The ruins of Sector Delta-34 vanished behind them, swallowed by mist and memory. The party now moved with less urgency but more weight. Every step deeper into the unknown felt like a descent not just into the wilds—but into Fade himself.
But they hadn't left immediately.
After their encounter deep within the underground node, the group had spent a full day resting at the outskirts of Delta-34. The battered concrete shell of a former outpost gave just enough shelter. Kaela set up perimeter sensors, Darin patrolled, and Zeyna climbed trees out of boredom. Fade barely slept.
That night, they made camp beside a half-buried rail track. Firelight flickered on rusted metal, and shadows stretched long.
Fade standing quietly at the edge of the firelight. His gaze searched the fractured sky, chasing patterns in the clouds that never stayed still. He touched the crystal in his coat pocket—it felt warmer than usual.
Something buzzed faintly in his ears. Maybe a whisper. Maybe just the wind.
"Tomorrow," he thought, "what if tomorrow's already too late?"
Zeyna sat a little apart from the group, sharpening one of her blades. Fade approached her, his fingers brushing against the edge of his coat, absentminded.
"You ever feel like something's waiting for you?" he asked.
She looked up, eyes glinting. "All the time. I just don't wait back."
He cracked a smile, faint. "I think I've been waiting too long."
Zeyna watched him for a moment. "Then stop. Move. Whatever's chasing you might be behind... or ahead."
From behind them, Darin and Arven spoke in low voices.
"He's strong, but not invincible," Arven said.
Darin nodded. "He needs us to stay sharp. The world's shifting faster than we are."
As the camp fell into silence, Fade lay beneath the stars. A strange warmth echoed in his dreams. A man stood on a cliff—cloaked. Waiting. Fire flickered at his fingertips.
A day later, they moved east, following weak energy trails and corrupted signal spikes. According to Kaela's scanner, their destination was just beyond a fractured ridgeline: Node Echo.
"It was once a system relay station," she explained, brushing aside overgrowth. "Before the first Collapse, it managed data pulses for half the region. That's where your family's signal ended, Fade."
His jaw clenched, but he said nothing. The others gave him space.
For a brief second, Fade's vision blurred.
A memory surfaced—unbidden.
Rain on concrete. A child running. A warm hand grabbing his wrist. A voice: "Don't look back, no matter what."
Then a steel door slamming shut.
Fade blinked, and clenched his jaw stronger
The terrain changed with every kilometer. Trees grew in spirals, their bark layered like memory strata. Birds flew backward. Sound came delayed. Even gravity, at times, felt inconsistent.
"System distortion field is rising," Kaela noted. "We'll be walking inside glitch zones soon. Stay synced."
"Define 'synced'," Zeyna muttered, tightening the straps of her daggers.
Fade said nothing. His fingers brushed the crystal in his pocket—now warm, humming.
By late afternoon, they reached it.
Node Echo.
It looked like a metal spire stabbed into the earth, half-buried and bent, with shattered glass plates and fractured cables dangling like sinew. Fungal blooms pulsed along the walls, emitting faint static. The sky overhead flickered like a broken monitor.
"This place is... off," Arven whispered.
Darin raised his shield. "Feels like it's watching us."
Fade moved ahead. His footsteps were deliberate, as if the ground itself was unfamiliar.
At the entrance, a pressure pulsed through them. Zeyna paused.
"These markings—system wasn't the only thing here. Something older tried to rewrite it."
Kaela's eyes narrowed. "System signatures are... layered. Almost overwritten. But something's pushing back."
Inside the station, rusted corridors twisted in unnatural ways. Doors led to brick walls. Stairs ended in ceilings. It was a maze built by something that misunderstood geometry. The lights above flickered not in sequence but with the rhythm of breath.
The floor seemed to subtly pulse beneath Fade's boots—like a breath. The air carried a charged stillness, heavy and waiting.
He exchanged a glance with Darin, who quietly unslung his blade.
"Almost there," Fade muttered.
Then he saw it.
A small object, lying on the floor in the middle of a collapsed server room.
A zippo lighter.
It shouldn't have meant anything. But it did.
Fade stopped moving.
The light caught the scratched surface—on it, faintly, was an engraving.
"E.Y."
His father's initials.
He picked it up.
And the world hit him.
Flashes of memories, not from the Collapse, but from his childhood:
His father lighting the stove during blackout storms. The lighter clicking in rhythm as he told stories. That warm laugh, always cut short by the distant ring of military alerts. The scent of tobacco and metal. The warmth of that lighter on his forehead when he had fevers.
The last time he saw him—
Smoke rising. But no flame.
Fade's breath caught. His hand trembled.
"This is... this was my father's," he whispered.
Kaela stepped in behind him, scanning the area.
She tapped her wristpad, eyes narrowing as faded data scrolled past."Signal's buried under legacy junk data... but it's pulsing. With a heartbeat pattern."
The system tagged it as irrelevant... but it called to you."
Zeyna knelt beside them. "Fate doesn't make mistakes. If it resonates, it matters."
Fade closed his hand over the lighter.
The room vibrated.
Suddenly—
[Resonant Object Confirmed – Dybbuk Signature: Verified]
The word echoed oddly in his mind—Dybbuk. It felt wrong. Or old. Like a language his bones remembered but his tongue had never spoken.
[Memory Imprint Detected. Awakening Trigger Possible.]
[Do you permit the synchronization?]
He hesitated.
Then: "Yes."
[Synchronizing...]
The lighter glowed, burning white. The walls shifted. The air twisted. Fade's vision blurred—not outward, but inward. Thoughts folded, emotions screamed.
Kaela shouted, "Fade, something's—"
The ground split.
The walls folded inward, like paper.
The entire party was swallowed by light and static.
When Fade opened his eyes, he wasn't in the server room anymore.
He stood in a vast expanse of grey sand and black sky. Data fragments floated like ashes. Echoes of voices whispered around him. A figure stood across from him—hooded, unmoving.
[Warning: Bound Entity Approaching.]
[Identity: Unknown.]
[Synthesis Interference Detected.]
The figure raised its hand.
And the sand screamed.
Fade staggered. Light flared across his arms—black markings, awakening.
A voice echoed from somewhere far, far inside him. Calm. Familiar.
"Fade…"
He gasped. It was his father's voice.
Zeyna's shout rang distant in the fractured space: "FADE!"
He turned—but she wasn't visible.
Only static. Only the scream of shifting sand—and the weight of a memory trying to claw its way out.
He reached forward.
And vanished.