Dylan leaned against the wall, arms crossed, his breath still uneven. He hadn’t taken much ti. Just the essentials. The descriptions. The structure. The pillar. The symbols. The vibration. What he had seen. What he had felt. Everything a careful and still-breathing spy could bring back.
Alka listened in silence, her eyes fixed on him with that suspended attentiveness she always showed when things got serious. She was already sorting the facts in her head. Classifying them, cross-checking them. She was likely preparing the ssage she would send tonight—or tomorrow, at the first breach in the routine.
"I think our employer already knows about that thing," he said, his words slow and weighted.
She lifted her eyes slightly toward him. Not surprised. Not really.
"Besides, he didn’t give more details about the mission, except that we should report anything we hear or see on this base," she added, her voice almost tired.
Dylan nodded, eyes drifting to the cracked floor of the office.
"Felt a little strange to ... especially since you and I are Awakened. Our strengths could serve better at the front than on simple infiltration missions."
The silence that followed was heavy, but not empty. Alka let it stretch for a mont. Then she laid both hands flat on the table and drew a slow breath.
"I get your point. Really. But Dylan... our employer knows what he’s doing. He always has. There must be a reason. A logic behind all this, even if it escapes us for now."
She stood, adjusted the sleeves of her shirt, then walked slowly toward one of the tal shelves cluttered with scribbled supply sheets. She pulled one at random, it seed, but her eyes remained in shadow.
"And the front assignnt will co. Sooner or later. This kind of calm is always just an illusion. The storm always finds us in the end."
Dylan didn’t reply right away. He stared at an invisible point on the wall, where a torn map had left a paler square.
He knew she was right. But that didn’t loosen the knot in his neck, nor the lingering shiver left by that living pillar, down there, in the northern depths.
He ran a hand over his bandages, thoughtful.
"What if this isn’t a conventional front, Alka? What if this mission is the real battlefield? Underground... invisible."
She turned her head toward him.
"Then this is where we’re expected."
She paused, her gaze darkening, almost veiled.
"And this is where we’ll have to hold. Until the end."
Dylan pushed away from the wall slowly, eyes briefly eting Alka’s. No more needed to be said. They had understood each other—once again—in the gaps and silences.
He slid the tal door open with a restrained gesture, quiet enough not to raise alarm, not so careful as to seem suspicious.
But the mont he crossed the threshold, he encountered a silhouette. Tall. Solid. The kind of man who always seed to sweat authority, even in civilian clothes.
Dylan imdiately lowered his head.
The man stopped. Not long enough to ask questions, but just enough to register him. A dusty kid, half-sick looking, arms wrapped in grimy bandages. Nothing unusual here.
The man knocked on the door without a word to Dylan.
Dylan quickened his pace, breath steadying, legs stiff, chanical. He resud the gait of the invisible worker, the silent Daan, the one you pass a thousand tis and never rember. The one who avoids eye contact, only speaks when needed, thinks only of his al.
He didn’t hear what the visitor told Alka. But he knew she’d play her part. She had already erased the traces, stashed the papers, wiped their words from the air itself.
His job now was to disappear. Retake his place. Blend in.
Daan rejoined the central corridors of the hangar with a studied slowness. He passed two workers who ignored him, a guard sleeping beneath the awning of a tent, then slipped into the shadow of a makeshift shelter.
His fingers still trembled slightly, a residue of adrenaline. He clenched them into fists, then shoved them into his pockets.
All that was left was to wait for nightfall.
The rest would co with it. As always.
—
Evening fell like a curtain of ash.
The yellow light from the projectors flickered between the tents, casting long, sluggish shadows across the dented tal sheets. The heat of the day had turned to clammy stickiness, and the air buzzed with a mix of sweat and scorched dust.
alti.
The workers had gathered near the mobile kitchen—a trailer turned into a makeshift canteen—from which rose clouds of salty steam and vaguely stew-like slls. Portions were ladled into tal bowls without flourish or smiles. The man serving—rumored to be an ex-militiaman turned cook—grunted sothing unintelligible with every scoop.
Daan, like every evening, waited at the end of the line.
Not out of modesty. Out of calculation.
That’s when people talked the most.
He received his ration in silence: a sort of brown mush with beans, undercooked rice, and what looked like a sliver of at. He moved away, crossed through the circle of n wordlessly, and sat on a stack of pallets—far enough to observe, close enough to blend in.
He stabbed his spoon into the tepid mass, eyes fixed on the sky darkening slowly, drowned in rust-colored clouds.
Around him, n began to loosen their jaws. Their voices rose cautiously, almost relieved to exist after a day of ducking behind walls. And with the fatigue, as always, ca the urge to say too much. To speak the unspeakable. To let things slip.
"You think they’re sending more people tomorrow?"
"No idea. But did you see the escort chief’s face? Looked like he saw a fucking ghost."
Another let out a short, nervous laugh.
"A ghost... yeah. Or worse."
Daan kept his shoulders rounded, back hunched. Invisible in the fra. But his ears missed nothing.
"No way I’m going back down there. Even if they offer a bonus. Heard a guy say the tunnels are haunted. There’s creatures down there."
"Creatures?"
"Yeah. Like... you know, a breath. Not really a sound. But you still hear it. A whisper. And then your blood starts pumping in reverse."
"Man, you really gotta lay off the weed."
Laughter followed—this ti more genuine. A bowl fell. A curse flew. One man started playing the harmonica softly—three notes that ant nothing, but just enough to muffle the fears.
Daan looked up. A silhouette approached the fire—not quite toward him, but within view. The kind of guy he’d seen two or three tis without a word exchanged. Square jaw. Skin marked by acid or fire. A soldier’s face, repurposed. Too old to follow orders, too dangerous to be dismissed.
The man sat a few ters away. Chewed a piece of at without tasting it. Then, after a long silence:
"What sector you work in, kid?"
Daan gave the faintest shrug. His voice ca out hoarse, raspy—exactly as expected.
"Concrete. North hangar."
The man nodded, like it confird sothing.
"That’s where they load the convoys."
It wasn’t a question. It was a statent.
Daan didn’t answer. He just spooned more mush into his mouth. Tepid. Tasteless. A perfect cover.
"I used to be there too. Until I saw sothing I shouldn’t’ve."
A heavy, tense silence settled.
Daan turned his head slightly.
The man kept eating. Eyes empty.
"You ever heard the ground breathe, kid? Like so sleeping beast underneath. Not moving, but still alive."
Dylan had felt that. In the forest. But of course, he couldn’t say a thing. So he feigned ignorance. Let his face do the work.
Daan paused.
He blinked slowly, pretended to think, then raised an eyebrow—confused, naive. He waved the air with a vague gesture, half-dismissive, half-indifferent. Just enough for the man to either let go—or go deeper.
The man didn’t smile. Not even a twitch.
He still stared into the fire. As if he were searching for sothing beyond heat. As if so old, violent image refused to let go.
"I figured I could stay," he said, voice slow, sandpaper-rough. "Told myself, ’It’s in your head.’ You know the type."
He paused. Licked his teeth.
"Then the light changed. Like... like the shadows flipped the wrong way. You get ? Not the sun. The shadows."
Daan nodded slowly. Eyes wide, intrigued. A flawless impression of an easily impressed boy.
"I ran," the man whispered. "Ran back like a beaten dog. Never went back down. Since then, they’ve put on surface maintenance. Good riddance."
Finally, he looked at Daan—and this ti, really looked. Eyes deep. Sharp. Too sharp.
"You stay away from that thing, kid. Hear ?"
Daan held the gaze a second too long.
But turned away just in ti not to seem odd. He sniffed softly, gave a tiny, almost amused chuckle—as if mocking himself.
"I’m not crazy," he muttered, voice low and gritty.
"No," said the man. "You’re not crazy. You’re just here. Like . And those who stay too long here... they end up that way."
He stood abruptly, stretched like an old tired hound, and walked off in silence toward the dorm block. No more words.
The fire still crackled. The harmonica played on, now distant.
Another worker coughed, half-choked, then laughed. A few n argued half-heartedly about a stolen ration or a missing tool.
But Daan didn’t move.
He wasn’t eating anymore.
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