Chapter 256: The Illusion Of Happiness

Aaron fired. The shot struck Wade in the chest and threw his upper body backward, but the man somehow remained standing.

His eyes widened as Wade recovered and continued walking toward them, blood spreading across his shirt while his expression remained disturbingly peaceful.

"Stay back!" Aaron shouted as he fired again.

Wade staggered from the second shot, but instead of approaching Aaron, he suddenly moved underneath one of the enormous sacks hanging from the ceiling.

Aaron’s eyes followed him, and his instincts immediately screamed that something was wrong.

"Wade, get away from that!"

The man didn’t listen. He reached upward and grabbed the bottom of the sack with both hands, his smile widening as though he had been waiting for this exact moment.

Aaron realized what he was about to do and immediately moved forward, but Wade tore the sack open.

A thick yellow mist burst from inside and spread through the tunnel almost instantly.

Aaron and Eric both panicked as Wade’s laughter echoed through the tunnel, coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

"Join us, you will see your loved one, you will reach for whatever your heart desires. We will help you with whatever he has."

The thick yellow mist had swallowed everything around them, leaving Aaron unable to see more than the vague silhouette of Wade slowly disappearing somewhere ahead.

He could hear Eric calling his name, but the voice seemed distant, distorted by the strange fog surrounding them.

"Aaron– Lead! Where are you?!"

"I’m here! Careful Eric! Don’t open your goggles or mask!"

Aaron shouted back, though he wasn’t even sure which direction Eric’s voice was coming from.

He raised his rifle and tried to move toward it, but his vision suddenly blurred again, the yellow mist becoming brighter until he instinctively closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, the mine was gone.

Aaron stood in a nursery.

Everything around him was white, from the walls to the curtains and the small wooden furniture arranged neatly around the room.

The air was cold enough to make him shiver, yet the place felt strangely peaceful compared to the darkness of the mine.

Somewhere nearby, a child was laughing, the sound so innocent and familiar that Aaron immediately felt his chest tighten.

Then he smelled something fragrant, like flowers. That same gentle floral scent his wife used to wear.

Aaron slowly turned his head and he saw her, sitting beside the crib.

His wife looked exactly as he remembered her, her hair neatly arranged and her face carrying the soft smile that had disappeared from his life years ago.

She looked at him as though nothing had happened, as though she had never died and they were still living together.

"Aaron," she said gently, patting the empty space beside her. "Come sit with us. Our daughter wants to play with you."

Aaron took a step backward.

"No..." His voice barely came out.

His wife tilted her head, the smile fading slightly when she noticed his expression.

"What is wrong, honey? Come here. She has been waiting for you."

A small girl sat inside the crib, laughing at first before her expression suddenly changed. She looked at Aaron with wide eyes, blue like her mother. It was the face he imagined over and over if their daughter ever was born.

She never. She died inside her mother’s belly

Then when he took another step backward, her face crumpled.

She started crying.

Aaron’s breathing became heavier. He looked down instinctively and reached for his rifle.

There was nothing there. His tactical gear was gone too.

He was wearing nothing but ordinary clothes, the kind he had worn before the apocalypse had taken almost everything from him.

No weapon, no armor, no walkie-talkie. Nothing that reminded him of the mine or the men waiting for him outside.

His hand trembled as he looked around the nursery.

The cold felt real. The smell of flowers was real. His wife’s voice was real.

Even the crying of his daughter sounded real.

He knew the parasite could manipulate perception. They had already witnessed it in the mine, but this was different. This wasn’t simply seeing a familiar face in the darkness.

It had recreated a world that should have been impossible.

His wife slowly stood up, her expression becoming frightened as Aaron continued backing away.

"Aaron... why are you looking at us like that?"

The little girl cried harder.

His wife moved toward her and gently picked her up, holding the child against her chest while staring at him with fear.

"You are scaring her."

Aaron froze. His wife had never looked at him like that. Not even when they argued. Not even when she was angry.

And that realization made his stomach turn.

Because whatever was standing in front of him knew his memories.

But it didn’t know them the way he did.

Aaron stumbled toward the door, his breathing becoming heavier with every step. He didn’t want to look at the woman behind him anymore because every part of his mind was screaming that she wasn’t real, even while his senses insisted otherwise.

The door opened into a familiar apartment.

Aaron stopped.

For a moment, he simply stared.

It was their old home, exactly as he remembered it from before the apocalypse.

The furniture was still in its proper place, the curtains were clean, and the small dining table where they used to eat together was still covered with the cloth Agnes had always complained was too difficult to wash.

He knew this place. He had spent years here. It was warm but it felt strangely distant and unfamiliar.

"Aaron?"

Agnes followed him out of the nursery, still carrying their daughter. Her expression had become increasingly worried as she watched him stumble through the apartment like a frightened stranger.

"What is wrong with you?" she asked softly. "You look like you’ve seen a ghost."

Aaron turned toward her. He wanted to answer calmly, to take the knife in the kitchen and stab her.

Maybe, maybe this illusion would be gone and he would come back to the mine, saving Eric that probably suffered the same fate as him.

Instead, his breathing broke.

"You’re dead."

Agnes froze.

Aaron shook his head, backing away from her as tears began gathering in his eyes.

"You’re fucking dead, Agnes."

"Aaron..."

"You died!" His voice suddenly rose, and the baby immediately began crying harder in her mother’s arms.

"You died giving birth to her! I looked everywhere for someone to help you! I searched the entire destroyed city! I fight aberrants like I wanted to die! I looked for a doctor, a midwife, anyone who could fucking help, but there was nobody!"

His voice cracked. "I tried to help you myself. I tried everything I knew, but you were already too weak. Your heart gave out while she was still inside you, and I couldn’t do anything!"

Agnes didn’t answer. But her face was in shock and confused by a sudden burst.

Aaron’s hands trembled as he covered his face.

"She died with you. You both died, and it was my fault. I couldn’t save either of you."

The baby continued crying between them, but Agnes didn’t become angry. She didn’t scream at him for shouting.

Instead, her expression turned gentle, she slowly walked closer, her expression filled with something Aaron couldn’t understand.

It was certainly pity and love and maybe more of that parasitic monster trying to make him feel the misery that keeps clawing into his heart for as long as he remembers.

She reached for his trembling hand.

"Aaron, look at me."

He resisted at first, but Agnes gently held his hand between both of hers.

"It’s only a nightmare."

Aaron looked at her through his tears.

"No... It’s not, it was real, it happened!"

"It is," Agnes whispered. "You’re tired. You’re frightened, and your mind is showing you the worst things you didn’t want to happen to me."

She smiled faintly, the same smile he remembered from all those years ago.

"You’ve been carrying this for too long. I know it, the look of worry on your face when the day was getting closer to the due date."

Aaron stared at her, unable to speak.

Agnes slowly placed the baby into his arms.

He instinctively caught her. His entire body froze. The baby was warm. Warm and impossibly small.

She stopped crying almost immediately after being placed against his chest, her tiny fingers curling around one of his fingers as she looked up at him with sleepy eyes.

Aaron’s lips trembled. "I..."

He couldn’t finish. He had never held her.

Not once. Because she is supposed to be dead.

Agnes watched him quietly as Aaron stared down at the child he had spent years mourning without ever being given the chance to touch.

"She’s beautiful," Agnes whispered.

Aaron nodded, tears finally spilling freely down his cheeks. All of his walls were torn down.

"Yeah." His voice was barely audible. "She is."

For the first time since entering the mine, Aaron stopped thinking about the weapon he had lost, the parasite surrounding him, or the men waiting somewhere in the darkness.

He simply held his daughter.

And somewhere beyond the walls of that impossible apartment, something laughed softly.