Kane leaned back in his chair, eyes heavy from the endless calculations, logistics, and monitoring of supply transfers. The island was quiet tonight. Specialists and workers were finally taking a rare moment of rest, the orphans were asleep beside Reina, and even the watch drones hummed in a slower patrol rhythm. For once, the air didn't carry the weight of urgency.
But the system's cold chime cut through the silence.
[New Quest: Second Mountain Depot — Enter Alone]Condition: No companions allowed.Reason: Risk calibration and hidden objective.Reward: Classified.
Kane frowned. "Alone, huh?" He muttered, rubbing his temple. He could already imagine Lena's sharp protests or Mara's suspicion if they knew. But the system was insistent, and something about its phrasing told him this depot wasn't just another stockpile.
He turned to the monitors one last time. The island perimeter showed no activity. Everyone was safe. He exhaled, then stood.
"Rest while you can," he whispered under his breath, looking toward the dormitory wing. "I'll handle this."
He left before dawn, cloaked in mist, taking only what he trusted most: his sidearm, a compact rifle, three flashbangs, a portable power lantern, and a reinforced backpack. No convoy, no drones, no specialists. Just himself.
The mountain roads were winding and half-forgotten, overgrown with wild grass and slick moss. Kane drove a camouflaged jeep partway, then abandoned it at the tree line, continuing on foot under the canopy of pines. His boots crunched on soil that hadn't been touched in years.
Hours passed, broken only by the rhythm of his steps and the faint cry of birds. The deeper he went, the quieter it grew — until silence pressed like a hand against his ears.
Finally, he found it.
Half-buried under rock and vines stood the disguised entrance, not unlike the first depot. But this one was different. Where the first had resembled an abandoned bunker, this one was camouflaged better, carved into the mountain face itself. The reinforced steel door bore faded insignias long forgotten, and rust streaked its surface like dried blood.
Kane knelt, brushed off the moss, and pried open the concealed access panel. Dead wires greeted him. But the lock itself still hummed faintly — powered by a backup source buried deeper within. He wired in his handheld decryptor, forced the code override, and with a groan the heavy door slid open, sending a gust of stale, metallic air out into the night.
He stepped inside.
The second depot was vast. His flashlight beam caught rows of crates stacked to the ceiling, each marked with coded labels. Dust thickened the air, undisturbed for decades. His boots echoed against the metal flooring, every sound bouncing like it didn't belong.
The first chamber held ammunition, more than he'd seen at the first depot: sealed crates of heavy rounds, explosive shells, boxes of grenades, and even experimental weapon cases he didn't recognize. He checked one, finding sleek rifles that were definitely ahead of their time — perhaps prototypes never released to active forces.
The second chamber stored rations, but these were newer, their seals intact and their preservation systems humming faintly. Enough food to last a small battalion for years.
The third chamber surprised him most — vehicle bays. In the dim light, he traced the outlines of heavy tanks, armored transports, and supply carriers, all lined up like sleeping beasts. Most were drained of fuel, their exteriors coated in dust, but the sheer scale of what was hidden here tightened his chest. Whoever had built this depot had prepared for a war that never came.
"Why hide all this?" Kane whispered to himself, the words swallowed by the cavernous space.
He moved deeper. The layout grew narrower, more maze-like. The air turned colder, heavier. His flashlight caught warning signs on the walls: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY … CLASSIFIED STORAGE … RESTRICTED ACCESS.
At the end of a long corridor, he found it — a sealed chamber. Different from the rest. Its door was thicker, reinforced with multiple locking mechanisms and coded panels, the kind of security that suggested something dangerous — or priceless — lay within.
The system pinged softly.
[Quest Objective Updated: Enter the Sealed Chamber]
Kane's grip tightened on his rifle. The silence in this part of the depot felt wrong, like the air itself was waiting. He exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing as he set his decryptor on the lock panel.
Metal clanked, gears shifted, and the door hissed — halfway open before halting with a heavy thud. Darkness stared back at him from the gap.
Kane lifted his rifle, flashlight mounted, and stepped closer.
The chapter closed on that moment — Kane standing before the sealed chamber of the second mountain depot, heart steady but pulse quickening, the unknown waiting just beyond the steel.
The reinforced door groaned as Kane finally pried it open, its heavy frame resisting until the last grinding clank echoed through the corridor. A stale draft poured from the chamber beyond, carrying with it the scent of paper, rust, and something faintly chemical.
Kane stepped inside, rifle raised, flashlight sweeping.
What he found made him freeze.
Not weapons. Not fuel. Not vehicles.
Instead, rows of steel desks lined with file cabinets and shelves covered in dust. Research stations, scattered with notes, faded charts, yellowing blueprints, and vials long dried out. The place looked less like a depot and more like a forgotten laboratory, abandoned in haste but never stripped clean.
Kane's beam caught on a stack of folders in the center table. The paper was brittle, but the text still legible. He began to read.
Subject: Artifact-01Classification: Beyond Conventional ScienceProperties: Unknown. Exhibits dimensional interference. Energy signature not measurable by any known technology.
Kane's pulse quickened. Artifact-01.
He flipped through more pages. Sketches of the familiar cube-like object he had kept hidden at home appeared on the sheets, annotated with dense scientific jargon. The words blurred as his mind raced. He saw diagrams of energy transference, reanimation anomalies, space-folding capabilities.
Then, a note on the last page caught his breath.
"Final directive: Artifact-01 is to be safeguarded. Handed to the highest-ranking officer present during the consolidation. Designated Custodian: General Alaric Wylder."
His grandfather.
Kane lowered the papers, his throat tight. It all connected. The powers, the strange occurrences, the reason why both he and Reina had been marked by something otherworldly. His grandfather hadn't just been a soldier—he had been a keeper of something no human should've carried.
As the weight of the revelation settled, the system's chime rang out.
[Artifact Resonance Detected]
Kane spun around. His chest tightened as a familiar glow filled the chamber. From the air itself, shimmering motes of light began to pulse.
Back on the island, within Kane's locked quarters, the artifact that had sat dormant on his desk trembled. Slowly, it lifted into the air, spinning faster until it blinked out of existence—vanishing into thin space.
It reappeared in front of him.
The cube hovered, glowing with a pale, unnatural radiance. But it wasn't alone. From the far end of the chamber, within a reinforced glass containment, something else answered—a fragment, jagged and incomplete, yet pulsing with the same alien light.
The two pieces drifted toward each other. The air vibrated. Kane staggered back as sparks danced through the room, paper flying from desks and cabinets slamming shut from the unseen force.
The cube and fragment touched.
With a blinding surge, they fused—seamlessly, like they had always been halves of the same whole. The completed artifact pulsed once, twice, then unleashed a wave of energy that threw Kane to his knees. His rifle clattered away.
His vision blurred.
[System Notice: Artifact fully restored][System Update Initiated…]
The last thing Kane saw was the artifact floating inches from his chest, humming with infinite power. Then blackness swallowed him as his body gave in, fainting on the cold floor of the sealed chamber.
The depot echoed in silence, broken only by the steady, eerie hum of the complete artifact.
Reina stirred in her bed. The storm outside cracked against the island's shores, a deep rumble that shook the windows. Normally, she would shuffle into her brother's room, tug at his sleeve, and sleep curled beside him. But tonight, his bed was empty.
Her tiny hands searched, finding nothing but cold sheets. The unease bubbled into her chest. Her lips trembled.
"...Ka...ne…" she whimpered, the word soft but heavy with fear.
Then came the tears.
Her cries carried through the halls of the villa, shrill and heart-wrenching.
The sound awakened something else.
From beneath her bed, from the corners of her toy chest, from the shelves lined with plastic figures—her reanimated toys stirred. Little soldiers in stitched uniforms, stuffed animals with button-eyes glowing faintly, and mechanical action figures twitched to life. They clattered to the floor, forming a protective circle around her as if sensing her distress.
Dozens of them stood silently, surrounding the sobbing two-year-old, trying in their clumsy way to "stand guard."
But Kane's command still rang within them: Do not reveal yourselves before others.
So they froze. Arms locked at their sides, heads bowed, unmoving. A silent, eerie army—standing and yet lifeless.
The commotion drew the others. Maya burst into the room first, followed by Lena, both half-dressed and armed, expecting intruders. But what they saw made their steps falter.
Reina sat on the floor, tiny fists wiping her wet eyes, surrounded by a scatter of fallen toys. Her sobs filled the air.
"What the—" Maya crouched immediately, reaching out. "Hey, hey, little one, it's okay, it's okay. Kane will be back."
But Reina didn't hear her. She clutched her favorite stuffed soldier, her face pale, tears streaming. And then, all at once, she stiffened. Her body went slack, and she collapsed into Maya's arms, unconscious.
"Reina!" Lena's voice cracked, panic flashing in her eyes.
At that exact moment, deep within the mountains, Kane's body fell still, unconscious beneath the glowing artifact.
The timing was perfect—too perfect.
Maya pressed her ear against Reina's chest, relief washing when she heard a heartbeat. But her relief soured with dread. "She's breathing, but… she just fainted. What's happening?"
Lena already had the radio in hand. "Kane, do you copy? Come in."
Static hissed.
She tried again. "Kane, it's Lena. Respond. The kid—Reina—she's down. Do you hear me?"
Nothing.
She flipped through the emergency channels, her fingers tight around the device. Still silence.
Maya exchanged a tense look with her. "He always answers. Even if he's busy."
Lena swallowed. Her gaze swept across the room. The toys lay scattered on the floor like corpses, though something about them felt wrong. Their arrangement was… deliberate, almost as though they had positioned themselves around the child. But Kane had never mentioned anything like this.
Her grip tightened on the radio.
"Kane…" she whispered under her breath.
For the first time since joining him, fear clawed at her gut—not of the apocalypse looming ahead, but of losing the one man who seemed to hold their fragile survival together.
And in the villa's dim silence, the toys lay unmoving, their secret safe… for now.