The sterile, fluorescent-lit corridor of Riverbend General Hospital felt colder than the frozen trenches of the Northern Front. For Derek Faulkner, a man who had walked through the Inferno and stared into the Eye of Hell without flinching, the silence of the hallway was more deafening than any artillery barrage. He stood like a statue of granite, his breath hitching in his chest as he waited for the words that would either salvage his soul or shatter it completely.
Standing before him was Sovereign, one of his most trusted officers, a man whose voice usually carried the weight of a mountain. But today, Sovereign’s voice was thin, trembling with a mixture of rage and profound sorrow. He held a thick dossier in his hands, the paper crinkling under the pressure of his grip.
"We… we were wro
