Бесплатный фрагмент - Echo of the Rift

Dear Readers!

You are holding a story about the fragility of our world, about dreamers who, in their quest to reshape reality, found themselves on its very edge. This book is not merely a tale of heroism or struggle. It is a story about people — their fears, losses, hopes, and their desperate will to survive against all odds. As you immerse yourself in this world, I hope you feel like part of this team — sharing their anxieties, pain, and the paradoxes of their choices. But above all, I want this story to remind you of one essential truth: even in the darkest abysses, there is always room for light — in inner strength, in trust in one another, and in the pursuit of redemption.

Thank you for embarking on this perilous journey alongside the characters to uncover the truth about the boundaries of existence and what makes us human.

When I first began writing this book, I could never have imagined how deeply it would resonate within me. This is a story about a world that collapsed under the weight of its own mistakes, about people whose lives were torn apart but who still found the strength to move forward. It is a tale of loss, guilt, hope, and, above all, of how we can find light even in the darkest corners of our hearts.

The protagonists of this book — Kyle, Eva, Lina, and Drake — have become more than just fictional characters to me. They are reflections of our fears, regrets, and most cherished dreams. Their journey through a shattered world, through the Rifts that tear apart not only reality but also souls, is a voyage toward acceptance and the realization that even in chaos, there is room for redemption.

I sincerely hope this story touches your hearts as deeply as it touched mine while I was writing it. May it serve as a reminder that even in the darkest times, we carry within us the strength — the strength to fight, to love, and to believe, bearing the echoes of those we have lost and the hope for a new dawn.

With warmth and faith,

Zohar Leo Palfi

Table of Contents for Echo of the Rift

Prologue: «The Fracture»

A depiction of the catastrophe that marked the beginning of the story — the first Rift.

Chapter 1: «The Last Bastion»

Kyle lives in the «Last Bastion.» He is assigned a mission to scout the Rift «Echo-7.»

Chapter 2: «Shards of Trust»

Team formation: tense relationships between the members of the expedition.

Chapter 3: «On the Edge of the Void»

The team’s first steps into the Wasteland, revealing their vulnerabilities.

Chapter 4: «Voices from the Cracks»

As the team approaches the Rift «Echo-7,» mental intrusions begin.

Chapter 5: «Shadows in the Walls»

A stop at the abandoned bunker «Northern Shield.» The heroes encounter shadows.

Chapter 6: «Echo from the Depths»

The Rift intensifies its attacks, consuming reality and affecting the heroes’ minds.

Chapter 7: «The Rift Within Us»

The Rift exploits the heroes’ fears and guilt, tearing apart their inner worlds.

Chapter 8: «The Point of No Return»

The team reaches the boundary of the Rift’s zone of influence and moves forward, unable to turn back.

Chapter 9: «Voice from the Void»

The Rift’s essence manifests through voices, manipulating the team’s minds.

Chapter 10: «Choice in the Abyss»

The heroes confront the core of the Rift and make a pivotal decision.

Chapter 11: «Shadow Beyond the Edge»

The aftermath of the confrontation with the Rift. Questions arise about what was truly defeated.

Chapter 12: «Calm Before the Storm»

The team temporarily shelters in «Southern Blade,» but the threat remains.

Chapter 13: «Path into Darkness»

A fleeting sense of safety turns into the next stage of a perilous journey.

Chapter 14: «Iron Ruins»

The heroes navigate a ruined industrial complex, uncovering mysterious traces.

Chapter 15: «Voices from the Void»

The heroes begin to understand the true nature of the Rift’s voice and its influence on their fears.

Chapter 16: «Claws of Darkness»

The conflict escalates with physical manifestations of the Rift — tentacles and shadows.

Chapter 17: «Walls of Refuge»

The team reaches «Southern Blade,» but faces suspicion and isolation.

Chapter 18: «Shadows in the Walls»

Even behind the fortified walls of the bunker, the Rift’s essence continues its influence.

Chapter 19: «Truth and Echo in the Technical Corridors»

The heroes find allies and uncover troubling secrets about the Rift and the «Quantum Dawn» laboratory.

Chapter 20: «Escape from the Bastion of Fear»

The team orchestrates a daring escape from «Southern Blade» in pursuit of the truth.

Chapter 21: «Heart of the Rift»

The team returns to «Echo-7» for a final attempt to confront the Rift’s essence.

Chapter 22: «Echo of Silence»

The aftermath of the expedition: what the heroes lost and what they gained.

Prologue: «Echo of the Rift»

March 9th, 2239. Quantum Dawn Laboratory, Sector 17.

Kyle adored mornings in the station’s habitat module. Ella, his little sunbeam, often woke before Maria and would put on a «morning concert,» singing her simple songs while her toy robot, creaky and well-worn, marched across the table. In these moments, the laboratory, that buzzing hive of advanced technology and hidden risks, seemed a distant, almost unreal world, having nothing to do with their cozy, almost illusory family idyll. Illusory, because the underlying tension of the impending experiment already hung in the air, even if they tried to ignore it.

The air vibrated. Not from heat or cold, but from something deeper, something that was born in the very depths of the reactor, as if reality itself was stretched taut like the string of an ancient, out-of-tune instrument, ready to snap with a deafening dissonance. Kyle Rain stood at the control panel, his fingers, usually flitting confidently over the sensors, frozen above the screen, the pale, anxious light of the indicators reflected in his dilated pupils.

«We’re on the edge, Kyle,» the voice of Eva Carter, his colleague, sounded tense, cracking with metallic notes through the communicator. Even through the interference, he felt her fear, mixed with that steely resolve that had always been her essence. «If we don’t launch the stabilizer now, everything will collapse. Do you hear me? The energy is out of control! We’re losing it!»

On the small holographic window in the corner of the panel, Maria, his wife, smiled restrainedly, but in her eyes, so dear and beloved, a тревога (trevoga — anxiety/worry) splashed, which she so desperately tried to hide from Ella. This smile cut Kyle to the heart more sharply than any shard of glass.

«Daddy, catch!» Ella shouted into the camera, her ringing voice breaking through the hum of the laboratory, lifting her postcard, sparkling with cheap, but so precious glitter, towards the screen. «And you promised! You promised to be back for dinner!»

These words, innocent and demanding, echoed in Kyle’s mind, intertwining with Eva’s cry. Promises. Each one now pulled not just a burden, but a red-hot chain of remorse.

He heard. But he couldn’t tear his gaze away from that small window into another, still living life. They were so close — only three hundred meters away in a straight line, behind armored glass and layers of protective barriers that now seemed thinner than a spiderweb. Ella, five years old, with her funny, tightly braided pigtails that always came undone by evening, held a hand-drawn card with the crooked, yet so sincere inscription «Daddy is a hero.» He promised to be with them in an hour, after the final, triumphant test. An hour that was supposed to change the world for the better.

«Kyle!» Eva barked, her voice almost drowned out by the rising wail of sirens. «The reactor is at 112%! Damn it, Arden was wrong! That initial fluctuation… it wasn’t interference! We should have…»

Her words were drowned out by a low, vibrating hum that rose from the depths of the laboratory, from the very heart of their ambitions and mistakes. The floor beneath his feet trembled with such force that Kyle barely kept his balance, and at the same moment the central screen flashed a blinding red: «CRITICAL ANOMALY. SPATIAL RIFT IMMINENT.» Kyle felt icy sweat trickle down his temple. This wasn’t supposed to happen. They had calculated everything down to the smallest detail. Quantum energy, their brainchild, their hope, was supposed to be salvation, an endless source for a dying planet. But they missed something, something fundamental. Perhaps the very «insignificant interference» that Eva had shouted about.

And suddenly — silence. A moment of absolute, deafening silence, stretching into agonizing eternity. And then — an explosion. Not a sound, not a flash, but a feeling as if the world, the very fabric of being, had split in two, revealing something ancient and monstrously alien.

Kyle fell to his knees as the glass in front of him, the vaunted armored glass, cracked, covered with a network of silver spiderwebs, and shattered into a myriad of shards. Behind it, in the habitat module, he saw space distort. The walls curved as if made of water, colors mixed into a nauseating cacophony, and then began to tear like worn fabric, revealing a dark, pulsating, internally glowing emptiness. A rift. The First Rift. He saw Maria, his Maria, grab Ella, holding her close, saw her lips silently scream his name, but the sound didn’t reach him, absorbed by this silent horror. The emptiness swallowed them, pulled them into its insatiable maw, leaving only an echo — a strange, low, vibrating hum that now seemed to sound directly in his skull, in his soul.

«No…» his voice broke into an animalistic rasp as he crawled towards the shattered glass, not noticing how the sharp edges cut his palms, leaving bloody marks on the metal floor. «Maria! Ella!»

But where their cozy module had been, now only a crack in reality gaped, radiating a cold, ghostly, unearthly light. Kyle stared into it, into this wound on the body of the world, until deafening sirens drowned out his thoughts, and the laboratory, their temple of science and hope, began to collapse around him, burying under its debris not only his family, but the entire former world. This was the end. And the beginning of an endless nightmare.

Chapter 1: «Last Bastion»

2247. The Fortress City «Last Bastion,» Zone 3.

Kyle Rain awoke to the wail of the siren, piercing and familiar as his own breath. The sound sliced through the damp, heavy air of the metal box that here, in Last Bastion, was proudly referred to as a living room. He lay on a narrow cot, sagging and creaky. The ceiling, covered in layers of rust resembling caked blood, flickered from the dim, uneven light of a single bulb, which seemed to be held together by sheer willpower and a couple of exposed wires. The pervasive smell of dampness, old iron, and ineradicable human despair was a constant companion in Last Bastion — a city that a handful of survivors had built from the wreckage of the old world to shelter from the primal horror that now reigned outside.

Last Bastion rose like a cyclopean fortress on the edge of an abyss — a chaotic, multi-level labyrinth of rusted steel plates, remnants of shattered military equipment, and cracked concrete structures. Lamps powered by the energy of dying, coughing generators emitted a trembling amber glow, like the sick eyes of a beast lurking in eternal darkness. Hope had no place here; it died along with the old world, leaving behind only a bitter taste. There weren’t even proper streets — just low, cramped corridors, covered in graffiti of despair and notices of missing residents, which became the inflamed nerves of the city. In these arteries, one could hear whispers of shadows dancing at the edge of the Wasteland, of voices calling from the Rifts. The oily, acrid smell of old fuel and rotting plastic never disappeared, seeping into clothes, skin, into the very lungs. There was no room for dreams here — only survival, a brutal struggle for every breath of air, for every ration of tasteless food. Sometimes, in rare moments of quiet, Kyle heard rumors of strange cults arising in the darkest corners of Bastion — people driven to the brink, seeking meaning in the madness of the Rifts, worshipping the Shadows or trying to make unthinkable deals with them.

He hadn’t truly slept. Not for eight long, endless years. Dreams, if they dared to come, were worse than wakefulness — endless, agonizing replays of the day everything collapsed. Maria. Ella. Their faces, beloved, distorted with terror, dissolving into the insatiable emptiness of the Rift. Kyle ran a trembling hand over his unshaven, gaunt face, trying to erase these images etched into his memory, but they were burned into his mind like a brand.

«Hey, Rain, are you alive in there, or has a Shadow already claimed your wandering soul?» A rough, smoky voice pierced the thin metal wall, accompanied by a dull thud. «The Council is waiting. They say they have a special assignment for you. Don’t make them nervous, or they’ll cut off your rations again, and you’ll be feeding on the rust from the walls.»

Kyle smiled wryly. His neighbor, an old mechanic named Garrett, a grizzled grumbler with golden hands and a caustic tongue, was one of the few who still tried to talk to him without open contempt. Most in Bastion avoided him — some out of primal fear of what he might have brought with him from Quantum Dawn, others out of disdain. «The scientist who killed the world,» they whispered behind his back when they thought he couldn’t hear. He didn’t argue. Maybe they were right. Guilt was his constant companion, his shadow.

He pulled on his worn, patched jacket, automatically checking if his old neural interface was in place — a bracelet that once connected him to the heart of the laboratory, now just a painful reminder of the past, of the days when he believed he could change the world. Then he stepped out into the narrow, dimly lit corridor, where the air was even heavier with the smell of burnt fuel, stale food, and concentrated human despair. Bastion was a veritable labyrinth of steel plates and concrete blocks, hastily cobbled together after the catastrophe. Above, beyond the murky, scratched protective dome, cracks were visible in reality itself — the Rifts, their glowing, pulsating edges twitching like living, hungry wounds. They were everywhere, some small, like scratches from the claws of an unknown beast, others — huge, gaping, like wounds in the sky, from which anomalies sometimes spilled: temporal jumps distorting perception, gravitational failures capable of crushing a person flat, or shadows that moved when they shouldn’t have, shadows that emanated a deathly chill.

Kyle made his way through the sparse morning crowd in the central zone, where people, exhausted, silent, with extinguished eyes, were already lining up for their daily rations. Children, too thin and serious for their age, with an unchildlike sadness in their gaze, stared at him with empty eyes. He looked away. He had nothing to comfort them with. Their future was as gray and bleak as the sky beyond the dome.

The Council building, if you could call this gloomy conglomerate of concrete and steel that, was located in the very heart of Bastion — a former military bunker, now surrounded by several rows of makeshift barricades and silent, tense guards. Kyle passed through the vibrating scanner, ignoring the cold, appraising gaze of the guard, and entered the dimly lit hall, where five figures sat behind a long, roughly hewn table. The Council — the last, self-proclaimed remnants of authority in this dying, agonizing world. At the head of the table sat Commander Riva Stern, a woman with a face carved from granite and eyes that had seen too much death and too little hope. Her short-cropped gray hair and austere military tunic only emphasized her iron will.

«Rain,» her voice was sharp, like the crackle of interference in an old, worn-out communicator, and just as devoid of emotion. «We’ve found a new Rift. Codenamed „Echo-7.“ Drone data, from the few that returned, indicates there might be a source of stable energy inside. Perhaps even capable of closing these damned cracks once and for all.»

Kyle froze, his heart, usually beating steadily and tiredly, skipped a beat, and then pounded harder than usual, sending blood rushing to his temples. Close the Rifts. This was what he had been dragging his existence out for these eight years for. A ghostly, almost insane hope that kept him from completely drowning in the abyss of guilt. But he knew the Council wasn’t calling him just for that. In their voices, in their gazes, there was always a subtext, a hidden price.

«And?» he asked, trying to make his voice sound indifferent, even though everything inside him was screaming. «Do you want me to analyze the data? Or… do you have another suicidal plan?»

«No,» Riva interrupted, her gaze, sharp as a blade, piercing him. «We want you to lead the expedition. Inside „Echo-7.“»

He flinched at the name. «Echo.» This word had haunted him for eight years — like the echo of his daughter’s voice, like the echo of his own shattered life. Now it returned as a chance to atone for everything — or finally lose the remnants of himself.

«You have a week to prepare the team,» Stern continued, not giving him time to recover. «If you refuse, we’ll find someone else. But you know that no one but you, you damned genius, understands the nature of these Rifts better. You spawned them — you deal with them.»

Kyle clenched his fists under the table so hard that his nails dug into his palms. Inside. Into the place where reality breaks, where the mind becomes the worst enemy, where shadows come alive. He had seen what happened to those who returned from the Rifts — if they returned at all. Empty shells, with scorched souls. But in the very depths of his consciousness, somewhere behind thick layers of pain, guilt, and despair, a tiny, poisonous shadow of hope stirred. What if there, inside, in this new «Echo,» he found them? Not just echoes of their voices, but… a trace? A trace of Maria and Ella?

«I agree,» he said quietly, almost in a whisper, but in that whisper there was steel, forged by years of suffering. «Give me everything you have on „Echo-7.“ All the data, all the resources you can allocate. And I’ll find your source. Or die trying.»

Riva Stern slowly nodded, but in her stony eyes, for a moment, something flickered, resembling long-standing pity. Or maybe it was a warning. Kyle didn’t know which was worse. And, frankly, he didn’t care anymore.

Chapter 2: «Shards of Trust»

2247. The Fortress City «Last Bastion,» Zone 5, Training Sector.

Kyle Rain stood at the edge of the training ground — a vast, echoing space that was once part of a military warehouse, now converted into an arena for honing survival skills. Rusted metal walls, pockmarked with dents from stray shots and energy discharges, closed in overhead, creating the feeling of a locked cage. The air here was thick, saturated with the acrid smell of sweat, ingrained machine oil, and burnt plastic from the makeshift targets that Bastion’s soldiers tirelessly shot at. Above, beyond the murky, grimy dome of the protective field, the uneven light of the Rifts pulsed ominously, a reminder that any safety was a fragile, temporary illusion. Kyle clenched his jaw, his gaze fixed on the three figures the Council, without much ceremony, had assigned to his team. They were his only chance. And, quite possibly, his death sentence.

The first was a woman standing slightly apart, arms defiantly crossed over her chest. Eva Carter. Her face, covered with a fine network of premature wrinkles, looked older than her thirty-odd years, and the long, old scar stretching from her temple to her chin gave her the look of someone who hadn’t just seen too much, but had paid for that knowledge with her own blood. The scar pulsed faintly when she frowned, and Kyle involuntarily recalled the day in Quantum Dawn when a shard of the exploding panel had left that mark… or was it something else, something she never spoke about? She was an engineer, one of the best in Bastion, according to the meager dossier he’d been given. But Kyle knew her from before the catastrophe. They had worked together, side by side, on the project that was supposed to save the world but instead destroyed it. In her cold, appraising gaze, he read not only professional interest, but also the shadow of the past — a hidden resentment, unspoken accusations. Eva knew he blamed himself. And, undoubtedly, blamed him too, though perhaps not only him.

«Rain,» her voice was sharp, like the crackle of static in a broken transmitter, each sound precise and measured. «I hope you don’t think this will be a pleasure stroll in the Wasteland. I’ve seen what the Rifts do to people. And to equipment. If you’re not ready to go all the way, if you have even a drop of doubt left, say so now. I’ll find someone else who won’t be a burden.»

«I’m ready,» Kyle replied, trying not to betray the irritation that always arose in him when communicating with her. Her directness bordered on cruelty. «And you? You were there too, Eva, when it all started. Aren’t you afraid that the past will grab you by the throat again? That your own ’echoes’ will be louder than mine?»

Her steel-colored eyes narrowed for a moment, and the corner of her mouth, untouched by the scar, twitched almost imperceptibly. She remained silent, but that silence was more eloquent than any answer. It was a warning. Kyle looked away, feeling something heavy, like a clot of cold, constricting his chest again. Eva was a problem, complex, multi-layered. But without her unique knowledge of quantum systems and her ability to squeeze the maximum out of any rusty piece of iron, they wouldn’t last a day in the Rift.

Next to her, contrasting with her harshness, stood a young woman, almost a child against the backdrop of Bastion’s weary, Wasteland-scorched faces. Lina Cyrus, a medic, barely older than twenty-five, though she looked even younger. Her light hair, usually gathered in a careless ponytail, now escaped in strands from under a medical bandana, and the clear, almost naive, open gaze of her huge gray eyes seemed out of place, alien in this world of rust, despair, and eternal struggle. She held a worn medical tablet in her hands, its screen flickering with diagrams — probably medical data or notes on survival in anomalous zones. When Kyle looked at her, she smiled faintly but sincerely — and that smile, like a ray of sunshine in a musty cell, made him feel uncomfortable. He had long since become unaccustomed to such unclouded human gestures. He remembered Ella, her equally open smile… He hastily pushed the memory away.

«Dr. Rain,» her voice was soft, almost melodic, but with an unexpected firmness. «I’m glad to be working with you. I… I read your early work. Before… well, before everything. Your theories on spatial fluctuations… they were brilliant. If we really find an energy source in „Echo-7,“ it could save thousands of lives. I believe we have a chance. We must have a chance.»

Kyle just nodded curtly, unable to answer. Her unwavering optimism, her faith in him, the one everyone else considered a monster, was like a knife twisting in an old, unhealed wound. He didn’t want hope. Hope made the pain sharper when everything inevitably crumbled. But Lina seemed oblivious to his silence or his gloomy appearance, continuing to scribble something quickly in her tablet, as if the world around them wasn’t on the verge of final collapse and they weren’t about to walk into the maw of a monster.

The last was a man lounging casually on the edge of a metal bench. In his hands, he twirled a razor-sharp combat knife with a lazy, predatory grace, carving something intricate on a piece of old plastic. Drake Holt. A former special forces soldier, according to rumors, and now a mercenary whose reputation in Bastion was an explosive mixture of animal fear and ill-concealed disgust. Tall, muscular, with close-cropped dark hair and a tattoo of a grinning skull entwined with a crown of thorns on his powerful neck, he looked like a man who wasn’t just used to chaos, but enjoyed it, fed on it. When Kyle met his gaze, Drake grinned predatorily, revealing a row of even teeth, one of which had been replaced by a gleaming metal implant.

«Well, scientist,» he drawled, his voice low and raspy, like metal scraping against glass. «They say you’re the guy who pushed the big red button and arranged this fun apocalypse for all of us. Maybe you can tell us amateurs how to get us into this «Echo’ of yours, and more importantly, how to get out alive? Or are you just another psycho with a god complex looking for a beautiful place to die, taking company with him? I’ve seen those types. They usually end badly. Both for themselves and for those around them.»

«Or maybe you’re looking for something… or someone you lost in there?» Drake added quieter, his grin widening, and his eyes flashed with a malicious glint as he noticed Kyle’s jaw clench.

«Are you only here for this? To be sarcastic?» Eva interrupted sharply, her arms crossed so tightly her knuckles turned white. The scar on her face seemed to darken. «Do you think this is a game, Holt? That we’ve been shoved into „Echo-7“ for someone’s amusement or to see how quickly we’ll tear each other’s throats out?»

«I think none of us are getting out of there alive, sweetheart,» Drake snapped back, his gaze turning icy as he shifted it to Eva. «And you, Carter, seem to be worried about only one thing: can you trust the ’scientist who killed the world’ again. Well, let me tell you: I’d be more worried about what happens if he makes another mistake. One mistake — and we’re all fertilizer for the Wasteland. And I’m not going to become fertilizer because of someone’s ghosts of the past.»

Kyle felt the blood rush to his face, a hot wave of anger and old pain. But he restrained himself, taking a deep breath. Drake was a provocateur, it was clear from the first glance. But his combat skills, judging by the Council’s reports, were phenomenal. The Rifts didn’t forgive weakness, and if anyone could withstand the primal horror that awaited them inside, it was him. Although Kyle was already beginning to suspect that Drake himself might be a greater threat than any anomaly.

«I’m not looking for death, Holt,» he said coldly, his voice even, but with a ring of steel. «And I’m not looking for ghosts. I’m looking for a way to fix what I’ve done. But if you waste time on cheap games and provocations instead of listening and following orders, then maybe you will find your death. Faster than you think.»

Drake laughed, the sound sharp and unpleasant, like a jackal’s bark. He put down the knife, rose lazily, and his shadow almost completely covered Kyle. But Kyle didn’t retreat a step, looking him straight in the eye. The tension between them was almost palpable, like a static discharge before a lightning strike.

«Enough!» Eva intervened, her tone brooking no argument. She stepped between them, her small figure unexpectedly radiating authority. «If we’re going to survive in this hell, we need to at least pretend we’re a team, not a pack of dogs ready to tear each other’s throats out. Rain, do you have a plan? Or did the Council really just throw us to the slaughter, hoping for a miracle?»

Kyle inhaled deeply, feeling the acrid air scratch his throat. He pulled his old, faithful neural interface from his pocket, connected it to the battered projector on the warehouse wall, and displayed a three-dimensional map compiled by the drones. The flickering hologram showed Rift «Echo-7,» pulsing ominously sixty miles north of Bastion, in an area where the very fabric of reality was particularly unstable, torn. The glowing fissure, surrounded by a ring of gravitational and temporal anomalies, looked like an unhealed, festering wound on the body of a mutilated world.

«This is our target,» he said, pointing to the flickering center of the image. «„Echo-7.“ Data shows a powerful, stable energy signal inside, which, theoretically, could be the key to closing the Rifts. But getting to it won’t be easy. The drones are recording extreme time distortions, gravity traps, and… something else. Something they can’t classify. Something that destroyed three out of five reconnaissance probes before they could transmit the data.»

«Shadows?» Lina asked, her voice trembling, her fingers nervously clutching the tablet. «I’ve heard stories… from those who returned. People talk about creatures that move, but aren’t there. About voices that whisper from nowhere. Is it true, Dr. Rain?»

Kyle hesitated. He knew about the shadows. He had seen them himself, in the first, most terrifying years after the catastrophe, when he desperately tried to understand what had happened, what he had unleashed. They were like reflections in a broken mirror, but alive, and their presence evoked a primal chill that penetrated to the very bones, freezing the will. But he didn’t want to frighten Lina any more. Not yet. Her faith, however fragile, might prove more important.

«Maybe,» he said evasively. «The Wasteland is full of illusions, Lina. Our minds are easily tricked, especially there. But our task isn’t to study them, but to find the source. We go in, take what we need, and come back. If everything goes according to plan, in a week we’ll be here, and maybe the world will be a little safer. If not…» He didn’t finish, but everyone understood. In the Wasteland, «if not» meant only one thing.

Drake grinned again, his eyes gleaming predatorily with a strange, unhealthy anticipation. Eva stared at the map, her face impassive as a mask, but Kyle noticed her knuckles whiten as she clenched her fist. Lina, on the contrary, seemed even more determined, though her hands trembled slightly as she put the tablet away in her bag.

«Then get to work,» Kyle said, turning off the projector. The room plunged into semi-darkness, lit only by the dim light from the street. «We have three days to prepare. Eva, check all the equipment down to the last screw, paying special attention to the exosuits and life support systems. Lina, gather everything we might need for first aid and neutralizing… mental effects. Drake, you’re responsible for weapons and combat readiness. And no antics. No surprises. Clear?»

They nodded, each in their own way. But Kyle felt this fragile, hastily cobbled-together alliance already cracking at the seams. He turned to the exit, hiding the shadow of doubt in his eyes. Somewhere in the depths of his tormented consciousness, behind layers of pain, guilt, and endless fatigue, he heard the echo again. A voice, so much like Ella’s, whispered, «Daddy, find us… you promised…» And he knew that, despite all the risks, despite this motley and unreliable team, he would go into «Echo-7.» Not just to save the world. But for them. For the ghostly hope of the impossible.

Chapter 3: «On the Edge of the Void»

2247. The Fortress City «Last Bastion,» Zone 7, Perimeter.

The final hours before departure resembled the calm before a devastating storm — the very kind that raged within the Rifts, only this calm was internal, heavy, saturated with foreboding. Kyle Rain stood at the very edge of Last Bastion’s perimeter, where the shimmering, flickering protective dome thinned, and the world beyond transformed into primal, irrational chaos. Through the murky, distorting glow of the barrier, he saw the Wasteland — scorched, ravaged earth, littered with the skeletons of old cities, where the ominous fissures of the Rifts glowed like venomous, pulsating veins on the body of a dying planet. The air beyond the dome vibrated with anomalous energy, and even here, in the relative, illusory safety, Kyle felt his skin prickle with static tension, the hairs on his arms standing on end. He knew that once they crossed this invisible boundary, there might be no way back. Or it would be completely different from what they imagined.

The team, if this collection of individuals bound by shared doom could be called that, gathered at the hangar in Sector 7. Awaiting them was an armored transport — the Thunderclaw, a rusty, patched-up remnant of former military might, modified by makeshift methods for survival in the Wasteland. Its hull was covered with scars from past forays, like an old warrior ready for his last battle. Eva Carter, focused and as usual taciturn, made a final check of the exosuit systems, her fingers, covered in small scars and calluses, moving with mechanical precision over the sensor panels. She didn’t look at Kyle, but he physically felt her tension — it stemmed not so much from the dangerous journey ahead as from the invisible barrier that stood between them. The past. Mistakes that couldn’t be corrected. Guilt they shared silently, like a bitter cup, but never dared to discuss aloud.

«Systems at seventy percent,» Eva tossed out, without raising her eyes, her voice dry as the Wasteland sand. «The field generators are barely breathing. If we get hit by a serious gravitational surge or a temporal anomaly, these tin cans might not hold up, and we’ll be smeared across the plating. Are you absolutely sure the Council’s drones didn’t make a mistake with the coordinates of „Echo-7“? Because if we get stuck in the heart of the Wasteland, you can be sure, Rain, no one will come for us. We’ll just be written off as another failed expedition.»

«I’m sure,» Kyle replied, though deep down a worm of doubt had long been gnawing at him. The drone data was fragmented, incomplete, and the signals from the Rift itself were distorted beyond recognition. But they had no other choice, no other lead. «We’re sticking to the plan. „Echo-7“ is sixty miles out. If we’re lucky, and the Wasteland doesn’t show its teeth too soon, we’ll get there in a day.»

Lina Cyrus, sitting on a dusty box of medical supplies, raised her head. Her face was paler than usual, almost transparent, but in her wide-open eyes burned a feverish, desperate determination. She went through the medkits again and again, checking vials of neuro-stabilizers, injectors, and portable scanners, as if these fragile instruments could protect them from the unspeakable horror that awaited.

«I’ve prepared enhanced neuro-stabilizers,» she said quietly, her voice trembling slightly, but she tried to hide it. «They should help if… if the Rift starts messing with our heads too much. I’ve read all the available reports. The people who came back… the few… they said they saw things. Their deepest fears, nightmares come to life. Unreal, but… too real. Some were never able to distinguish them from reality.»

Kyle nodded briefly, but his thoughts were already far away, there, in the pulsating heart of «Echo-7.» He knew what she was talking about. Illusions. Mental traps. The Rifts didn’t just break physical reality — they penetrated the mind like a virus, pulling out the deepest fears, the most painful desires from its darkest depths, turning them into sophisticated weapons. He himself felt it, every time he heard the ghostly echo of Ella’s voice. But he wasn’t going to talk about it aloud, share this vulnerability of his. Not now. Not with them.

Drake Holt, as always, stood ostentatiously apart, leaning casually against the cold wall of the hangar. In his hands, he twirled his plasma cutter with lazy grace, its blade gleaming dully in the semi-darkness. His gaze, heavy and unreadable, was fixed on the Wasteland beyond the flickering dome, as if he saw something there inaccessible to the others — or, conversely, was looking for confirmation of his darkest expectations. His smirk, permanent as the ingrained tattoo on his neck, irritated Kyle more than he was willing to admit to himself.

«Messing with heads?» Drake snorted, his voice dripping with open, mocking derision. «Come on, Doc, don’t scare us. Maybe the Rift will show you something really interesting. I’ve heard some people see their dead there. Maybe you’ll meet someone… especially close. Say, someone you couldn’t save on the operating table?»

Lina flinched as if struck, her fingers freezing on the medkit, her face flushing. Kyle felt a wave of icy anger rise within him, but he restrained himself again. Drake deliberately looked for weaknesses, tested their strength, like a predator testing its prey. It was his disgusting game. And Kyle wasn’t going to play it.

«Shut up, Holt,» he growled, stepping closer, his voice low but laced with menace. «If you have something relevant to say, say it. Or keep your dirty mouth shut until we get to „Echo-7.“ Your jokes aren’t needed here.»

Drake just laughed loudly, raising his hands in mock surrender, but his eyes, dark and cold, gleamed with something unkind. Kyle turned away, feeling the tension in the team grow with every minute, like a taut, invisible string ready to snap. They hadn’t even left Bastion yet, and they were already ready to tear each other’s throats out.

«Everything’s ready,» Eva interrupted the protracted silence, slamming the exosuit panel shut. The clang of metal against metal sounded deafening in the tense atmosphere. «We can move. But I’ll repeat, Rain, for the especially gifted: if something doesn’t go according to your brilliant plan, I’m not going to die for your ghostly ideas or personal crusades. We have one, clearly defined goal — to find the source. No deviations. No freelancing.»

Kyle didn’t answer. He knew what she was hinting at. His family. His unhealed pain. His desperate, almost insane hope. But that was none of her business. He just nodded, heavily donning his exosuit — cumbersome, but necessary for survival in the Wasteland’s aggressive environment. The metal plates closed around his body with a dull click, and the neural interface on his wrist habitually synchronized with the system, transmitting a faint, barely perceptible hum to his nerve endings. It was a bitter reminder of the old days, when technology seemed like salvation, a universal key to all doors, not a curse that opened the gates to hell.

The team silently loaded into the Thunderclaw. The transport roared to life, its ancient engines coughing from age and lack of quality fuel, but still started, spewing a cloud of bluish smoke. The protective dome of Bastion began to open slowly, with a grinding and groaning, and the cold, acrid air of the Wasteland, saturated with radiation and the smell of decay, rushed in, making Lina cough and Kyle wince. He watched through the thick, scratched armored glass as the world beyond the dome unfolded before them — a boundless, scorched desert, pierced by glowing, bleeding cracks of the Rifts. Somewhere out there, to the north, in the very heart of this agony, «Echo-7» awaited. And perhaps, answers. Or final oblivion.

They had only traveled a few miles when the first, barely perceptible sign of an anomaly appeared. The air in front of the transport shimmered like heat haze, distorting the outlines of distant ruins, and suddenly time seemed to slow down, stretching like molasses. Kyle felt his heart stumble, beating in a strange, disjointed rhythm, and the sounds inside the Thunderclaw — the hum of the engines, the breathing of his companions — stretched, transformed into a low, viscous drone, as if someone was playing an old recording at minimum speed. Lina cried out briefly, her voice low and distorted, as if coming from the bottom of a deep well, and red indicators lit up alarmingly on the dashboard in front of Eva.

«Time jump! Local distortion!» Eva shouted, her fingers, as usual, flying quickly and accurately across the control panel. «Hold on! This should pass in a few seconds! Don’t panic!»

But to Kyle, it seemed to last an eternity. In this distorted, stretched moment, where every second was like a hammer blow on an anvil, he heard it again — the echo. Ella’s voice, soft, distant, almost indistinguishable, but so painfully real that an icy needle pierced him through. «Daddy… I’m here… I’m waiting for you here…» the voice whispered, and Kyle involuntarily, against his will, turned his head to the window, where beyond the armored glass, in the shimmering, iridescent haze, a shadow flickered for a moment. A small, fragile figure, with fluttering pigtails, just like hers. He blinked, desperately trying to focus, and the vision vanished, dissolved, leaving only the desert and the ominous cracks of light.

«Rain!» Eva’s sharp voice snapped him out of his stupor, brought him back to harsh reality. Time returned to normal, the Thunderclaw lumbered forward again, but Kyle felt cold sweat streaming down his back. «Are you alright? You looked like you’d seen the Devil himself. Or something worse.»

«I’m fine,» he lied, quickly turning away to hide his expression. But his hands, gripping the railing, were trembling so much that it was noticeable even in the dim light of the cabin. This was only the first jump. The first, light touch of the Rift. The first warning. And what awaited them closer to «Echo-7»? He didn’t know. But he knew he had to go on, even if this journey shattered his mind into a thousand sharp, bleeding shards. For her. For them.

Chapter 4: «Voices from the Cracks»

2247. The Wasteland, 15 kilometers from «Echo7.»

The Thunderclaw crawled forward, its worn tracks grinding the debris of the old, buried world beneath it. The Wasteland around them was like an unhealed scar on the planet’s body — black, scorched, dead earth, pierced by a network of glowing, pulsating fissures, from which, like death rattles, faint, sickly bursts of anomalous energy occasionally erupted. Kyle Rain sat at the instrument panel, but his gaze was fixed not so much on the flickering sensors showing the exponential growth of reality’s instability as they approached «Echo-7,» but on what was happening beyond the armored glass. The air inside the transport was heavy, stale, saturated with the smell of overheated metal, rust, and that indescribable, almost tangible tension that felt like it could be cut with a knife.

Eva Carter, her teeth gritted, drove the vehicle, her knuckles white on the control levers. From time to time, she cast short, sharp glances at Kyle, full of unspoken questions or veiled reproach, but remained silent. Every muscle in her face was tense, and tiny beads of sweat glistened on her forehead beneath tangled strands of hair. She felt it just as he did — the approach of something ancient, alien, and unimaginably powerful.

Lina Cyrus huddled in the farthest corner of the cramped cabin, clutching her medical backpack as if it were the only island of safety in this mad world. Her face was pale, almost waxen, and her lips moved silently — either whispering a prayer or simply counting to calm her racing heart and resist the panic that gripped her throat with icy fingers.

Even Drake Holt, usually so deliberately relaxed and cynical, looked… different. His legs were still stretched out defiantly, and he mechanically twirled his old, faithful combat knife in his hands, but his usual mocking smirk had slipped from his face, replaced by a tense, predatory grimace. He wasn’t humming his bawdy soldier songs, but silently peered into the murky distance, his fingers gripping the knife’s hilt so tightly that the metal seemed about to bend. Even his feigned, ostentatious calm couldn’t hide the deep, primal pressure that grew with every mile traveled, like an invisible, all-pervading hand squeezing his chest, drawing the last remnants of composure from his soul.

«We should be seeing it by now,» Eva finally said, her voice sounding muffled and strained through the strained roar of the old engines. The silence in the cabin had become so dense that her words sounded like a gunshot. «„Echo-7.“ The drones detected it visually at this distance. Why are the screens blank? Just static.»

Kyle frowned, checking the data on his neural interface. The screen of his bracelet also showed only a chaotic flicker of interference, as if reality itself around them refused to obey the laws of physics and logic, resisting any analysis. He felt an unpleasant chill run down his spine. This wasn’t just a technical malfunction. It was a warning. The voice of the Rift itself.

«The Rifts distort signals, Eva,» he replied, trying to make his voice sound more confident than he actually felt. «We’re close. Too close to rely solely on technology. We need to keep our eyes open. And listen… listen to our instincts.»

Eva snorted briefly but said nothing, only gripping the control levers tighter. Kyle turned to the armored window, desperately trying to make out something in the murky, shimmering haze of the Wasteland. And suddenly he saw it — not with his eyes, but rather felt it like a punch to the gut. A huge, gaping fissure in the sky, several hundred meters wide, its edges pulsating with a cold, ghostly, unearthly light that seemed to suck all the color from the surrounding world. «Echo-7.» It was larger, more monstrous than he expected, and seemed alive, like a giant, bleeding wound that breathed, oozing darkness and madness. The light emanating from it cast distorted, dancing shadows on the scorched earth, but these shadows didn’t move as they should — they writhed like a tangle of venomous snakes, lengthened and contracted contrary to the laws of optics, and vanished without a trace, as if falling into another reality.

«There it is…» Lina whispered, her voice trembling so much that the words were barely audible. She pressed herself against the cold glass, her eyes wide with a mixture of horror and a kind of perverse, morbid fascination. «It’s… it’s so beautiful. And so terrifying. Do you… do you feel it? Like it’s looking right at us. Into our very souls.»

«Don’t be ridiculous, Doc,» Drake snapped, but there wasn’t a trace of his usual mockery in his voice. He too was staring at the Rift, and his fingers, which had been mechanically twirling the knife, froze. Kyle noticed his feigned smirk finally disappear, replaced by an expression of deep, animal wariness. Even he, with all his bravado and cynicism, couldn’t ignore this place. It was something beyond his understanding of combat and death.

Kyle wanted to answer, to say something to reassure them, or perhaps himself, but his words caught in his throat when the Thunderclaw suddenly and violently shook. Not like from an impact or a bump in the road — this was deeper, more fundamental, as if reality itself beneath them had shifted, rippled. The sensors on the dashboard wailed with a piercing, ear-splitting siren, the screens flashed a blinding red, and at the same moment the air inside the cabin became heavy, almost viscous, as if they were immersed in a thick, invisible syrup. Lina cried out briefly, clutching her head, her face contorted with sudden, agonizing pain, and Eva swore through gritted teeth, desperately trying to maintain control and prevent the vehicle from overturning.

«Gravitational anomaly!» she shouted, her voice barely audible through the growing roar. «A strong one! Hold on! This is much more powerful than the previous jumps!»

Kyle felt his body become unbearably heavy, as if someone invisible had poured molten lead into his veins. Every muscle protested, every movement was incredibly difficult. He turned his head with difficulty to look at the team and saw Lina bent double, her face contorted with unbearable pain, a thin, dark trickle of blood flowing from her nose. Drake, his teeth gritted, tried to get up, but he was literally pinned to the floor, the knife clattering from his weakened hands. Eva, covered in sweat, struggled with the controls, her lips moving, shouting commands or curses, but her voice was barely audible through the low, vibrating hum that seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, penetrating to the very bones.

But the worst part wasn’t the physical sensations, however agonizing they were. Kyle felt his mind begin to slip, lose its footing, as if someone or something was ruthlessly digging through his memories, pulling them to the surface like dirty, bloody laundry. He closed his eyes, but it didn’t help — the Quantum Dawn laboratory appeared before his inner vision with terrifying clarity, that very day, the day of the universal catastrophe. He saw Maria and Ella again, their beloved faces distorted with mortal fear, and the bottomless, all-consuming emptiness of the Rift pulling them in. But this time they didn’t just disappear. They looked directly at him, their eyes empty as the sockets of a skull, and their voices, merging into one eerie, multi-voiced chorus, whispered directly into his brain: «It’s your fault, Kyle. You betrayed us. You left us here, in this darkness. Find us… or die with us. You must pay.»

«No! Shut up!» Kyle screamed, his voice echoing with terror in the cramped, oppressive space of the transport. He slammed his fist against the metal wall, trying to escape this mental torture, but the physical pain didn’t help. The voices grew louder, more insistent, they sounded inside his head like an air raid siren, tearing apart the remnants of his mind.

He wasn’t alone in this hell. Beside him, Eva screamed, her face contorted, she let go of the controls and clutched her temples. «Get out! Leave me alone! It’s not my fault! I couldn’t…» Her words were drowned out by sobs. Kyle saw her eyes fill with terror, reflecting something known only to her — perhaps her own ghosts from Quantum Dawn or from the depths of the Wasteland.

Even Drake, pinned to the floor, emitted muffled, choked groans, his body convulsing, an expression of unspeakable suffering frozen on his face. The Shadow had clearly found his pressure points as well.

«Rain! Eva! Wake up!» Lina’s voice, weak but unexpectedly firm, cut through the cacophony of pain and fear. Staggering, she rose to her feet, blood still flowing from her nose, but her eyes burned with fire. She held an injector in her hand. «This isn’t real! Do you hear me? It’s the Rift! It’s playing with you! It’s trying to break us!»

Kyle opened his eyes with immense effort, feeling cold, sticky sweat drenching his face. The gravitational pressure began to slowly subside, the Thunderclaw was moving again, though its engines coughed raggedly from the overload. Lina, still clutching her head but standing more steadily on her feet, looked at him with concern and a new, unfamiliar respect. Drake, breathing heavily, got up on all fours, picked up his knife, but his face was darker than a thundercloud, and his gaze darted nervously around the corners, as if he was still searching for an invisible enemy.

«I’m… alright,» Kyle forced out, though it was a blatant lie. He felt his heart pounding wildly in his chest, and the voices, though they had subsided for a while, still echoed maliciously at the very edge of his consciousness, ready to return at any moment. He looked at Eva. She sat with her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking slightly. In her eyes, when she finally raised them, he saw not only the remnants of terror, but also something resembling shame. She knew he had seen her weakness. And perhaps she had seen his. This was their shared hell.

«We can’t… we can’t continue like this,» Eva said, her voice quieter, but with a ring of steel. She was already recovering, her engineer’s logic taking over her emotions. «If the anomalies continue to intensify at this rate, we won’t reach the center of „Echo-7.“ We’ll just go insane or be torn apart. We need to find shelter, wait until reality stabilizes at least a little. Or at least pretend that we have a clear plan, and not just a desperate dash into the unknown.»

«Shelter?» Drake laughed hoarsely, but the laughter was empty, devoid of any mirth. «Are you serious, Carter? We’re ten miles from this damned crack in the arse of the world, and it’s already crawling into our heads like a worm in a rotten apple! Where the hell are you going to hide? In this radioactive rubble? Or in your vaunted damn logic, which almost kicked the bucket a couple of minutes ago?»

«Shut up, Holt,» Eva snapped, but her gaze was fixed on Kyle. She was waiting for his decision, though deep, long-standing distrust was still readable in her eyes. But now something new was mixed in with it — perhaps the understanding that they were all in the same boat, and this boat was rapidly sinking.

Kyle took a deep breath, trying to piece together the shards of his thoughts. He knew Eva was right — they wouldn’t withstand another anomaly like that without rest and preparation. But stopping meant losing precious time, and every hour of delay brought them closer to inevitable failure. And yet, somewhere in the depths of his tormented consciousness, he felt the Rift calling him. Ella’s voice, even if it was just a cruel illusion, a product of his diseased imagination, pulled him forward like a powerful, irresistible magnet.

«We’ll find shelter,» he finally said, his voice hoarse but firm. «The drones registered the remains of an old military bunker somewhere around here, to the northeast. „Northern Shield,“ I think. We’ll wait it out there, check the equipment, try to recover. And decide how to move forward. But we’re not retreating. „Echo-7“ is our only chance. Whatever the cost.»

Lina nodded gratefully, her face still pale, but a faint spark of hope flickered in her eyes. Drake just shrugged, muttering something unintelligible under his breath, but didn’t argue further. Eva, after a long, tense pause, silently turned to the control panel, directing the Thunderclaw towards the indicated coordinates. But Kyle felt this was only the beginning. The Rift had already penetrated their minds, and with every step, every meter closer to its heart, it would dig deeper, more ruthlessly. He looked out the window at the distant, venomous, pulsating glow of «Echo-7» and thought that perhaps it wasn’t them going towards it. It was patiently waiting for them, setting its invisible traps.

Chapter 5: «Shadows in the Walls»

2247. The Wasteland, 12 kilometers from «Echo-7,» Abandoned Bunker «Northern Shield.»

The Thunderclaw shuddered to a halt with a heavy, protesting groan at the rusted, mangled gates of the abandoned bunker that once, in another, almost forgotten life, bore the proud name «Northern Shield.» Now the structure looked like a sinister ghost of the past — massive concrete walls, covered in deep cracks and sores of moss, half-sunk into the earth as if trying to hide from the horrors of the Wasteland. The steel gates, warped by time and perhaps some unknown force, barely clung to their rusted hinges, gaping with dark openings. Above the bunker, like a giant, malevolent eye, hung the cold, pulsating light of «Echo-7,» its unearthly glow casting trembling, elongated shadows on the gray walls, shadows that seemed too alive, too deliberate to be merely a play of light and darkness. Kyle Rain exited the transport first, his exosuit whirring in protest as it adjusted to the uneven, debris-strewn surface, a cold, clinging premonition tightening in his chest that he could neither explain nor ignore.

The air here was even heavier than in the open Wasteland, saturated with a strange, nauseating metallic tang and the smell of stale mold, which made his throat scratch and his eyes water. Kyle felt the pressure of the Rift intensify with every second, like invisible, cold fingers touching the back of his neck, whispering something unintelligible but infinitely ominous at the very edge of hearing. He glanced back at his team: Eva Carter, pale but composed, was already scanning the perimeter with a portable drone, her face tense but focused, every muscle controlled; Lina Cyrus, clutching her medical backpack like a lifeline, nervously looked around, her breathing rapid and uneven; Drake Holt, as always, tried to appear nonchalant, but his hand never left the hilt of his plasma cutter, and his gaze darted uneasily across the dancing shadows as if expecting an attack from every dark corner.

«This place looks more like a tomb than a shelter,» Drake muttered, kicking a chunk of concrete that rolled with a hollow, unsettling sound into the darkness of the half-ruined entrance. «Are you sure we’re relatively safe here, scientist? Because all my instincts are screaming that this hole is soaked in death and something worse.»

«Nothing is safe this close to the Rift, Holt,» Kyle snapped, trying to hide his own growing unease. He felt it too — the lurking, invisible threat. «But here we can at least try to wait out the peak of anomalous activity and check the equipment. Eva, what does the drone show? Is there a working entrance?»

Eva, without looking up from the screen of her neural interface, nodded curtly. «The main entrance is fifty meters north. The gates are partially collapsed, but there seems to be a passage. Inside, there are residual, weak energy signals, but… they’re extremely unstable. As if something is trying to turn on and immediately goes out again. It could be old, damaged equipment. Or… something else entirely. Something that’s mimicking it.»

«Something else? Worse?» Lina turned to her, her voice trembling, her eyes wide with fear. «What could be worse, Eva? Do you… do you mean… the shadows? I’ve heard they often appear in abandoned places like this, closer to active Rifts. Is it true?»

Eva didn’t answer, only casting a quick, meaningful glance at Kyle, full of unspoken questions and shared anxiety. He knew she was thinking the same thing he was. Shadows. Not just a play of light, but something more. He had seen them before, in the first, most desperate years after the catastrophe — elusive, translucent figures that vanished if looked at directly, but left behind a feeling of deathly cold in the bones and a clinging, irrational dread. He didn’t want to tell Lina about this, didn’t want to see her fragile, almost childlike hope finally crumble under the weight of this truth. But he couldn’t lie, give false assurances either. Not here. Not now.

«Possibly,» he finally said, his voice quiet but firm as steel. «But we don’t know for sure what it is. Maybe it’s just illusions, generated by the proximity of the Rift, like the ones we saw in the anomaly. The main thing is to stick together. Don’t stray from each other. And, whatever happens, don’t lose your head. Don’t panic.»

Drake snorted loudly, but this time said nothing, only tightened his grip on the cutter. The team cautiously moved towards the gaping maw of the entrance, their steps echoing loudly in the dead silence of the Wasteland. Inside the bunker, it was even darker and colder than outside. The air was stale, heavy, with the smell of decaying organic matter and something subtly chemical. The walls were covered with a thick layer of slimy mold, and old, broken lamps hanging from the ceiling on scraps of wire flickered ominously, though they couldn’t have worked for decades. Kyle switched on the lamp on his exosuit, and the narrow beam of light snatched from the darkness fragments of rusty furniture, mangled crates, and something that looked like old, dust-covered terminals. But something was wrong. Something subtly off. The shadows cast by their own flashlights moved slower than they should, as if lagging behind the light source, living their own, separate lives.

«Do you… do you see that?» Lina whispered, her voice trembling so much that Kyle could barely make out the words. She pointed a shaking hand at the wall where her own shadow seemed frozen in place, still and dense, even though she had already taken a step to the side. «This… this isn’t normal. Kyle, tell me it’s just fatigue. Please, tell me it’s my imagination.»

Kyle clenched his jaw so hard his teeth grated, feeling an icy coldness slowly spreading down his back, restricting his movements. He desperately wanted to lie, to say that it was just a play of light or a residual effect of the gravitational anomaly on their vision. But he knew the truth. These weren’t just shadows. It was something that lived in the walls of this damned place, something that had awakened and was fueled by the ominous, distorting proximity of «Echo-7.» He turned to Eva, searching her eyes for support or at least confirmation of his fears, but her face was stony, impassive, and her hand instinctively rested on the holster of her pulse pistol.

«It’s not fatigue, Lina,» he finally said, trying to make his voice sound calm and confident, even though everything inside him tightened with foreboding. «But we can’t let this distract or frighten us. We’re here to wait it out and gather information. We’ll find the central command room, secure it, and check the drone data. If something… if something tries to manifest, we’ll be ready.»

«Ready?» Drake laughed hoarsely, his voice sharp and mocking in the oppressive silence of the bunker. «Are you serious, Rain? You don’t even know what the hell we’re dealing with! What if these ’shadows’ of yours aren’t harmless illusions? What if they’re real and hungry? I’m not going to die here for your crazy theories and ghostly hopes!»

«Then get out, Holt!» Eva snapped, her eyes flashing steel in the semi-darkness. «No one’s keeping you here. Get back out into the Wasteland if you’re so brave. But if you stay, you’ll do as you’re told, or I’ll kill you myself before those shadows get to you. Believe me, it will be quicker and more merciful.»

The tension between them flared again, like a spark in a powder keg, but Kyle resolutely raised his hand, stopping the brewing conflict. «Enough. We can’t afford to be divided. Not now. Drake, we need your skills. Eva, keep yourself under control. Lina, stay close to me or Eva. We’re moving on. Together.»

They moved slowly down the dark, narrow corridor, every sound — the creak of metal under their feet, the distant drip of water, their own ragged breathing — seemed deafeningly loud in the dead silence. Kyle felt the pressure in his head building, as if the Rift itself was penetrating his mind with invisible tentacles, whispering, tempting. And then he heard it again — Ella’s voice, faint, almost indistinguishable, but so distinct, seemingly coming from the very depths of the bunker, from around the next corner. «Daddy… I’m here… I’m scared… help…» His heart clenched painfully, and he involuntarily quickened his pace, ignoring Lina’s worried, questioning look.

The corridor led them into a spacious central hall — a vast, dilapidated room with a partially collapsed ceiling, through the holes in which the faint, sickly light of «Echo-7» penetrated. In the center of the hall, like an ancient altar, stood an old, dust-covered command terminal, its screen dark, but weak, barely perceptible sparks of energy crackled and trembled in the air around it, like miniature, lost lightning bolts. Eva, forgetting caution, immediately headed towards it, hastily connecting her neural interface to try and extract any data. Kyle remained standing at the entrance, his gaze fixed on the darkest corner of the hall, where, for a moment, he thought he saw a small, hunched figure. But when he blinked, there was nothing there. Just dancing shadows.

«There’s a signal!» Eva’s voice, tense but with a clear note of surprise, snapped him out of his stupor. «It’s… it’s old recordings. «Northern Shield’ wasn’t just a military bunker, it was a classified research station before the catastrophe. They were studying the very first Rifts that appeared. There are reports… detailed reports… on «Echo-7.» They call it… «Ground Zero.» The Source. And…» She suddenly fell silent, her face, illuminated by the flickering light of the interface, turning sharply pale.

«What?» Kyle stepped closer, feeling his pulse quicken, a chill running down his spine. «What is it, Eva? Speak!»

Eva slowly turned to him, her eyes wide and filled with such genuine, deep anxiety that he had never seen in her before. «They write that „Echo-7“ isn’t just a Rift. It’s… it’s the primordial source. The singularity point that spawned all the others. And they mention… an entity. Something that lives inside it. Something that sees us. Right now.»

The words hung in the air, heavy as the concrete slabs of the collapsed ceiling above their heads. Lina sobbed softly, pressing her hand to her mouth, her eyes filling with tears of terror. Drake, who had been standing by the wall with the air of a bored predator, froze, his hand gripping the plasma cutter so tightly that his knuckles turned white. And Kyle… Kyle felt icy pincers squeezing him from the inside, freezing the remnants of hope. An entity. He didn’t know exactly what it meant, but with some primal instinct, he felt it was true. «Echo-7» wasn’t just waiting for them. It knew they were here. It was watching.

And at that very moment, the single surviving lamp in the hall flickered alarmingly, even though the terminal Eva was connected to wasn’t connected to the bunker’s general power system. The shadows on the walls trembled, stretching like clawed, hungry fingers, and from the very depths of the bunker, from the unexplored, dark corridors, came a sound — a low, vibrating, growing hum that made the floor tremble beneath their feet and the shards of glass jingle. Kyle spun around, his hand instinctively reaching for the pulse rifle, which seemed so useless, so childish in the face of this unknown threat. Something was approaching. And it definitely wasn’t an illusion.

Chapter 6: «Echo from the Depths»

2247. The Wasteland, 12 kilometers from «Echo-7,» Abandoned Bunker «Northern Shield.»

The low, vibrating hum, born somewhere in the depths of the bunker, intensified, filling the entire space as if the enormous, ancient heart of «Northern Shield» had suddenly started beating after decades of lethargic sleep. Kyle Rain froze, his hand gripping the useless pulse rifle in a death grip, his gaze darting frantically across the dancing, distorted shadows in the central hall. The ghostly, sickly light of «Echo-7,» penetrating through the gaping holes in the collapsed ceiling, trembled as if space itself around them began to warp, losing its familiar contours. The shadows on the walls stretched, their forms becoming more distinct, more ominous — they were no longer just blurred spots, but nightmarish silhouettes, vaguely resembling human figures, but with unnaturally long, broken limbs and gaping, empty voids instead of faces, from which seeped the same faint, unearthly light as from the distant Rift.

«What the hell… what the fuck is that?!» Drake Holt whispered, slowly stepping back, his plasma cutter flaring bright blue with a predatory hum, ready for battle. For the first time since Kyle had met him, there wasn’t a trace of his usual mockery or bravado in his voice, only poorly concealed tension bordering on primal terror. He turned sharply to Kyle, his eyes narrowed to slits, burning with an unkind fire. «Rain, you fucking said these could be illusions! This doesn’t look like fucking illusions, scientist! This is coming right at us!»

«I don’t know what it is, Holt,» Kyle snapped back, desperately trying to keep his voice even, though his heart pounded in his chest, threatening to burst out. He felt the pressure in his head intensify with every second, as if the Rift itself was trying to break through his skull, to penetrate the most hidden corners of his thoughts. Ella’s voice, weak but insistent, almost pleading, sounded again at the very edge of his consciousness: «Daddy… they’re already here… they’re coming for you… run, Daddy, run!» He gritted his teeth, trying to drive away this obsession, but the icy cold gripping his chest only intensified.

Eva Carter, who had been standing as if rooted to the spot by the terminal, quickly disconnected her neural interface, her face pale as a sheet but resolute. She instantly assessed the situation, her engineer’s mind already searching for a way out, even if there wasn’t one. She snatched her pulse pistol and turned sharply to the team, her voice unexpectedly loud and commanding, like an order on the battlefield: «We can’t just stand here and wait to be devoured! If this is some kind of anomaly generated by the Rift, we need to move, find a way out! If it’s something… real…» She paused for a moment, her gaze falling on the shadows that began to move slowly, inexorably along the walls, separating from them, «…then we’ll have to fucking fight!»

Lina Cyrus, pressed against the cold concrete wall as if trying to merge with it, trembled all over, her hands clutching her medical backpack so tightly that her knuckles turned white. «This can’t be real,» she muttered, her voice barely audible, broken with terror. «It’s the Rift… it’s playing with us… it must be playing… right, Kyle? Tell me this isn’t real! Please!»

Kyle wanted to answer, to reassure her, but the hum suddenly turned into a sharp, ear-splitting screeching sound, as if giant invisible claws were tearing apart the very metal and concrete of the bunker. One of the shadows on the wall separated completely, flowing out of the plane, transforming into a three-dimensional, nightmarish figure — distorted, unnaturally elongated, with long, curved, spider-like arms and empty, bottomless eye sockets, from which seeped the same faint, deathly light, similar to the glow of the distant «Echo-7.» It moved slowly, but with a terrifying, inhuman purposefulness, heading straight for the terror-stricken Lina. Other shadows, one after another, began to follow its example, their movements jerky, twitching, like those of broken, clumsily controlled puppets.

«Lina, get out of the way! Move!» Kyle shouted, instinctively rushing towards her and forcefully pushing her aside, behind a massive chunk of concrete slab. He raised his rifle and fired. The pulse charge, flashing blue, struck the center of the dark figure, but instead of dissipating or even exploding, the shadow only shuddered for a moment, like ripples on dark water, and continued its slow, inexorable movement. The charge passed through it, leaving a smoking, scorched mark on the wall behind, but causing no harm to the shadow itself. Kyle felt the icy tentacles of panic begin to squeeze his throat. This was no illusion. This was something much, much worse.

«They’re invulnerable! Our shots go right through them!» Eva shouted in despair, opening indiscriminate fire with her pistol. Her shots also had no effect, only momentarily illuminating the hall with bright flashes that seemed to make the shadows even darker, even denser. «We can’t fight this! We have to leave, Rain! Now! Before we’re surrounded!»

«Where the hell are we supposed to go?!» Drake roared, desperately waving his gleaming plasma cutter. The blade hissed as it passed through one of the advancing figures, meeting no apparent resistance, but the shadow, instead of disappearing or even slowing down, extended its ghostly hand, and Drake was thrown back with such force as if he had been hit by an invisible ram. He crashed into the wall, cursing softly in pain, but immediately sprang to his feet like a coiled spring, his face contorted with rage and, perhaps for the first time, genuine fear. «These things… they’re playing with us! They won’t let us just leave! They sense us!»

Kyle desperately tried to think, to analyze, but the noise in his head intensified with every second, Ella’s voice, distorted and full of pain, mixing with the low, vibrating hum of the Rift, creating an unbearable cacophony in his thoughts. He noticed that the shadows weren’t just blindly attacking — they were moving deliberately, surrounding them, slowly but surely cutting off their only escape route, driving them deeper into the spacious hall, which now seemed like a trap. His gaze fell accidentally on the old command terminal that Eva was vainly trying to hack. The sparks of anomalous energy around it became brighter, more intense, and Kyle was suddenly struck by a realization — these shadows were undoubtedly connected to «Echo-7,» to its alien energy, and this terminal… perhaps it wasn’t just a pile of old iron. If it contained any data about the Rift, about ways to control or suppress it, there might be a key to stopping this invasion.

«Eva!» he shouted, his voice barely audible over the growing noise and screeching. «Get back to the terminal! Try again! Find something about controlling anomalous manifestations! About frequencies! This is our only chance! Drake and I will try to hold them back!»

Eva froze for a moment, her eyes full of doubt and fear, but then she nodded resolutely and, dodging a dark hand reaching for her, rushed back to the terminal, her fingers flying across the worn interface again. Kyle turned sharply to Drake, who was already furiously fighting off two shadows, his plasma cutter flashing in the semi-darkness, though his blows were as useless as Kyle’s shots. «Drake! Keep them at bay! Don’t let them get to Lina and Eva! Cover them at all costs!»

«Easy for you to say, scientist!» Drake growled, but still, shifting with a jerk, he took up a position between the advancing shadows and the women, creating a fragile barrier. Lina, still in deep shock, tried to help, frantically pulling neuro-stabilizers from her backpack, but her hands were shaking so much that she could barely hold the injector.

Kyle opened fire again, aiming carefully, trying to distract the shadows, to buy Eva precious seconds. But every time his charge hit one of them, it only momentarily split into two smaller, but even faster and more aggressive creatures. There were more than a dozen of them now, their movements becoming faster, more deliberate, and the hum in the hall turned into a deafening roar, pressing on their eardrums. And suddenly one of the shadows, the largest, the darkest, stopped right in front of Kyle, its empty, glowing eye sockets staring directly at him, seemingly penetrating his very soul, and he heard a voice — not Ella’s, not human, but something ancient, bottomless, deep as the abyss itself. «You have come for us… You are a part of us… Surrender to us… Become one with the Echo…» The voice didn’t sound in his ears, but pulsed, vibrated directly in his brain, tearing apart his thoughts, his will, his personality.

Kyle collapsed to his knees, clutching his head in his hands, his rifle clattering to the concrete floor. He felt the last remnants of his will leaving him, as the icy, alluring darkness pulled him in, promising peace, oblivion, relief from pain, if only he surrendered, if only he let it in. But at that very moment, when he was ready to plunge into this nothingness, he heard Lina’s desperate cry: «Kyle, hold on! Don’t you dare give up!» — and felt a sharp, burning prick in his neck. The neuro-stabilizer. A cold, sobering wave rolled through his body, driving away the alien voice, and Kyle, staggering, rose to his feet with immense effort, his vision slowly clearing. The shadows were still there, they hadn’t gone anywhere, but their mental pressure on his mind had noticeably weakened.

«I’ve got it! I’ve got it!» Eva shouted, her voice full of tension, but also triumph. «In the old records… there’s a protocol! «Northern Shield’ used an experimental wide-band frequency pulse to suppress local anomalous manifestations! I can try to launch it through this terminal, but I need time to bypass the security systems and reroute the energy! Keep them away from me! At all costs!»

«How much time do you need, Carter?!» Drake roared, struggling to throw off another shadow, which immediately, as if nothing had happened, reformed from the surrounding darkness.

«Two minutes! Maybe one and a half, if this junk doesn’t explode!» Eva replied, her fingers flying across the ancient interface. «And if you idiots don’t distract me!»

Kyle nodded resolutely, though every muscle in his body ached from the inhuman strain. He picked up his rifle, stood shoulder to shoulder with Drake. «We’ll give you that time, Eva. Lina, stay behind us. If one of us falls, or if that thing gets into our heads again — use the stabilizers without hesitation.»

Lina, pale but with unexpected determination in her eyes, nodded. Her face was wet with tears and sweat, but she clutched the last injector tightly in her hand. The shadows rolled over them in waves, their touch like the pricks of icy needles, penetrating through their clothes, into their very skin, but Kyle and Drake held on, drawing their attention, giving Eva precious seconds until the terminal emitted a piercing, high-pitched, almost ultrasonic shriek. A blinding flash of energy, like a ball lightning discharge, rolled through the hall, and the shadows froze for a moment, their ghostly forms trembling, distorting, and then, with a quiet, sucking sound, dissolving like smoke in the wind, until they disappeared completely, leaving behind only the smell of ozone and ringing silence. The hum subsided, leaving only the heavy, ragged breathing of the exhausted team.

Kyle sank to the floor, his strength depleted, the adrenaline receding, leaving only emptiness and aching pain throughout his body. Eva disconnected from the terminal, her face covered in sweat, but in her eyes, for the first time in a long time, a faint shadow of relief flickered. Drake, still clutching his deactivated cutter, spat thick saliva onto the floor. His voice was hoarse and cracked. «If that was your brilliant plan, Rain, then it’s a complete shit show, as usual. But, damn it, we seem to be still alive. For now.»

Lina, trembling, approached Kyle, her hands still shaking, but she tried to smile weakly. «Are you alright? I thought… I thought we’d lose you again. That voice… it was so strong.»

Kyle nodded with difficulty, though he felt that a part of him, some small but important part, still remained there, in that icy darkness, where the alien voice had so persistently pulled him. «I’m… I’m alright. Eva, what did you find? What is this «Echo of the Source’ you were talking about? What is this entity?»