Runne's eyes snapped open, his own ragged gasp pulling him from the nightmare. It clung to him like a second skin, a film of cold sweat and phantom sounds—his brother's fading voice, the monster's guttural roar, the final, knowing look in his mum's eyes before the darkness swallowed her whole.
He sat up, the thin sheets tangled around his legs. On the windowsill of his tiny, cube-like room, the toy soldier stood its silent watch. Its chipped paint glinted in the dim light of the single flickering bulb overhead, a constant, ten-year-old reminder of the promise he'd failed to keep.
The room was cold. His bare feet flinched as they hit the cracked concrete floor. He reached for the soldier, the worn plastic a familiar comfort against his fingertips. A sharp knock on the metal door made him freeze.
"You alive in there, Veyne?" The voice was gruff, but held a familiar, grating warmth. Before he could answer, the door swung open.
Martha stood in the frame, her fiery red bob sharp and severe. Her pale blue eyes swept the room in a single, hawk-like glance that took in his sweat-damp sheets and trembling hands. "Another one," she stated. It wasn't a question.
Runne just nodded, his throat too tight to speak.
With a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the whole damn military, Martha stepped inside and tossed a crumpled grey uniform onto the bed. "Get dressed. You're late."
Runne caught the faded fabric. "I—"
"Don't." Martha cut him off, her voice sharp as shrapnel. "The nightmares won't kill you. Out there, everything else will. Suck it up and move." She turned to leave but paused at the door, her hand resting on the frame. She tossed a dented metal thermos towards him without looking back. "And drink this. You look like death."
Runne fumbled the catch. The rich, dark smell of black coffee, a luxury this deep in the barracks filled the small room. He looked at the thermos, then at her retreating back. "Thanks," he muttered, but she was already gone.
He took a long swallow of the bitter, life-giving liquid. With a deep sigh, he pulled on the uniform. It was standard issue for the dormant corps—the official designation for military personnel without a Resonant Core. The fresh meat. The cannon fodder. He ran a hand through his unkempt black hair, a bitter taste in his mouth that had nothing to do with the coffee. Ten years, and all he had to show for it was this faded grey uniform and a ghost that never stopped screaming.
He grabbed the toy soldier, slipping it into his pocket before making his way out of the barrack, the clomp of his standard-issue boots echoing in the sterile corridor. Time to face another day as a cog in a machine he wasn't truly part of.
The corridor opened into a vast, pre-dawn courtyard. The air was frigid, slicing at any exposed skin, and smelled of diesel fumes and damp gravel. Floodlights cut through the gloom, illuminating clouds of condensing breath from the hundreds of soldiers standing in formation. It was the daily ritual: a sea of grey uniforms, the clatter of gear, and the barked orders of a Sergeant Major trying to impose order on the chaos.
Runne found his platoon—the other members of the dormant corps and shuffled into line, keeping his head down. Here, the divide was obvious. To their right stood the Awakened platoons, their gear newer, their postures sharper. They were the real weapons. Runne and his cohort were the sandbags.
On a raised platform at the front, Sergeant Kellan, a bulldog of a man whose face seemed permanently fixed in a scowl, was rattling off assignments from a data-pad.
"Fireteam Echo. You're running perimeter sweeps on the western wall. High alert. I want reports every thirty minutes. Don't fuck it up."
A small group of Awakened soldiers broke off, their movements sharp and synchronised. Runne caught a glimpse of the fireteam's leader—a young woman with black hair pulled into a severe ponytail. Her uniform was pristine, her blade a custom piece, and the faint shimmer of energy around her hands marked her as Awakened. She didn't even glance toward the dormant platoons. To her, they were part of the landscape.
"Veyne!"
Runne's head snapped up.
Kellan's eyes locked onto him. "Sector Seven. Slum patrol. Keep the squatters from killing each other. Try not to get shanked."
A few snickers rippled through the nearby ranks. Slum patrol was bottom-of-the-barrel work. "Yes, Sergeant," Runne muttered, his jaw tight.
Just as Kellan was about to dismiss them, a runner sprinted up to the platform, handing him a sealed message tube. Kellan cracked it open, his brow furrowing as he read the flimsy printout inside. He looked up, his gaze sweeping the yard before landing, once again, on Runne.
"Veyne! Hold up. Scratch that."
Runne froze, turning back.
Kellan waved the printout dismissively. "Change of plans. Topside wants a warm body on the southern line, effective immediately. That's you. A transport is waiting at Hangar Bay Four. Get moving."
A murmur went through the crowd. The southern line was a frozen, empty wasteland. No one had been posted there in years.
"Sir?" Runne asked, confused. "What's the assignment?"
Kellan scowled, crushing the paper in his fist. "The assignment is to go where I fucking tell you to go. Now get out of my sight."
Runne walked away from the muster yard kicking dirt, the Sergeant's final, dismissive words echoing in his ears. The initial confusion was already hardening into a familiar, bitter resignation. Topside wants a warm body. That's all he was. A piece to be moved around a board he couldn't see, and dormant pieces were the most disposable of all.
***
Hangar Bay Four was a vast, cavernous dome at the edge of the base, echoing with the whine of machinery and the shouts of ground crews. A blocky, graceless transport craft, affectionately nicknamed the 'Wombat' by the troops, sat waiting, its rear ramp lowered like a hungry mouth. The pilot, a man Runne had never seen before, just grunted and jerked a thumb towards the empty passenger bay.
The ramp sealed with a hydraulic hiss, plunging the bay into a dim, red-lit gloom. Runne strapped himself into a cold metal seat as the transport shuddered and lifted off the ground, the vibrations rattling through his bones.
The southern line, the thought, shaking his head. 'What a fucking joke.'
He hadn't been this far south since the day he'd first arrived, a broken little boy clutching a toy. The area was a dead zone, written off as uninhabitable. Why send anyone there now? Was this some kind of punishment detail he hadn't heard about? Did he piss someone off? Or was it just random? A roll of the dice, and his number came up. With the dormant corps, it was usually just random.
His hand rested on the stock of the standard-issue pulse rifle clamped to his thigh. It was a rugged, reliable weapon, spitting out superheated particles that could punch through most low-level threats. He knew how to strip it, clean it, and fire it with practiced efficiency. He also knew it was useless against any serious Awakened threat. It was a tool for crowd control and for putting down the dumb, animalistic beasts that sometimes strayed too close to the outer walls. Against real power, it was just a noisemaker.
His other hand drifted unconsciously to his pocket, fingers brushing against the hard, familiar shape of the toy soldier. He squeezed it gently. 'Be brave. Protect your brother.' The promise of an eight-year-old boy. A promise that had curdled into a decade-long failure. He was still that helpless kid, just taller. Still powerless to stop the monsters.
The drone of the Wombat's engines was a steady hum. Through the small, reinforced porthole, he watched the sprawling, grey geometry of the base shrink away until it was just a smudge, soon replaced by an endless, rolling expanse of white. There were no landmarks, no signs of life, just the featureless, blinding glare of snow and ice under a pale, indifferent sun. He was a speck, heading toward nothing.
After what felt like an hour, the pilot's voice crackled through the intercom. "Alright kid, this is it. Your stop."
The transport slowed, hovering with a deep thrum. The rear ramp whined open, revealing a wall of white. A savage, howling wind tore into the bay, bringing with it a spray of fine, needle-like ice.
"My job's to drop you at the marker," the pilot's voice said. "Orders don't say nothing about pickup. Good luck."
Runne, wide-eyed, stared at the man for a second, then unstrapped himself, pulled his thermal hood tight around his face, and walked to the edge of the ramp. There was no outpost. No shelter. Just the wind and the white. He was completely, utterly alone.
He took a breath, the freezing air burning his lungs, and stepped out into the storm. The Wombat didn't wait, its ramp already closing as it banked and disappeared back the way it came, its engine noise swallowed by the gale.
Then, silence. Only the sound of the wind, howling across the top of the world.
The silence left by the transport was heavier than any sound. For a full minute, Runne just stood there, a statue in the heart of a howling gale. The wind tore at him, pulling the heat from his body with savage efficiency.
'Perfect. Just perfect,' he thought, the words a bitter taste in his mouth. "Dropped in the middle of nowhere with a good luck and not so much as a return ticket."
He clenched his jaw, forcing his body into motion. His training kicked in, a ghost of Martha's voice in his ear: "Never stand still. A stationary target is a dead one." He pulled a compass from his belt pouch. The needle trembled, but pointed steadily enough. South.
'Alright, Veyne. Just a walk in the park. One foot in front of the other.' With a final, useless glance at the empty sky, he began his trek.
He trudged through snow already deep enough to suck at his boots with every laboured step. The world was a blinding vortex of white. There was no horizon, no sky, no ground, just the swirling snow and the relentless howl of the wind.
He walked for what felt like an hour, maybe more, when a frantic flapping sound cut through the gale's roar. Runne shielded his eyes, looking up. A swarm of dark shapes burst through the white curtain—birds.
'Birds? Flying in this storm?' he wondered, his tired brain struggling to process the sight. 'And all bunched together like that… skuas and petrels… they never fly together. Something's spooked them. Something big.'
His hand instinctively went to the pulse rifle slung over his shoulder, fingers finding the cold metal of the trigger guard. The bad feeling from the airport, the one that had laid dormant for a decade, was stirring again. He kept moving, but his steps were now cautious, his head on a swivel. That's when he felt it. A low hum, a vibration coming up from the ground, through the soles of his boots.
He froze. 'Okay. That's not the wind,' he thought, his focus sharpening. 'That's new.'
He changed direction, heading toward the source of the vibration. The hum grew stronger, a tangible presence in the air that set his teeth on edge. He crested a small, snow-swept rise and looked down into a massive ravine. An ancient riverbed, long since frozen over. The ice at the bottom, however, pulsed with a faint, sickly green light.
'That colour…' The thought sent a jolt of ice through his veins. 'It's the same green light from the airport. From the nightmare.'
The light and the sound were coming from further down the ravine, from a gaping black wound in the rock face. A cave. Its entrance was huge and unnaturally smooth.
He stood there, the wind whipping at him, his heart hammering against his ribs. Every instinct screamed at him to turn around.
'Nope. Absolutely not. This is where the story ends for the stupid bastard who walks into the scary glowing cave,' his mind raced, a frantic, sensible panic taking over. But the logic that followed was cold and inescapable. There was no transport coming back. There was only the storm, or the cave.
'Screw it,' he thought. 'Better to die knowing than freezing here wondering.'
He began the treacherous climb down into the ravine, his boots slipping on the glowing ice, his rifle held tight against his chest. He was a boy, sent to the end of the world to investigate a noise, and he was walking willingly into the mouth of a monster.
***
Runne took one last look at the swirling white chaos of the blizzard behind him before stepping into the blackness of the cave. The howling wind was instantly cut off, replaced by a profound, echoing silence and the deep, resonant hum that now seemed to vibrate in his very soul.
The air inside was still, cold, and heavy, carrying the scent of ozone and something else… something ancient, like dust from a tomb that had been sealed for millennia. The only light came from the sickly green glow pulsing from deep within, casting long, dancing shadows that writhed like living things on the unnaturally smooth walls.
'Okay, Veyne. Deep breaths,' he thought, his own breath misting in front of him. 'Just a cave. A very big, very scary, glowing green cave.'
He unslung his rifle, the weight of it a small, inadequate comfort. He moved forward, his boots echoing unnervingly in the vast space. He followed the winding tunnel deeper, until it opened into a cavern so vast it defied comprehension.
And there it was. A shimmering, tearing wound in the very fabric of reality, hanging in the centre of the cavern.
'A Rift,' he breathed, the thought a mix of pure terror and awe. 'It has to be. But they said… they said they were all gone.'
He felt a gentle but insistent pull, a physical force that seemed to tug at his very centre. 'I'm feeling it,' he thought, a jolt of panic and confusion hitting him.
Then, fragmented words bloomed inside his mind, faint and struggling to form, like a voice reaching across an impossible distance.
'…key… has found… the lock… must… open…'
The voice was a whisper of a whisper, yet it chilled him to the bone. The Eclipse Veil. The name surfaced in his mind, unbidden and terrifying. "Who's there!?" he shouted, his voice small and pathetic in the enormous cavern.
SKREEEEE—
A wet, tearing sound ripped through the air, coming from the Rift itself. Runne watched in horror as the green surface bulged outward. A pale, discoloured snout, slick with gore, punched through the shimmering barrier. It squealed, a high-pitched sound of agony and effort, as it forced its head into the cavern.
It was a nightmarish creature, vaguely like a boar or a pig, but emaciated and wrong. Its skin was pallid and hairless, stretched so tight over its bones that Runne could see the outline of its skull. As it struggled, more of its body pushed through, revealing a hideously deformed, twisting spine that was visible through its malnourished flesh.
But it was stuck. The Rift's energy binding it, its energy clinging to the creature's back half. It thrashed wildly, only half-birthed into their world, squealing in a piteous, terrifying rage.
'What is that thing?' his mind screamed. 'It's... it's stuck. I have to get out of here. Now.'
That single, selfish thought was all it took. He didn't wait to see if it would break free. He turned and ran.
Adrenaline surged through him, cold and sharp. He sprinted back through the tunnel, his boots slamming against the rock, the creature's agonised squeals and the Rift's deep hum chasing him from behind. He burst out of the cave mouth and back into the full fury of the blizzard, not stopping, just running, scrambling up the side of the ravine.
He ran blindly through the snow, his lungs burning, his legs screaming. He didn't care where he was going, only that he had to get away. He stumbled, falling hard into a deep snowdrift, the air knocked out of him.
'This is it,' he thought, his energy gone, the cold already seeping deep into his bones. 'I'm dead.'
But then a new sound cut through the howl of the wind. The deep, familiar thrum of a Wombat's engines. A brilliant floodlight cut through the swirling snow, and Runne looked up to see the dark, blocky silhouette of the transport hovering not fifty metres away.
A miracle.
Hope, fierce and desperate, surged through him. He pushed himself up, waving his arms frantically. "Here! Over here!" he screamed, his voice torn away by the wind.
The Wombat's rear ramp was already lowering. The pilot stood there, his face pale and wide-eyed. Runne scrambled towards it, his legs clumsy with exhaustion and relief.
The pilot grabbed his arm, pulling him aboard into the red-lit bay. "I saw the light from up there!" the pilot shouted over the engines. "That green glow from the ravine… I couldn't just leave you, kid. What the hell did you see?"
Runne didn't answer, just spun around and pointed frantically back towards the cave, his breath coming in ragged, panicked gasps. "Go!" he choked out, grabbing the pilot's sleeve. "Go! We have to go! There's a—a Rift! And a thing—a monster!"
"Whoa, whoa, kid, calm down!"
"No!" Runne shouted, his voice cracking with hysteria. "You don't understand! We have to report it! We have to fly, now!"
Seeing the pure, undiluted terror in the 18-year-old's eyes, the pilot didn't argue. He slammed his hand on the control panel beside the ramp. With a hydraulic hiss, the door sealed, shutting out the storm and plunging them into the relative safety of the transport. The Wombat banked sharply, turning back towards the distant, hidden safety of the base.