His Private Hell - Chapter 33: Chapter 33

Darcie hadn’t held a gun in three months. Her fingers didn’t tremble as she chambered the round. They never had. But the weight of it now—it was different. Not foreign. Just heavier. Like it knew what it meant to be summoned again.
Eella watched her from the cabin doorway, hair messy from sleep, black thermal wrapped around her like armor. “I liked the version of us that chopped wood and made weird soup.”
Darcie strapped the holster under her jacket. “We’ll go back to that. After we shut them down.”
Eella scoffed. “You don’t believe that.”
She didn’t. Not really.
Lux.
The name echoed in her bones.
#0047. Just one of many. If Seraphina had seeded her DNA into programmable subjects before her fall, then the nightmare was only beginning. And this time, it wasn’t just an empire Darcie had to destroy—it was a legacy. Her own.
They moved fast. The cabin left behind, the snow untouched.
By noon, they were back in the city—a city reborn from war but still haunted.
Walter met them at the old substation-turned-hub near what used to be Lazarus’s surveillance core.
He didn’t say hello.
He just handed Darcie a drive. “It’s worse than we thought.”
The screen blinked to life.
Video.
A child. No more than seven. Standing in a glass chamber, breathing slowly, evenly. Vital signs stable. Blood tests running in real-time. One screen read: Darcie-Line/Hybrid Type B. Awakening protocol: 98%.
“She’s one of them?”
Walter nodded. “We’ve confirmed seven others. Southeast Sector is crawling with Phase Twos. All children. All activated within the last month.”
Eella stepped forward. “Who’s controlling them?”
“That’s the thing.” Walter’s eyes darkened. “We don’t know. No command threads. No neural input. Nothing external.”
“They’re acting autonomously?” Darcie asked.
Walter clicked again.
This time, the footage was street-level.
A building burned in the background. Civilians screaming.
One child stood in the middle of the road, eyes white, palms glowing with residual charge. Dead bodies surrounded her. Their skin was liquefied. Not torn. Not blasted. Dissolved.
“Chemical-based neurokinesis,” Eella whispered. “That’s not Seraphina’s code.”
“No.” Walter turned. “It’s yours.”
Darcie’s stomach turned. “That’s not possible.”
He clicked again.
This time, voice files.
“Subject Lux.” A cold male voice. Clinical. “Initiate sequence protocol Darcie Prime.”
There was a hum.
Then the child spoke.
Clear. Focused. Flat.
“They tried to erase her. I am the second birth.”
Darcie sat down.
Walter didn’t blink. “They’re building a god.”
Out of me.
“We have to contain her,” Eella said, stepping in. “Whatever this is, we cut the head off now.”
Walter hesitated. “I tried sending a team in.”
“And?”
“No survivors. The ones who didn’t die…they started worshiping her.”
A beat.
Darcie stood slowly.
“You still have the location?”
Walter nodded.
She looked at Eella. “We go in at dusk.”
⸻
Southeast Sector had once been suburbia. All picket fences and synthetically smiling neighbors. Now it was a wasteland of silence. Abandoned cars rusting. Playground swings creaking in wind that didn’t carry laughter anymore.
They moved through shadows, each step coordinated.
Darcie didn’t flinch when a drone whizzed overhead. She aimed. Fired. The body fell without sound.
The facility wasn’t underground this time. That was the first sign of evolution.
It was built above, disguised as an elementary school—complete with faded murals and broken jungle gyms.
They breached the doors at 19:03.
Walter flanked them with two others—Ronnie and Astrid, both survivors of the last war. Trained. Efficient.
But nothing prepared them for what was inside.
Children.
Rows of them.
Sleeping. Breathing. Contained in clear pods filled with a blue fluid that pulsed softly with light.
Darcie moved slowly. “This is a clone bank.”
“Not clones.” Astrid scanned a readout. “They’re genetically modified offspring. Half you. Half Seraphina.”
Eella froze. “That’s not science. That’s…breeding.”
They reached the center.
And found her.
Lux.
She stood calmly in the middle of the room—awake, alert, smiling.
She couldn’t have been more than ten, but her eyes…they were too old. Too knowing.
“Darcie,” she said softly. “You’re early.”
Darcie’s hand went to her weapon. “I’m not here to talk.”
Lux tilted her head. “But I’m the only one who remembers the truth.”
“I am the truth.”
Lux shook her head. “No. You’re just the first. I’m the evolution.”
Behind them, the pods began to hiss.
One by one.
Children waking.
Walter whispered, “Get her out of here. Now.”
But the doors slammed shut.
Lux lifted one hand.
Every screen in the room blinked red.
Astrid shouted, “EMP!”
The lights went out.
Chaos erupted.
The children began to scream—not in fear, but together. A frequency. A coordinated pitch.
Darcie grabbed Eella’s hand, pulled her behind a steel desk.
Ronnie opened fire. The bullets stopped midair.
Lux didn’t flinch. “You built a weapon, Darcie. You just didn’t know it would multiply.”
Darcie stood. “Then let me do what I always do.”
She fired.
The bullet struck Lux’s shoulder.
She staggered back—but didn’t bleed.
She smiled instead.
“Now you’ve taught me pain.”
Darcie’s heart dropped.
She wanted to feel it.
Lux moved, lightning-fast.
One second she was across the room, the next she was behind Walter—hand pressed to his spine.
He screamed.
Collapsed.
Gone.
Astrid cursed, dragging his body behind cover.
Darcie faced her. “Take him. Get out.”
“What about—”
“I’ll end her.”
Eella looked ready to argue. But she saw the look in Darcie’s eyes and nodded once. “Come back to me.”
Darcie didn’t answer.
She turned back to Lux.
And walked into the storm.
⸻
The fight wasn’t physical.
It was mental.
Lux unleashed wave after wave of projected code—memories, simulations, copies of Darcie’s own past twisted and weaponized.
One second she was back in the Lazarus labs, bloodied and screaming. The next, she was standing over a grave that didn’t exist, with Seraphina’s voice whispering: You can’t destroy what made you.
Darcie focused.
She let it in.
Then used it.
Lux staggered as Darcie sent her own memories back through the connection. Not pain. Not control. Choice.
“You’re not me,” she said, stepping forward. “You’re what they made to replace me. But I was never just their weapon.”
Lux’s image flickered.
“You can be more,” Darcie said. “You have to be more.”
The girl shook.
Screamed.
The other pods began to glitch. Children crying. Some banging on the glass.
Eella’s voice crackled in Darcie’s ear. “Whatever you’re doing, do it faster. They’re powering up.”
Darcie made a choice.
She holstered her weapon.
Walked forward.
And pulled Lux into her arms.
At first, the girl fought.
Screamed.
Bit.
Then…she cried.
Silent, gut-wrenching sobs.
Darcie held her tighter.
Behind them, the power died.
The pods dimmed.
The storm ended.
Lux collapsed in her arms, unconscious.
Darcie looked up at the ceiling—soaked in sweat, in blood, in grief.
Then she whispered into the dark.
“Phase Two is mine now.”