2025-07-29 00:20:28The fog hadn’t lifted by sunrise. If anything, it had grown thicker—so dense Jared could barely see past the tree line without straining. Nature didn’t move like this unless something unnatural had disturbed it.
He was already dressed in full tactical gear, rifle strapped tight across his chest, boots laced up to the shin. His breath was slow, even, but everything about his body was alert. Primed.
Mei stood on the porch in his old hoodie and jeans that didn’t quite fit, trying to shake the cold out of her limbs. She looked at the treeline and then at him.
“You’re going out there, aren’t you?”
Jared nodded once. “North Ridge sector. Something pinged the motion sensors.”
“Could it be an animal?”
He strapped on his knife. “Not unless it knew how to disable the backup camera first.”
Her mouth parted slightly. “Someone’s watching us.”
“They’ve probably been watching for days.”
She took a breath, trying not to panic. “Let me come with you.”
“No.”
“I’m not staying behind while you walk into a trap. If something happens to you—”
He walked up to her, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off his chest. His hand cupped the side of her jaw gently, grounding her.
“Mei,” he said, voice firm but not unkind, “I need you alive. In here. Watching the monitors. If I’m compromised, you’ll see it first.”
She hesitated. Swallowed. Then nodded.
“Come back,” she whispered.
His gaze lingered on hers. “Always.”
He vanished into the fog minutes later.
The ridge was quieter than it should’ve been.
No birdsong. No rustling squirrels. No wind.
Just the dense, choking silence of something waiting.
Jared’s boots moved with calculated precision. Each step was deliberate. Controlled. He followed the narrow path between moss-covered rocks, his ears sharp for anything out of place.
Two hundred meters in, he paused near a broken pine stump.
There—half-buried in the mud.
A boot print.
Not his.
Fresh.
Jared crouched and examined it. The tread was military-grade. Not civilian. Someone trained. Someone who knew how to cover their tracks—but not well enough.
He stood and scanned the ridge again, slow and patient. Then he heard it.
Click.
To his right.
Too close.
He turned instantly, raising his rifle—only to meet the sharp glint of a scope catching light through the fog.
A figure emerged. Not charging. Walking.
Deliberate.
Unbothered.
Jared didn’t lower his gun. “You’ve got five seconds to explain why you’re here.”
The man stopped ten paces away, hands lifted slightly. “Relax, soldier. I’m not here to kill you.”
“Wrong answer.”
“I came to warn you.”
Jared’s finger hovered over the trigger. “About?”
“They found you.”
Everything in Jared went still.
The stranger lowered his hood slowly. His face was lean, scarred across one eye. Pale hair buzzed short. Familiar in a way that scratched the edges of Jared’s memory.
“You were one of us,” Jared muttered.
The man nodded. “Special Recon. Ghost Division. Same as you. Different theater.”
“Ghosts don’t talk after discharge.”
“Unless the world’s ending and the rules don’t matter anymore.”
Jared didn’t relax. “Name.”
“Finn Morgan. I was tasked with tracking down former assets. You? You’re number seven on the list.”
“Assets for what?”
Finn’s expression turned grim. “Reconstruction. They’re not trying to save the world. They’re trying to restart it. Clean slate. Old money. New gods.”
Jared’s stomach turned. “The Custodians.”
“They’re real. And they’ve activated Phase Two.”
He didn’t speak. He just looked at the man, eyes narrowing.
“They want the survivors divided. Terrified. Weak. You’ve got a companion now. That makes you unpredictable.”
“I’m not joining your suicide cult.”
“I didn’t come to recruit you.” Finn’s voice was quieter now. “I came to tell you that you have less than forty-eight hours before the first Purge Drones arrive in this zone.”
Jared’s jaw clenched. “Why warn me?”
Finn’s smile was bitter. “Because I died three years ago. You ever see what happens when your daughter starves in front of you? When there’s enough food in the convoy to feed a town, but they’re told to let her die for population balance?”
Jared didn’t answer.
“I believed in the system. Until it killed everything I loved.”
Finn dropped something into Jared’s hand—a chipped black badge. Old military encryption embedded in its side.
“This still opens the satellite uplink bunker near the ravine. I couldn’t get inside. They changed protocols. But you… you’re one of the last keyholders.”
Jared looked down at it. “You’re running.”
“No. I’m surviving. For now.”
He started to turn.
Jared called out. “If you’re lying…”
“I’m not.”
And then he was gone.
Just like that.
Back at the cabin, Mei was pacing when Jared returned. One look at his face stopped her mid-step.
“What happened?”
He tossed her the badge. “We’ve got forty-eight hours before we’re wiped off the map.”
She stared at it. “What do you mean wiped?”
“Purge drones. Full sector elimination. No warnings.”
“Who gave you this?”
“Someone who used to be like me. Might still be. Doesn’t matter. He left intel.”
She followed him inside, breath picking up. “So what do we do?”
Jared turned to her, fully facing her now. “We find the uplink station. We breach it. And we shut this down before it reaches the others.”
“The others?”
“There are survivors scattered across sectors. Kids. Families. People like you. If this system completes Phase Two, there won’t be anything left to rebuild.”
She stepped closer. “Then we fight.”
His eyes softened just slightly.
“You’re not scared?”
“I’m terrified. But I’d rather die with purpose than live hiding.”
Jared nodded once.
The next forty-eight hours would decide everything.
And he wasn’t going to let the world burn without putting up a fight.
[System Update: Mission Branch Unlocked – Uplink Bunker Breach]
[Timer Engaged – 47 hrs 19 mins Remaining]
[Bond Status: Companion Level 2 – Mei Bai now trained in Defense Protocol I]
[Reward Pending: System Core Memory Fragment – “Origin”]
Previous Chapter
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Chapter 67- The Thing About Freedom
POV: JaredJared does not tell Emma where he is going.Not because he wants to hide it from her, but because he knows she would come if he asked. And this is something he needs to face without her steadying the ground beneath his feet.The imprint waits where she found it.It does not look dangerous. That is its trick.The place feels quieter than the rest of the world, like sound itself is holding its breath. The air has a faint pressure to it, the kind you feel before rain, before something gives way. The ground here does not quite commit to being solid. It remembers something else.Jared steps closer.The imprint stirs.It recognizes him immediately.Not with words. With knowing.The world tilts, gently, and then the visions begin.Not explosions. Not triumph. No glory.Relief.He sees Emma sitting beside the river, whole in a way that makes his chest ache. Her breath steady. Her gaze clear. No pauses. No flickers. No fear hiding behind her eyes. She laughs without checking herself
Chapter 66- What He Would Erase
POV: EmmaThe question slips out of her before she can stop it.They are not arguing. That is the worst part. There is no raised voice to blame it on. No sharp edge to pretend caused the damage.They are sitting near the river where the water moves slow and patient, like it has nowhere else it needs to be. Jared is skipping stones, not very well. Each one either sinks immediately or hits the surface wrong and dies with a sad sound.Emma watches his hands. Strong. Scarred now. Real.She tells herself not to ask.She asks anyway.“If you could change one thing,” she says quietly, staring at the water instead of him, “would it be me?”The world does not react.The river keeps moving. A bird calls somewhere far off. The question does not echo or shatter anything. It just exists.Jared’s hand stills.He does not throw the stone.He does not answer.That pause stretches, thin and unbearable.Emma feels it inside her chest like pressure building behind glass.She should not have asked. She k
Chapter 65- The Weight of Knowing
POV: JaredJared notices it in the pauses.Emma still walks beside him. Still listens. Still answers when he speaks. But the spaces between her words have grown careful, like she is choosing where not to step.She laughs less. When she does, it comes late, like an echo that almost didn’t bother returning.That night, the fire burns low. Not dying. Just contained. Jared feeds it small sticks, one at a time, watching the way the flames respond immediately now. No correction. No delay. Cause and effect, clean and honest.Emma sits across from him, knees pulled in, arms looped loosely around them. She is staring into the fire but not really seeing it.He does not say her name at first.He waits.The waiting stretches. Too long.“Okay,” he says finally, keeping his voice light on purpose. “You’ve been doing that thing.”She blinks. “What thing?”“The quiet one,” he replies. “The one where you think if you don’t move too much, the world won’t notice you’re there.”Her mouth curves slightly.
Chapter 64- The Imprint
POV: EmmaEmma notices it because the birds stop mid-sound.Not silence. Worse than silence. The echo of a sound that forgets how to finish.She is standing near the riverbank, rinsing dirt from her hands, when the water ripples wrong. Not outward. Inward. Like the surface hesitates, then resumes pretending nothing happened.Her breath catches.She does not call for Jared.Instinct tells her this is not for both of them.She steps closer. The ground feels normal under her boots until it does not. One step is solid, the next sinks a fraction too deep, then snaps back like it regrets allowing her weight. Her head pulses faintly, not pain, just pressure behind the eyes.The world here stutters.She kneels slowly and presses her palm to the earth.It is warm.Not sunlight warm. Active warm.Her glasses are gone. Her tools are gone. But her mind still knows how to listen. She closes her eyes and lets the feeling rise instead of fighting it.Something answers.Not a voice. Not code. A prese
Chapter 63- Something That Lasts a Night
POV: JaredBy the time the light starts to tilt, Jared realizes they have been walking in loose circles.Not lost. Just not going anywhere on purpose.The world here does not rush them. Shadows stretch slowly. The air cools without warning. When the sun lowers, it does not feel like a threat, but it does feel like a question.He stops near a cluster of trees and looks around.“This is as good as anywhere,” he says.Emma nods. She looks tired in a way that has nothing to do with weakness. More like she is learning how to exist inside a body again. She lowers herself onto a rock and watches him.“So,” she says lightly. “What’s the plan?”Jared stares at the trees.He has led evacuations. Built fortresses underground. Optimized supply chains while cities burned. But right now, all he sees is wood and uneven ground and the fact that night is coming whether he is ready or not.“We build something,” he says.She raises an eyebrow. “Something permanent?”He lets out a short breath. “Somethin
Chapter 62- Emma Forgets
POV: EmmaIt happens in the middle of a sentence.Emma is talking about the river. About how the water sounds different here, like it knows where it is going. She is explaining it badly, she knows she is, using her hands too much, trying to describe something that feels more than it sounds.Then she is sitting down.The ground is cool against her palms. Her breath is wrong, too fast, like she has been running. Her heart stutters once, then starts again, hard and uneven.She blinks.Jared is crouched in front of her.Not rushing. Not shouting her name. Just there, steady, eyes sharp, like he has already measured the situation and decided not to be afraid.That scares her more than panic would have.“How long?” she asks.Jared tilts his head slightly. “A few seconds.”Her mouth feels dry. “I was standing.”“You were,” he says.“And talking.”“You were doing that too.”She presses her fingers into the dirt, grounding herself in the pressure. The world feels intact. Too intact. That makes
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