The wind howled through the ruins of the Institute's surface facility, carrying the scent of scorched earth and something older—something like blood and iron memories. Ava stood at the edge of the crater, her boots inches from the crumbling ledge. Below, the remnants of the last incursion still smoldered.
Ezra stepped up beside her, his arm still in a makeshift sling. "They hit us faster than we expected."
"They knew we'd come back," Ava said softly. "They always knew."
Behind them, Caroline gave orders to the surviving resistance fighters. Half of them were young, barely out of training. The others—seasoned, scarred, some limping—knew what was coming. None flinched. Not anymore.
Caroline walked over, her coat still torn from the last blast. "The journal decoded fully. All of it. Cassandra didn't just document what they did. She left coordinates."
Ava turned. "Coordinates to what?"
Caroline exhaled. "The original site. The one that predates even the first veil experiments. It's not in any archive. It was erased before the Institute ever got its name."
Ezra narrowed his eyes. "Let me guess. Deep underground. Arctic. No radio signals get in or out."
Caroline nodded. "Exactly."
Ava didn't speak. Her thoughts were already running too far ahead. Every piece of the puzzle pointed to one thing now: this wasn't just about the veil. This was about the origin. Whoever started this—whoever opened that first fracture—was still influencing the world from within it.
"We leave at dawn," Ava said. "Minimal team. No backup. If it's a trap, we can't risk everyone."
Ezra's mouth tightened. "You think the Institute has agents left out there?"
"I know they do."
Thunder rolled over the horizon. Not from a storm—but from something else. Something deeper. The ground beneath them thrummed once, then went still.
Caroline tensed. "That's the second time in an hour."
"They're testing it again," Ava muttered. "The veil is weakening faster than they expected. They're losing control."
"Or giving it up on purpose," Ezra added grimly.
Night fell like a sheet of ink, and with it came a strange stillness. Fires were put out. The survivors slept in rotations. Ava sat at the edge of the makeshift camp, the decoded journal in her lap. Cassandra's handwriting stared back at her—each word now heavy with meaning.
> "They weren't scientists. Not in the end. They were priests in lab coats. What they found wasn't knowledge. It was a god. And they fed it."
Ava looked up at the stars. The cold air stung her lungs. She didn't know if she believed in gods, but she knew one thing: something was coming. Something hungry.
Behind her, Ezra stirred in his sleep. Caroline, wide awake, was pacing. There would be no rest tonight.
When the first hint of dawn broke through the dark clouds, the team assembled quietly. Five of them: Ava, Ezra, Caroline, and two scouts—Marin and Jules. Both silent, both loyal.
They boarded the VTOL in silence. No words left. Just a heading. A cold horizon.
And something waiting in the snow.
---
The VTOL sliced through the freezing air like a blade, engines humming low against the silence of the polar sky. Below them, glaciers extended like veins of old ice, untouched for centuries. Ava sat strapped in near the cockpit, her eyes fixed on the blinking coordinates slowly approaching on the nav display.
"Five minutes out," the pilot said, voice flat.
Caroline leaned forward, pointing to a blank spot on the screen. "There's nothing there. No topography, no signal."
"Exactly," Ava replied. "That's how you hide the birthplace of the veil."
The pilot circled once before dropping them into a narrow valley masked by thick white fog. The landing was rough. The cold hit them like a solid wall the moment the hatch opened. Ava stepped out first, rifle slung over her back, the crunch of snow loud beneath her boots.
The entrance was exactly as the journal described—a monolith of black stone half-buried in the ice. No visible door. No seams. Just a vertical slab, humming faintly.
Marin and Jules moved to flank either side. Ezra approached with the journal in hand, flipping to the last pages.
"Cassandra wrote that this place responds to intent. You don't open it. You will it to open."
"You mean like the veil itself?" Caroline asked.
Ezra nodded. "Same principles. The veil, the fractures, even the hallucinations—they're all psychic reflections. This site... this was the first mirror."
Ava stepped forward, placed her hand against the monolith. Cold bit into her palm, then warmth spread from her chest outward. Her memories surged: fire, blood, screams—the first time she lost someone to the veil. The monolith trembled. Then, with a slow grinding noise, it split open.
A tunnel yawned before them, slick with frost, lit by an unnatural blue glow that came from nowhere and everywhere.
They descended in silence.
Every step down the spiraling corridor was a descent into history. Symbols lined the walls—not carved, but grown, like veins of energy pulsing beneath a surface skin. Occasionally, echoes of movement flickered at the edges of their vision. No one spoke of them.
Hours passed. Or maybe minutes. Time twisted here.
At last, they entered a vast chamber. A dome the size of a cathedral, with a floating spire of light at its center. Around it, machines older than anything human hummed softly.
Jules exhaled sharply. "This isn't just a lab. It's a tomb."
Caroline knelt near one of the machines. "These readings... Ava, these machines are still active. They're feeding something."
Ava turned slowly. "Feeding what?"
That's when the light shifted. From the center spire, a shape began to form. Vaguely humanoid. Towering. Its features blurred like a smear of smoke over water. But its eyes—if they were eyes—locked onto Ava.
"I know you," it said, voice like grinding stone.
Ezra raised his weapon. The being didn't flinch.
"You wear the echo of the first breach. The wound has not healed. It never will."
Ava stepped forward. "What are you?"
"I am what you unmade. The hunger behind the veil. I was the first to see. The first to be devoured."
The chamber shook. Machines sparked.
Caroline backed up. "We need to leave."
"No," Ava said. "We finish this."
The figure raised its hand, and in a flash, the entire team was thrown against the walls. Pain lanced through Ava's side. She coughed blood, barely able to lift her head.
But her mind—her mind was awake. Fully.
Memories surged, not her own. Hundreds of lives. Thousands. All fed into the veil. All burned to keep this creature alive.
And she saw it—a way to sever it. To starve the hunger.
She stood, staggering. Caroline and Ezra were barely conscious. Marin lay unmoving. Jules was trying to crawl toward a detonator.
"You lived on what we gave you," Ava said, breath ragged. "But we're not giving anything more."
She reached into her coat, pulling out the core of the last veil stabilizer. Ezra had warned it was unstable.
"You want the wound to stay open."
She activated the core.
"Then bleed with us."
The chamber filled with blinding light. The creature screamed, and for the first time, it sounded afraid.
Then everything shattered.
---
I'm sorry if the next update will be slow, and I'm also a bit lazy to update because I'm busy reading translated novels on Wattpad. I apologize for making the readers wait so long. Thank you also for reading this work of mine, don't forget to stop by my account, who knows, you might be interested in reading my other works🤗🤭