The crowd grew larger and larger, with people chanting his name, or rather because they did not know him: " That Guy " was his temporary name.
Derek blinked. For a moment, it felt like the world had hit the pause button just to throw him a parade. It wasn't just gratitude in their eyes—it was hope.
And something clicked.
So this is what it feels like to be the hero.
Not a soldier. Not a survivor. Not a statistic on a mission board.
But a symbol.
No wonder every comic book cape kept coming back for more.
A kid on someone's shoulders pointed at him, eyes wide.
"That guy saved everyone!"
Another voice joined in. Then another.
"That guy!"
"That guy!"
"That Guy!"
It shouldn't have meant anything. It was vague, generic and forgettable.
But somehow, it echoed louder than his real name ever had.
Derek stood still, absorbing it all. The cheers. The eyes. The warmth.
And behind all of that—Caster.
The guy who used to laugh while kicking him down in the rain.
Now? He couldn't meet Derek's gaze. He looked... small. Not physically, but in the way people shrink when the world's turned upside down and left them behind.
Derek didn't gloat.
He just gave Caster the same look he gave everyone else. A calm, unreadable nod.
Then he turned and walked away.
Let them chant. Let them guess. Let the legend build itself.
If "That Guy" was what they needed right now, then "That Guy" he'd be.
Until the next fight.
Until the world burned again.
Until someone else needed saving.
Because in this broken city, with monsters crawling from the shadows and death waiting around every corner…
That Guy might be all they had.
He stepped through the reinforced door of the outpost's central building, leaving the noise behind like it belonged to another life. Inside, the hallway was quiet, dimly lit by flickering LED strips along the ceiling. Soldiers passed him with respectful nods. A medic saluted him with a grin and whispered, " Thank you, sir "
The room they gave him was nothing special. Cinderblock walls, the faint scent of disinfectant and scorched metal lingering in the air, a single dim bulb overhead that buzzed every few seconds like it had better places to be. The cot was thin, the blanket scratchy, and the sink had a slow drip that echoed faintly in the quiet. But after days surrounded by screams, gunfire, and the stench of blood and monster rot, it felt like luxury.
He shut the door behind him with a quiet thud and leaned against it. His shoulders sank an inch lower, as if the act alone drained tension from muscles that hadn't had a break in days.
The silence wasn't hollow. It was full in a strange way—like the room itself was holding its breath. There were no alarms, no distant explosions, no monstrous screeches bouncing off ruined buildings. Just the soft hum of the facility's backup generator and the drip of that cursed faucet.
He moved slowly, like someone whose bones had forgotten how to operate without adrenaline. The exo-suit came off in sections—heavy, grime-coated plates clicking free one by one. The chest piece hissed as the seals broke, releasing a puff of warm, recycled air laced with sweat and old ozone. He set it down beside the wall, careful not to let it clatter.
When he sat on the edge of the cot, it creaked under his weight. The springs were uneven, pressing into his thighs through the thin mattress, but he didn't care. Every muscle in his body throbbed with dull, background pain. Not enough to cripple him, just enough to remind him that he was still alive and had pushed too far for too long.
His hands trembled slightly when he ran his fingers through his hair. They were still stained with dried blood—some his, most not. The grit and grime embedded in his nails told their own story. He didn't need to look in a mirror to know what he'd see. Sunken eyes. Gaunt cheeks. Someone who hadn't slept properly since the sky cracked open two weeks ago.
He stared at the wall in front of him, not seeing it. His vision blurred at the edges. Fatigue clawed at his mind, but the System had trained him to expect the next ping, the next urgent notification, the next hostile signature blinking red on a tactical overlay. Every time things went quiet, it had only ever been a trap or a buildup to something worse.
But the System stayed silent.
For once, it didn't ask anything of him.
No new objectives.
No incoming enemies or Recalibrating data feeds.
Just a single line of blue text glowing faintly in the corner of his vision:
[Temporary Safe Zone Established. Threat Level: Minimal.]
He almost didn't trust it. Part of him expected a countdown to start ticking any second. But it didn't.
He lowered his head, elbows on his knees, and took a long breath in through his nose. The air tasted stale, filtered too many times through machines that barely passed inspection, but it wasn't filled with smoke or blood or fear.
His pulse was still too fast.
His thoughts were still circling, unanchored.
But for now… they were circling in a room with a door that closed and walls that held.
And that was enough.
His eyes slipped shut. Not intentionally. Not with a purpose. Just... finally.
And the world faded.
She was smiling.
That smile—equal parts crooked and sunshine—came before anything else. Before the sound of the wind through cherry blossoms. Before the memory of warmth. Before her name even clicked into place in his exhausted mind.
Lila.
Her hair was caught in the breeze, strands dancing like silk threads caught in morning light. She wore that faded leather jacket he'd once patched up with duct tape and hope, and boots she insisted made her taller even if they didn't. Her eyes were locked on his—mischief and wonder and stubbornness all wrapped into two storm-gray irises.
"You always look so serious," she teased, nudging his chest with her knuckles. "Lighten up, Derek."
God, he could almost hear the exact pitch of her voice. The rasp in it when she was tired. The lilt when she was mocking him. The softness when she wasn't trying to be brave.
He reached out to touch her cheek. Just to confirm she was real.
And for a heartbeat, she was.
Her skin was warm. Her breath fogged slightly in the cool air between them. She leaned into his palm like she belonged there, like she hadn't been—
The dream warped.
A flicker. A pulse. Like a skipped frame in a corrupted file.
The cherry blossoms turned black.
The sky dimmed.
And she was no longer smiling.
Her eyes, once filled with that infuriating spark, were glassy now. Hollow. Her jacket torn, stained with something darker than blood. Half her face was missing. The rest twisted in a soundless scream, frozen mid-breath.
Derek stood over her.
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Not in the ragged fatigues she used to call "hobo chic," but in the pristine white of his combat exo-suit—pristine except for the crimson handprints staining his gauntlets.
His knees hit the ground with a metallic thud.
He didn't remember falling, but there he was. Kneeling. The reinforced armour creaked as he bowed over her body like some kind of knight in a post-apocalyptic fairy tale gone wrong.
The System pinged something in the background, but it was distant. Unimportant.
All he could hear was the silence around her. Not the silence of safety, but the kind that followed devastation.
She had died believing he would save her.
And he had failed.
Again.
He lifted her in his arms. Her limbs dangled like she was a puppet with its strings cut. The wound where her stomach used to be was jagged and cruel—something had torn through her, not with hunger, but hate.
He tried to say her name.
Nothing came out.
The battlefield around him was burning. Screams echoed in the distance, swallowed by the roar of monsters and the crumbling of steel structures. The sky was split open, red lightning tearing across clouds like the world was bleeding out.
And there he was—That Guy—just another symbol standing in the wreckage of a promise he couldn't keep.
Derek jolted awake, breath caught in his throat.
His body tensed, fingers gripping the edge of the cot like it might disappear if he let go.
The room was still there. Buzzing bulb. Dripping sink. Four cinderblock walls doing their best impression of a sanctuary.
He wiped a hand down his face. It came away damp.
The System remained silent.
[Threat Level: Minimal.]
But in his mind, the threat had never left.
He could still see her face. The before and the after.
And no amount of temporary safety could save him from that.
Author's Note: Secret Mass release completed, another update, coming up tomorrow.