«It’s not fatigue, Lina,» he finally said, trying to make his voice sound calm and confident, even though everything inside him tightened with foreboding. «But we can’t let this distract or frighten us. We’re here to wait it out and gather information. We’ll find the central command room, secure it, and check the drone data. If something… if something tries to manifest, we’ll be ready.»
«Ready?» Drake laughed hoarsely, his voice sharp and mocking in the oppressive silence of the bunker. «Are you serious, Rain? You don’t even know what the hell we’re dealing with! What if these ’shadows’ of yours aren’t harmless illusions? What if they’re real and hungry? I’m not going to die here for your crazy theories and ghostly hopes!»
«Then get out, Holt!» Eva snapped, her eyes flashing steel in the semi-darkness. «No one’s keeping you here. Get back out into the Wasteland if you’re so brave. But if you stay, you’ll do as you’re told, or I’ll kill you myself before those shadows get to you. Believe me, it will be quicker and more merciful.»
The tension between them flared again, like a spark in a powder keg, but Kyle resolutely raised his hand, stopping the brewing conflict. «Enough. We can’t afford to be divided. Not now. Drake, we need your skills. Eva, keep yourself under control. Lina, stay close to me or Eva. We’re moving on. Together.»
They moved slowly down the dark, narrow corridor, every sound – the creak of metal under their feet, the distant drip of water, their own ragged breathing – seemed deafeningly loud in the dead silence. Kyle felt the pressure in his head building, as if the Rift itself was penetrating his mind with invisible tentacles, whispering, tempting. And then he heard it again – Ella’s voice, faint, almost indistinguishable, but so distinct, seemingly coming from the very depths of the bunker, from around the next corner. «Daddy… I’m here… I’m scared… help…» His heart clenched painfully, and he involuntarily quickened his pace, ignoring Lina’s worried, questioning look.
The corridor led them into a spacious central hall – a vast, dilapidated room with a partially collapsed ceiling, through the holes in which the faint, sickly light of «Echo-7» penetrated. In the center of the hall, like an ancient altar, stood an old, dust-covered command terminal, its screen dark, but weak, barely perceptible sparks of energy crackled and trembled in the air around it, like miniature, lost lightning bolts. Eva, forgetting caution, immediately headed towards it, hastily connecting her neural interface to try and extract any data. Kyle remained standing at the entrance, his gaze fixed on the darkest corner of the hall, where, for a moment, he thought he saw a small, hunched figure. But when he blinked, there was nothing there. Just dancing shadows.
«There’s a signal!» Eva’s voice, tense but with a clear note of surprise, snapped him out of his stupor. «It’s… it’s old recordings. «Northern Shield’ wasn’t just a military bunker, it was a classified research station before the catastrophe. They were studying the very first Rifts that appeared. There are reports… detailed reports… on «Echo-7.» They call it… «Ground Zero.» The Source. And…» She suddenly fell silent, her face, illuminated by the flickering light of the interface, turning sharply pale.
«What?» Kyle stepped closer, feeling his pulse quicken, a chill running down his spine. «What is it, Eva? Speak!»
Eva slowly turned to him, her eyes wide and filled with such genuine, deep anxiety that he had never seen in her before. «They write that „Echo-7“ isn’t just a Rift. It’s… it’s the primordial source. The singularity point that spawned all the others. And they mention… an entity. Something that lives inside it. Something that sees us. Right now.»
The words hung in the air, heavy as the concrete slabs of the collapsed ceiling above their heads. Lina sobbed softly, pressing her hand to her mouth, her eyes filling with tears of terror. Drake, who had been standing by the wall with the air of a bored predator, froze, his hand gripping the plasma cutter so tightly that his knuckles turned white. And Kyle… Kyle felt icy pincers squeezing him from the inside, freezing the remnants of hope. An entity. He didn’t know exactly what it meant, but with some primal instinct, he felt it was true. «Echo-7» wasn’t just waiting for them. It knew they were here. It was watching.
And at that very moment, the single surviving lamp in the hall flickered alarmingly, even though the terminal Eva was connected to wasn’t connected to the bunker’s general power system. The shadows on the walls trembled, stretching like clawed, hungry fingers, and from the very depths of the bunker, from the unexplored, dark corridors, came a sound – a low, vibrating, growing hum that made the floor tremble beneath their feet and the shards of glass jingle. Kyle spun around, his hand instinctively reaching for the pulse rifle, which seemed so useless, so childish in the face of this unknown threat. Something was approaching. And it definitely wasn’t an illusion.
Chapter 6: «Echo from the Depths»
2247. The Wasteland, 12 kilometers from «Echo-7,» Abandoned Bunker «Northern Shield.»
The low, vibrating hum, born somewhere in the depths of the bunker, intensified, filling the entire space as if the enormous, ancient heart of «Northern Shield» had suddenly started beating after decades of lethargic sleep. Kyle Rain froze, his hand gripping the useless pulse rifle in a death grip, his gaze darting frantically across the dancing, distorted shadows in the central hall. The ghostly, sickly light of «Echo-7,» penetrating through the gaping holes in the collapsed ceiling, trembled as if space itself around them began to warp, losing its familiar contours. The shadows on the walls stretched, their forms becoming more distinct, more ominous – they were no longer just blurred spots, but nightmarish silhouettes, vaguely resembling human figures, but with unnaturally long, broken limbs and gaping, empty voids instead of faces, from which seeped the same faint, unearthly light as from the distant Rift.
«What the hell… what the fuck is that?!» Drake Holt whispered, slowly stepping back, his plasma cutter flaring bright blue with a predatory hum, ready for battle. For the first time since Kyle had met him, there wasn’t a trace of his usual mockery or bravado in his voice, only poorly concealed tension bordering on primal terror. He turned sharply to Kyle, his eyes narrowed to slits, burning with an unkind fire. «Rain, you fucking said these could be illusions! This doesn’t look like fucking illusions, scientist! This is coming right at us!»
«I don’t know what it is, Holt,» Kyle snapped back, desperately trying to keep his voice even, though his heart pounded in his chest, threatening to burst out. He felt the pressure in his head intensify with every second, as if the Rift itself was trying to break through his skull, to penetrate the most hidden corners of his thoughts. Ella’s voice, weak but insistent, almost pleading, sounded again at the very edge of his consciousness: «Daddy… they’re already here… they’re coming for you… run, Daddy, run!» He gritted his teeth, trying to drive away this obsession, but the icy cold gripping his chest only intensified.
Eva Carter, who had been standing as if rooted to the spot by the terminal, quickly disconnected her neural interface, her face pale as a sheet but resolute. She instantly assessed the situation, her engineer’s mind already searching for a way out, even if there wasn’t one. She snatched her pulse pistol and turned sharply to the team, her voice unexpectedly loud and commanding, like an order on the battlefield: «We can’t just stand here and wait to be devoured! If this is some kind of anomaly generated by the Rift, we need to move, find a way out! If it’s something… real…» She paused for a moment, her gaze falling on the shadows that began to move slowly, inexorably