The night after the raid was quiet—too quiet. The Resistance enclave sat in uneasy stillness, the fires burning low in their barrels. The faint crackle of flames and the hum of wind through rusted walls filled the air. The group returned from their first mission bloodied, bruised, but alive.
Ava sat on a stack of old crates, her rifle resting across her lap. The adrenaline had faded, leaving behind a heavy silence. Around her, the others moved mechanically—Arlo cleaning his weapon, Rhea sharpening a blade, and Lila checking their scavenged supplies. Mara paced nearby, her expression sharp, but pride flickered faintly in her eyes.
"You did what few could," Mara said. "You hit Haven, and you survived to tell it."
Ava looked up, the dim firelight reflecting in her tired eyes. "They'll know now," she murmured. "They'll come for us."
"They already were," Mara replied. "Now they'll just come faster."
Ava didn't respond. She could still hear the echoes of their fight—the creature's scream, the distorted voices of the corrupted humans, the gunfire tearing through the night. For the first time, she realized something: every battle they won drew them closer to whatever Haven had become.
While the others rested, Arlo began sorting through the remaining supplies. He stopped when he saw a small, unmarked crate tucked behind the larger ones. The metal was colder than the rest, and it vibrated faintly beneath his fingertips.
"Hey, Ava," he called. "You see this before?"
She walked over, frowning. "No… Mara didn't mention anything like that."
Arlo pried it open. Inside lay a small cylindrical device pulsing with a dim blue light. Its metallic surface bore the Haven insignia—weathered, but unmistakable.
Rhea immediately stepped back. "Get that thing out of here."
Mara approached slowly, studying it. "It's transmitting," she said. "Weak signal. But… constant."
The others exchanged uneasy looks. Ava felt her stomach tighten. "A tracker?"
"Maybe," Mara replied, "or something worse."
They brought it to the enclave's tech station, where one of the scouts hooked it up to a salvaged receiver. Static filled the air, followed by faint, broken words that made the room fall silent.
"...Sector Nine... survivors... requesting extraction…"
The voice repeated again, and again—unchanged, looping endlessly.
Lila's hands trembled. "That's… Haven's frequency. I heard it before. When we escaped."
Arlo's jaw clenched. "It's bait."
Ava shook her head slowly. "Or a message that never reached anyone."
By morning, the group made their choice. They couldn't ignore the signal. If it was a trap, they'd destroy it. But if there were survivors—or answers—then they needed to find them.
Mara gave the order with hesitation. "Stay off the open paths. No lights. And if anything feels wrong… you run."
The wasteland was quiet as they moved out. Mist hung over the valley, swallowing sound. The tracker's faint beeping guided them through dead trees and shattered ground until the remains of a relay tower appeared through the fog.
The structure leaned against the hillside, rusted and overgrown with vines. The base was scorched, and faint sparks flickered where cables still pulsed with dying energy.
"This is it," Arlo said, lowering his weapon. "Signal's strongest here."
Ava knelt beside the base, brushing away dirt until her fingers hit metal—a sealed hatch. The device in her bag began pulsing faster, syncing to something below.
"Whatever it's connected to," Rhea said, "it's underground."
Before Ava could respond, their radios crackled. Static burst through the speakers, followed by distorted voices.
Ava froze. It was her voice. Then Arlo's. Repeating lines they had spoken earlier.
Lila's eyes widened. "It's copying us…"
The ground beneath them vibrated—a low hum, almost like breathing. From the fog, red lights appeared. Small at first, then dozens—Haven drones, gliding silently through the air.
"Drones!" Arlo shouted.
Gunfire tore through the stillness. Sparks erupted as bullets struck metal. Rhea lunged forward, slicing through one of the machines with her blade. Ava fired at another, the recoil shaking her arms.
Lila ducked behind a broken wall as a drone fired a beam of red light across the clearing, searing the ground where she'd stood seconds before. Arlo rolled to cover and shot the drone out of the sky.
But before the last drone fell, it emitted a piercing tone and launched a flare upward—a bright pulse that vanished into the clouds.
Arlo's expression darkened. "They marked our position."
"They know where the enclave is," Ava said, her voice tight.
Rhea kicked the destroyed drone aside. "We need to move. Now."
Ava looked down at the device in her bag. Its blue light was fading—but for an instant, before it went dark, it projected something new: coordinates, spiraling downward into the earth.
By the time they made it back, dusk had fallen again. The air smelled of smoke and fear. The Resistance was already packing to relocate—the drones' signal had given away their position.
Mara was waiting, her arm bandaged and her face pale. "You led them here," she said—not in accusation, but in grim acceptance.
Ava placed the device on the table. "We didn't mean to. But we found something. Coordinates."
Mara's eyes narrowed. "To where?"
"Underground," Ava said quietly. "Sector Nine."
For a moment, no one spoke. The faint hum of machinery filled the silence—the sound of Haven, alive beneath the soil.
Rhea exhaled slowly. "You mean… it's still running?"
Ava nodded, her eyes hard. "And it's waiting for us."
That night, Ava stood on the ridge overlooking the valley. The fires below flickered as the Resistance prepared to move out. In the distance, thunder rumbled—or maybe it was something else.
The device pulsed once more in her hand, faint and cold. She stared down at it, knowing what it meant.
Rhea joined her, silent at first. Then she said quietly, "If we go back down there, we might not come back."
Ava looked toward the horizon, where the mist met the ruins of Haven's world. "Then we make sure it's worth it."
Far below, deep in the earth, something stirred. Faint lights blinked awake in the dark—like eyes opening after a long sleep.