Rain slammed against the windshield like a thousand tiny fists, the wipers thrashed, useless against the downpour. The road had long since turned to a ribbon of blurred light and black asphalt.Deborah’s fingers dug into the dashboard as Chris fought to keep the car straight. “Can’t see a damn thing,” he muttered, squinting through the streaks.“Just drive!” she shot back, breath sharp with adrenaline. Her pulse still hadn’t slowed since the gunfire. The diner’s neon lights were already swallowed by the storm behind them.A curve appeared too late. The car skidded, tires screaming, fishtailed, and stopped inches from a ditch. Steam rose from the hood. They both sat frozen, the world reduced to the hiss of rain and the ticking of the cooling engine.Then, another sound, a distant hum, Headlights, faint and flickering, far down the road. Deborah’s voice was barely audible. “They’re still coming.”Chris turned off the lights, killed the engine. “Out,” he said simply. “Now.”The air hit t

Rain still clung to the leaves, The forest breathed in slow, uneven exhales. Deborah stood at the threshold of the cabin, her hand on the splintered frame, eyes fixed on the dirt where the symbols shimmered faintly in the early light.She blinked once, then again. They’d changed.“Chris,” she whispered. Her voice barely carried.He was already awake, standing near the window with his coat still damp from the night before. His eyes tracked the ground too. The same silent recognition passed between them the shapes weren’t what they’d seen hours ago.He stepped closer. “They’re… fresh.”The air shifted. The forest no longer felt empty. It felt aware.Deborah’s pulse hammered. “Someone’s still out there.”Chris didn’t answer. He just crouched, brushing away a patch of wet leaves. Beneath, the symbol was sharp, recently etched, a perfect spiral curling inward. Around it, boot prints overlapped, circling. Too many, Too precise.“How long have we been watched?” she asked.He didn’t look up.

Dawn crept slow, gray, and wet through the trees. The rain had stopped, but the world hadn’t quieted. It was that kind of silence that hummed, full of electricity and distance.Deborah blinked against the pale light. Her hands were still cold. Her hair clung to her neck. She didn’t remember sleeping, only closing her eyes for seconds that became hours.Chris stood near the cabin door, his silhouette cut sharp against the mist. Still. Listening.“Something’s out there,” he said quietly.Deborah pushed herself up, every muscle protesting. “You’ve said that before.”He didn’t answer, just lifted a finger, motioning her closer. Through the warped window, she saw it, a fence.High, metallic, and humming faintly with power. It ran deep into the trees barbed at the top, buried at the bottom, behind it low concrete buildings half-buried in the fog, flashing red lights near corners, and the faint echo of radio chatter.Deborah’s pulse quickened. “This, this wasn’t on any map.”“It’s not suppos

The silence after the crash was unbearable. Just wind, and rain dripping from the leaves in slow, mocking rhythm.“Chris?”Her voice vanished into the trees. No answer.She pushed forward, breath ragged, calling again. The forest stretched around her in endless green-grey veils, everything wet and moving. Every tree trunk looked like him for a second, and wasn’t.“Chris!”A shape flickered to her left, movement, too low to be human. She froze. Waited. Only branches, swaying.Then a faint click behind her, She spun, hand up, heart in her throat, but it was only a small, blinking dot in the mud.A beacon. She knelt. The device was military, compact, coded, pulsing once every three seconds. Its light reflected off the rain pooling around it.Chris’s.She picked it up carefully, turning it over. There was a faint engraving on the underside: WDC/ARCHIVE DIV. Wyland Defense Corporation.Her family’s company. A bitter laugh slipped out before she could stop it. “Of course.”She stuffed the b

The forest was silent except for the pulse in her hand. Blue light. Faint. Cold. Hypnotic.Every time it blinked, it cast her face in ghost-light, her eyes sharp, her lips pressed thin.Branches scratched her shoulders as she pushed deeper through the trees. Her clothes were still damp, the smell of smoke clinging to her skin. The beacon’s rhythm quickened, a heartbeat leading her forward.“Where are you taking me” she whispered.The device answered with another pulse. Blink. Blink. She climbed over a fallen trunk, nearly slipping on the slick moss. The forest thickened, darker, quieter. Even the rain seemed to stop at the edges of this place.Then she saw it. A faint, angular glow between the trees, not blue, not natural. White light, slicing through fog like a blade.Deborah crouched low, creeping closer until the shape emerged.It wasn’t a building. Not exactly. It looked like a vault door embedded in the ground, half-swallowed by roots and mud. Metal, reinforced, and humming faint