The clearing froze. The fire's flames stretched upward in unnatural stillness, sparks hanging midair like stars nailed in place. The fight between Caleb and Harris locked in tableau, muscles taut, blades inches from flesh. Even the boy's terrified gasp hovered unspoken in the air.
Only Lena could move.
The violet glow seeped into the clearing, bending the air, warping the ground. From the light, the creature emerged. Not fully, not yet—just tendrils of shifting geometry, limbs folding into themselves, each angle wrong, each motion too smooth. Looking at it was like staring at a nightmare trying to disguise itself as something familiar.
The whisper filled Lena's skull.
You bleed each other for scraps. You are already broken. Why cling to the ash of hope?
Her knife trembled in her hand. "Stay away from them," she whispered, though her voice sounded small, swallowed by the hum.
The tendrils writhed, and suddenly Harris's suspended body jerked, time snapping back just for him. His eyes widened in terror as the creature's glow wrapped around him. He screamed, but no sound came—his mouth opening into silence as his body lifted into the air.
The others unfroze at once. Caleb lunged to his feet, blood dripping from his arm. The boy fell back, shrieking. The woman raised her blade, though her hands shook violently.
Harris's body contorted. Bones cracked, limbs stretched, his scream finally piercing the silence as the creature pulled him apart—not just his flesh, but his being, unraveling him into threads of light and dust.
Then, just as suddenly, he was gone.
Nothing left but the echo of his voice, carried on the hum.
He belongs to us now.
The woman broke. She dropped her blade and fled into the trees, her screams fading into the night. Caleb shouted after her, but the forest swallowed her whole.
The boy clung to Lena, sobbing, "We have to run—we have to run!"
The creature shifted, its void-like gaze falling on Lena again.
You resisted once, it whispered. But you cannot forever.
The ground cracked, black glass bleeding through the soil. The clearing fractured, shards rising like broken mirrors. In their reflections, Lena saw not herself but versions of herself—one lying dead on the bunker floor, one stabbing Caleb in the dark, one walking through the gates of Zone Echo only to find them burning.
Each reflection spoke in her own voice:
"You will fail. You will betray. You will end."
Lena screamed, slashing her knife at the shards. They shattered, but the fragments only multiplied, a thousand distorted faces staring back.
Caleb grabbed her shoulders, shaking her hard. "Lena! Stay with me!"
His voice cut through the noise, anchoring her. She blinked, gasping, and for a heartbeat the creature faltered, its form unraveling at the edges.
The hum rose to a deafening pitch. Then, with a sound like tearing fabric, the riftspawn withdrew, collapsing into itself until only darkness remained.
The clearing was empty. Harris gone. The woman gone. Only Lena, Caleb, and the boy remained, shaken and broken.
For a long time, no one spoke.
Finally, Caleb rasped, "We can't stay here. If we stop moving, we die."
Lena nodded weakly, though her mind reeled. The creature hadn't just attacked them. It had tested them.
And it had left her with one horrifying certainty:
Zone Echo wasn't a refuge.
It was the snare waiting at the end of the road.