Chapter 10:
Red Echoes
The Null safe zone had been our last refuge. Not a home, never a home, but a temporary shelter carved from desperation and reinforced with the kind of stubborn hope that only exists in the doomed. A crumbling compound wedged between the skeletal remains of old factories, its walls were patchworks of scavenged steel and concrete rubble, held together by fraying wires and the collective fear of what lay beyond them.
For three days, we'd existed in a fragile stasis. We slept in shifts, our dreams fractured by the distant screams that carried through the city's corpse. We rationed stale water from cracked plastic jugs, each sip tasting of dust and the faint metallic tang of the pipes it had traveled through. The air was thick with the scent of unwashed bodies and the ever-present undercurrent of decay: rotting food, infected wounds, the slow death of a world that had already given up.
And then the drones came.
They descended like mechanical vultures, their engines a low, predatory hum that vibrated in my molars before it even registered as sound. The first explosion shattered the eastern wall, and for a single, suspended moment, I saw the steel reinforcement twist like taffy before it disintegrated into a storm of shrapnel. Concrete chunks the size of skulls rained down, crushing a sentry where he stood. The second hit the medical tent, and the fireball that followed painted the night in shades of orange and black, the heat so intense it curled the hair on my arms even from twenty meters away.
I was on watch when it happened. One second, the compound was quiet. Just the murmur of exhausted survivors, the occasional wet cough from the sick bay, the scuff of boots on concrete. The next, the sky was screaming.
"INCOMING!" Sarin's voice cut through the chaos, raw and commanding, stripped of all its usual controlled precision.
I didn't think. I moved.
The ground heaved beneath me as another blast detonated near the supply depot. The concussion hit like a physical blow, knocking me forward onto my hands and knees. Heat seared my back, close enough that I could feel my jacket smoldering. I scrambled up, sprinting toward the barracks where Nia had been resting, my pulse hammering in my throat so hard it hurt.
Bodies rushed past me in the smoke—some running, some dragging the wounded, others just standing frozen, their faces blank with shock. A woman clutched a child to her chest, both of them screaming, but the sound was swallowed by the ringing in my ears. A man stumbled past, his arm a ruin of charred meat and glistening bone.
I found Nia just outside the ruined doorway, her hands pressed to her ears, her eyes wide and unblinking. The veins in her temples stood out like dark wires beneath her skin.
"We have to go!" I grabbed her arm, yanking her forward.
She didn't resist, but her fingers dug into my wrist like claws, her nails breaking skin.
"They're here," she whispered, her voice hollow, distant. "They're inside."
I didn't have time to ask what she meant.
Sarin appeared beside us like a ghost materializing from the smoke, his rifle slung across his back, his face streaked with soot and something darker. A cut above his eyebrow wept blood into his eye, but he didn't seem to notice.
"West gate's still clear—for now. Move!"
We ran.
The air was thick with smoke and the metallic tang of blood, each breath scraping my lungs like sandpaper. The ground trembled with every new explosion, the concussions rattling my teeth, vibrating up through the bones of my legs. Behind us, the compound burned, the flames casting long, flickering shadows that twisted like living things against the walls.
We were almost to the gate when the third wave hit.
A drone swooped low, its underbelly opening like a grotesque mouth, the mechanical whine of its servos piercing through the chaos. Sarin didn't hesitate. He shoved us both to the ground, his body covering ours as the payload dropped.
The world turned white.
Pain. Deafening noise. The taste of copper in my mouth. My vision swam, fracturing into splinters of light and shadow. When it cleared, the gate was gone, reduced to a smoldering crater, the edges still glowing red-hot. Sarin was on his knees beside me, his left side drenched in blood. A jagged piece of shrapnel jutted from his ribs, the metal gleaming wetly in the firelight.
"Sarin—!" I reached for him, my fingers shaking.
He snarled, slapping my hand away with more force than necessary.
"Not now. Run." His voice was a ragged growl, but his eyes were clear, focused.
Nia was already pulling me up, her grip inhumanly strong. Her pupils were blown wide, the irises nearly swallowed by black. Her breath came in short, sharp bursts, like an animal cornered.
"They're coming," she said, her voice too calm, too measured for the hell around us. "We can't stop."
I wanted to argue. To scream. To drag Sarin with us even if I had to carry him. But then the sound came. A grinding, screeching metal noise that cut through the night, a sound I knew too well.
Antlers.
Nia didn't wait. She hauled me forward, her fingers burning against my skin, her touch fever-hot. Sarin staggered after us, his teeth bared in pain, his free hand pressed to his side where the shrapnel still protruded.
"Keep moving!" he barked, though the order was unnecessary.
We plunged into the ruins beyond the compound, the skeletal remains of the city swallowing us whole. Broken buildings loomed like the ribs of some long-dead beast, their hollowed-out windows staring blindly as we passed. The drones' searchlights cut through the smoke like blades, sweeping the ground behind us, hunting.
Then, from the darkness ahead, we heard a sound.
Click. Click. Click.
Nia went rigid.
The thing that stepped into the dim glow of the fires wasn't an Antler.
It was new.
Tall. Skeletal. Its limbs too long, its joints bending in ways that made my stomach twist with primal revulsion. Its face was smooth, featureless save for a single, pulsing vein that branched across its skull like circuitry, glowing faintly beneath the skin. It moved with a jerky, unnatural grace, each step too precise, too calculated.
It tilted its head.
Nia's breath hitched.
Then, without warning, she moved.
Faster than should have been possible, she lunged—not away, but toward the thing. Her hand shot out, fingers splayed, and for a single, horrifying second, the creature's body locked up, its veins glowing brighter beneath its skin like overloaded wires. It screamed. A sound like tearing metal, like a hundred frequencies colliding before collapsing into a twitching heap.
Nia staggered back, her arm trembling violently. Black fluid dripped from her fingertips, thick and oily, sizzling slightly where it hit the ground.
Sarin's grip on his rifle tightened, his knuckles bleaching white.
"...What the hell was that?" His voice was low, dangerous.
Nia didn't answer. She just stared at her hand like it belonged to someone else, her expression caught between horror and fascination.
I swallowed hard, my throat dry as ash.
Something was changing inside her.
And I wasn't sure if it was saving us or becoming one of them.
The silence that followed was heavier than the smoke, thicker than the blood in the air. Somewhere in the distance, another explosion rocked the night, but it felt worlds away.
We were still alive.
For now.
But as I looked at Nia's black-stained fingers, at the way her breath came too steady, too controlled, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were running out of time in more ways than one.