The camp had gone quiet.
Faint breaths and the soft hum of the portable shielding generator were the only sounds left echoing in the gutted basement of the surveillance tower. Outside, the Hollow whispered—gusts of toxin-laced wind brushing against twisted steel, distant rumbles of volatile gas pockets shifting underground.
Aera sat cross-legged near a stack of decommissioned monitors, the dull glow of her datapad illuminating her face in the dim.
The journal was a habit now. Something she'd grown into over the past month. She didn't write strategy or logs like Kael. Hers was a record of thoughts—feelings, moments, the humanity in their struggle.
Day 33 in the Salt Flats. Whispering Hollows. The name fits—it does feel like it's talking. The squad's tired, but strong. Proud of them. I should've told Elian that earlier. He's doing well. Feels like they all are. But this place… it's too quiet. And there's something here. Something older than any of us.
She stopped writing, eyes narrowing at a soft click-click in the dark.
It didn't come from her datapad. Or the generator. This was mechanical—like a shifting gear echoing down metal corridors.
Aera stood slowly, careful not to wake the others. She grabbed her sidearm from beside her pack and stepped out of the sleeping zone, boots silent against the cracked stone floor.
The sound came again. A soft mechanical whir, followed by a low hum.
She traced it to the back wall—a corroded, slanted surface half-covered in collapsed debris. It was an unassuming section of the room, like the rest of the ancient, fire-scarred tower. But as she moved closer, her eyes caught it.
A faint light.
Embedded in the wall was a tiny node—half-buried beneath a pile of twisted wires and rusted tools. She reached for it and brushed the debris aside.
It pulsed once.
Then a panel clicked open with a hiss of long-sealed air escaping. The section of wall retracted, revealing a descending passage lit by faint blue lights that flickered as if reluctant to wake.
"What the hell…" Aera whispered.
Curiosity trumped caution. She stepped inside.
The hidden level beneath the surveillance station wasn't part of any map. Not even her datapad registered it.
As Aera descended, the air grew colder, cleaner—processed. The filtration systems were still working, somehow. The stairs ended at a wide corridor lined with flickering panels, screens frozen mid-static, and old access terminals covered in dust. The architecture here was more advanced than the rest of the tower—sleek alloy plating, reinforced partitions, magnetic vault seals. This wasn't built for monitoring.
It was built for preservation.
She walked slowly down the hall, her steps echoing, until she reached a chamber filled with illuminated data cores. Lines of them stretched across the room like gravestones.
And at the end—an interface terminal.
She stepped toward it. As soon as she approached, it powered on.
**> Welcome to Archive Node Sigma-V.
Clearance Detected: Guest-Level Access.Project Syrix Archive Database — Estimated Contents: 412 Hours of Footage, 9672 Documents, 1423 Visual Logs.**
The screen shifted.
Old security feeds flickered to life. Aera stood in silence as faces—human faces—came into view.
Scientists in sterile suits maneuvering crystalline cores into massive reactors. Engineers working in tandem, laughter caught on tape as they pushed the limits of known science. It felt… hopeful.
Then the mood shifted.
The video logs began showing alarms. Spiraling energy readings. Core containment breaches. Frantic shouting, emergency shutdowns, personnel being evacuated. Static cut over their screams.
And then—
A final clip. A long one. Footage from the control center.
A lead scientist stood before the camera. Pale. Shaking.
"We were wrong. We triggered something… deeper. It's not just a breach. The reactor's drawing energy from somewhere else now. A parallel well of quantum instability. If it keeps pulling, it'll collapse the entire valley—"
The feed cut out in a burst of static.
Aera sat in silence. Her chest felt tight. This wasn't just a failed experiment. This was a cover-up.
Then her datapad pinged.
A new file had appeared on the terminal's access list.
**> FILE CREATED: 5 YEARS AGO
DESIGNATION: SYRIX_07.LOG | ACCESS: RESTRICTED**
Her brow furrowed.
Five years ago?
That was centuries after the project supposedly collapsed.
She reached out, hovered her fingers over the prompt.
Then the lights flickered again. The temperature dropped.
Aera pulled back, suddenly aware of how alone she was down here.
She looked back once, then closed the interface and climbed the stairs in silence—her datapad tucked close, the file untouched but waiting.
She would show Elian in the morning.
And maybe, just maybe…
She'd finally understand what they were walking into.