The quiet in Sector Gamma Prime wasn't natural. You could feel it pressing against your skin.
This wasn't just some old ruin falling apart—it was like something had been ripped out of the world, leaving behind the exact shape of what used to be there. No purpose. No people. No hope.
Micah pushed through the busted entrance first, his team spreading out behind him.
Weak sunlight filtered down through cracks in the dome overhead, catching all the dust swirling around like dying stars. Every footstep rang out hollow and uncertain.
The metal floor complained under their boots, like it didn't want them there.
Liera Vossel had already found herself a good spot on some jagged rocks where she could see everything.
Her bow was ready, and she moved like she was hunting something.
ASC-9 Warden Pike planted himself right at the entrance—this huge, silent presence with amber lights slowly sweeping back and forth, watching for trouble.
Inside, the air felt thick and wrong. Burnt plastic mixed with something older—like grief that had been left to rot.
Sera Lin stopped at a blackened doorway, running her fingers along the scorched wall. "This place gives me the creeps," she said quietly.
Kaelin Vorr was crouched next to a fallen support beam. "A lab this deep underground should've been safe from whatever happened up there. Something went wrong down here too."
Micah wasn't listening. He was staring at this console that had half-sunk into the floor, wires spilling out like guts. Without really thinking about it, he reached down and put his hand on the cracked screen.
Everything changed in a blink.
The air got warm. He could hear voices somewhere. Lights flickered on overhead—soft and clean. All the wreckage just... faded, replaced by a pristine corridor that hummed with life. Like a memory, but not quite.
Micah stood there, totally frozen.
In whatever this was—vision, flashback, whatever—he saw a woman. Tall, put-together, with kind eyes.
She was standing next to some kind of containment unit, checking readings with the easy confidence of someone who'd done this a thousand times.
Other researchers moved around her, talking in low voices. He couldn't make out the words, but the feeling was crystal clear.
Hope. They actually believed in what they were doing.
Then the alarms started screaming.
Red lights everywhere. The walls shook. The woman shouted something—orders, warnings, he couldn't tell—but her voice got swallowed up in static.
And just like that, it was over.
Micah stumbled backward, gasping, ripping his hand away from the console. He was covered in sweat. Sera caught him before he hit the ground.
"You okay?" she asked, worry creeping into her voice.
"I saw her," Micah said, still trying to catch his breath. "Voss's wife. She was here, working with the team. And then something went to hell. Fast."
Kaelin frowned. "The Hollow?"
Micah shook his head. "Something they were trying to bond with. Early hybrid stuff, maybe. It didn't work."
They kept moving deeper into the wreckage, finding what used to be living quarters. The door fought them, but finally gave way to show a half-collapsed room.
Papers, tablets, broken glass—everything scattered like someone had just thrown it all around.
Syrran Drehl stepped over the mess, making a disgusted noise. "We're wasting our time. This place is dead."
Varn Roath let out a low growl. "Dead places still have stories to tell, if you know how to listen."
Kaelin ignored both of them, picking up something small and burned from the corner. A photo—half melted, edges curled up like it was trying to protect itself.
You could just make out Voss with a woman and some younger tech guy. The woman was smiling. The men weren't.
Sera took the photo carefully. "She meant everything to him."
"And when he lost her," Micah said, his voice flat, "he threw everything else away."
Tern Vale was poking around a broken console. "I've seen plenty of people break from loss. But this? This is something else. Like he turned his grief into a blueprint."
Micah didn't answer. He just stood there in the middle of the room, letting the silence crawl all over him. The Hollow inside wasn't talking—but it was definitely paying attention.
Liera's voice crackled through their comms. "Got drone patrols circling out here. They're not engaging yet, but they're getting closer."
ASC-9 responded: "Ready for defense. Exit route still clear."
"Stay sharp," Kaelin said. "If those things sweep low, they'll pick up our scent."
The team pushed deeper. Through collapsed hallways and broken elevators. Finally hit a sealed door near the back of the lab. Its panel was flickering weakly—somehow still alive.
"Prototype Observation: Variant M," Kaelin read out loud.
Micah walked up to it slowly. He didn't know why, but something about that door was pulling at him.
Behind it, something was waiting.
The team stood there in tense quiet, weapons ready but low.
Micah reached for the panel.
The thing lit up, scanning him. And the door—ancient and shaking—started to open.
Darkness waited on the other side. And memories.
The door hissed open like it really didn't want to, dust breaking free from seals that hadn't moved in years.
Emergency lights flickered on, casting everything in this sickly glow. The air that came out was thick with decay and ozone and something else—something clinical and haunting.
Micah went in first, the others right behind him. This room was in way better shape than the rest of the place. No rust, no battle damage—just silence and shadows.
There were observation decks all around the walls above them, windows cracked but still holding. In the center sat this big biopod, surrounded by medical equipment and heavy-duty restraints.
Unlike everything else they'd seen, this room didn't feel abandoned. It felt like it was waiting.
"Like it's expecting someone," Sera whispered, and her voice bounced around too sharp.
Micah didn't say anything.
The Hollow inside him started vibrating the second he walked in, like someone had hit a tuning fork too hard. He found himself walking toward the pod, boots clicking on the clean floor, pulled by something he couldn't name.
Kaelin stayed near the door, eyes scanning everywhere. "This wasn't for research," he muttered. "This was a prison."
Tern, and Nyra were already at the consoles, trying to pull whatever data they could find. Tern pried open a rusted panel, his multitool flying over the components. "Still got power, barely. These systems were built like bunkers—guess Voss wanted this stuff to survive even if everything else didn't."
"Found something," Nyra said, tapping a dead terminal. "Might be audio. Might be logs."
Right as she said it, Micah touched the side of the biopod.
Everything exploded.
The vision hit him like lightning. Blinding white. Screaming. The same room, but alive with chaos and alarms.
He saw a younger Dr. Voss pacing on one of those observation decks, shouting orders. Medical teams running everywhere. And in the pod, behind the sealed panel, someone was thrashing against the restraints.
Then he heard a woman's voice—Voss's wife—yelling through the comm. "This isn't what we agreed to! You said the neural matrix was stable!"
The person in the pod screamed again. Lights exploded. Systems overloaded. The whole room drowned in chaos.
Micah dropped to his knees.
When it was over, he was gasping for air, one hand pressed against the floor.
"Micah!" Sera was already there, checking him over. "What did you see?"
He took a moment to catch his breath. "This is where it started. Voss's hybrid program. The test subject—he tried this before. It failed."
Kaelin's face went hard. "And he kept going anyway."
Tern called from the back. "I found something. Data core behind the observation deck survived. It's encrypted, but I can crack it."
Working fast, Tern hooked his device up to the old Ashari terminal. A broken hologram flickered to life—an old log. Voss appeared, looking exhausted and hollow, like he hadn't slept in weeks.
> "Gamma Prime was a failure. Subject deteriorated beyond containment. But the code's still good. The Hollow can bond—just needs the right host. I know now. The answer isn't in the artifact. It's in the bridge."
> "Micah is the key."
> "And if I can't find the Nexus… I'll build the path myself."
The file cut to static. Nobody said anything for a long moment.
Tern broke the silence. "There are coordinates buried in the metadata. Fragmented, but enough to get a rough heading—southwest. Into the obsidian caverns."
"The ones with the geothermal veins," Nyra said. "Unstable. Can't scan through them."
"Perfect place to hide a Core," Kaelin muttered.
Harka, who'd been silent this whole time, moved forward and tapped his visor. A holographic map appeared over his palm—he'd already marked the route.
"We move fast," Kaelin said. "No engagement unless we have to. ASC-4 scouts ahead with Harka and Micah. Everyone else stays low and close."
One by one, the team acknowledged. No questions. No arguments.
As they got ready to move, each of them had their own moment:
Micah, staring at the biopod, whispered, "Was I supposed to end up here… or get away from it?"
Kaelin, watching his team, gritted his teeth. "If Voss is still alive, I'll kill him myself."
Sera, running her fingers over the vines woven into her sash, closed her eyes. "We're not what they made us. We're what we choose to heal."
Syrran, fist clenched, muttered, "Let the shadows come. I've fought worse."
Varn Roath, leaning on his war-club, whispered to the stone, "Guide our roots."
Liera, from her lookout above, slipped an arrow into her palm. "I see you."
Nyra, checking her weapons, had already mapped five exits and six ambush points.
Tern, with a wry smile, whispered, "Here comes the impossible."
Harka, still and silent, disappeared back into the darkness ahead.
Their boots echoed down the descending path—into the black beneath Sector Gamma Prime.
And so the Ghostline moved forward—silent, steady, deadly.
Their war had gone underground.