Page 432 of Eternal
AZRA
“Arcade Acoustic Version” by Duncan Laurence
Present
8:00 PM - Outside the estate
Damir’s gloves are on, tight around my hands, stupidly warm, but I wear them anyway. They’re the only thing that feels calming right now.
The gate cracked open like someone forgot to lock it properly. Luck or fate, I don’t know, I’m not questioning it.
I’m dressed in black, knife strapped to my thigh, gun tucked low where I can reach it fast.
I take a slow breath, trying to calm the rush in my chest. The whole compound sprawls in front of me, like a small city designed to trap secrets behind fences and cameras.
But I know the weak spot.
The old root cellar tunnel beneath the storage building, it’s dark, with no lights, no cameras, I’ve been circling it in my head all day.
This is my way in.
I pull my phone out one last time, and the satellite map glows dimly in the dark, I tap the route I planned, double-check the timing, the final fireworks don’t start till 9, and that’s my cover.
I can move quickly during the chaos, there’s no turning back now, I push the gate wider, slip inside, and disappear.
The bass from the main house is loud and vibrating through the ground beneath my feet. Music floats on the warm desert air, mingling with laughter and clinking glasses, I can see guests dressed in their prettiest suits and dresses through the far-off windows, all smiles and distractions, cameras flash by the pool, lights twinkle, and fireworks are already starting to pop in the sky above.
Just a few like they’re testing them.
I slip through the shadows, keeping close to the treeline as I edge toward the central compound. It’s bigger, older-looking, like a fortress within a fortress.
I pause outside one of the outbuildings, heart thudding so loud I’m sure someone can hear it. The guards patrol in pairs, their eyes sharp beneath the brim of their hats, black suits, earpieces, guns holstered but ready, they don’t laugh or relax like the guests.
8:23 PM - East Dependency
The further I move from the main estate, the louder the fireworks sound behind me. But here it’s quiet. Wrong kind of quiet.
This dependency’s set off from the others, bigger, bulkier, and crawling with guards.
I watched from the trees for almost five minutes, no music here, no guests, just patrols, tight movements, radios pressed to shoulders, like they’re protecting something, or hiding it.
I move low, fast.
One guard walks too far from his post, I catch him before he sees me, a sharp twist. He slumps to the ground with a soft exhale, two more come from the other side, I shoot one clean, silence the other with my knife before he can raise an alarm.
No one’s calling in, no one’s seen.
I breathe hard, blood buzzing in my ears, my boots are wet now, and I don’t look down.
I slip inside, the hall is narrow, lined with small rooms, metal doors, some cracked open, some locked tight. A few have noise behind them, muffled, shifting. I pause, listening.
Whispers, someone crying, but I keep going.
There’s one room at the end, bigger, not like the others, the door isn’t metal, it’s painted black.
I push it open, it smells like perfume and bleach and something sickly underneath. The bed is large, and made too perfectly, there’s a camera bolted high in the corner, off.
The walls are white, there’s a stuffed animal in the corner, a vanity table, this isn’t a child’s room… It's a stage.
