The sounds of that cursed monitor.

It’s beeping fills my head.

My heart rate finally become normal. It’s usual 60-100 bpm. I don’t know what the numbers are exactly, numbers are the last thing I need in my head. It just causes me headaches at this point.

Though I’m fully recovered, doctors word is that I just need a little more rest.

I’ve been practically living in this hospital bed, watching the sun rise and fall. Watching raindrops flow down the window. Even see the janitor clean the windows, he’s always waved at me with a smile.

You may wonder how I got stuck here. I can’t recollect it either, but they told me one of our missions failed. Failed an excavation mission to be exact.

My squad, Squad SHK-776, there was some sort of ambush at the site. Mutants invaded. Not your usual mutants.

~~~

The mutants you usually see around Loona Unity are just mutated, bloodied animals gone berserk.

No, these one’s weren’t like that.

There were four of them, all mounted on mutant horses. They spoke a far foreign language, none that I’ve heard before. They looked human, but like the animal mutants, their bodies and voices were contorted.

Faces twisted that all I could see was their mouths. Limbs bending in directions they shouldn’t. The bottom portion of their bodies seem to molded onto the horses. One arm morphing into what seemed to shape a spiked hammer. If I could tell anything they looked like armored knights on horses. But they had no silver shining armor, or armored horses too.

Instead it was humanoid-like creatures morphed with the horses. Their pale purple skin with blood vessels popping out, it sent chills to my spine.

“State your business!” I was ready to draw my sword. The response was incoherent, all I heard was ‘clan’ and ‘attack’, that was the only words I needed to hear before I unsheath my sword. Or swords, hook swords to be exact.

My power or talent is just my swordsmanship, my only twist is that I appeared to have one broadsword in sheath. But the actuality was, whenever I unsheathed it, the sword I needed most came before me.

It’s like Excalibur to King Arthur. Magical.

I held these swords in an x-formation as the humanoid mutant swung its hammer-like arm at me, knocking me back.

The four horsemen circled me, mumbling even more incoherent words. I tried to recollect my stance, but suddenly gravity seemed to weigh harder by the second.

“Chaerim!” I heard my teammates rushing in. Sooyoung and Haseul.

I had fallen back to my knees, I felt sick. The last thing I could hear were yells and hissing before I out.

~~~

Whatever magic those horsemen were doing, it caused an effect similar to radiation but not as harsh. The same effects of radiation to the human body still concurred with the growing pains of wounds to my legs.

Had it not been for Sooyoung and Haseul to save me, the radiation would’ve destroyed all my blood cells, ultimately killing me.

I was mostly hospitalized to make sure my blood levels were stable and I was healthy. It’s been a full three years since that excavation incident. The school knew, but forgot the instant it was said and done.

That’s why newer students, the next generation of Loona Unity Heroes, don’t know me. I prefer it that way. No one wants to know that Loona’s last strongest hero fell easily to mutants like those horsemen.

I never felt strength like that from any mutant I’ve encountered in my experience. I’ve seen the early attacks of mutants on campus, I’ve went through ever virtual training with different species of mutants.

This wasn’t like training either. No health bars out of 1000, no artificial damage and effects that would disappear when the matched ended. It was the real thing.

None came close to this. It sent me fear. If most of the students couldn’t go through simple virtual training, if creatures like