Zone Echo died screaming.
The blast that tore through the rift chamber rippled outward like a living thing. Floors buckled. Walls split along glowing seams. The immaculate order of the compound collapsed into chaos as alarms bled into one another, no longer signaling protocol but panic.
Lena ran.
Caleb's hand was locked around her wrist, dragging her through smoke-filled corridors as debris rained from above. The rifle was gone—lost somewhere in the blast—but fear lent her speed. Around them, people poured from doors in every direction: residents, guards, technicians. No hierarchy now. Just bodies fleeing the same terror.
The whisper was no longer subtle.
It thundered through her mind, layered and vast, a choir screaming through broken glass.
You broke the door. Now you must choose.
"Get out of my head!" Lena shouted, stumbling as the floor pitched beneath her.
Caleb pulled her upright. "You talking to me or the voices again?"
She met his eyes, wild. "You hear them too, don't you?"
He hesitated—just a fraction too long. "Not like you do."
That answer scared her more than if he'd said yes.
They burst into the outer compound as the night sky split open with light. Floodlamps shattered. Towers collapsed. The once-perfect walls of Zone Echo cracked down the middle, sections peeling away like dead skin.
Beyond them lay the outside world.
It was not the wasteland Lena remembered.
The horizon burned violet, streaked with veins of light that pulsed in time with the rift's collapse. The air shimmered, thick and alive, as if reality itself had been bruised. Far off, shapes moved—too large, too wrong to be human—silhouetted against the glowing sky.
Caleb stopped short. "That wasn't there before."
"No," Lena whispered. "It's spreading."
Behind them, Zone Echo groaned like a dying beast. The central tower leaned, then fell, sending up a cloud of dust and sparks. Screams cut short as the ground opened beneath it, swallowed by light.
They ran anyway.
They didn't know how long they ran. Time fractured, stretched thin by fear. When they finally collapsed behind a ridge of shattered concrete beyond the compound's remains, Lena couldn't feel her legs.
Caleb crouched beside her, breathing hard. Blood trickled from a cut on his forehead, but his eyes were sharp, scanning the horizon.
"We can't go back," he said unnecessarily.
Lena laughed—a short, broken sound. "There is no back."
The whisper softened, almost gentle now.
You have done what we hoped. The cage is broken.
Her hands shook. "You wanted this."
We wanted you, it replied. The others build doors. You tear them down.
She pressed her palms into the dirt, grounding herself. "Why me?"
A pause. Then: Because you listen.
Caleb frowned at her. "What did it say?"
She looked at him, really looked—at the man who had survived the end of the world, who had been strapped to machines and still stood breathing. Who hadn't broken.
"It says I listen," she said quietly.
His jaw tightened. "That thing is not your friend."
"I know."
The truth settled between them like ash.
As dawn crept across the broken sky, they saw movement among the ruins of Zone Echo.
Survivors.
Small groups staggered out—some wounded, some dazed, some smiling far too wide. A woman laughed hysterically as shadows twisted around her feet. A guard dropped to his knees, clawing at his eyes, screaming about light behind his thoughts.
Caleb cursed under his breath. "They didn't just experiment. They changed people."
Lena's chest ached. The boy. The children. She scanned the survivors desperately, but there was no sign of him.
"He might've been moved," Caleb said, reading her face. "Or—"
"Don't," she snapped. Then, softer, "We'll find him."
Caleb nodded, though neither of them sounded convinced.
The ground trembled.
From the horizon, something vast shifted, its outline bending the air around it. The sky darkened as if something enormous had passed in front of the sun—though there was no sun anymore, only a pale wound in the clouds.
The whisper rose again, no longer alone.
We are not singular, it said. You have met only one voice.
Lena's blood ran cold. "How many are there?"
Enough.
Caleb stood slowly, every muscle tense. "We're not equipped for this. No walls. No weapons. No plan."
Lena rose beside him. Despite the fear clawing at her chest, something else stirred—anger, yes, but also resolve.
"Walls didn't save us," she said. "Zone Echo proved that."
He studied her, searching. "And listening to the thing in your head will?"
She met his gaze. "No. But understanding it might."
The whisper hummed approvingly.
You learn quickly.
As the broken survivors gathered behind them, instinctively forming a loose, frightened group, Lena realized something terrifying.
They were looking at her.
Waiting.
She hadn't asked for this. She wasn't a leader. She was just someone who had refused to look away.
But maybe that was enough.
She took a step forward, facing the warped horizon where the world was still tearing itself apart.
"Whatever's coming," she said aloud, voice steady despite the fear, "we don't hide anymore. We don't build cages and call them safety."
Caleb moved to her side.
The whisper fell silent—for the first time since the world ended.
Ahead of them, the light shifted.
Something answered.