Morning came with a blood-red haze. The survivors—Caleb, Lena, and the four strangers—moved in silence, the air heavy with unspoken suspicion. The man in the jacket, who introduced himself as Harris, led the way with a machete strapped to his hip. The others followed in a loose formation, weapons never far from hand.
By midday, they reached a stretch of highway that cut through the wilderness. At first glance, it seemed almost untouched: faded yellow lines, weeds sprouting through cracks, rusted road signs leaning at odd angles.
But then Lena looked up.
The sky rippled. Not clouds—ripples, as if the heavens themselves were water disturbed by some unseen hand. Shapes moved in those ripples, vast and serpentine, their shadows sliding across the sun.
She froze. "Caleb… do you see that?"
He followed her gaze. His face drained of color. "Yeah."
The others noticed too. Harris muttered a curse under his breath, while the youngest of the group—a boy no older than sixteen—stared wide-eyed. "What are they?"
No one answered.
The air grew colder as they pressed on, their breath misting despite the summer heat. The shadows overhead shifted, as if tracking their movement. Once, Lena could have sworn she saw an eye the size of a house blink open in the rippling sky before vanishing again.
By dusk, they stumbled into a town half-swallowed by a rift.
Buildings sagged like wax melted under a flame. Streets ended abruptly in jagged voids, chunks of asphalt suspended midair like floating debris. From the rift itself pulsed a violet glow, steady as a heartbeat.
The group halted at the edge.
"We go around," Harris said firmly.
"It'll take us two days," Caleb argued. "We don't have the food for that."
Harris's eyes narrowed. "Better two days hungry than walking into that."
But before the argument could escalate, a sound drifted from the ruined town.
Voices.
Faint, distant, but unmistakable. Laughter, shouting, fragments of conversation.
Lena's heart leapt. "There are people in there."
The woman from the night before shook her head sharply. "No. That's not people. It's a trick. You walk toward that sound, you'll never walk back."
The boy looked torn, eyes flicking between the rift and the group. "But what if she's wrong? What if it's survivors?"
The voices grew louder, clearer now. Lena swore she could pick out words—her mother's voice calling her name, her brother's laughter echoing just beyond the ruined street. Her chest tightened.
"No," she whispered. "They're dead. I know they're dead."
But the sound went on, wrapping around her mind like honeyed chains.
Caleb grabbed her arm. "Don't listen. It's bait."
She nodded, forcing herself to tear her gaze away. But even as they skirted the town's edge, the voices followed, soft and persistent, whispering promises of safety, of warmth, of everything she had lost.
By the time they made camp miles away, everyone was shaken.
Harris paced by the fire, muttering. The boy sat with his head in his hands, rocking back and forth. The woman sharpened her blade obsessively, sparks flying in the dark.
Lena sat close to Caleb, her body trembling. "It's getting worse," she whispered. "The rifts—they're not just spreading. They're learning."
Caleb glanced at her. "Learning what?"
"How to use us against ourselves."
---
That night, she dreamed of Zone Echo.
She saw walls of steel, survivors gathered inside, children laughing as soldiers stood guard. A sanctuary against the darkness.
But as she drew closer, the walls began to bend. The laughter turned to screams. And over the gates, carved in black fire, were the words:
"ALL HOPE IS OURS."
Lena woke with a choked gasp, the image seared into her mind.
She knew now, with a cold certainty, that reaching Zone Echo wouldn't be the end of their journey.
It would only be the beginning.