One year later…

"Security breach, level five. All personnel are ordered to evacuate immediately. Security breach, level five. All personnel are ordered to evacuate immediately." The robotic female voice of the alarm system repeatedly blared the emergency message over the intercom system. Flashing yellow lights danced around the haze of smoke and dust from the wreckage of what used to be the highest security sector of the department's prison ward.

Claire opened her eyes and looked into the lifeless face of the woman doctor that had been treating her. She hadn't even bothered to learn her name, and now her limp body was sprawled across the floor next to her. As she pulled herself to an unsteady sitting position, Claire could see more bodies strewn about in the rubble. Chunks of concrete walls and snarled hunks of steel littered the ground around her. Electrical sparks showered her from one of the loosely hanging lights overhead.

When the ringing in her ears started to subside she could hear yelling and a few sparse gun shots. The inmates that had lived through the destruction were escaping. A guard was running towards her with his weapon drawn but he stopped short and fell forward as a long slash severed his throat. Blood quickly pooled under the body and flowed in her direction. Claire wanted to move away from the offensive red liquid but she was still locked down in a daze. Her stomach jolted with a wave of nausea.

She could feel him approaching. Of course she had believed him when he said that he would come for her, but she never expected this. How could life go so wrong in only a few weeks? Scanning through the cloud of her own mental fog and the obstructed vision of events unfolding around her, she thought she could see the outlines of his form. The broken chains leading from the manacles around her wrists clinked as she tried to stand and face him.

Sylar.