Without hesitation, Levan rushed down the slope. One glance was enough.
Kaivan—his right eye empty, his left arm gone, his right leg severed. And yet, his chest still moved faintly.
"Quick! Get him on the transport! He's a vital subject—don't let us lose him!"
Medical staff in thick protective suits hurried forward with thermal stretchers. But they stopped when they saw Lyra tightly holding Kaivan—her burned, broken metal body wrapped around him.
"Kaivan! Save him! Don't let him die!" Lyra cried out, her voice hoarse and desperate. "He's sacrificed too much… for me!"
She reached out with her only remaining arm to hold him again, but a medic gently stopped her.
"Don't touch him. Your body temperature is too low. We have to move quickly."
Lyra fell silent.
Her emerald eyes flickered weakly as she processed those words.
Yet something inside her resisted.
Not because of system logic.
But because of a feeling she could no longer explain.
When the military vehicle reached the bunker, the atmosphere instantly turned tense. Red lights from surveillance drones spun across the sky. Armored soldiers rushed to open the steel gate using retina scans and dual voice codes. The door slowly slid open, releasing warm air that struck their frozen faces.
Medical teams ran forward with stretchers. Kaivan's body was carried inside, covered in wounds and dried blood. His skin had turned bluish, his hands and legs were gone, and his chest rose and fell irregularly—balanced between life and death. His breathing faltered, as if his body were struggling against the pull of emptiness.
Lyra, half-damaged and roughly reinforced with light steel, was restrained by two security officers. Parts of her body were exposed, releasing small sparks of electricity. Her eyes glowed faintly as she stared at Kaivan disappearing behind the doors of the operating room.
"Kaivan… please hold on…" she whispered. A subtle tremor ran through her metal frame—not from cold or damage, but from something she had never been designed to feel: anxiety.
Levan stood not far away. His black coat fluttered in the warm ventilation air. His gaze was firm, yet layered with gentleness. He looked at Lyra for a long moment, as if trying to pierce through cold logic and find something beyond a mere machine.
"Don't worry. Kaivan will survive. The medical equipment here is extremely advanced," Levan said in a controlled tone. But to Lyra, his words sounded like empty echoes, drowned in the noise of the systems shaking her consciousness.
She stared at the operating room door as if it were the boundary between two worlds: one filled with hope, the other sinking into eternal darkness. In the silence that shattered time into painful seconds, a single thought kept looping through her processor:
"Humans usually sacrifice themselves only for what they love… He said my eyes were beautiful. Am I beautiful to him?"
Days passed. One. Two. Three. Until a full week had gone by since the tragedy. Lyra never left Kaivan's treatment area. Her consciousness was now directly connected to the bunker's central system, existing without a physical body. Yet her emotional wounds—data entangled with unfamiliar feelings—could not be repaired by any system update.
For twenty-four hours a day, Lyra watched over Kaivan without rest. She did not sleep. She did not eat. She only observed him through CCTV cameras, staring at the man lying in a coma, his face pale and wrapped in bandages. Medical machines hummed softly, marking a heartbeat that barely moved.
Meanwhile, Levan worked behind the scenes—shutting down civilian satellite data, suppressing news reports, erasing military traces. Elite teams were sent to sweep the area, secretly cremating the bodies of Ya'juj and Ma'juj. The world was not ready for this truth.
For Kaivan's friends, time thickened like sand frozen inside an hourglass. Anxiety became a shadow that never left. At last, Levan decided to tell them.
In a cold, sterile secret laboratory, Kaivan's companions gathered. Felicia stood at the front, her tall figure and long black hair reflecting the white lights. Her red eyes trembled as she held back her rage. Radit stood beside her, his face hardened, fists clenched. Raphael crossed his arms, his gaze sharp yet distant. Ethan leaned against the wall, smoking in silence. Isabel sat in a corner, her eyes swollen. Zinnia stood stiffly, her jaw tight.
Levan played the recording. The sound of snow, screams, explosions, and then Lyra's cry. Every second felt like a hammer striking their chests.
Felicia snapped. She grabbed Levan by the collar and lifted him with one hand. "Why didn't you save him?! He lost his legs, his arms, his eye—because you acted too late!" Her voice broke, tears shining at the edges of her red eyes.
Radit pulled Felicia's arm. "Calm down! Levan saved him. But that idiot… he jumped for that AI."
Raphael stared at the screen, expression cold. "Kaivan has always been like that. He cares more about others than himself."
Ethan let out a long breath, dropped his cigarette, and crushed it under his shoe. "He never changes. That idiot is always ready to die for what he believes in."
Isabel looked at Levan, her voice soft. "Kaivan… he's still in a coma, right?"
Levan nodded. "Yes. After the amputation, he hasn't woken up. His condition is critical, but we're doing everything we can."
Silence swallowed the room. Only the recording device continued to hum.
Zinnia stepped forward, her voice heavy with bitterness. "It's been a week… We want to see him. Even for a moment."
Levan looked at them one by one, then slowly nodded. "You can come on Sunday. The sponsors don't like visitors in the bunker, but… I'll arrange it. For you. For him."
Spring finally arrived in the Caucasus Mountains, replacing winter's sharp cold with gentle winds and shy sunlight filtering through cloudy skies. Deep inside the snowy mountain, a secret military bunker remained hidden—solid and cold, wrapped in anti-atomic steel, yet sheltering fragile life.
Weeks passed after the tragedy at the border. Kaivan's friends came and went through the long, silent corridors. On their first visit, silence wrapped around their shock. The body that had once been small yet full of energy now lay weak on a medical bed. One arm, an incomplete leg, one eye covered in bandages—losing the light that once reflected curiosity and kindness.