiling me again," I said, though my eyes were already glued to the plate.

"Hey, you deserve it! If it weren't for you, my hydroponic garden wouldve succumbed to the blight months ago," Saul chuckled, patting my shoulder. "Eat up! Happy belly, happy heart. And if youre happy, we all get to sleep a little sounder tonight."

Naomi looked at Saul, then at me, and finally pulled her hand away from the power cord. She logged something on her tablet. "Protein and fat intake will assist in dopamine regulation. Permitted. But I'm checking your glucose in thirty minutes."

I dug in, the warmth of the food chasing away the residual frustration of the game. Saul and Naomi watched me from either sideone like a doting grandfather, the other like a scientist observing a prized specimen.

This was my life. I was the Citadels most precious resource, pampered and protected with a single, bizarre mission: Stay happy.

Because I was the "Sanctifier." They told me that as long as I remained content, an invisible, intangible power within me projected a barrier that kept the radiation and the nightmares at bay.

I finished the last bite, letting out a satisfied breath. I was reaching for the controller again, ready for a rematch, when a piercing, rhythmic shriek tore through the silence of the bunker.

It wasn't the red alert for a breach. it was the heavy, grinding groan of the main blast doors opening.

Sauls smile vanished. Naomis grip tightened on her tablet.

Briggs and his team were back.

The sound of metal on metal echoed up the shafts, heavy and ominous. The atmosphere in my suite curdled instantly. Sauls face went pale, and Naomi instinctively checked the lock on her tablet.

The scent hit us firstnot the sterile air of the bunker, but the metallic tang of blood and the acrid stench of spent gunpowder. Then came the boots. Heavy, frantic, and followed by the low, guttural moans of men in agony.

I had just picked up the controller when my doora door that usually hummed open with a soft beepwas kicked off its hinges.

CRACK.

The frame splintered, and the door slammed against the wall. Briggs stood there, a vision from a nightmare. He was coated in a thick layer of dark blood and soot. His tactical vest was shredded, and his left arm hung at a useless, nauseating angle.

His eyes were bloodshot, rimmed with a terrifying, manic grief. They darted from the empty dinner plate to the controller in my hand. His gaze felt like a physical weight, something heavy and sharp enough to draw blood.

"Captain..." Saul started, his voice trembling.

Briggs didn't hear him. He marched into the room, leaving a trail of wet, crimson footprints on my white carpet. He walked straight to the TV, and before I could even blink, he ripped the cables from the wall. He hoisted the console high above his head and brought it down against the floor with a sickening crunch.

Internal components shattered. Plastic shards flew like shrapnel.

"What the hell are you doing?!" I yelled, jumping up from the sofa. That was the only piece of my old life I had left.

"What am I doing?" Briggs turned, his voice a low, vibrating growl that erupted into a roar. He shoved a finger into my chest. "Im out there in the dirt! I watched AJ get disemboweled by a crawler! I watched Six get his head crushed like a grape! We lost fifteen men today!"

He was vibrating with rage, spit flying from his lips. "And you? You sit here in the cool air, eating real meat, playing your fucking games? Tell me... how is that fair?"

"Briggs, back off!" Naomi stepped between us, her voice sharp. She held up her tablet like a shield. "You know the protocol! His emotional stability dictates the integrity of the Citadels field! Youre endangering every soul in this bunker!"

"To hell with your protocols!" Briggs shoved her aside. She stumbled against the wall, her tablet clattering to the floor. "Im tired of hearing about 'importance.' My brothers are dead! And for what? To protect this... this leech?"

Saul tried to intervene, his voice breaking. "Captain, please, Jude didn't choose this, he"

"Shut up, old man!" Briggs didn't even look at him. He grabbed the collar of my shirt and hauled me off my feet. He was pure, raw muscle fueled by adrenaline and spite. I couldn't breathe; my toes barely brushed the floor.

His face, smeared with the lifeblood of his friends, was inches from mine. The smell of death on him was overwhelming.

"You think losing your toy is bad? You think Im ruining your 'vibe'?" He let out a twisted, jagged laugh and began dragging me toward the door. "Come on. Im going to show you what the world actually looks like. Im going to show you exactly what people are paying for your 'good mood.'"

My heels scraped uselessly against the cold metal floor. Briggss grip was like an iron vice. I was a passenger in my own kidnapping.

The corridor outside was lined with peoplesurvivors, technicians, the remaining soldiers. They had gathered to welcome their heroes home, but now they stood in a heavy, suffocating silence, watching me with eyes that had turned cold and predatory.

"Look at him! Everyone, look at our 'Chosen One'!" Briggss voice boomed, echoing through the narrow hall. "The great Sanctifier! Our precious little secret!"

He threw me toward the entrance of the medical bay.

Inside, it was a butcher shop. The smell of bleach couldn't mask the copper of the blood. A soldier was screaming as a medic tried to tourniquet a stump where his leg used to be. Another man lay on a cot, his chest crushed, a ventilator wheezing a useless, rhythmic sigh.

Near the back, a row of bodies lay under stained white sheets.

My stomach did a violent somersault. Id seen gore in games, but this was visceral. It was the smell of voided bowels and the sight of yellow fat clinging to torn muscle.

"See that?" Briggs hissed in my ear. "The one on the left? Thats Miller. He got half his torso taken out trying to scavenge the specific brand of canned peaches you like. And that small one under the sheet? Thats Six. He was nineteen. Before we left, he told me he wanted to see youjust once. He wanted to see what 'hope' looked like. Well, here you are."

The crowd shifted. The pity and confusion I usually saw in their eyes had curdled into a dark, infectious resentment.

"Why him?" a man with a missing arm rasped. "Why do we die out there while he rots in luxury?"

"Parasite!" someone spat.

"Throw him out!"

The anger was spreading like a wildfire in a dry forest.

"Stop this! All of you!" Naomi finally pushed through the throng. Her face was deathly pale. She looked at her shattered tablet, then at the monitor on the wall. A red line was spiking into a jagged mountain range. "The sensors are screaming! The radiation levels outside the perimeter are climbing! Youre killing us all!"

She looked toward the end of the hall, toward the observation deck. I followed her gaze.

Director Killian stood there in his crisp uniform, his face unreadable. He didn't move. He didn't call for the guards. He watched his son incite a lynch mob against his most "valuable asset" and did absolutely nothing.

His silence was a death sentence.

Saul rushed forward, trying to shield me with his frail body. "You can't do this! If the field drops, were all dead! Director, say something!"

"Get out of the way, you old fossil!" Briggs kicked Saul in the stomach. The old man gasped, crumpling into a ball on the floor.

"Saul!" I screamed, trying to reach him, but Briggs caught me by the throat, pinning me against the wall.

"You still care about others?" Briggs leaned in, his voice a lethal whisper meant only for me. "Cowardly science and old-man sentimentality don't mean a damn thing here. Today, Im going to expose the lie."

I looked at Saul on the floor. I looked at Naomi, held back by the crowd. Finally, I looked up at Killian, who remained as cold as a statue.

A bone-deep chill spread from my heart to my fingertips.

In that moment, I felt the Citadel shudder. A low, vibrating humso subtle I thought I imagined itechoed in my ears.

Briggs wasn't finished. He dragged me to the center of the common area and raised a hand to silence the crowd. He pulled a serrated hunting knife from his belt. The blade caught the overhead LEDs, gleaming with a cruel, cold light.

"You want to know what makes him so special?" Briggs laughed, pressing the tip of the blade against my cheek. "Im going to open him up. Lets see if our 'Sanctifier' is made of divinity... or if hes just leaking the same pathetic blood as the rest of us."

The cold steel bit into my skin. The room went dead silent.

"Briggs, stop!" Naomis voice was a frantic shriek. "The alarms are going off! The external radiation is off the charts! Youre triggering a collapse!"

Briggs didn't even blink. He grinned at the crowd, a predator basking in the spotlight.

"Do you hear that? The same old ghost stories," he shouted. "We survive out there with steel and lead, not with 'vibes' and graphs!"

He twisted his wrist. The blade sliced into my cheek.

The pain was a white-hot spike. I let out a choked cry as warm blood traced a path down my jaw, dripping onto the sterile floor.

But he was just getting started. He kicked my legs out from under me and pinned me face-down. His knee was a mountain in the small of my back. Then, he began to cut.

It wasn't a stab. It wasn't a slash. It was a slow, methodical, agonizingly precise flaying. He traced the lines of my shoulders, peeling back the skin with the practiced hand of someone who had dressed a thousand kills.

I heard Naomis hysterical sobbing. I heard the dull thuds of Saul being kicked as he tried to crawl toward me. And I heard the crowdthe terrifying, rhythmic chanting of people who had found a scapegoat for their misery.

In a gap between the waves of agony, I managed to turn my head. I looked past the boots and the blood toward the high walkway. Killian was still there. He wasn't angry. He wasn't horrified. He was merely... observing.

The realization was colder than the knife. He wasn't just allowing this; he had planned it. I was no longer useful as a mascot, so I would serve as a sacrifice to vent the colonys rage.

Inside me, something shifted.

That "inner sun" they always talked aboutthat warm, pulsing core of energy that had always felt like a soft summer afternoonbegan to flicker. In the face of this absolute betrayal, it didn't just dim. It curdled. The light turned black. The warmth turned to sub-zero ice.

Like a star collapsing into a black hole, my "Sanctity" died.

The world changed. I could "feel" the invisible dome over the Citadel melting away like wax. I could "feel" the things outsidethe ancient, hungry, irradiated malicenoticing the hole. They were like sharks catching a scent of blood in the water.

By the time Briggs finished his grisly work, I couldn't even feel the physical pain anymore. I was a hollow shell of raw nerves and cold void.

"See?" Briggs hoisted my bloodied, ruined form up for the crowd to see. "Look at your god! He bleeds. He screams. Hes nothing!"

The crowd roared, a sound of primal, fearful triumph.

"Throw him out!" Briggs commanded.

Two soldiers grabbed my arms and dragged me toward the airlock. I left a thick, smeared trail of red across the floor of the only home Id ever known.

The heavy gears of the blast door groaned. They tossed me out like a piece of spoiled meat into the grey, ash-choked wasteland.

The doors hissed shut behind me.

I lay in the dirt, a heap of flayed muscle and broken spirit. Above me, on the ramparts, Briggs appeared. He looked down at me, laughing, his voice carrying over the dead plains.

"See? The 'Sanctifier' is gone, and the sky hasn't fallen! It was all a"

His laugh was cut short by a sound that didn't come from a human throat. It was a siren, but not the bunker's. It was the sound of the world itself screaming.