Snow still blanketed the valley, but the air felt different now charged, alive, almost vibrating. Ethan could hear faint hums even when everything else was silent. He’d begun to realize that quiet no longer meant peace. It meant listening.By the third day on the road, the hum had turned into something clearer a faint rhythmic pulse, like a heartbeat buried inside the static.Lorna noticed it too.“Is that… radio?”Ethan adjusted the small receiver built into the laptop’s case. The frequency danced erratically, spiking, falling, and spiking again. Then a voice bled through distorted, layered with interference, but human.“…if anyone… can hear… the Signal… follow…”Then static swallowed it.Lorna frowned. “That wasn’t Umbra.”“No,” Ethan said slowly. “That was human. Or trying to be.”They exchanged a look that said the same thing: Could be a trap. Could be hope.They traced the signal north toward what used to be a relay outpost near the frozen coast. The roads there had collapsed int