The skies above the North Caspian Basin were painted with twilight, though the sun had not yet begun to set. Strange—Samuel noted—as he looked out from the cockpit of their stealth carrier. The light bent oddly here, shimmering like heatwaves on metal. According to LUX, they were already within the boundary of the Thirteenth Gate’s dormant aura.Except... it wasn’t dormant anymore.“The electromagnetic readings are erratic,” Aria muttered from her console. “There shouldn’t even be an aurora effect in this region, but the particles are spiking like we’re inside the Van Allen belt.”“Temporal static, too,” Joey added. “Clocks are glitching. Internal chronometers think it’s three days ago, while external sensors say tomorrow.”Sarah looked pale, pressed against the viewport. “Ila said a Gate would open when thirteen echoes aligned. But this one... it feels like it never closed.”“No record of it in the Spiral archives,” Samuel said. “No mention of it from my parents’ logs either. It’s no

The Vanguard didn’t speak for a long while after the Guardian vanished.Only the slow, rhythmic pulsing of the cracked Seal filled the cavern. A low thrum, like a heartbeat buried deep beneath layers of stone and time.Joey finally broke the silence. “I’m gonna say it. That thing freaked me the hell out.”“Same,” Aria murmured, eyes fixed on the glowing seal. “And I don’t scare easily.”Samuel stepped closer again. His eyes were distant, as though part of him hadn’t returned from the encounter with the Guardian.“‘You were supposed to die,’” he repeated under his breath. “That wasn’t just poetic.”Sarah placed a hand gently on his arm. “We’ve known for a while that your survival defied the blueprint. But that wasn’t fate talking, Samuel. That was programming.”“Yeah, but whose?” Joey asked. “The Spiral? The Vault? Some ancient god with a glitch?”“No,” Samuel said, his voice tight. “It’s worse than that. This seal wasn’t just a barrier. It was a checkpoint. Something was watching me..

The sound was unnatural.A deep, low hum that reverberated through the ground, like the bones of the earth were being struck with a massive drum. Snow rippled, kicked upward in waves. The wind had died—completely. Even the air dared not move.Samuel turned, his gaze locking onto the towering figure emerging from the lake. It stood taller than any soldier, its form barely contained within its humanoid frame. Tendrils of black and violet danced off its body like steam from a furnace.The Warden’s antlered silhouette loomed with unnatural elegance. Its face was a void, a swirl of psychic energy compressed into a mask of emotionless authority.Its target was clear.Sarah.She didn’t have to be told. She felt it in her bones—like her own blood recoiled in fear. Her hands trembled, and her knees nearly gave out.Joey swore under his breath, already raising his rifle. “Tell me that thing isn’t sprinting.”“It’s not,” Aria said grimly. “It doesn’t have to.”Samuel took one step forward, plant

The morning frost still lingered on the canvas of the Vanguard’s temporary outpost when Samuel stood at the edge of a cliff, gazing over the Himalayan range. The silence was majestic, but behind that beauty was tension—a fragile calm before another inevitable storm.Behind him, footsteps crunched over snow.“You’re up early,” Joey said, wrapped in a fur-lined cloak, his breath visible in the thin mountain air.Samuel didn’t look at him. “I haven’t slept.”“Because of Sarah?”“Because of what’s coming.”Joey stood beside him, eyes scanning the distant peaks. “Everyone’s on edge. The scouts reported an anomaly about 30 klicks east. Static in the air, some kind of electromagnetic pulse. And we’re not the only ones who picked it up.”Samuel turned. “IMA?”“Or worse—Spiral. The pulse matches something from their archives. They're calling it an ‘Echo Signal.’ Supposedly it’s a precursor... a sign that a Gate fragment is about to awaken.”Samuel’s fingers curled into a fist. “And it’s drawin

The sun never truly rose in the Himalayan shadows—not anymore. Since the contact with the Gate’s Echo, the sky over their base had taken on a dull, faded quality, like the world was wrapped in gauze. Everything felt muted—colors dimmer, sounds softer, yet tension sharper.Sarah sat on the edge of her bed, pale fingers twitching unconsciously as if she were playing invisible strings. Across the room, Joey watched her carefully, his usual cockiness replaced by a guarded worry.“She’s still hearing them,” Joey muttered into his comm-link. “Every hour like clockwork. Pulse spikes. Whispers. Sometimes... she whispers back.”Aria’s voice crackled in response. “Keep her stable. I’m modifying the neural dampener. We need to slow the resonance until we can isolate the source.”“I thought Samuel said we weren’t muting her connection,” Joey replied, frowning.“We’re not severing it. Just... buffering the signal,” Aria said coldly. “Unless you want her brain to burn itself alive.”Joey looked bac