With each step taken into the wrench of the Radiation Poisoning Zone, the air felt
denser—like resistance itself had taken physical form. As if unseen hands, remnants of the dead, were reaching out, trying to drag him back, each step an act of defiance against a curse cast upon the city.
Collins advanced slowly. Every so often, a soft crunch beneath his boots reminded him of what lay hidden under the ash. Bones. Human remains, broken underfoot like forgotten whispers. He never looked down. He didn't need to.
Back at camp, Meesha sat with eyes locked on the live telemetry feed. Her fingers moved quickly over the console, tracking radiation levels, temperature shifts, suit stability, and oxygen levels. Everything had to be exact. They couldn't afford a second failure.
"So what's the plan now?" Meesha asked through the comm.
"What do you mean? The plan is to investigate, obviously," Collins replied, distracted.
"Investigate... but what exactly?"
"You and I both know you can't just randomly search every house and building in this zone," she said. "The suit doesn't have enough power or filtration time for a blind scavenger hunt."
"Just let me think," Collins muttered.
"Think? Dumbass, you should've done that part before walking into a goddamn suicide mission."
"Just let me fucking think!" he snapped.
A grave silence filled the comms. Even the ambient hum of the environment seemed to pause.
Collins wandered further down the lanes—rows of ghostly structures, their walls scorched, their windows melted. The only sound was his own machinery echoing off the ruins.
"These buildings seem... pretty old," he muttered to himself.
That was it. An idea sparked. Not everything had to be random.
"Meesha," he said, a new urgency in his voice, "I want you to pull urban planning and construction data. Specifically, I need reports of any buildings constructed or renovated in the last five years. Something out of place. Something new in a place that should be old."
She blinked at the request. "What are you thinking?"
"I don't have time to explain. Just do it. Focus on high-energy consumption facilities. No public records, no academic output, no reason to exist in a residential district. You know what to look for."
"Alright," she said. "I'm on it. Give me a few minutes."
Collins stepped into a shadowed alley and waited, mind racing.
A few minutes passed. Then Meesha's voice came back, steady and intrigued.
"I've got something. A cafe, a library, a shopping mall, department store, building and... hmmmmmm."
"And?" Collins asked, tension sharpening his tone.
"A Building named C-29 !?. Classified as a private research site. Built four and a half years ago. No data on personnel or purpose. High energy draw... and guess what—it's about 300 meters northeast of your current position."
Collins grinned behind the helmet.
"Found you," he whispered.
As Collins moved northeast toward the coordinates Meesha had given him, her voice continued to feed through his comms.
"Still digging into the archives," she said. "The construction permits were pushed through by a private contractor with deep security clearance—no name, just a shell entity. The power usage logs were flagged at least twice by municipal auditors but the reports went silent after that."
"Of course they did," Collins muttered.
"Also... no official staff ever logged. Not a single person on payroll, not a single maintenance request, and yet power consumption was astronomical. Almost like they wanted the building to go unnoticed but never inactive."
"That's the kind of ghost house I'm looking for," Collins replied.
Through the dusty veil of the night, the silhouette of Building C-29 came into view. Jagged on top, half-collapsed on one side, but its base structure still intact. Thick vines and char clung to the front, and the windows had melted into opaque puddles of glass.
"I see it," Collins said. "Gray facade, scorched steel trim... three floors. Looks like hell chewed it and spat it out."
Meesha's voice came through immediately. "That's the one."
Just as she confirmed, a faint noise caught her ear back at the base—soft, deliberate footsteps approaching from behind the equipment tent. Her eyes darted to the screen, then to the dim path outside.
"Hold on, Collins," she whispered quickly, muting the channel.
She stepped out casually, trying to mask her tension. A figure emerged from the shadows—tall, composed.
Captain Elliot.
"What are you doing out here so late?" he asked, voice smooth but sharp beneath the surface.
Meesha forced a smile. "Just recalibrating the uplink for the radiation sensors. I've been tracking system noise—making sure the suit's sync with the server holds. It's touchy in this weather."
Elliot gave a light nod, stepping closer to glance briefly at the humming monitor.
"Still pushing on that Version 5 prototype I assume?" he asked.
Meesha nodded, keeping her tone casual. "Yeah. Still a work in progress. Mostly theoretical until we can get clean test data back from the Search Zone."
Elliot rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "Well, whatever gets us closer to safer entry is worth the grind. The brass upstairs are watching closely."
There was a pause.
"Just curious," he added lightly. "Have you seen Collins around?"
Meesha blinked. "Last I saw, he was in the Search Zone, running environment metrics for the next phase of testing. We're trying to sync the data to refine filtration layers."
Elliot nodded again, seemingly satisfied. "Right. Good. Keep at it."
He turned and walked off into the dark, the gravel crunching beneath his boots.
Meesha exhaled slowly, hands still hovering over the keyboard. The monitor pulsed quietly.
She quickly unmuted the comms.
Meanwhile, Collins stood at the entrance of Building C-29, staring into the hollow, fire-blacked corridor ahead.
As Collins stepped inside Building C-29, a wave of oppressive silence greeted him. The walls were stained black, blistered by intense heat. Twisted remnants of lab equipment and shattered monitors were scattered across the floor. The cold was not from temperature but from something deeper—an unnatural stillness, like the building itself was holding its breath.
The darkness swallowed his helmet's light as he advanced through what remained of the entry corridor. Every footstep echoed unnaturally, bouncing off steel and charred concrete. The HUD display blinked with slow pulses, reminding him that this was still one of the most dangerous zones in the city.
He reconnected with Meesha.
"I'm inside," he whispered. "What's the progress on the scan logs?"
Meesha's voice crackled back after a beat. "I'm pulling in more structural data. This building's blueprints are fragmented, but I'm working through overlays."
"You went silent for a bit," Collins said. "Where were you?"
"Elliot," she replied briefly. "He came by asking questions. I told him what he needed to hear."
Collins cursed under his breath. "Keep him out of this. Don't let him get suspicious. I'm telling you—he's more involved than he's letting on. He could be a major threat if we slip up."
Meesha didn't argue. "Just be careful."
Collins pressed deeper into the building. "I'm checking interior rooms now."
The corridor branched into what looked like an open lab area. Rows of burned desks, corroded filing cabinets, and skeletal shelves lined the walls. Half-melted ID badges were scattered on the floor, unreadable. The only thing intact was a scorched table at the back.
Something was on it.
Collins approached slowly.
Amidst a layer of dust and ash, a leather-bound book sat untouched—almost preserved by intent. He picked it up carefully. The edges were worn, but the pages inside were still legible.
A name was scribbled on the inside cover: Dr. Eden Rustles.
Beside the diary were more items: a flash drive charred at the edges, several data cards, and a sealed envelope marked with a strange insignia.
"I've found something," he whispered. "A diary... possibly logs. There's more here too. I'm confiscating everything."
"Eden Rustles?" Meesha echoed. "That name's not on any official research record I've seen."
"I'm going to dig deeper," Collins said, stowing the items into his suit's secure pouch. "I'll check the second floor. There might be more."
The signal cracked slightly as he moved toward a half-collapsed staircase.
"Whatever this place was, it had been hidden for a reason" collin said silently.
The second floor of Building C-29 offered little more than scorched equipment and discarded research hardware—servers fried beyond recovery, specimen chambers broken, their contents long evaporated into dust. Collins scanned what he could, but nothing stood out. No more names. No more revelations.
His HUD flickered.
POWER SUPPLY LOW - 18% REMAINING
At the same moment, Meesha's voice broke through the static. "Collins, your readings are dipping below safe return levels. You need to head back. Now."
"I know," he said, staring around the ruin one last time. "It's just... disappointing. I thought there'd be more."
"Collins," Meesha repeated, more firmly this time, "get out of there before that suit becomes your coffin."
With a frustrated sigh, Collins turned and retraced his steps. The building groaned faintly as if resenting his intrusion. He exited into the dead city's fog, each step heavier as exhaustion and disappointment crept in.
Collins reached the edge of the base perimeter just before the internal battery dropped to its emergency reserve. The decontamination process took longer than usual—layers of radiation dust clung to the new suit's ridges like it didn't want to let go.
Meesha met him outside the medical bay, already wearing protective gloves and a sensor mask.
"Hand it all over," she said, opening the secure container. "We'll check for contamination first. Then I'll start processing the data."
He unloaded the diary, the drive, the data cards, and the sealed envelope into her care. "Start with the notebook. The name was Dr. Eden Rustles. It might have everything."
"I'll get started immediately."
Collins nodded, then turned away, peeling off the helmet with a grimace.
He didn't get far before he was intercepted.
"Collins," came a voice from behind him—firm, familiar.
He turned to see Captain Elliot standing near the equipment tent, arms folded, posture casual but eyes sharp.
"You've been working late," Elliot said, walking up. "I have to say, not many in your shoes would go this far. You're a real soldier without the uniform."
The words were smooth, but to Collins, they cut differently. There was a tone beneath them.
Sarcasm? Politeness? Veiled suspicion?
"Just trying to do my job," Collins said flatly.
Elliot clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Be careful out there, Collins. We've already lost good people. I'd hate to see another of my comrades end up poisoned... or worse."
He walked off without waiting for a reply.
Collins stood motionless, his jaw tight.
There was something in Elliot's words.
And it wasn't just a concern.
After a while, Meesha contacted Collins through the internal channel, her tone sharp with both clarity and confusion.
"I went through the drive and data cards," she said. "There's not much to go on. Just a bunch of standard logins, references to minor tech research, some internal requests for hardware, and—get this—a requisition for a damn coffee machine."
Collins blinked. "A coffee machine?"
"Yeah. Cutting-edge research center, and they're begging for better coffee," she muttered. "Almost makes you believe it was all real until that point."
"What about the diary?" Collins asked. "That was the main thing. There had to be something in there."
There was a pause. "Yeah… about that. You need to see it yourself."
Collins met Meesha inside the central camp tent, which doubled as their lab and command room. She gestured toward the quarantine table, where the black-bound book rested in an isolated containment case.
He walked over slowly, expecting to see scribbles, entries, formulas—anything. But when he opened the front cover and flipped through the pages, his eyes widened.
Every page was blank.
No ink. No impressions. No faded lines.
Nothing.
"This… this can't be right," Collins said, stunned. "I assumed it was a logbook, a record. I mean, why else would it be there, intact, in the middle of that place?"
Meesha nodded, her face pale. "I know. But the moment we got it back here... it was empty. Worse yet, the contamination scan came up clean. Like the book had never been in the Zone."
Collins stared at her. "That's impossible. The whole building was flooded with radiation."
She leaned closer, her voice lower. "That's not even the weirdest part. The suit logs show contamination began the moment you picked up the diary. It's like..."
She hesitated.
"Like what?" Collins asked.
"Like someone put it there just before you arrived."
Collins froze.
"But how could that be possible?" he whispered.
The tent was silent.
________________________________________________________________
The next night, Collins couldn't sleep. The mystery of the blank diary gnawed at his thoughts like an itch under the skin. He sat alone in the lab tent, the diary lying on the table before him like a puzzle that refused to be solved.
No entries. No marks. No explanation.
He couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing—something obvious.
Driven by frustration, he rushed to the equipment hub and accessed the suit's dash cam feed. For the next hour, he went frame-by-frame through the footage taken inside Building C-29. Every corridor. Every corner. Every motion.
Nothing.
No sudden movement. No shadowy figure. No strange light. Nothing at all.
He scrubbed forward to the moment he picked up the diary and replayed it. Again and again.
Still nothing.
With a groan, he slumped back in his chair, staring at the closed diary in front of him.
"What the hell are you?" he muttered.
He flipped through the empty pages again, then impulsively tore one out. He held it to the light. The paper felt normal, looked normal.
But as he turned the page over, it slipped from his hand and landed across the desk lamp.
Then something changed.
Faint lines began to darken across the paper. Slowly—like ink bleeding through from a hidden layer—words began to form. The smell of roasted paper and something acidic hung in the air.
Collins leaned in, eyes wide.
A few words burned into view.
One of them was: " Hello world "
His heart skipped a beat.
He stood, barely breathing.
"Fuck..." he whispered, almost in awe.
He looked at the diary, then at the lamp.
"Coffee.!!"
It clicked.
Coffee contains tiny organic compounds that lightly stain paper when applied. Normally, they're almost invisible once dry. But when you apply heat, the chemical structure of those compounds changes.
The heat causes oxidation — that's a reaction between the coffee and oxygen in the air. It darkens the coffee residue, making it visible again.
Basically, coffee ink works like magic under heat. You can write with it using a cotton swab or a thin brush, let it dry, and the writing disappears — until you warm it up.
A desk lamp, an iron, or even a hairdryer can reveal the secret message by heating the fibers of the paper just enough to reveal what was hidden.
Collins grabbed more pages and started passing them over the lamp carefully, one after another.
And with each slow reveal, the truth began to return to the surface.
The first full page appeared in full, clear letters.
"Hello, world. This is Dr. Eden Rustle."
"Recently, I've taken an interest in writing, literature... and as it seems fun, I thought of sharing my world with you all."