Eva Carter, her teeth gritted, drove the vehicle, her knuckles white on the control levers. From time to time, she cast short, sharp glances at Kyle, full of unspoken questions or veiled reproach, but remained silent. Every muscle in her face was tense, and tiny beads of sweat glistened on her forehead beneath tangled strands of hair. She felt it just as he did – the approach of something ancient, alien, and unimaginably powerful.
Lina Cyrus huddled in the farthest corner of the cramped cabin, clutching her medical backpack as if it were the only island of safety in this mad world. Her face was pale, almost waxen, and her lips moved silently – either whispering a prayer or simply counting to calm her racing heart and resist the panic that gripped her throat with icy fingers.
Even Drake Holt, usually so deliberately relaxed and cynical, looked… different. His legs were still stretched out defiantly, and he mechanically twirled his old, faithful combat knife in his hands, but his usual mocking smirk had slipped from his face, replaced by a tense, predatory grimace. He wasn’t humming his bawdy soldier songs, but silently peered into the murky distance, his fingers gripping the knife’s hilt so tightly that the metal seemed about to bend. Even his feigned, ostentatious calm couldn’t hide the deep, primal pressure that grew with every mile traveled, like an invisible, all-pervading hand squeezing his chest, drawing the last remnants of composure from his soul.
«We should be seeing it by now,» Eva finally said, her voice sounding muffled and strained through the strained roar of the old engines. The silence in the cabin had become so dense that her words sounded like a gunshot. «„Echo-7.“ The drones detected it visually at this distance. Why are the screens blank? Just static.»
Kyle frowned, checking the data on his neural interface. The screen of his bracelet also showed only a chaotic flicker of interference, as if reality itself around them refused to obey the laws of physics and logic, resisting any analysis. He felt an unpleasant chill run down his spine. This wasn’t just a technical malfunction. It was a warning. The voice of the Rift itself.
«The Rifts distort signals, Eva,» he replied, trying to make his voice sound more confident than he actually felt. «We’re close. Too close to rely solely on technology. We need to keep our eyes open. And listen… listen to our instincts.»
Eva snorted briefly but said nothing, only gripping the control levers tighter. Kyle turned to the armored window, desperately trying to make out something in the murky, shimmering haze of the Wasteland. And suddenly he saw it – not with his eyes, but rather felt it like a punch to the gut. A huge, gaping fissure in the sky, several hundred meters wide, its edges pulsating with a cold, ghostly, unearthly light that seemed to suck all the color from the surrounding world. «Echo-7.» It was larger, more monstrous than he expected, and seemed alive, like a giant, bleeding wound that breathed, oozing darkness and madness. The light emanating from it cast distorted, dancing shadows on the scorched earth, but these shadows didn’t move as they should – they writhed like a tangle of venomous snakes, lengthened and contracted contrary to the laws of optics, and vanished without a trace, as if falling into another reality.
«There it is…» Lina whispered, her voice trembling so much that the words were barely audible. She pressed herself against the cold glass, her eyes wide with a mixture of horror and a kind of perverse, morbid fascination. «It’s… it’s so beautiful. And so terrifying. Do you… do you feel it? Like it’s looking right at us. Into our very souls.»
«Don’t be ridiculous, Doc,» Drake snapped, but there wasn’t a trace of his usual mockery in his voice. He too was staring at the Rift, and his fingers, which had been mechanically twirling the knife, froze. Kyle noticed his feigned smirk finally disappear, replaced by an expression of deep, animal wariness. Even he, with all his bravado and cynicism, couldn’t ignore this place. It was something beyond his understanding of combat and death.
Kyle wanted to answer, to say something to reassure them, or perhaps himself, but his words caught in his throat when the Thunderclaw suddenly and violently shook. Not like from an impact or a bump in the road – this was deeper, more fundamental, as if reality itself beneath them had shifted, rippled. The sensors on the dashboard wailed with a piercing, ear-splitting siren, the screens flashed a blinding red, and at the same moment the air inside the cabin became heavy, almost viscous, as if they were immersed in a thick, invisible syrup. Lina cried out briefly, clutching her head, her face contorted with sudden, agonizing pain, and Eva swore through gritted teeth, desperately trying to maintain control and prevent the vehicle from overturning.
«Gravitational anomaly!» she shouted, her voice barely audible through the growing roar. «A strong one! Hold on! This is much more powerful than the previous jumps!»
Kyle felt his body become unbearably heavy, as if someone invisible had poured molten lead into his veins. Every muscle protested, every movement was incredibly difficult. He turned his head with difficulty to look at the team and saw Lina bent double, her face contorted with unbearable pain, a thin, dark trickle of blood flowing from her nose. Drake, his teeth gritted, tried to get up, but he was literally pinned to the floor, the knife clattering from his weakened hands. Eva, covered in sweat, struggled with the controls, her lips moving, shouting commands or curses, but her voice was barely audible through the low, vibrating hum that seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, penetrating to the very bones.
But the worst part wasn’t the physical sensations, however agonizing they were. Kyle felt his mind begin to slip, lose its footing, as if someone or something was ruthlessly digging through his memories, pulling them to the surface like dirty, bloody laundry. He closed his eyes, but it didn’t help – the Quantum Dawn laboratory appeared before his inner vision with terrifying clarity, that very day, the day of the universal catastrophe. He saw Maria and Ella again, their beloved faces distorted with mortal fear, and the bottomless, all-consuming emptiness of the Rift pulling them in. But this time they didn’t just disappear. They looked directly at him, their eyes empty as the sockets of a skull, and their voices, merging into one eerie, multi-voiced chorus, whispered directly into his brain: «It’s your fault, Kyle. You betrayed us. You left us here, in this darkness. Find us… or die with us. You must pay.»
«No! Shut up!» Kyle screamed, his voice echoing with terror in the cramped, oppressive space of the transport. He slammed his fist against the metal wall, trying to escape this mental torture, but the physical pain didn’t help. The voices grew louder, more insistent, they sounded inside his head like an air raid siren, tearing apart the remnants of his mind.
He wasn’t alone in this hell. Beside him, Eva screamed, her face contorted, she let go of the controls and clutched her temples. «Get out! Leave me alone! It’s not my fault! I couldn’t…» Her words were drowned out by sobs. Kyle saw her eyes fill with terror, reflecting something known only to her – perhaps her own ghosts from Quantum Dawn or from the depths of the Wasteland.
Even Drake, pinned to the floor, emitted muffled, choked groans, his body convulsing, an expression of unspeakable suffering frozen on his face. The Shadow had clearly found his pressure points as well.
«Rain! Eva! Wake up!» Lina’s voice, weak but unexpectedly firm, cut through the cacophony of pain and fear. Staggering, she rose to her feet, blood still flowing from her nose, but her eyes burned with fire. She held an injector in her hand. «This isn’t real! Do you hear me? It’s the Rift! It’s playing with you! It’s trying to break us!»
Kyle opened his eyes with immense effort, feeling cold, sticky sweat drenching his face. The gravitational pressure began to slowly subside, the Thunderclaw was moving again, though its engines coughed raggedly from the overload. Lina, still clutching her head but standing more steadily on her feet, looked at him with concern and a new, unfamiliar respect. Drake, breathing heavily, got up on all fours, picked up his knife, but his face was darker than a thundercloud, and his gaze darted nervously around