THE HUNT BEGINS
555 Words
The alarms were still screaming.
Sarafina shoved the vault door shut behind her, locking all three of them — herself, Dante, and Alba — inside the dim cathedral vault beneath the Vatican.
"Who triggered the breach?" she asked.
Dante checked his watch — or rather, the device embedded under his sleeve. “Satellite scramblers just went live. That means only one thing.”
“The hunters,” Alba whispered, smile fading.
Sarafina’s heart dropped. “They’re real?”
Dante nodded. “Not just real. Funded. Armed. Global. And they’ve been waiting for the Silence code to light up again — waiting for someone to crack it open.”
“Me,” Sarafina said bitterly.
“You started the fire,” Dante said quietly. “And now they’re coming to watch you burn.”
---
Above them, in the streets of Vatican City.
Three black vans pulled up beside the Roman archives.
No markings. No tags.
Inside, men and women wore bone-white tactical gear — no names, no insignias. Their faces were masked by smooth helmets and black visors.
One of them stepped forward, clutching a steel baton.
> “Primary Sigma is confirmed alive.
Protocol Omega Lucis is greenlit.
Orders: Extract or exterminate.”
---
Back in the vault.
“We need to move,” Noemi said over the comms. “Now.”
Sarafina turned to Alba. “Can she run?”
“She’s faster than me,” Dante said, already pulling open a hidden grate behind the altar. “But she’s never been in the field.”
“She doesn’t get special treatment,” Sarafina snapped. “If she’s part of this, she fights.”
Alba smiled. “Good. I’m tired of being locked away like a secret no one wants.”
They moved.
Down narrow tunnels. Past ancient ossuaries. The path twisted and darkened. Shadows played tricks.
Then…
A flicker.
A hum.
Sarafina shoved Dante back just as the EMP grenade rolled to their feet.
It exploded in a pulse of violet light — frying the lights, cameras, comms — everything.
Darkness swallowed them whole.
Gunfire echoed next. Close. Too close.
One of the white-masked hunters dropped from a ventilation shaft above, blade drawn.
Alba moved first.
Not hesitating. Not flinching.
She slammed the hunter into the wall so hard the plaster cracked, then twisted his weapon from his hand and turned it on him — one clean shot through the helmet.
Blood misted the air.
Sarafina froze.
Not from fear — but from realization.
She wasn’t the only weapon her father had made.
---
They ran again. Wounded. Scattered. But alive.
The exit came into view — a steel hatch behind a fallen statue of Saint Michael.
Dante turned to cover them, gun drawn. “Go! I’ll hold them off!”
Sarafina grabbed Alba’s wrist and dragged her through the hatch, emerging into the open air — rooftops above the Vatican.
Rain had started again. Hard, cold, hammering.
They were out.
But they weren’t safe.
Not yet.
---
Somewhere deep in a command bunker.
A voice crackled through encrypted channels.
> “Phase One complete.
Sigma is in motion.
Prepare Phase Two: Resurrection Protocol.”
And then the screen flickered… to a man’s face.
Not Dante.
Not Lucetti.
But someone older. Colder. Still alive.
The architect of Silence.
And he was smiling.
- Writer
